We did it! On Saturday, the second edition of the “Grande Rastrellata” took place and it was a success! Ian and Oli were the first to show up, soon followed by Emanuele, Renzo, Jacopo, Gianmarco, Alessandro and even Nicola and Paula took part to the action!

Compared to the 2019 edition this year we had a huge improvement: Renzo found a pick up to transport the leaves to the Ecocentro. With such a vehicle our productivity sky rocketed! As per our estimates we were able fill and transport 45 huge orange bags! The keeper of the Ecocentro was kind of shocked and suspicious about such a great quantity of leaves.

The weather was spectacular: a beautiful sun and a really nice temperature were our companions for the whole day and contributed substancially to the good mood and success of the day. Have a look at the sky at 07:30 in the morning!

If I may add a little (worried) side note, the weather was even too nice and warm for this period of the year. Apparently the temperatures were so high that broke all the records since the beginning of measurements.

Anyhow as soon as anyone arrived they received a nice pair of working gloves, a rake and their very own piece of forest to clean up. Some worked in pairs others preferred to choose the lone wolf path. Everyone was raking and trying to optimise the collecting process, which between the two, is the most energy demanding.

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Soon enough it was time to prepare the grill: Gianmarco took control of it and grilled for all of us. With the support of Enza, Natascia and Benedetta who prepared all the rest, the lunch was great. Especially the chocolate cake left a delicious memory to all of us.

While waiting for the food to be ready we even had some time to practice with some pictures from the top of the sky!

The whole day was great and I loved it: there was a lot of work to be done, still everyone was highly motivated and energetic! And the more we racked the ground the more we got excited!

There were those moments were everyone was so concentrated in raking and collecting leaves, following their own path and thoughts, that you would not hear anything else beside the noise of the rakes scratching the ground. In those moments I liked to stop, catch some breath and shout out the name of anyone, just to bring everyone back to our dimension… 🙂 … jokes aside I am quite convinced that raking, similarly to many cleaning activities, brings you to think and at the same time relaxes you.

Oli was one who got mostly deep into the woods and as a consequence he disappeared for a while. He was one I called out and I do have this picture of his in my mind: Oli getting out of the woods, with his huge orange bag on his shoulders bouncing up and down, with a huge smile of satisfaction for his big cargo! A superhero! 😀 It was impossible to not to joke about him!

But it is thanks to him if I have this beautiful picture to share with all of you:

Or what about this one? Is someone hiding behind a rake?!

It was a beutiful day, I had a lot of fun and it was great to have many of our friends with us for a little longer than usual: a nice moment to catch up on each other lives!

I am really looking forward for the next Grande Rastrellata! Leaves will be waiting, for sure! 😀 Thanks to all of you and until next year!