Today is liberation day in Italy and we are all on holiday.
For a few days now I have been experiencing intense spring fever. This manifests as a great sleepiness and unease as I get used to the sudden change in climate.
All the blossoms are popping out on the trees and the mountains are touched with gold to light green where the deciduous trees are unfurling their leaves. I am confused and disoriented as we switch seasons when we go down to the plains where the season seems so far ahead of us who live up in the mountains.
There is a galloping explosion of colour in the gardens as we drive past on the way to and from the horse. Monte Rest is still showing signs of snow. My mountain outside my window has final touches of snow showing as faint memories.
We went to look at a pasture. I was the first up the lane and saw movement on my right side. All dressed in forest brown they stopped and stared at me and I at them. I recognized them as capriole (Capreolus capreolus) or roe deer in English. I was so excited to see them. I shouted "CAPRIOLE!!!!" I looked back down the lane to see Big Bear struggling pushing his bicycle through the long grass. "Hurry!" I yell at him jumping up and down. Then I looked back and they were gone. Melted into the forest. I doubted that I had seen them at all.
Big Bear said he is VERY VERY angry with me. He thinks a bit and adds another VERY. He says it is the LAST time he goes on a fact finding mission with me ... unless I can promise to be as silent as a good hunting dog until given permission to bark. I cannot promise him.
I have been here almost ten months and it is only now that I am beginning to see the animals.
Once I was out on my own with the dogs. I turned to find what they were up to. Nothing, just dog stuff. But parallel to me, just behind my line of vision if I had continued to walk in a straight line, were muflone (Ovis musimon) mountain goats that are really sheep. I stopped, looked at them and they didn't even give me a chance to yell MUFLONE before they were gone.
Big Bear is a hunter and he suspects that I do not tell him when I see herds of animals, or even only their droppings. I do not tell him that I think he may be right.
In the winter, when the snow was still on the ground, after the first deep snowfall, I found the dainty prints of deer in the garden. There were two sets, they had braved the barking dogs to nibble, I suspect, on the sage that still poked above the snow.
Now we are celebrating spring. The cuckoo calls calming my spirit until I recall that these birds push other birds' eggs out their nest to lay their own. A young boy rides by on a motorbike, the neighbour saws wood outside his house. I know that Big Bear is trimming the branches off thin trees cut down earlier just before the sap began to rise. I should go and help.
If I go outside I may find the dogs sleeping. Porgy will be in the sun and hairy Nelly will be in the shade. Maybe the cats will be with them.
This morning I gathered Silene vulagaris for risotto. Dark green, soft to the touch leaves of a flowering wild plant. The stem snaps easily between my fingers as I gather a small bunch. The flavour is more delicate than asparagus.
Now I wish my horse was here, I am impatient for her arrival. I must not go to help trim possible fence posts.
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