This year there is no drought, but we've extended the gardens and planted new vines.

So early mornings I do the scenic ride (sorry, tractor crawl) up the hills, join the queue and wait my turn to fill the "la botte" at the fountain. It's not time wasted. The local men have become accustomed to a woman who drives the tractor and their wives, most of whom don't drive at all, no longer squeeze my hand in silent complicity. Instead there are weather predictions, advice on what to plant with the waxing or waning moon. And recipes. Try my summer pasta of garlic, pepperoncino and zucchini flowers! Or my 'aglione', literally 'the big garlic'. Not to mention rabbit.

At the end of the day when the work is done and the chooks are fed, we sit with the dogs on a hillside overlooking the sweet spread of country across to Pienza, the great Val d'Orcia and Mt Amiata to drink a glass of our own good wine. We can begin to see the golds and hazy silver-blues of late Summer.

It's time for the plump figs, the fragrant melons to go with the prosciutto hanging in the cellar since winter's Epifania, time for sunsweet tomatoes and local cheeses, time to go swimming in nearby sulphur spa pools and eat gelato while promenading through the soft evening air.

Banjo is buried in the vineyard below us, under a huge stone found in the fields. Along with the sunflowers, barley and wheat, the fields yield an annual harvest of ancient building stones, terracotta tiles and fragments of vases which witness the continuity of life in this place since the ages before Etruscan times.

When ploughing deep to plant the winter wheat, the farmers often overturn the simple tombs of Etruscan/Roman villagers who lived around the Trove river at the bottom of our fields.

I told Oscar how the farmers up the hill had asked us to take another pup. We called her MerryMoon, as she came to us on the waxing moon. Unlike the rolicking, happy-go-lucky Banjo she was a nervous little thing, fearing any human contact. Time passes. She has accepted us and become a formidable watchdog. Her absolute hero is Billy, the old Border Collie. Whenever they can they escape into the forest, returning hours later bedraggled and exhausted.

But the forest is forbidden to domestic dogs as our farm is part of a game reserve dedicated to the repopulation of caprioli (small deer), cinghiali (wild boar), pheasants, porcupines, hares etc and patrolled by Forestry Wardens. Hunting is a big sport here and for farmers outside the reserves Autumn starts with rifle fire, the baying of hounds and excited shouts as hunters converge on the forests. Within the reserve we more often hear a single shot in the depth of the night and the quiet hum of a car taking the "bracconieri", the poachers, back up the hill.

MerryMoon and Billy hear them too and try to warn the Wardens, but it's much too late.

Barbara Mariotti