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LETTER FROM TUSCANY LA NEVE E’ TORNATA
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Our farm ‘Trove’ is situated above a little valley created by a river of the same name. Well, on the ordinance maps it’s marked as a river. It’s more of a creek, a tribulet, a dribble? But ‘trove’ is an Etruscan word meaning ‘water’ and the fields are full of ancient remains of water-mills and villages so it’s been there a long time. Though dry in Summer it can flood in Winter and Spring, filling the valley with the chatter of running water. ‘Trove’ is also part of a game reserve where not even the Italian hunters (who shoot anything that moves, even one another) are restricted so the call of birds and the coughing of deer surround us. But last night Silence was king of the valley: we’ve never slept so well and so deeply. Even Merry Moon, the little foundling and fierce watch-dog, was quiet. The birds were still. When Barbara opened the shutters of our bedroom she was blinded by the reflected light .... everything was white. E’ tornata la neve! The snow is back, lots of snow ! We were lucky because I’d cut enough wood (one branch of an oak tree provides firewood for a couple of weeks), carted it up with Barbara’s little tractor and stacked it in the laundry. In the house, we have two main sources of heat: the big fire place, where old people used to sit inside the corners to get warm, and a slow-burning stove at the other end of the big all-purpose living room where we cook, eat, sit in front of the fire reading or playing cards. The local ladies who come to teach our cooking lessons or prepare for big traditional dinners remember the room well. We’ve found them sitting quietly during a pause, looking around with misted eyes "I used to come here to dance when I was una giovanetta". One of them is now so large that we tease her "Ah so it was you who made the floor sag in the middle". She laughs, shaking her head and her beautiful coral earrings glimmer against her neck. We love the snow and love the cold too, often rugging up to take walks with old Billy the Aussie Border Collie. But that morning we’d had an emergency call. Fanny, our neighbour Elena’s new pup had gone missing! Just days back during another snowfall the Bindi family had lost a pup when their female, the truffle-hunter BauBau, had wandered off with the puppy and carelessly come back at midnight without her. The puppy was the grandchildrens’ favourite. She also showed potential as a truffle-hunter so was possibly very valuable. They searched and called in the bitter cold to no avail: when BauBau led them out to a deep grotto early next morning the pup was frozen. So Elena was distraught and called for help. Billy to the rescue! I didn’t take the usual route down the creek and back up to the farm house but circled past ‘Il Campo della Quercia’ up on the left side of our property keeping on the high side of the fields. With the snow it might be a bit tough to walk and climb but one can see pathways that probably in summer wouldn’t be noticed and was just the place a pup might explore. Usually the cats Luigi and Zafferano come along on our walks, playing hide-and-seek and jumping out with the feline equivalent of ‘boo’. Not this morning! They had to mind the fire, of course. The view was fantastic: I could see ‘il Poderuccio’ Raimondo’s property and the Abbey of Sant Anna in Camprena, a location where "The English Patient" was filmed and where in the late 1400s Sodoma (Giovanni Matteo Bazzi) did a number of frescos before taking the job left by Luca Signorelli at Monte Oliveto Maggiore, completing the extraordinary frescoe cycle on the walls of the old cloister. As I walked the only sound I could hear was the crunching of the snow under my feet: everything and every road was covered in snow so there was not even the sound of cars going to Castelmuzio above or Pienza beyond. I discovered a new path, one of the rough tracks opened up by woodcutters to come with their tractors. Only thirty or so years ago, when we bought our property, firewood would have been collected by cart pulled by white oxen, the huge Chianina (pronounced Kianina), locally bred working animals, today renowned for their tender steaks "Bistecca alla Fiorentina" . |
Out of nowhere two young female caprioli (wild deer) crossed the path in front of me. It gave me a fright and my thoughts returned to the whistle sent us by Canadian clients to fit onto the front of our car, producing an ultra-sound pitch that we can’t hear but which the animals do, helping to prevent possible collisions when caprioli leap across the bitumen roads right at the moment you drive by. Like deer in Canada. Like kangaroos in Australia. There was no other sign of wildlife, not even a pheasant which are usually so abundant. Nor a fox. Had the foxes heard about the special fox-hunt planned for the Spring? The hunt is rare and involves not men on horses but men on foot, with their hunting dogs: lots of barking, slathering, getting lost in our back yard. This provides Billy and Merry Moon more than usual excitement. I didn’t even see a wolf. Local hunters assure us that wolves still live in the forest though we wonder if this is to discourage us from wandering around on moonlit nights, just the right time for poachers to be out in the reserve as well? There are, however, scattered reports of sightings of wild animals in the district - huge snakes in normally tranquil springs, tigers, panthers .... No one is sure what causes such alarms. They usually come in Summer so maybe it’s the heat. Maybe the local red has a high alcohol content. Maybe they are real? Well, we do have a friend who reported the sighting of a large black panther, giving details of pawprints, descriptions, dates and times. His dogs stood witness. The Carabinieri spent days looking for this wild and ferocious beast, tramping in the heat over roughly-ploughed fields and through the forests but it was never found. A recent survey among women from 15 to 35 years established what they considered to be the most sexy job for males. The Carabinieri won hands down – those nifty caps, those uniforms nipping the waist, the silver sword, those gorgeous red strips down the legs of their pants. Had the women seen them at the end of the panther-search maybe the ‘postino’ would have come on top. We were left wondering if the grudge our friend held against the local boys who, he said, had been bugging him could be anything to do with that sighting? But on this icy Winter day there was still no sign of skinny little Fanny so Billy and I circled back to Val Loresci. I was greeted by Elena, holding her ‘lost and found’. What a clever puppy. So young and she already knew where home was! We celebrated with a glass of Elena’s "vin brulle" which she makes in Winter, boiling wine with cinnamon, cloves and honey. Billy and I walked back home. No panthers in sight. |
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