Water of life

Ask anyone hereabouts and they’ll say what a strange summer it has been- hot beyond measure, humid beyond reasonable and dry as.

We’ve not run out of water but water has been an issue. It abounds deep in the valley’s young and uneven, scrunched-up sedimentary sand- and mudstones. But near the surface without a well or rare everlasting spring it has been tough. We’ve watched storms on the higher eastern peaks and wished them towards us, most usually to no avail.

Clearing an overgrown bank I got chatting to a guy who had parked nearby to look for funghi - porcini in particular. He had worked the land above us for twenty years and said he had never seen the like. His son higher up still had seen his water reduced to un piscelo.

We’ve come through it and had some good crops while losing six new trees - olives, a nut tree and a nespole. The cooler weather has arrived - 28c today and chilly nights. The 3000l tank helped but it has to rain to fill it.

It was never going to be easy And our first year was thankfully less rigorous. As the season closes and the cicadas sing and the mosquitoes hassle I give thanks to the harvest - the passata, gherkins, aubergines and peppers under oil. The plum jam, the fig ham, the few delicious melons and those dried courgettes. We even have a few chickpeas and a bounty of potatoes and onions, shallots and garlic. There are huge squash where the clay has remained wet and we’ll have to figure out what to do with the sunflower seed heads.

The tawny owls are calling and night has fallen. The leeks, romanesco, sprouts, calabrese and cauliflower are in. The season turns and who knows what next year will bring.