Blip birthday

I thought I saw something recently that suggested my eighth blip birthday was upon me. But looking at my blip statistics I can’t verify this. Anyway, the gods were smiling on my camera in this period of vertiginously warm and now damp weather and provided this lovely rainbow over the sombre woods of the Casentino behind the house.

I had reason to pop over to a neighbour today because a new sign has appeared on our track suggesting someone is setting up a farm, which given the paucity of cleared land around here seems improbable at least from a commercial perspective. The neighbours knew about as much of this as I but we got talking about hunting and Gianni mentioned that he has heard wolves howling recently in our vicinity. I had always assumed the dogs we can hear barking away at night are local hunting dogs in their kennels. We will have to listen more closely to see if we too can hear the wolves. Apparently there are fewer wild boar around this year because the wolves have been so effective at killing their young. Although the fierce summer drought and lack of food may also have had something to do with this.