One season ends, another begins

Mild, grey, still. 

As the hunting season comes into its penultimate day, the tree-cutting season begins, and already the battlements of Carmine Superiore are ringing with the roar of chainsaws. Strikes me the men need a reason to fly the too-warm, too-close Christmas nest.

Heads below the parapet

Today? Quite cold with only the occasional burst of sunshine. 

The woods close by are ringing with the shots of the wild boar hunters. After recent appalling (and separate) disasters during which a priest, a pony and a fellow-hunter were killed by mistake, Jakob! is safely tucked away in his den.

Buzzed by a baldie : Falconeria Locarno

One winter in my dim and distant past, I had the pleasure to spend in Nova Scotia, not far from the Bay of Fundy. My hosts were an English painter and his Canadian restaurateur wife. These splendid role models taught me the power of creativity when harnessed to damned hard work. The studio, gallery and country kitchen they modelled on a shoestring with their own hands eventually became the beautiful and tranquil Tangled Garden. 

Much of my time there was spent meditating on the shape of my future. I would sit in the studio, a scribbled mind map in front of me, listening to opera on Canadian public radio and watching hour upon hour a group of bald eagles who resided in a copse on a nearby hill and hunted across the next-door fields or soared out to fish by the bay. And once or twice as I wandered through the fields of Evangeline's Acadia, camera in hand, I was delighted to get up close and personal with a flying baldie.   

All these memories came flooding back to me the other day as I sat amazed in the audience at the Falconeria Locarno. This small but impressive falconry centre is home to a wide range of trained birds, including a number of eagles, owls and falcons. The presenters of the pacy falconry spetacolo are as impressive as their feathered hunters. They are informative (in German and Italian), superbly well-rehearsed and, I have to say, rather pleasing to the eye. 

Here's a taster :



Recommended; I promise the show will leave both adults and children alike gasping at the grace, speed and hunting capacity of these wonderful creatures. I will certainly never forget being brushed by the wing of a snowy owl as it arced over my head, seeing a trained 15-kilo vulture swooping towards me at full speed (sending the usually dauntless Jakob squirming for cover under the seats)... 

...or being buzzed by a baldie. 

Mid-winter

Cold and overcast. Dry, but with pregnant skies. In Carmine Superiore, the snow that fell before Chrismas (see below) still lies in the angles and frost pockets, and blankets most of my garden.

Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore

A couple of days before Christmas, 2009

Today is the last day of this year's hunting season, and our freezers are bulging with wild boar and venison. Although I'm still conflicted on the subject of hunting, I'm absolutely clear on factory farming, and I'm glad that for a while we won't be patronising the supermarket meat counter.

Sunday

After Friday's day of torrential rain, and Saturday's day of will-it-won't-it, Sunday has dawned golden and blue, with some very happy windsurfers sharing the waters of Lago Maggiore with some pretty energetic white horses.

The hunt mustered up in the expectant blackness of 5am and have disappeared into the woods to see if they can bring home some fat and juicy wild boar or, if not, some fat and juicy porcini mushrooms (permesso permitting). Or failing that, some long, thin Stan-Laurel chiodini mushrooms, which are just as tasty.

You have to like autumn, if only for its wild food.