A WEEK OF SIROCCOS
We keep ourselves busy with this and that. This week we went for a ride and bought a crate of the tastiest oranges in the world, from Ribera, for $8 Euro. There were about 35 in the crate, and they were so fresh, the leaves were still on all of them. Later in the week, we discovered right in Sciacca one of the two distilleries in Sicily. If you get to try Ceria Birra, you will experience what we bring home in our bottle with corked tops. Sunday night we had the Fabrizio Ricottas for dinner and grilled sausage outside. They were so cute eating their first marshmallows over a fire!
We have survived a warm windy week of Sirocco winds. I cant say my plants have liked it much, and it does remind me why I have the shrub fence all around the front garden. Besides giving the house the Secret Garden look, it keeps the wind off of the plants-usually.
But this constant south wind is gradually getting to things. I brought the Poinsettia plant in yesterday after plants on wheeled holders started sailing across the terrace and landing on their sides. It did not stop me from putting in asparagus, onions, broccoli, and lettuce, but the poor seedlings are buffeted in their little snail collars constantly. And that cant be good. The snails are not faring well either, and if they did not eat all of my caper plant, maybe I would not be so hateful to them. But I manage to kill a good dozen or so a day since that fateful day I discovered how good it felt to tramp on them by the hundreds in the driveway (see the pictures of their dirty remains). I do worry about the lemon, orange, and citron trees in the wind, and today went out and picked their underdeveloped fruit so that they would not need to use their energy to ripen the fruit. If they can survive this second winter, their root system should be ok to withstand the wind and summer dryness.
We have seen huge eagles playing high up in the wind gusts, too high for a picture. Then we see them soaring down after prey in the fields next door. I used the field glasses and identified them using Peter Debes European bird identification book as Bonellis eagles (Hieraeetus fasciatus). There is also some kind of heron, who swoops onto sea prey sitting on the rocks at the shore, but he is not as big as the Great Blue Herons in the Adirondacks, and he does not sit still long enough to let me take his picture.
The waves churned up by this wind do not look all that dramatic from our hillside, but they are evident to us. We watch the boats near shore rock up and down until we can feel the seasickness that must set in for the people in them. And the beach is full of debris, unusual in that a bed frame and a mattress dont usually appear in the same storm. Hmmm.
I normally do not like wind, but I do like warm. And the temperature has not fallen below 65 for a week, which makes life in December very comfortable. But wind makes me uncomfortable and antsy, and I had a migraine the first day of this particular weather group. Guess Ill just have to get on a plane and meet Roz and Mike in Amsterdam day after tomorrow!
We have survived a warm windy week of Sirocco winds. I cant say my plants have liked it much, and it does remind me why I have the shrub fence all around the front garden. Besides giving the house the Secret Garden look, it keeps the wind off of the plants-usually.
But this constant south wind is gradually getting to things. I brought the Poinsettia plant in yesterday after plants on wheeled holders started sailing across the terrace and landing on their sides. It did not stop me from putting in asparagus, onions, broccoli, and lettuce, but the poor seedlings are buffeted in their little snail collars constantly. And that cant be good. The snails are not faring well either, and if they did not eat all of my caper plant, maybe I would not be so hateful to them. But I manage to kill a good dozen or so a day since that fateful day I discovered how good it felt to tramp on them by the hundreds in the driveway (see the pictures of their dirty remains). I do worry about the lemon, orange, and citron trees in the wind, and today went out and picked their underdeveloped fruit so that they would not need to use their energy to ripen the fruit. If they can survive this second winter, their root system should be ok to withstand the wind and summer dryness.
We have seen huge eagles playing high up in the wind gusts, too high for a picture. Then we see them soaring down after prey in the fields next door. I used the field glasses and identified them using Peter Debes European bird identification book as Bonellis eagles (Hieraeetus fasciatus). There is also some kind of heron, who swoops onto sea prey sitting on the rocks at the shore, but he is not as big as the Great Blue Herons in the Adirondacks, and he does not sit still long enough to let me take his picture.
The waves churned up by this wind do not look all that dramatic from our hillside, but they are evident to us. We watch the boats near shore rock up and down until we can feel the seasickness that must set in for the people in them. And the beach is full of debris, unusual in that a bed frame and a mattress dont usually appear in the same storm. Hmmm.
I normally do not like wind, but I do like warm. And the temperature has not fallen below 65 for a week, which makes life in December very comfortable. But wind makes me uncomfortable and antsy, and I had a migraine the first day of this particular weather group. Guess Ill just have to get on a plane and meet Roz and Mike in Amsterdam day after tomorrow!
posted by Sicilian Mama at 10:19 AM
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