SCENES FROM SCIACCA THIS WEEK

It has been a very strange weather week, and March weather in Italy has been officially declared meteorologically unusual. There is never snow and cold that lasts this long, yet we wake up to see snow in the hills several times. The siroccos blow their way through a few times and we are glad for their warmth, but hate to clean up the sand from Africa that they blow all over our terrace. Our biggest problem here in Sciacca is the hard and consistent rain that causes collapses of roads and buildings. Drainage in Sicilian soil is awful and so the water never makes it down to where it could be conserved underground in reserve for the parched hot summers. So it runs under structures and down roads and undermines everything. Mud runs into the Mediterranean constantly, especially from the Porto Palo area near Menfi. You can see the streak of brown depending on the wind direction. And the waves on the sea have been high and ferocious.
I read in the local paper that the rain has interrupted the orange harvest and threatened economic ruin to the farmers in Ribera. Riberan oranges are some of the best tasting in the world, and we buy them in crates from roadside stands as we drive toward Agrigento. But yesterday morning we saw them in a surprising spot. They littered the beach and looked at first to be bobbers from a fish net. They were “bobbers” all right, bobbing oranges along with a lot of dried wild rice canes. The wind must have been just right to send us our share of Riberan oranges on the waves.