the Sky above Le Ripe

night sky, late summer...

...the milky way above

Summer wildflowers

Summer fields sprinkled with flowers

Besides scabiosa, wild chicory, poppy (rare at this point of summer) wild dianthus (pink) in the river meadow below Le Ripe, many 'new' wildflowers intrigue the curious observer.

Silene vulgaris, bladder campion, maidenstears

A Night Visitor at Le Ripe

Giant Peacock Moth

Great peacock moth, giant emperor moth, Viennese emperor, the Saturnia pyri, native to Europe: this Saturniid moth is the largest European moth. Its wingspan can reach 20cm.

When a tree is cut down

Stumps

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
 

Hermann Hesse, from Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte, collected by Volker Michels, 1984 

The two executioners stalk along over the knolls,
Bearing two axes with heavy heads shining and wide,
And a long limp two-handled saw toothed for cutting great boles,
And so they approach the proud tree that bears the death-mark on its side.

Jackets doffed they swing axes and chop away just above ground,
And the chips fly about and lie white on the moss and fallen leaves;
Till a broad deep gash in the bark is hewn all the way round,
And one of them tries to hook upward a rope, which at last he achieves.

The saw then begins, till the top of the tall giant shivers:
The shivers are seen to grow greater with each cut than before:
They edge out the saw, tug the rope; but the tree only quivers,
And kneeling and sawing again, they step back to try pulling once more.

Then, lastly, the living mast sways, further sways: with a shout
Job and Ike rush aside. Readied the end of its long staying powers
The tree crashes downward: it shakes all its neighbours throughout,
And two hundred years' steady growth has been ended in less than two hours. 

Thomas Hardy, Throwing a Tree, New Forest

 

A Wood in Winter

A wood which has become the extension 

of a 
Chianti garden

Once the woods around here were cultivated for their various uses: brush for fires and ovens, wood for fuel, tools and farmwork and to make charcoal.

 Friends of ours near Panzano in Chianti have spent endless hours clearing the brush, brambles, stunted trees and bushes from the wood above their house.

Waterfalls

After a Good Rainfall

During most of the year the two streams that run through and beside Le Ripe are completely dry. Even the Pesa river in the valley below dries up in summer, although it is said to continue flowing underground.

Recently Le Ripe received a gift of 82mm or more (over 3.2 inches) of rain in 24 hours, and it shows.

 There are waterfalls everywhere.

From Farm to Forest

Back to Nature

registry map of Le Ripe

When we first arrived at Le Ripe we invited an 'arboreal archaeologist' to examine our trees. We rather fancied that some of the old apple trees might have proved interesting and we thought she could advise us on how to proceed with new plantings at Le Ripe. 

When I showed her the dense woods, full of brambly undergrowth, trees reaching for the sky through thickets of blackthorn and juniper and said something cheerful about it all having gone back to nature she stopped my ramblings with a curt: 'This is land which has degenerated'. 

Although at the time we were shamed into silence, we now have a different perspective (see the post on Monks and Forests) on the fate of forests. 

However, paying respect where respect is due: Le Ripe was once a fully working farm where the native woods provided fuel, forage, fruits and timber for tools; where grapes, cereal crops and fruit trees were cultivated; where livestock grazed; where bamboo and certain trees were planted for their agricultural usefulness. Since it was abandoned in the 1950s or even earlier, the land has been steadily reverting to its pre-agricultural state, 'degenerating' in a sense, although regenerating in another sense.

Until recently, apart from a detail in a neighbour's family shot from 1946 (see below), we had no documentary record of this process, but now, thanks to the internet we have found aerial photographs, starting in 1954, which provide a striking testimony.

2013: for the purposes of comparison with 60 and 70 years ago

The entire area captured in these aerial photographs is of great interest, but for the purposes of our exercise, the Le Ripe property comprises the central area of the photograph, bordered to north and east by the Pesa river, to the south by creeks and to the west by the crest of the forested hill (see map at top of post).

Le Ripe 1946, from the Pesa river (the houses in the foreground belong to Casanuova delle Ripe, a hamlet below Le Ripe): note the terracing, the tracks, the sparse vegetation. these were pastures, grape terraces and fields for growing cereal crops to which the large ricks of oats and wheat bear witness.

Autumn in the Campi di Sotto at Le Ripe

Quiet Prospects

a handsome hawthorn tree in berry

 Clearing the lower meadows at Le Ripe is a yearly job, as described in 2013. It keeps the brambles and bamboo down, encourages grass and makes for pleasant walks. 

A Drought in Chianti

Where is the rain?

the parched earth; grass non-existent; dead leaves from tired trees

even the St John's Wort looks exhausted

It has been many weeks since our part of Chianti has seen rain. It is still summer of course and summer means heat, dry grass and watering each evening.

Art in the Wilds of Chianti

Sculptures in the Forest

Hidden in the hills about 14 kilometres north of Siena, is a small but interesting sculpture park. Privately-owned and run by a cultural association, the park was opened in 2004. Its founders, Rosalba and Piero Giadrossi, bought and converted seven hectares of wood formerly fenced for raising wild boar.

horribly kitsch, this installation does raise a smile at the park entrance

Except for the amphitheatre area near the entrance, the park is really a wilderness; which makes it all the more interesting. Evergreen oak (quercus ilex) and other oaks, cistus and broom provide a shady and sometimes colourful setting for thirty-odd sculptures and installations.

the Mondrian-influenced ticket-office and shop; even the parking area has a hint of artfulness about it

Orchids in the field

...and a small mystery to solve

Last May we discovered and discussed an unusual orchid, Ophrys apifera which had appeared in our garden. This year, in mid-April different specimens of orchid, glimpsed in the past but now more abundant, probably thanks to the Lack of Deer, are sprouting and budding in the lengthening grass of the more field-like areas of the garden.

This orchid might belong to the pyramidalis species of the Anacamptis genus of the Orchidaceae family, but doubts persist about colour and scent. I quote: The colour of the flower varies from pink to purple, or rarely white, and the scent is described as "foxy". 

Springtime in Chianti

A Glorious April

Sparkling, sun-filled with light breezes and clear skies. This April we have been blessed with fine weather, early and abundant flowering and mild to warm weather.
More rain would not have been amiss (whatever happened to April showers?) but it seems churlish to complain. 

Of Monks and Forests

The Casentino Forests and Camaldoli

Our jaunt to the Casentino was largely motivated by a practical question. How best to care for, safeguard, sustain and conserve the woodland at Le Ripe? The guardians of the Casentine Forests might have some answers. We had also heard that the forests are well worth a visit.

The Casentine Forests, a national park covering 36,800 hectares, are renowned for their extension, beauty and age - and for enjoying, for at least eight centuries, the guardianship of various communities of monks. Saint Francis of Assisi chose La Verna as a place of prayer in 1224 and two centuries earlier, in 1012, the Benedictine Saint Romuald, who spent most of his life founding hermitages all over Italy, chose a south-facing hillside in the heart of beech and fir forests in the southern Casentino as one of his last works. 

Saint Romuald, detail from Fra Angelico's Crucifixion and Saints,St Mark's Florence, 1441-2

The territory, known as Campus Maldoli, after its landowner, became Camaldoli over time. Here Romualdo built five cells for hermits and, further down the hillside, founded a monastery to offer hospitality for travellers and those in search of spiritual peace. This double function persists today, with 8 monks leading their life of prayer and work in the hermitage and 22 monks taking care of hospitality and the more material aspects of life in the monastery below. There is a flourishing commercial aspect to the complex, which sells elegantly-packaged cosmetics, edibles and ceramics.

Antica Farmacia and its products recall the more famous one in Florence: but this is possibly older

The 'Casentino' denominates a broad valley in the province of Arezzo, east and north of Florence, through which the infant river Arno flows. The Casentino is separated from the upper Valdarno by the massif of Pratomagno. Soci, Stia, Poppi and Bibbiena lie in the valley and are still famous for their centuries-old production of panno feltrato or felted wool cloth  which was first created for the Camaldolese monks. But behind and above these towns rise the forested hills and mountains we had come to visit. The best is almost invariably in the hills.

Coming Home

 Back to Le Ripe in Winter

We have been absent, in the southern hemisphere, for some weeks. In the meantime winter has set in and changes have taken place.

Yellow Foxglove

An Unexpected Treat

We first noticed the long stalks with  blackened buds at the end of one summer a few years ago. Wild foxgloves at Le Ripe. Next season revealed them to have rather dirty yellow flowers, not the favoured blue or purple. 

After that we considered ourselves lucky to have native foxgloves yet unlucky that they were such an unprepossessing colour.

How to fool a bumble-bee

...and further your species.

The other morning while hanging out the washing I spied an interesting flower bobbing in the grass. It had three mauve petals and was being plundered by a bumble bee. Or so it seemed.

 

On closer examination the bee turned out to be part of the flower which was a tiny orchid.

Reflected Glory

One of our best sunsets yet

Le Ripe faces east and north, principally, so we usually miss the best of the sunset, but yesterday we were rewarded with a spectacular display. 

And this was only the reflected glory!

Winter walks

Here and There 
at 
5 degrees Celsius and below

the view from halfway up our hill, looking east-south-east towards the Monti del Chianti

northeast towards Panzano from our hill

zooming in on Panzano, soft morning light

due north from the top of our hill towards Monte Bernardi, Piazza and Sicelle

river in the valley below Badiaccia Montemurro, near Radda

David and the Quakes

 Goliath returns

It could be the name of a 60s pop band, but instead the topic of this post is Michelangelo's David and the earthquakes which are currently making Florence and Chianti tremble.

epicentre near Greve in Chianti

From Friday December 19th 2014 two earthquakes of a reasonable if not terrifying magnitude (3.5 and 4.1 on the Richter scale) and multiple tremors have been unsettling the Chianti area directly south of Florence. Our dear Greve in Chianti, the delightful market town, cultural and logistical centre of the Chianti wine-growing district, is near the epicentre.

The Return of the Wolf III

 Lupus in Fabula 
 or 'Speak of the Devil'

We have good reason to suppose that wolves are inhabiting or at least hunting in our neck of the woods. In the heart of Chianti where, despite our extensive woodlands, civilization (farmhouses, villas, roads, vineyards, olive groves, gardens, villages and towns) makes itself firmly felt. This phenomenon seems to be corroborated by a recent article in The Guardian newspaper.

 Locals have firm evidence that our deer have met their natural predator. The carcass of a roe deer was found mauled, amputated and gutted against a neighbour's fence. The desperate deer had sought refuge inside the fence but was caught, halfway to safety.