5.30

The nights do eventually cool down. The air at 5.30 is like swimming in the sea at Castiglione - cool, limpid, welcoming.

Today I continued exploring the seep in the trees below the house in the big field. Multi-stemmed alders (extra) and a willow arc up dizzyingly into the sky and an old dry pond attest to water’s presence. With my heavy chopping hoe - Zappa pesante- I cut out more channels from the clay. The collected clear water began to flow. I chopped back up the hill and found a flowing spring. There is nothing quite like the thrill of seeing water wash away the silt and run clear from the heavy clay.

Maybe it is just a local build up of water that once released will run slower and slower. I found a couple of other sources.

The spring line is on the same level as the bigger springs that feed our part of the local water system. I guess there is a plain of harder sloping rock that is stopping the groundwater following gravity and pushing it to where the rock meets the surface boulder and clay.

I’ve often wondered where the house got its water. There seems to be no well unless it was filled in when the local 70-household water system was built by local peasants and sharecroppers in the 1950s (the Italian state provided the materials).

I’m currently sheltering from the mid afternoon heat but later I’ll wander down with my zappa and a long sleeved shirt (the mosquitoes, horse flies and the mosca culaia are mad for my elbows - gomiti ) to monitor the flow.

A spring that runs through the summer is a serious thing, a valuable resource to be carefully husbanded. The towering alders and willow will be taking a lot of the water. After all, that’s why they are there and have forced themselves up between the walnut trees.

The seep was a haunt for visiting migrant woodcock, according to Gianni. A favourite spot for gun and (wood)cocker spaniel at dusk in the winter. I guess in the winter the flow will be greater and the area can stay wet for the woodcock and their long sensitive beaks. And a new fence will keep the beccaccia hunters away.

It’s still flowing (extra)