Halfway Over the Hill #8 (Summer Medley)

N.B. This post was written written on 28th, December 2021 so, obviously, all references are to last year.

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28/12/2021

I survived summer, thank you very much, and am now ready to reanimate the comatose blog.

So this is a catch-up post.

I wasn't short of things to write about, it was what to choose and how to overcome the deadweight of oppressive heat and get my finger to tap on the phone. 

The atmosphere of this summer was molten and as dense as gelatine. It smothered my breath and glued me to my chair even in the tomb dark of a house shuttered 24 hours against the relentless sun. Throughout the months of July and August I sizzled and sparked like a red hot coal.

Now it's quite the opposite, little darts of chill pin down my bones, forcing me into a stalacmite huddle and similarly the windows are shuttered but against the adamant cold rather than the adamant heat. And my airways struggle against rasping ice shards  but at least the freezing fog veiling the house has subsided, although I still feel permanently wrapped in a wet blanket.

How has the Italian flora coped with these extremes?

During the summer my wild neighbour Dahlia gave me some polythene-sealed agricultural magazines that he had picked up at a country fair. He had enough paper to light the fire he said, seeing no other use for paper with printed words.

I flicked through them and found them a great deal more interesting than I anticipated. For instance, I discovered that Central Europe was in its third year of record-beating drought.

My own stifled senses had told me that the climate was displaced and wasn't speaking the same language to the ever expectant Earth.

Hot, cold, wet, dry are the elemental syllables of the seasons but the song they sing is very different to the solid repertoire I remember as a child.

Summer's hymn of joy to life was out of tune and blasted out notes of hot and dry; oblierating the minor notes of cold and wet. And the instrument of wind that should juggle the elements into harmony, lay motionless aside.

The summer was still fruitful, in that it bore fruit, but there was much amiss with the produce.

After the cherries, I had intended to write about the peaches.

The amarenas never happened by the way,  they remained small and acrid and passed to the dark shrivelled fermented stage in a matter of hours: a rushed symphony of ripening, skipping that essential nectar melody and ending with only cymbal clashing, wince-inducing tartness.

Well, my peaches near the roadside did quite well despite the appearance this year of unsightly scab on some but still yielding up juicy orange flesh nevertheless. 
Peach trees are rare here and a much coveted fruit (even honest men will attempt the conquest at the sight of these rose-cheeked beauties smouldering at them, saucily shaking their swathes of feather boa leaves in the faint breeze) but my story of the ongoing  peach wars (border skirmishes with buckets) will have to be related another time. Suffice to say that I wasn't the only one playing the waiting game of full ripeness and they got swiped by other opportunist hands in getaway cars as I waited for my fruit investment to fruitify.

The province's annual verge-clearing tractor had vicously and unecessarlly hacked back, not only communal peach trees but fig, amarenas, elderberry and yellow egg plum trees.
Many trees suffered multiple amputations despite keeping well clear of the road and the big empty buses.

This made the fruit fairly inaccessible as the remaining branches were far too high.

The figs from accessible trees were in a sorry state this year, bursting open their lungs before reaching the melting red sweetness and softness I'd enjoyed on my walks last year.
Still, I enjoyed some intact ones after spitting out many others, and when you sink your lips into the oval of red pulp that easily yields itself, you can understand the clitoral analogies and it does seem like a naughty pleasure.
Early this December there were some late bloomers, sweet enough but somewhat dry and tired texturally.

Perhaps I was blind to the colour yellow last year but this year yellow egg plums seemed to ring out for my attention everywhere  and made for quick sweet snacks. One bite then instant squelch., swallow the sweet mash and spit out the rag of skin.

The usually reliable hedgerow blackberries also quit before the crescendo of ripenesss; not enough vigour in their veins to make that final glorious push for mature delectability.

In September the crab apples on abandoned land looked promising but need to be declustered to grow to a decent size ( I lost that waiting game too but not before taking some doll apples) and of all the fruit only the pears were better than last year, I thought they were all perry pears last year as they were so bitter and small but it was not the case and they were just as they should be this year.
Dried apple and pears make a nice duo and last for months.

The tomatoes, that strange fruit, were a huge disappointment unlike last year when I could boast the tastiest and biggest tomatoes in the area - some exceeding 700 grams.

They suffered from bottom end rot (formally known as blossom end rot) and stink bug punctures, the former a direct result of the drought. Not nearly enough for daily consumption never mind bottling.

And the eternal grapes, of course. No noticeable change there.

The orange glory of non-native but profuse persimmon is now blessing my table as I write. I heeded their trumpet call of flagrant colour and harvested many. They are as tough as cricket balls but once ripe ( it takes a couple of months ) out plops all the puree after a small incision and the slightest pressure.

The pink pomegranates, another thriver, are a vivid and festive decoration with their little golden crowns and still have choirs of succulent red rubies after several months.

On to the final quartet.

Rampant zucchini is a lusty wandering minstrel and will survive the apocalypse I threw out a half-eaten large courgette and a giant plant sprang up a month later

The olives have done better this year than last year but I'm told it's one year in and one year out.
My own baby piccolo olive tree produced 3kg of olives ( it's first output) which I have cured by making slits on either side and sitting them in water which I change every day for a few weeks.

I also discovered a lonely and lovely almond tree across the road which had been staring wistfully at my house for several years without being noticed. I obliged by taking a few nuts. I love nuts but hate the difficult percussion of nut-cracking so they tend to accumulate and eventually rot in the house.

And then there was the dirge of my walnut trees - also to be recounted another time, as well as other drought-related calamities.