“It is Monday the 13th of May. I am sitting in the kitchen and facing out looking at the grey sky and the persistent rain of the last 14 hours or so.
Saturday11th was a very hot day with temperature around 28 degrees and we were not able to do any work after lunch time. The sun was so hot that you felt it burning on your skin. We did some watering late afternoon as the ground was very dry.
Next day was a real mix. Temperature dropped suddenly over 12 degrees and clouds started to form above us. Good day to work outside comfortably. We managed to do some fencing on top part of the land.
After lunch it started raining and at times hailstones were bombarding the place and making lots of noise on the veranda metal roof. Vines are in the process of developing the grapes and are very delicate. So is all the young fruit on trees. This is not good.
A couple of hours later the temperature rose again and the day ended up with a lovely evening!.
Lovely as it is, I am concerned about the fluctuation of the temperature which is making me think that our future relationship with crops will change and we need to adapt and accept the uncertainty of the harvesting.
Potatoes in good shape. The bamboo structure is for supporting the future beans.
A few days ago I was reading of the devastating consequences of three different atmospheric events which have been affecting the North Korean food production. People have been living on a 300 grams of food intake a day.
These events are now a norm and shift from one place to another around the world.
Some of these events are happening simultaneously in different places around the world with dramatic outcomes both in terms of loss of lives, destruction of infrastructure and food production.
The Idai Cyclone which has devastated Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe is only a tip of the spreading problem.
Here we can see how the change in climate patterns is affecting the production of food generally. When this happens on a big farming production system, the government is asked to provide monetary support to cover these losses. But money will not feed people and the effort should be focusing on how to adapt and secure food production on a global scale. Even if we can survive here, people will struggle in big urban areas.
Here in the meanwhile, most of the vegetable crops have been planted. We have an abundance of lettuces at the moment but aubergines are struggling to grow. Beans are ok and tomato plants seem happy but checked this morning to find they are waterlogged which is a problem. We can only wait and see.
Wild asparagus and wild fennel are still growing well and these are definitely not affected by these changes. In fact my dinner last night was wild asparagus, ricotta cheese and eggs with some salad and bread.
It will be impossible to replicate what we eat here at the table in terms of local, own grown food.
Salads, bread, cheese, wine, olive oil and even water all comes from few metres away from here. Very happy with this as long as we can continue to be able to produce it.
A typical Sardinian dish called " pane frattau" or bread in layers. it is made with thin layers of carasau bread with intervals of tomato sauce, pecorino cheese. My lunch the other day.
When the weather is rainy making pasta or cracking almonds is one of the activities to keep you going.
May is a good month for enjoying the natural garden of Sardinia. Myriads of wild flowers appears creating beautiful landscapes.
A snake surprised us on a cold windy day and tried to come into the house maybe looking for a bit of comfort....There are plenty of wild " pets " around.
Only two weeks before going back to Scotland and join Lesley who left Sardinia on the 7th.I will try to do another post before that.
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