I love the seasons before the Peak Summer time. Spring offers so much, the sun is shining and the days are becoming longer, birds are arriving from the south and wild flowers are everywhere.
The Autumn still has the warmth of the summer, farmers are busy harvesting grapes and olives, locals are hunting for porcini and white truffles.
Easter Sunday, late March, the pool is open and buds are beginning to burst open.
Relaxing in the warm spring sunshine.
5.00am, the dawn chorus of birds singing, as the sun rises and the sky turns pink.
The vines buds are bursting into leaf. The willow ties secure the vines to the wire.
Every Easter, farmer Gianfranco and his brother go in to the vineyards and cut the shoots from the willow trees to use as ties for the vines. Rather than using string or wire. the flexible willow whips are the best way to tie up the vines. No other nation does this, just the Italians; it’s a wonderful organic method.
Spring flowers in the meadows.
Lawn cut for the spring season, loungers out for the summer.
Summer migrants arrive for the summer. The bee eaters nest in the rocky cliffs overlooking the river Serchio. They often fly above the house before a storm looking for insects.
Every Easter Sunday we eat a couple of these delicious small milk-reared lamb shoulders. The meat from our local butcher is so wonderfully soft.
Buon Appetito – Easter lunch outside on the kitchen terrace. 25C and full sun.
Yana, a Croatian artist working on her Tuscan exhibition at A Corte.