21 January 2007

A Strange Winter


Grandubbione forest fire
with a happy ending,
extinguished
To say that the winter has been strange is an understatement. It has only snowed briefly and without real conviction. To complicate matters it is incredibly dry. This past week we have seen forest fires popping up thru out our valley. The helicopters and fire fighters have been stretched to their limits and driven mad by the gale force winds that hit a few days ago. They just had everything about out and then fires started popping up like mushrooms here and there. Yesterday we had 4 different fires going that we could see from Pinerolo. More than a bit disconcerting. It was so strange too yesterday as I strolled thru the market all the vendors were with out their usual canopies and tenting as it was so warm and sunny, but not so strong of a sun that they needed to protected their goods. This is January in the alps? On the way home I noticed some of my favorite purple creeping flower that are the first to bloom here getting well underway and more an more buds starting to break and peak up thru the ground. I fear that after such a bountiful year for fruit last year we are going to be lacking as I'm sure there is going to be some cold weather still to come, even if it is in June.
Then late this afternoon we had a fire break out at the end of our road about 5 km behind us and the helicopters and firefighters rushed here and put out one small fire and seem to be getting the bigger one under control Thank goodness to the dedicated people that help out in such an emergency. We hear the trucks going down now so it seem they have put it out. If only it would snow and help us all out.
My primulas are happy, so I'll take pleasure in them and hope we get some moisture.

5 comments:

Lora_3 said...

The flowers are beautiful but that fire business would scare me.

Be safe...

Bella Baita Marla said...

Thankfully we finally are getting some precipitation today. It can't decide if it wants to rain or snow, but either is alright, as long as we get some H2O.

Anonymous said...

Strange weather indeed! I was absolutely dumbfounded when I heard that Torino had 27°C temps just a few days ago.

I like your list of 5 things in the previous post ;-). Of course, I've been meaning to make those ravioli again when I've a got a ton of patience to spare. Right now I'm going crazy in finding a pescheria that might have an ungutted rana pescatrice (although I won't mind if the head is already chopped off.) I've heard that the liver is quite the foie gras of the sea and have yet to taste this delicacy. Unless someone might clue me in on a very hip Japanese restaurant in Italy that serves monkfish liver, I am determined to find it either here or whenever I'm back in the islands again.

TorAa said...

And suddenly, I'm in to the comment-box. Hope that will continue.

Presume you've got some snow now?

RennyBA said...

Thanks for the weather report! The fire stuff sounds scary though - good to know you are fine then!
Also glad to tell you that we've got normal winter weather in Norway now:-)

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