🐓🧻🍄😱 A Day in the Life at Ca' Paradiso: Walks, Chicken Chases, a Toilet, and an Unexpected Plot Twist | My Actifit Report Card: October 1 2026
Yesterday was one of those days where nature decided I needed a full-body, full-emotion workout. Walking, chasing, building, foraging... and one genuinely unplanned jump-scare. Grab a coffee, this one has a twist ending. 👇
🌅 Morning walk with Choko Shock
The day started gently enough: a morning stroll with my faithful (and increasingly famous) dog 
Peaceful, golden, quiet. A perfect little lie about how the rest of the day was going to go.
🐔🏃♂️ Operation: Save the Winter Garden
Then reality kicked in: the hens had other plans for my freshly planted winter vegetables, and a full-on chase sequence broke out across the garden. Picture an improvised, slightly undignified obstacle course, with me as the out-of-breath defender of cabbages everywhere.
The seedlings survived. My dignity, less so. Victory is relative. 🥬🛡️
🚽 The compost toilet: still under construction, still ambitious
In between hen-related cardio, we got back to building the compost toilet — yes, this project is still very much alive, one roof panel at a time. Watching it slowly take shape is oddly satisfying, in that "we're building real, useful things with our hands" kind of way.
Sustainable farm life: part homesteading dream, part extended DIY improv show.
🍄 Into the woods, hunting for mushrooms
With the garden defended and the roof a little closer to finished, it was time for a calmer activity: a walk into the woods in search of mushrooms. Moody light, damp earth, that particular forest smell that makes you feel very outdoorsy and capable.
Spirits were high. Mushroom basket: optimistic and empty. And then...
😱 Ah yes, but there's a twist
Right there in the undergrowth, utterly still, staring directly into my soul: a black cat. Not running away, not blinking, just... watching. For one glorious half-second I was fully convinced the forest itself had decided to judge my life choices.
Turns out it was just a very confident local with excellent camouflage and zero interest in my opinion of the situation. Still, 10/10 jump scare, no notes.
🌼 Closing out the day, flowers everywhere
Heart rate slowly returning to normal, the walk home was lined with more of these cheerful yellow blooms, as if nature wanted to apologize for the cat incident.
So that's a full day here: a walk, a chicken chase, some carpentry, a mushroom hunt, and an unscheduled staring contest with a cat. Rural life: never boring, rarely dignified, always worth it. What's the most unexpected thing that's startled you outdoors? Tell me below! 👇
🌿 Matteo — Ca' Paradiso, Cagli (Marche, Italy) | www.caparadiso.com
📚 Latest from Ca' Paradiso
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Morning Webs and Autumn Light — Ca' Paradiso in Black and White — a foggy autumn morning, a dew-covered spider web and a very photogenic black cat. 🕸️🐈⬛
Roof with a View & Foggy Trails — Actifit Report, September 29 — the compost toilet gets its roof, plus misty walks with
A Slow Sunday: Pesto, Goodbyes, Kiwi for the Hens — Actifit Report, September 28 — the greenhouse is finished, hens go wild for kiwi and a very tired farmer goes to bed early. 🍝🥝😴
A New Chapter: from @amico to @caparadiso — why I moved to a new Hive account, and a thank-you to the friends I met along the way. 💛🏡
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io