After having had to deal with extremely wet - several hundreds of milimeters of rain in a handful of a days - and unpleasantly cold Spring weather, the sun has returned to Italy and to our beautiful plot of land in Molise with full force.
It is a difference of day and night...
And not just because of the dryness, the rise in temperature and the consequential energy boost given to nature and to us human beings.
No, our land went through an unexpected change too and is - likely - still changing, right now.
If you can't wait to learn more and/ or want a different perspective, go check out 
Yesterday late afternoon / early evening, we put the tent up, once again, under the walnut tree in our garden, where we started out, the first day after buying our land ( late July, last year ). We haven't been camping, since we took the tent down ( early Autumn ) and our fingers were itching to sleep 'outdoors, again, for the first time in almost 5 and a half months.
Clare and I love camping and - if you've followed our homesteading adventures for a while - you will be aware of the fact that our 'house' the current building on our land is not the nicest space to live in, nor do we have the budget to do it up ( as quickly as we'd like to ).
Long story short, we are feeling very positive about not having to sleep in that building any longer. And to return it to its original purpose: storage space. And - for the time being - cooking area and creative space.
It will also be easier to make it nicer whilst we're not sleeping in it. Sleeping in a building area ( including all the chaos, dust, etc. is not the nicest and that is an understatement.
Anyhow, back to the big change on our land that happened only days ago...
On Friday morning, after about 4 days of non stop rain, I shared some blurry photos with Clare about what seemed like a small landslide and some cracks on our land.
I also shared a photo of the well, that had caved in on the top ( we had talked about it needing a cover on it, only days before ).
Clare had been away for two nights, to escape the humidity in ( and outside ) our house and organize some things in her old house that is up for sale.
More on that adventure in her previous write up:
@clareartista/the-new-the-old-and
After seeing my photos of our land, she felt so worried that she had to come back home, immediately. Instead of waiting for the sun to return first.
And then, late that afternoon, when it finally had stopped raining, the two of us walked around our land to check the state of it.
.
It looked pretty dramatic, at first sight.
Photos can be found in Clare's post.
but it also looked spectacular and beautiful and, in a way, we felt pretty excited.
Clare expressed herself ( as the land had done before her ) and I listened to her but also tried to show another perspective. How it felt positive to me and how I felt save. That change is only natural and the land will end up being in a better state.
Clare soon felt better about it herself and we started to feel like excited children, looking forward to play ( with the clay ).
It's now two and a half days later and it just feels better and better. And so do we.
Here's some pictures taken, earlier today:
Our olive grove has changed dramatically but we like it more this way.
The majority of our 80+ trees are still standing strong. A couple of them seem to have been damaged or have their roots revealed, now.
Where we had a steep slope, before, we now have a more wavy landscape and interesting hills and sunken parts. As well as nice cracks that might turn into little brooks, when it rains enough. And beautiful clay areas are now exposed.
We have been talking, several times, about working/ building with natural materials from our land ( including clay ) and it seems like our wish has been granted.
Beautiful to see that these cracks manifested just outside the stone circle that we created around a wild rose, here
And here's some more photos that give you a bit of an idea of the scale of it all...
Enfin, we could have been feeling sorry for ourselves and feel like we invested in the wrong plot of land. Or be so scared that we don't want to live here any longer.
But no, that's not us and we aren't feeling negatively about the situation at all.
In the end, it's all about perspective and mindset. We chose to live here. We got what we asked for. It does feel better than before. The land had been worked too hard and or been ignored too much, before we arrived and now we're here it can finally let go and show it's potential.
We can't wait to see what happens next.
And even some rainy days coming up, from the weekend onwards, won't phase us.
In fact, we are excited to see what effect they will have on our newly shaped land.
We might even have a natural swimming pool or a frog pond, soon ;^)
Looking forward to sharing more soon.
Abbracci from Italia!
