The view of a safely harvested field and an approaching storm somehow touches my heart and makes me satisfied.
I wonder whether this is due to my own peasant roots or whether it is somehow built into the human DNA.

Below: Detail of the same field about six weeks earlier. The relatively poor barley variety is about the maximum you can get from this soil. The field is located about 30 km south of the Alps (Northern Italy) and sits atop ancient morainic gravel some 40 meters thick. The soil here is very thin - not more than 30 cm - and very penetrable. The surrounding woods are of the type called "brughiera" by the locals - a dense mixture of small, shrubby oaks and other local species, plus tall but fragile robiniae, acaccia-like thorny trees original from North America that were introduced here a couple of centuries ago and became dominant.

The habitat, still viable for low-yield but healthy bio-agriculture, is endangered by the expanding Milan metropolitan area. With the excuse of the green being of "low quality", this very field was already slated for a "development" project. I am proud to have stopped the folly (it took some laud local politicking) though - I am afraid - the victory is only temporary.

Behind our house in Castano Primo, Lombardia (North Italy), May 10 and June 21, 2009