by Alessandra Ressa
Dormice at the door
My third summer on the plateau of Monte Prat, at the foot of the Friuli Alps, has nearly and too quickly come to an end and not without unpleasant twists. Bossy wildlife of every sort has decided to take over my kingdom without permission, and I have to give in, lest the creatures ask me to lay down my crown. The time I planned to spend reading books, writing in the shade of my century-old walnut tree, entertaining friends with cocktail parties in the woods or watching shooting stars has yet to come.
The privileged position I thought I was entitled to as the Queen of the Forest has so far seen me chopping wood on a daily basis, removing ticks from impossible parts of the body, picking and cooking wild plants and berries over a wood stove (there are no stores for miles and miles), fighting pests, gently evicting thousands of spiders and other unidentified creepy crawlies out of my bedroom (and bed!), and many more physically and mentally challenging tasks that have evidently downgraded me to the rank of serf.
First came the dormice, cute little squirrel-like night critters. I did not know I had a whole city of them living literally under my roof until I spent my first summer night in Monte Prat this year. In fact, I completely ignored their existence in general, and at first, at around 2 a.m., I thought there were actual people in the attic moving furniture. Or maybe ghosts carrying around chains…. Interestingly, up to that point I had never been to my attic, connected to the house by a tiny trapdoor up on the ceiling of the second floor and only reachable by a 3.5 long ladder which I did not possess. After several sleepless nights spent staring at the ceiling and wondering who the heck was playing basketball upstairs, I finally talked to my neighbors, who gave me a pitiful look and proclaimed “ghiri”, dormice.
The next day, my neighbor lent me a long ladder that barely entered the door. What I found inside the attic, apart from century-old piled up furniture in a thousand pieces, was a dormice metropolis, with dozen, huge, black, bewildered eyes staring back at me everywhere. “Release the cats!” I shouted. “No! No! No!” said my neighbor “They are protected species, we have to catch them alive, kick them out and then seal the holes that let them into the house”. Thus began the struggle, of dormice and men, a timeless struggle apparently without end, made of menacing dormice screaming (probably insults) every night for weeks every time they make an attempt at entering the now inaccessible (but for how long?) attic.
Careful negotiations with the evil creatures followed. I was able to partially tame some, while others found ways to take revenge over their lost homes, by growing away at everything in sight, including my electric wires. We have now reached a truce. I occasionally feed them nuts and allow them to live in the stables next door, they keep on partying all night without cat patrols. Some of them have also moved inside the drainage pipes. I have warned them they may drown with the next heavy rains but they just don’t listen…oh well.
While Rocky the huge, wild, but very friendly wolf-like dog that terrorized all my guests for the past two summers has finally been adopted and is kept indoors at night (see Queen Of The Forest part 1), another playful animal has taken up keeping me company at night. A beautiful, unexpectedly friendly male fox with a thing for punctuality. At 9 o’clock sharp every night my new friend, which I have named “Fox”, shows up to my glass door. I step outside, he whines of joy and smells my hands and feet, then plays around the garden. I made a point not to feed him, but I do leave some water. We play fetch, but I seem to do all the work so far. Another, shyer fox stands a little away watching, every night. I have named it “the other Fox”.
As soon as the clock strikes 10 Fox leaves, and it’s dinnertime for another friend, Toad. This incredibly resilient and gentle creature comes to my door every night and as soon as I step out releases an enormous amount of water (pee?) on my doormat… boy, is it happy to see me. In case you are wondering, it is no prince.
The few inhabitants of Monte Prat (7 including myself) all have vegetable gardens where they grow zucchini, cucumbers, string beans and onions. As vegetable gardens need to be tended as much as I would love to have my own I have decided to plant some fruit trees hoping for them to be spared by hungry deer or crushed by clumsy wild pigs. So far pigs and deer have behaved decently but the same cannot be said of these tiny horrible creatures which seem to be out of a 1950s horror movie. They truly look like the offspring of The Blob.
Far from being slugs out of space, it turns out these are the evil babies of plum tree wasps, which are equally hideous in appearance. These tiny, black wasps lay their eggs on the leaves, larvas in turn feed on them, reducing leaves to a sick-looking, charred mess. I asked my friend Andrea Colla what to do. He suggested placing natural traps to catch the wasps before they lay the eggs. So I hung containers filled with beer and honey to the branches. So far I have observed with great dismay that the black wasps continue to reproduce on my young trees, while entire armies of ants have happily drowned in the alcoholic nectar. I have also caught a marten trying to drink from one of the containers very late at night. No marten, no party, eh?
The joys of living in the woods will continue with Queen of The Forest part 6 coming soon on Intrieste.
