Autumn thoughts

My posts of late have been about as frequent as the rain we've received here in Lazio. We had an overnight storm and turned off the irrigation thinking it was redundant for the rest of the year, now we are thinking of turning it on again. There's not a lot to report, time is whizzing by, days are quiet and calm, it's lovely. We are sleeping well now we can actually lie under a light duvet instead of tangling ourselves on top of an unwanted sheet. Of course we've had another water leak up above the house, four leaks in four months must be a record. The latest is fixed and Mr FF had taken it upon himself to clear the track of the pipes down the hillside of undergrowth and self seeded trees as roots were distorting the plastic pipes and cracking them. He's up there now with a brush cutter, he'll come home scratched snd bleeding expecting a heros welcome. A porcupine has been digging in my garden, made a large hole and eaten the tubers of some iris, it's also chewed through the irrigation pipe. The hunting season has started, we hear the shots early morning and late afternoon, some times the pellets shower down onto our terrace and we shout out that they should respect the distance they are supposed to be from property. Mostly round here they are after wild boar but the casual hunters accompanied by dogs wearing bells will shoot anything. I hate them killing the songbirds, but at present if anyone took a shot at that porcupine I wouldn't object. The cats are eating on demand, I tell myself they can put on a bit of weight for winter and I wonder if they'll survive with the automatic feeder. I worry about other cats taking all their food, a large grey male keeps coming round and terrorising the,, we call him the nasty party and chase him away. However we were away for an overnight and Crema and Grigio survived and didn't bear a grudge at being abandoned. I can only be hopeful and tell myself they are healthy and strong, their lives have been happy and stress free, unlike many of the cat population here. Let's not dwell on that, we left them as kittens last year for six months, we've promised next time it won't be so long. We've got weeks left before we think of leaving, plenty of time for more water leaks and garden predators, besides I haven't had any polenta yet.