After midnight last night, while sitting on the terrace, we heard rustling in the backyard. Assuming it was India (the dog next door) or some type of critter, we ignored it.

But at 6:30a, India started barking. And barking. And barking. She wasn’t letting up so we all got out of bed to see what the ruckus was about. A wild boar was in the yard, munching away at who knows what, and India was not happy with the intruder. The cinghiale (pronounced chin-GAL-ay) didn’t care about India’s incessant barking, but other neighbors did. Calls of “India, shut your mouth!” were heard in Italian from neighboring windows and even the angry goats nearby were baa-ing. By 6:45am the barking stopped and other dogs began barking in the distance, and roosters crowing as well, so the boar must have moved on.

We had deemed today as “house day” and given that we were all awake, Paul went for an early morning run and I started cleaning and organizing our purchases from yesterday. It’s so hot that the local carabinieri (police) stopped Paul on his run to inquire why he was running in the heat. 

Paul successfully purchased our couch, being invited into the home of the shopkeeper (upstairs from the showroom) for an espresso after the transaction. 

While I worked and Miss M focused on an art project and feeding the kittens, Paul made us pesto pasta for dinner. 

The cinghiale made another appearance late afternoon and our neighbor told us they like to snack on the nuts that fall from the trees. (We have a walnut tree in our yard.)

Miss M and I wrapped up the night playing backgammon on the terrace, listening to more dogs barking, warning of intruders, in the distance.