Our fox hole

You might recall a posting a few weeks go that introduced our fox hole? Well, here is the sequel... It was on a lovely warm 17 degree day that we took our friends for a walk down our driveway to show them our fox hole. We were ooh-ing and aah-ing over the hole when a local Italian who regularly walks up our valley approached us. He asked us what we were looking at so we told him about our fox hole. We knew something was up when his expression changed from slightly amused to hilariously entertained. He then explained that this hole had been there for many years but "comes and goes". We were confused. He then walked around in circles looking at the ground like an aboriginal tracker. Suddenly he pointed at a disturbed area and declared it to be the work of cinghiale trotters! We were more confused: a cinghiale would never fit into our little fox hole. It turns out that our "fox" hole belongs to a colony of giant snails. These fat juicy snails (le lumache) are apparently a delicacy to the Piemontese much like escargot is to the French. When food supplies in the valley are low over winter, they are also appreciated by cinghiale, whose hungry snouts dig holes in search of them...

 

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