So we were getting out of the car at a very-expertly-parked spot, just the other side of a pavement, next to a large, wet wood pile. In Trivento, Molise, where we were trying to resolve an issue with the recharging of our powerbank...
My eyes were pulled to the side of the wood pile, where it looked as though someone had emptied a crate of tennis balls.... How strange, I thought, and was about to point it out to 
mystery flower, appeared on our land this week
That's just one of the very many, regular and bizarre and beautiful things that happen which we notice around us. We went on a bit of a hunt for more info, asking in a nearby bar about it - having presented them with an example fruit that I'd picked up, fascinated, from the earth.
repair to Vincent's silk boxers - ripped through over-stretching
"It's not a fruit. It's not edible" was the response. Neither of these statements were particularly accurate, but I persisted; it was rather easy to find the fruit - Maclura pomifera - online, despite knowing not much more than, 'looks like a tennis ball', to anchor our search parameters.
natural incense: pine resin
I was astounded, on a deeper dig beyond Wikipedia, to find all kinds of uses for its wood - in.particular its very oltra high value as a hedging vegetation. We went back to pick up multiple fruits on this dreich dark day, to potentially provide a solid boundary at the top of our land - remember my last post about Working On Our Boundaries?? Amazing how synchronies like this infiltrate our reality, when we are #livingingift 😍🌟🥳💝🤗🙏❤️🔥
Boundaries are high on our priorities list right now. We also have been working on this window, illustrated in the photos of this post: it used to be an alcove with an evil smartmeter that we pulled out of it. Then we brk through the wall, and added a piece of glass that was left over from a coffeetable top that had been broken by the previous owners.
We didn't add a frame. The double-brick-and cement construction - though super-ugly and base - is astonishingly solid, and none of the windows in the house appear to have conventional supporting lintels above them... Hopefully because they are superfluous, hehe!
In between work sessions, I studied some more around the Osage Orange, and planned to pass by that very unusual tree, to gather more fruits (and seeds), for growing our super-hedge boundary.... Seemingly the trees set and trimmed into a hedge, can keep horses, deer AND bison out of our property; maybe they'll deter wild boar and porcupine, in a few years...
The window progresses; having made an ample hole for the glass, we (okay, mostly I) jammed some nice stone kind-of-tiles into the side cracks. Fridha the cat had surprised us excessively by appearing in the house even when the door was locked...! Hmf: it was clear that she'd climbed up the ladder and squeezed on through the unfinished sides.... Friiidhaaaaaaaaaa!!
Only space for a mouse to squeeze in, now... Who will find Fridha waiting for them.
The window is functioning incredibly well to keep the wild winds, rain and snow from whipping around us on the inside. It is lovely to be able to (begin to) build up heat during the evenings, from our glorious woodstove. Without it being cancelled out by the hole in the wall, covered as it was for a few months by an old sack 😳😱🥶
Setting just one boundary at a time helps enormously in every sense. We feel calmer and clearer-minded: the clearer vision comes from having this new opening where before was a concrete wall.
Every improvement creates multiple, expansive solutions. We get stronger as we step out of the initial, creative chaos that is a necessary phase of beginning on a new piece of land/ in a new property.
Next phase; curtains.
