Two types of guests

I was pleased to have a few guests this fall. Well, actually I did not host them. In the top picture on the left is Chris and Ni, who have a boat tied up in port, sitting at the table on my terrace with Klaus, one of my friends from Germany. Klaus is replaced in the second photo by Lutz, who is another friend from Germany. I made Cincinnati style chili for everyone for pranzo.

Chris and Ni are from California, where Ni was in the development
development business, before he got smart and retired to spend his life between his place in Stockton, a place in Hawaii, and a beautiful catamaran on which they live about six month a year when they come to Italy to visit their daughter and grandchildren.

Unfortunately I will miss them when I am in California in February, however, they have found the port facilities here to be good for their boat, and I look forward to their return in April.

I also had some guests that I was not quite as happy about having come here. I went outside one morning. The early sun had warmed the terrace up nicely, and the floor of the terrace was full of little flies. Because I do spray for insects around the house, they were all in various stages of ill health, and I swept them off the porch. I looked into the garden, and saw dark spots that were caused by them slowly coming out of what must have been their nests. Many were already dead there. I could not help but think of the movies of the plague years, when people would go through the streets with carts, calling 'Bring Out Your Dead'. Initially I thought I had hundreds of these little flies, but later I revised the estimate up to thousands, and tens of thousands. I am not sure, the true number might be millions. The last picture is a shot of some of the dead insect bodies piled up near the steps to my house.

Later, I saw a wild dog come by and eat most of them.

Interesting place to live.