10 January 2009

Owl in the rafters!

Barbagianni

We went to a house I look after to check on it after the constant rain we have had here in Italy and while I was outside Valerie noticed some spots on the floor upstairs. We had been the last ones in the house in December and had cleaned it before we left. We opened some windows to let in light and upon looking closer realized the spots were bird droppings. How would bird droppings get into a house that has been closed up for several weeks?

We looked in the other rooms and found the culprit…a large brown owl was perched up on the roof rafters watching us. Fortunately there are double patio doors in this room which I quickly opened and after a few tries the owl was able to fly out and off to freedom. How he got into the house is a mystery to us.

When we returned to Ascoli we were telling some friends about this including our local poultry butcher, Dante. Yes - Italy has butchers just for poultry and others for beef. After a few quires to us as to the size and color of the bird the next question from Dante:

“So what did you do with the owl?”

“Well, I was able to open a door, there were double doors leading to a terrace, and eventually it flew out.”

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you catch it?”

“Then what would we do with it, it was no small animal?”

“Bring it back to me and I would have roasted it for you. We could have had roasted owl!”

Silly us! We should have known that Italians would have been thinking of what dish they could make with the owl and probably what kind of wine would go best with it. Roasted owl…what would that taste like?

5 comments:

Carol ReMarks said...

LOL That's funny. Is the house for sale? :-)

Carol ReMarks said...

LOL That's funny. Is the house for sale? :-)

And I am dying to know. How did yo guys get to Italy? What did you have to give up here in the states to move to Italy? What brought you to the conclusion that this is what you wanted to do? What do you do there in Italy? Do you have an ABOUT page explaining all of this? I'd LOVE to know because I'd love to move there as well. I have family of four though with two school aged children so I may wait until they are grown and out on their own. BUT...sometimes I think it'd be great for them to go there too and attend school. They are aged 13 and 12. I don't think I could get my husband to go though. LOL I'd have to get a really good paying job for him to go and I seriously don't think that will happen. Oh well.

Bryan said...

CA - this house is a holiday rental home...you could rent it for a week or more!

It can be a daunting task to move here, you can read all about the process on this blog. On the right column go to "links" and click on "process". If you go to the bottom and follow "older" twice it will get you to the start of our journey.

Anonymous said...

Ewww...roasted owl? Does it taste like chicken? haha

Bryan said...

I thought someone would comment on it tasting like chicken earlier!