Castle Walls they all will fall

As sure as we get sand boats with the first few storms of late fall and early winter, we get mudslides and landslides with the late storms of winter. Roads are undercut, hillsides fall down, in the case of a small town in the Province of Messina, roads are filled with mud and buildings are knocked down. It is all covered in the news, and it is sad, but it happens to someone else, someone we or I do not know.

When I came back from the states, and approached the beach at Baia Ranella, we could see the results of the late winter rains, that gave more water than the already heavy clay soil could take.

Then we got around the corner, and past the beach, and we were able to see the really bad news. Paolo's wall had started to fall down two years ago, and a temporary fix was made, and then the road and cars were 'protected' by a new metal wall. The fix was clearly not permanent enough, and the road up to my apartment was closed. With good reason.
The wall had started to come down, undercut by water going down and out at the bottom, by the water pushing too hard on the top of the wall. The road was gone, undercut by the water that took the low route. The picture above shows part of the roadway that was done in, and further up there was another part that was even worst. The fence to close the area really is to protect cars, so they do not fall into some of the new holes.
There was also damage up above, where Paolo had a terrace area for parking his car next to his summer house. The wall holding up that terrace had given way. A large storage area was destroyed, along with Paolo's amazing collection of broom handles, broom ends, chicken feed mills, plastic buckets, metal buckets, electrical cords, tools, and on and on. It also destroyed his chicken coop, and the roosting area I had helped him build when we first got here. Dogs took care of most of the chickens, although there are still five or six that are running loose in the olive orchard that is between where the coop was and where the wall was.

Paolo is distressed, and so am I. The wall will be rebuilt at great cost to Paolo, and then the road will be rebuilt by the city. Meanwhile, I use a very narrow and curvy road to get into town and back home. That is a minor inconvenience for me. It is very sad about the loss of the chicken coop, the storage area, several olive trees, other fruit trees, and Paolo's chickens. So sad.