Autumn-Winter around the Drava river

In spring and summer, the marshes and the old branches of the Drava river are teeming with life and sounds. Insects, amphibians, fish and birds coexist in a sort of balance, and produce a great background noise (I also recorded it).

Perhaps the first thing you notice, with the approach of autumn and winter, is the silence that surrounds these places. And the cold naturally. 

You only hear the wind rustle in the dry reeds, and you can see the golden sun in the evening.

Usually the cold winter freezes the surface of the marshes, and once you were skating on the ice. This year has never been very cold, and this was not possible.

One autumn day we went fishing at Stara Drava (Old river Drava), and my uncle called us in his little shelter on the shore. He had prepared a snack based on bread and lard. With a little paprika sprinkled over it. Just as it once was: in summer with slices of fresh pepper, and in winter with powdered paprika.

When I was little, my cousins were constantly eating bread and lard. As my mother and her sisters did. As soon as you are a little hungry, and the meal is still distant: bread, lard and paprika. What else?

I have to tell the truth: I never ate bread and lard until that morning, by the old river. Fresh bread and homemade lard, what is still a little grainy and slightly yellowish. Not like what you find to buy now, which is ice white and smooth as a face cream.

It was a wonderful experience. The emotion of feeling on the palate, all of a sudden, the smells of my grandmother's kitchen.