Midnight Salads for All

The stove and the freezer (!) arrived at 9:40 this morning. Right on time. I saw the delivery truck winding its way up the road as I looked out the window and I quickly ran down to the garden to tell Peter. As he came up through the gate he said, "They got in again. They ate all the brussel sprouts, the broccoli, most of the cauliflower and a few artichokes." Our friends, the deer, must've had a feast last night. Damn!
The garden, or l'orto, as well call it here, sits high above the road on a terraced hillside. Peter really thought he had reinforced the fencing well enough on three sides especially after the deer had helped themselves to all the lettuce at the beginning of the summer. As it stands now the garden looks like a very large cage. The back wall of the garden is just that...a 15 foot high stone wall. But there's one spot where the fencing isn't very secure and that's where they got in. Just like in the summer, they smashed a few tomato plants on their way in, but didn't eat any. No pomodori in their salads, I guess.
So Peter's in the garden right now assessing the damage and seeing what he can save and I'm sitting here with the new stove. It's on and so far it has effortlessly sailed up to 450 degrees. What a difference a door makes. The burners..well, 3 work and the tiny little thing doesn't work. I can live with it. Believe me, I can, I can! I didn't watch my old friend go out the door but I did take one last picture of her this morning when Peter went into town to buy the paper. Her tin foil smile lit up that corner of the kitchen.
Here I was all set to write about "Feeding The Man" today and then the beasts got in the way. Oh, they must've had a blast last night. Surprised they didn't knock on the door and ask for some olive oil.
The freezer is a beauty. It's of the chest variety and quite large, too. Now, all we need is for our neighbor Purgatorio to go out and bag a wild boar (are there any other kind?) to put inside. We've wanted a freezer for so long and were so lucky to find it and the stove on the same day. Anyway, it's humming along nicely in the cantina. We thought we'd finally have plenty of room for all our winter vegetables in the new freezer, but now--- well, kind of an O. Henry twist to the story, don't you think?