Umbria is covered in hills. Most of these hills are still covered in woods. The hills are not suitable for much else, can not imagine anything to grow here. Even the woods grow extremely slowly, you rarely encounter a real big tree. When you do it is a treat!
The woods are thinned every so often. Depending on the woods this can be once every 20 years, but I guess usually more. The woods on the steepest hills are cut less and less because the work is very hard to do and no mechanisation can handle these circumstances. Mules are employed to get the chunks of wood down to civilization (i.e. tractors with huge trailers). The men of whom I always buy wood (for heating) still have mules and use them very often. Such a romantic idea, but the men are not too happy nor proud about it. However, I so far have never yet met a traditional Umbrian being happy about anything!
These pictures were from last week. I enjoyed looking at the neatly stacked wood. Looks a bit like matches fallen from their boxes.
Your comments about traditional Umbrians made me smile!!! I love your blog by the way.