Advertisement
Published: April 13th 2009
Edit Blog Post
My first few days on the farm
Today was the second day that I spent on the farm, Bel Air. My first day I potted young yellow tomatoes, planted comfrey, and cleared land around the chestnut trees. Later this week the trees will be grafted so as to produce more fruit. Chestnut trees were cultivated by the monks in this region in the middle ages but they were eventually abandoned once a blight struck and silk worms became a preferred business (a blight also struck in the US which is why chestnut wood is so rare, luckily the sickness here is controllable). The farm house in which Paul lives had in fact housed silk worms at one point, as they made their valuable cocoons. Paul and his family settled here fourteen years ago and he has been working the land and the house for ten years.
The first day of work I felt invigorated and alive. The air was clear, the view unbearably wide and beautiful and the work good for my hands and soul. The second day however has left me wonderfully exhausted. Today I merely cleared more land preparing for the grafting and burned the saplings
that couldn’t be used and had to be cut down. Some of the trees on the farm are 500 years old and have saplings shooting out of stumps attached to a root system that has perfected its means of absorbing water so the little trees come up fast.
A large fire was started and took me the better part of twenty minutes to get going. The trimmed trees, farm debris, and dry leaves were all added to the pile to burn. I was constantly attacked by smoke and ash and had to keep my head down so the brim of my hat would block the onslaught. At one point Paul said I should try to stay out of the smoky area. I looked at him and replied that that was exactly what I had been doing but that the damn smoke kept following me. He laughed, nodded, and went on with cutting down small trees.
Aria, the boxer/sheep dog mix, spent much of her time following me around. I picked a good stick for her and kept her entertained (i.e. kept her from running off and killing the neighbors chickens ) while keeping up my
pace. I managed to clear quite a bit of the cut saplings and got into a silent rhythm. I didn’t need to speak and I didn’t need to think, I fell into a meditative state that involved only my body and my intention to grab, drag, and burn.
“Do you have the zen of it?” asked Paul at one point in the morning, “You know, you don’t have to think about anything. You just do it.” He said. I agreed and said that I had in fact gotten the zen of it.
We worked from 8:00am until around noon when Atoussa arrived with the kids, Robert and Susana (friends of ours visiting from the US that we had met in Peru). With them came lunch! We rested for about an hour and a half and enjoyed lentil soup with ginger, potatoes and leeks, a dark, grainy bread accompanied by three different regional cheeses, local apples, our very own organically grown lettuce and a cabbage salad. I sipped on red wine and listened to conversation, too tired to actually add anything remotely interesting.
Robert asked to help out and Paul left to take Leo, his oldest son, to
a birthday party. I showed Robert the gist of what we were working on and we too fell into an easy rhythm. The fire was no problem now; the heat came off of it within five feet and would eat anything you threw upon it even if it the branches were wet or green. After three days of rain it was nice to see a sunny sky and to feel a brisk wind kicking up. I savored the view of the mountains with their terraces. Those terraces might have been built hundreds of years ago by people gone to dust and yet the stone walls remained, the backs holding up the sides of mountains. Such are the works of man, that they outlive him.
Waterfalls could be seen and heard in the distance. They speckled the land and their cheery voices were filled by the distant call of the Cuckoo bird. I had joked that someone either had a love for clocks or the bird just loved to be heard. Paul mentioned that the bird had migrated from Africa and returned to the region for the spring and said they called it a Whokoo bird.
I worked in a steady,
mindless fashion for another hour or two until Paul told me that I had done my hours for the day and could retire and chat with the women. Instead of joining Atoussa and Susana I went inside and collapsed in a chair for a while. Aidan, Pauls, youngest scooted in and out of the house as he got water and then went off in search of trees to climb and Leo, Paul’s middle child, sang a lullaby jokingly until I grabbed at him to tickle him. Cheyene stayed outside to play mostly. The boys had made a seesaw and the point of the thing apparently was to see who could knock who off first. Whenever I was outside nearby I kept a weary eye and told them to move anything around them that could cause a head injury. But boys are boys. They were up and down and all around throughout the day.
Atoussa announced that we would be returning to her house for rest before dinner. Robert, Susana, Cheyen, and I piled into the car and Atoussa drove us the short distance back into the village. We arrived promptly. Robert and Susana had a moment together outside but
I couldn’t wait, the only thing on my mind was the hot shower waiting to beat down upon my weary shoulders and head.
I am glad to be tired. Perhaps tonight I will have a sounder sleep.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.171s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1007s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
goldberry
non-member comment
sounds wonderful lindsey! makes me hungry for some good garden grown greens! (: i hope the work is going well, I'm sure after awhile it will become easy and second hand knowledge for you. i was reading some of robert's book you lent me, and it's really interesting. i looked for his website and found his website/blog, and was delighted to find that he had recently walked the camino de santiago as well. how strange things are connected in this way. my plan hopefully, is to graduate, hike the AT in virginia, go to wisteria summer solstice festival, meet starhawk and psst maybe get you a signed book, new hampshire, move out ):, vacation with family, and quite possibly Maine to wwoof until it gets cold. then who knows? go west? not sure. got your address, will send stuff soon.