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Published: April 11th 2011
Hey everyone,
Jon here reporting on our third and final farm. As a few of you already know, we decided to cut short our plan to stay WWOOFing until May. Actually at this point we have just returned to the United States, but before ending our travel blog I wanted to report on our last farm in Southern Sicily.
Our third farm was located in the city of Paterno, a few miles west of the major Sicilian city of Catania we mentioned in previous blog entries. Unlike our previous Sicilian farm, Paterno is situated at the base of Mt. Etna, thus nowhere near as cold as the second farm. We also had a gorgeous view of the volcano from the farm, which we'll show in a final blog post with pictures. The farm was owned and run by an Italian Professor and his wife. Known as 'the Professor' Paolo was a gracious host who spoke fluent English. We arrived at the farm on Saturday, and had the luxury of that Sunday off to set up and meet the other WWOOFers on the farm. The farm was set up to sustain a larger WWOOFing workforce, with our accommodations and community area/dining room/kitchen all shared, but most importantly away from the main house and self-sustaining. In other words we were back to preparing all our own meals and didn't have to rely on the hosts eating schedules which was a much needed change from the previous farm. We had heard from our Canadian WWOOFer friends (Sean and Frances) that the work on the farm was quite grueling, but the schedule was more to our liking with our afternoons off again. Anyway, when we arrived on the farm we met a Swedish couple with two kids who had been on the farm for over 2 months, an Italian woman from the north, and a fellow american woman from Phoenix. Mary and I had our own room again with a decent electric heater, and for this at least we were happy!
Work started bright and early on Monday morning, our earliest start yet, 7 AM. Before we started on the decided task of the day, we had to feed the animals. Unlike our last two farms, this one had a lot of animals. The farm actually hosts elementary school trips for kids to see and learn about farm animals. The animals included geese (surprisingly very mean and hateful animals), ducks, chickens, donkeys, horses, goats, and last but not least, pigs. We were in charge of the fowl as well as feeding the pigs. Our first trip down to the pig pens was a shocker- I can hear my Muslim friends say 'I told you so' but pigs are filthy animals. The stench of 'pig droppings' shall we say rivals that of human waste. Anyway not a pleasant task, and it only got worse later in the week but I'll get to that a little later. However, there were some newly born baby piglets who were extremely adorable, which made feeding them somewhat enjoyable! After feeding the animals, we were sent down to the orange groves for the first couple days. The farm had 2,000 orange trees which they had been neglecting for a couple years while focusing on other projects, and a lot of the trees were being swallowed by weeds, brush, and other small trees. Our job, since the farm was organic and did not use any chemicals to kill the weeds, was to hoe and dig out each and every tree. It was slow, grueling work but was physically very satisfying. Plus the weather was starting to improve as spring started to make its way to Sicily and the warmth of the sun felt great.
By lunch time we were done, and with the Swedish family there either the wife or husband would prepare lunch for the rest of us. It was a very communal affair, and Mary and I took turns with everyone preparing a shared meal. This farm did not have too much to offer in terms of available farm food, but there was an organic market within walking distance as well as a regular supermarket. The host of the farm would pay you back for any food-related purchases. The Swedish father was actually a baker back in Sweden, and he brought with him a sourdough culture. He had perfected using the outdoor oven which had been built by previous WWOOFers out of an oil barrel and a manure-based clay. He had baked fresh bread the Sunday we arrived, and Mary and I were hell bent on doing a batch for ourselves. Needless to say the bread went fast, so by the middle of the week he guided us during every step as we prepared the new batch. It came out great! Our other success with the oven was baking homemade pizza. The last Saturday we were there we actually had a mini-pizza party with everyone making their own style once I had created the dough, they turned out delicious too!
In the middle of the week, the Swedish family left so for the rest of our time there it was just Mary, myself, and the Italian and American women. The Swedish family was great, but it was a relief to have fewer people there. It was kind of a running joke that they were actually quite dirty, and their kids were hilarious. Ages 1 and a half and 3, they were definitely 'kids of nature.' Allowed to explore a lot of the farm in little to no clothing, their skin looked like dirty leather. They also did a lot of pooping and peeing in communal areas, so once they were gone we did a thorough cleaning and the place smelled a whole lot better! I think we have a picture of the 1 year old eating food, so we'll definitely post that because little to no food actually went into his mouth and most of it ended up all over his body, including his hair. Very funny.
So everything was going great on the farm, and we were so much happier to be there, until the end of the week. We were told by the Professor that a class from a local elementary school was coming the next week, so our tasks for the end of the week included cleaning up the farm. Unfortunately, nobody had checked that the Swedes, who were meant to be taking care of the pigs, were actually doing their job. The horrible pig pens I mentioned earlier were horrible because the Swedes did not clean them once during their entire two month stay! The Professor, on seeing the state of them, was shocked the pigs were even still alive. Soooo the first day we spent moving a large pile of already dried manure onto a tractor trailer, and then unloaded it on their manure pile at another location. The second day we moved a second gigantic pile, and at the same time tackled the pig pens themselves. Needless to say it was DISGUSTING (Mary is interjecting here to emphasize the severity of the disgust associated with the state of the pig pens...the cleaning process could have been adopted by intelligence communities as a torture device), but by the close of that Saturday we were done. At this exact point Mary actually fell sick with a high fever for 4 days, which finally broke, but she had no appetite. She didn't work on our last day there, the Monday, and since is still not better. She goes to the Doctor this Wednesday, but we're thinking she got some sort of parasite or something most probably linked to cleaning out the pig pens.
Despite the end of our farming experience being so brutal, we did thoroughly enjoy our trip and were extremely happy we went. The end of the trip was fantastic as well, we left Sicily and met up with Mary's best friend from VA Beach Des and her boyfriend Lee in Paris. We spent 5 days there before making our way back to Ireland, and then the good 'ol US of A. Thank you to all our farm hosts as well as our family and friend hosts in Ireland, we couldn't have done this trip without you! Also thank you to our families who provided much needed support. Look out for our last blog entry with our final pictures, thank you to all for following our first blog!
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Fred
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The Future?
So . . . after all the great cooking and eating, when are you two opening your own Italian restaurant? I'm assuming you'll hire others to do the clean-up though! Love all the great stories, the pics, the experiences . . . wonderful stuff you two!