1st Farm in Sicily - Bagolara

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Bagolara

After wonderful Carnevale, we left our hotel in Catania to make our way back up the east coast to our second farm.  We had to get off the main north/south train line at a coastal town to catch a smaller local train that would take us inland and up to the small village of Santa Venera where the farm was located.  As we pulled up to a stop with no signs what-so-ever we were lucky that the train conductor came back and told us we had arrived.  We shlepped our heavy bags off the train and were left in silence as the train pulled away.  All we had was an address for the farm, and we knew it was somewhat close to the train station, so we started looking for street signs.  We were interrupted in our quest by a gigantic herd of sheep that literally took up the entire street we were on, and who were then guided onto the train tracks to meet the same road further down. After asking a gentleman on the side of the road who was also waiting for the "traffic" to clear we learned that the same road was the road we were looking for, so like sheep we followed the herd.  When the train tracks met the road again, we had an decision to make: either up an almost 30-40 degree gradient road or to follow the sheep going down the hill.  With our enormous bags (which weigh in at about 36 kilos each), we hoped the farm was downhill.  Continuing downhill, and not seeing any numbers on the houses, we finally asked one of the sheep herders who told us to our regret that in fact the farm was on top of the hill.  He luckily had a cell phone and knew the people on our farm, and one of them thankfully came down in a car to pick us up.  His name was Nicola, an Italian from the northern city of Torino he quit his job and has become a permanent WWOOFer on the farm.

We arrived on the farm, named Bagolara after the tree with the same name right outside the main door, and met Ebbe and Orazio.  Ebbe was a Dane and fellow WWOOFer who had been there for 3 weeks and was leaving the next day on a planned bike trip all the way back to Denmark!  Orazio was one of the 5 Sicilians mainly from the Catania area who all decided to put their money together and invest in the land with the vision of creating this farm.  Orazio spoke absolutely no English, but Nicola spoke a little English (a little better than my Italian, and for Marys sake we spoke in English with him).  Upon our arrival, Ebbe gave us a tour of the farm which literally sat on the side of this hill overlooking the coast.  Behind us was Mt. Etna, but because the hill was so steep you could only see Etna from the very top where the vineyard was located.  They had chickens (an apparent staple of every farm), two really sweet donkeys, terraced vegetable gardens, countless clementine trees, olive trees, mulberry trees (a cousin to the blackberry), and the aforementioned vineyard with 15,000 vines!  We returned back to the main house, and were given a quick tour.  The house was quite modest with a main living area, a kitchen complete with a large wood-fired oven for weekly bread baking, the WWOOFer room just off the main living room area with no door, and a small shared bathroom in which you weren't allowed to put toilet paper into the toilet since it would clog and instead had to throw it out in a small waste bin right next to it (think about that for a second, yeah gross).  Orazio and Nicola also slept in the house in 'rooms' lofted above both the living room and kitchen respectively.

That night as the temperatures started to drop, they lit up the one small gas heater near the main door, the only source of heat for the entire cold, stone constructed house.  Mary and I quickly began to miss our warm wood-fired stove back at Pirapora, the cold was the only thing we could think about the rest of the night as our hands and feet quickly froze.  On top of that the hours ticked by and no one seemed to be doing anything about dinner.  Ebbe finally asked the other two if he could find out where Cinzia was with the groceries.  Cinzia was our main contact for the farm who Mary had arranged our WWOOFing experience with (and one of the 5 'founders').  She finally showed up a little after 9, and dinner was finally being prepared soon after.  I should preface this with we had become accustomed to eating on our own schedule back at Pirapora as we prepared our own dinner whenever we wanted, and we usually ate around 7.  To now be eating at 9 and sometimes past 10 was a huge change.  By bedtime Mary and I were just thankful to get into our warm sleeping bags which we had been carrying around with us this entire time and finally put to good use!

We awoke the next morning at about 7, and tearing ourselves away from the warmth of our sleeping bags was the hardest thing we've done this entire trip.  We looked like two cocooned butterflies with nothing but our heads poking out.  The next day was brutal- we started by planting strawberries but the only thing we could think about was the whipping cold wind and the sun which teased us by coming out from behind the clouds for a minute or two at a time.  We began to seriously doubt if we could be cold every minute of every day for the next 3 weeks, with our only solace being the warmth of our sleeping bags when we slept at night.  It seemed daunting to say the least.  Not only that but unlike Pirapora when we were done after lunch, they worked all day (which actually, because the house was a freezer, I didn't mind at all).  The house was so cold that night that after my shower, in which I probably used quasi-scalding water to warm up for a little bit, the shock of going back to a low 40s house burned my just healed ears again.  Mary and I began to make immediate plans to go somewhere for the weekend, just at least for something to look forward to and relief from the constant cold, as well as plans to find another farm where we had more control over our eating schedule as well as warmer accommodations.

I should say that although the cold was a shock, the work itself was great.  Where we felt a little 'babied' at Pirapora, here they trusted us to do almost anything they needed done.  For example they were re-plowing one of the terraces in the vegetable garden and asked us to dig up and replant a bunch of garlic.  At Pirapora we helped with the onion planting, but were never actually permitted to plant anything.  In fact we had learned a trick at Pirapora where they cut the long roots of the young onion plants before re-planting so they all face down, and actually suggested doing that to Nicola and Cinzia before we replanted the garlic which they loved.  We also helped build a greenhouse and plant a bunch of seedlings to be transferred to the newly plowed vegetable terraces in the spring.

One of my favorite activities though came near the end of our time there.  The past winter took a toll on a lot of the vines in the vineyard.  The main vine that they use and the one directly planted into the ground is a wild vine able to stand up to the harsh conditions.  However they graft mid-way up the vine a separate higher quality grape.  Thus the main wild vine supports the survival of the plant, while they also get a good quality grape for their wine.  Anyway they have this grafting done by someone else, and our job was to go around the vineyard and replace all the dead vines with the newly grafted vines.  Mary and I had already seen the beginning of the vineyard in the first week when we had to repair the bamboo support structures for newly planted olive trees, but had never made it all the way up.  By all the way up I mean steadily climbing from the base camp that is their house up an incredible gradient to the top of the vineyard, a trip that takes about 20 minutes climbing straight up, elevating at least about 150-200 meters during the climb.  The view from their house was great, but the view from the top of the vineyard was incredible.  We could see 4 other villages tucked into the surrounding land, as well as Mt. Etna behind us.  The air was crisp and most importantly the sun felt warm!  The work involved one of us using a tool they call a 'zappa' (a hoe-type device) to dig up the weeds and grass surrounding each vine plot, another person to come behind and check on the stability of the wood steak that supports the vine as well as make a deep hole into the earth with another heavy iron pole for the new plant, and finally the third to plant the newly grafted vine.  The first day Orazio, Nicola, and I worked the entire morning with Mary joining us in the afternoon.  The next day Nicola, Mary and I finished the work.  Over the course of one and a half days we planted 450 new vines!  Orazio and Nicola had planted 800 vines a few weeks earlier and it took them a whole 5 days, so I could tell they definitely appreciated the help.  I had decided to do the zappa work, and by the end of that first day I was sore to say the least.  However there is such a satisfaction gained from completing hard labor like that, and it was definitely gratifying.  It was also St. Patricks day, so after work we all went down to a local cafe where we enjoyed cold beer and a ridiculous amount of Sicilian sweets.  Diego, another one of the founders who still has his day job, picked sweet after sweet for Mary and I to try- we felt like a bunch of fat kids after gorging on endless amounts of pastry goodness.

Another highlight of our time there was baking bread.  As I mentioned they did have a wood fired oven that they used for this exact purpose.  Mary and I took turns kneading the bread dough, and then they popped about 12-15 loaves into the oven to bake.  The first night we did this we had what Sicilians call 'condiment sandwiches' which were made with olives, lots of cheese, olive oil, anchovies, and that fresh out of the oven bread.  Delicious!  The second time they made bread Mary had the great idea to grate some fresh cinnamon with a little sugar and butter into one of the loaves before it was baked, and we ended up with delicious cinnamon bread that the others seemed to enjoy as well!  

To jump back to the first week, Mary and I survived the cold and thanks to a generous Mr. Knoop we were able to go back to our favorite Sicilian town Acireale and stay in our now favorite hotel and local hang out spot, Santa Canterina, with a warm room and normal toilet.  I must say we have certainly learned to appreciate so many things we take for granted in the US, like sleeping in a warm room.  In the first week we also knew we couldn't stay at Bagolara for the entire 3 weeks, so we contacted our friends and fellow WWOOFers Sean and Frances who had continued on to another farm in Sicily after Pirapora.  They recommended this other farm in Sicily, and since it wasn't far away from Bagolara we decided to see if they had any space for us two.  In turns out they did, so Mary and I decided to spend our final 10 days in Italy there.  All in all it has been an adventure to say the least!  We will describe more of our time on this second Sicilian farm in a later post as we have just arrived.

Ciao tutti!                                

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Comments

[Pam]

The Cold
Boy, could I ever relate in terms of not being able to stand it, thank goodness you were able to find another farm. That toilet situation was disgusting as well, glad you moved on, but you had some worth-while experiences there in terms of the work. Can't wait to hear more, LOVE, M/P