Week Sixteen & Seventeen: On the Farm!

On Tuesday the 22nd I had an interesting day. I left the apartment I had stayed at four two nights with some friends, and jumped on a train, not knowing what to expect when I turned up in the middle of Tuscany on a farm, when I had no farming experience and barely able to speak Italian. I slept most of the way there, and I had to change onto a local train after a few hours. At one point there was a delay, so I took the opportunity to walk down to the food car and grab some lunch. Well, after I ate, the over-complementing Italian dude who made the coffees wouldn't leave me alone, and he told me (in Italian) he wanted me to go to his house so he could cook pizza and fish or something. Anyway, after shaking him off, I walked back to my car and asked the old dude sitting next to me if the "prossima fermata" was La Spezia, where I was supposed to change trains. To my horror, he told me I'd missed it. Wonderful.

So after avoiding hysterics, calling my farm host, and asking how to correct my mistake, I finally made it to the tiny train station called Aulla Lunigiana where I was greeted by Valeria, who I assumed probably thought I was an idiot.

We had a friendly conversation (in English) in the car ride through the winding roads to the farm, which put my nerves at ease. She told me I was only the second WWOOFer to ever come to the farm, which is run along with a five-room Bed & Breakfast by herself and her mother Viviana. The land was purchased by her grandfather, and used to produce prosciutto, mortadella and mozzarella, and previously had hundreds of workers and thousands of pigs. Now, however, the two women (with the help of soon-to-be regular WWOOFers) take care of the land which has grape vines (red), olive and fruit orchards, vegetable gardens, and animals including 8 donkeys, 2 pigs, 3 geese, a dozen chickens and a duck.

Finally we arrived and I got settled into my comfy little room!

my little apartment (from the door --> right)
separate from the house



view of the fields from my window :)

and the snow-dusted Alps in the distance


entrance, and house on the right

family house (above) and one of the B&B rooms below

barbecue

After settling in and putting on some shoes, I got to meet and help feed the donkeys and other animals, and helped carry two cardboard boxes full of new chickens to be added to the coop. Luckily for me, the weather was beautiful almost the entire time I was on the farm, while the previous two weeks it had been raining- so I christened my Puma's straight off the bat with plenty of wet donkey poo and mud- welcome to the farm!

donkey dinner time

At 8am the next morning I got up and had a little breakfast in my room, and then Valeria fitted me with some rubber boots as to not further sacrifice the Puma's. I went with Valeria into town to do some food shopping in the morning, and then we came back and did the morning ritual of letting the animals out and feeding the pigs. We also fixed some fences that the donkeys had either chewn through or jumped over, and fixed the electric fence around the enclosure for the pigs, and spent the next 45-minutes or so observing the pigs eat everything in their paths including grass, rocks and donkey crap- and making sure the fence worked when they bumped into it and let out a squeal after they felt the zap. I wasn't close enough to tell if the smell of bacon lingered in the air...

I also got to walk a few of the donkeys, although they usually chose to stop every few feet to eat grass, so it was sometimes a bit of a challenge to keep them moving!

Day two: roped off a new enclosure for the donkeys to graze, replanted zucchini plants into the vegetable garden, fixed weedwhackers and then raked weedwhacker clippings for hours, hid from a 10-minute rainshower under a tree with Valeria, raked more weedwhacker clippings....

there is one chicken which refuses to go in the coop with the others,
and instead likes to wander freely and lay its eggs in obscure places

Viviana cutting a fresh salad

Day three: April 25th is Italy's "Liberation Day," so we just worked until lunch time. I let the geese out and got the goose egg from the cage and let the donkeys out. Then we cleaned up around the entrance area, since there were guests arriving for the B&B during the weekend. We took the tractor into the part of the farm where they used to keep the thousands of pigs, now abandoned buildings- we collected wood and brought it back for the fireplaces, and I got a bit skeeved out for a moment sitting in the tractor bed with all of it, I started to notice ants, beetles and spiders on the wood and then- AH!- a scorpion crawling towards me?!? It was a small black one, and surprised me a bit because I've never seen one in the wild, and didn't expect to see one in Italy. Valeria thought it was funny, and made fun of me a little after that!

After lunch, I took my first "motorino" ride with Valeria and Vevi to the local Liberation Day fair- they had vendors, good fair snacks, animals, and a few rides.

taking pictures of the three of us on the moving scooter!

the thing all of the kids (and older kids) like to play at the fair is "kick in the ass,"
an amped-up chair swing ride turned into a game where a cloth is hoisted into the air
that you must be the first to grab, best to work as a team with the person in front of or
behind you, so they can grab ahold of the chair and kick it as high as they can towards the
cloth! chairs are flying everywhere, people backwards and hanging out of the chairs while the ride
revolves- i don't think it'd ever fly in America!

Vevi on the mini version of the ride!

she almost got it!

During the weekend I took a little side-trip... (see post to come)...

Day Four: I arrived back at the farm on Tuesday the 29th, the only day which it rained for about half of the day. In the morning I went with Valeria to Fivizzano, a main community about 20 minutes away, where we got fruits and vegetables from the market, and other groceries. When we arrived back at the farm, after taking care of the animals we vacuumed and cleaned the apartments where the guests had stayed.



Day Five: Finished preparing the B&B rooms for the new guests (made beds, clean towels)... got distracted for a little while by some escaped donkeys... and in the afternoon I took care of the animals by myself: fed and put the donkeys back in their enclosure, caught all of the chickens and rooster, collected the eggs from the coop, cleaned the goose and duck cages and gave them fresh water, and fed the pigs. After dinner, Valeria taught me how to make home-made ravioli filled with beet greens and ricotta, and also tiramisu.

the geese are vicious- they hiss and honk and try and bite you when you go
near them. you have to threaten them with a stick to get them into their cage.

Day Six: A rainy morning kept us inside finishing up with preparing the apartments, but after lunch (when we sampled our home-made pasta and tiramisu!) we spent the gorgeous afternoon raking more weedwhacker clippings, and then having a little photoshoot with the chickens. Valeria didn't ever pick up the chickens, and thought it was funny that it became my preferred method of getting them back inside their cage at the end of the day!

they turned out so good!

and best tiramisu everrr...

some of the grass i raked in the afternoon

but the donkeys were very happy!




come back!!

i think we've got them all!

Going to the farm was such a great experience. I couldn't have asked for nicer, more accommodating hostesses, more beautiful location, or better food. It was a rewarding way to place a capstone on the whole Italy experience, being in the home of a family and sharing their conversations, meals, and daily routines. I would love to come back someday, as a guest or as a WWOOFer, and revisit this place which will always hold some fond memories!!!

Today Valeria took me to the train station at 6:15, and we shared a cappuccino and a picture before I set off back to Rome :)


Only a few more days before I see you all!!!

WEBSITE OF THE FARM: PODERE LA PIANA