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| Me, looking boss in my work clothes, with the "Cow's Cows". |
Wow it has been such a week, such a fantastic week! It’s amazing to think I’ve only been living
here for 8 days, and I am glad there are still so many ahead of me.
Work has been great and I’m starting to get into the rhythm
and flow of the feeding schedule.
Spannocchia, the agricultural estate where I live and work (which has
been a working farm for the last 500 hundred years) is pretty huge, albeit not
as huge as it once was. It is currently
1,100 acres.
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| The "Cappa Nonne" cows enjoying some delicious hay |
A little backround, for centuries Spannocchia was farmed
using the mezzadria system of crop-sharing.
Mezzo means “half” and the farmers who used to live here (in the very
house I now inhabit) would grow half their food for themselves and half for the
landowners. Was it a perfect
system? No. But nevertheless there are aspects of it,
namely the method of raising animals are crops sustainably, that the owners of
Spannocchia have choosen to maintain and educate people about. We are also organic, if that hasn't been made apparent.
So, Spannocchia is huge and wooded and the first day working
here we drove around the dirt roads and boom! would stumble upon a huge fenced
off area full off pigs, seemingly in the middle of the woods. But that didn’t just happen once, it happened
like five times. And after that first day
of work I couldn’t imagine trying to remember all the different “feed areas”
(pronounced like it’s one word ‘fee-DER-ia’, with an Italian accent, if you
will). Now, it feels like I’ve been
driving around to these feederias every day since I was born. Creature of habit, I suppose.
During farm work hours (Monday and Thursday from 8 a.m. til
1 and Tuesday, Wednesday ‘til five with a lunch break) we cruise around and
feed everybody, which takes about two and a half hours in the morning, and then
do other projects like fixing electrical fences that the cinghiale (wild boar)
destroy.
On Thursday morning a government veterinarian showed up to
take some blood samples from the pigs, so we had to wrangle each one while he
stuck a very fine needle in its jugular to collect the blood. The pigs screamed like all hell, and at first
it all seemed very cruel, but in reality it was just 2 minutes of
unpleasantness in a lifetime of running free outdoors and eating--their
favorite activity. All in all, these
pigs have it pretty good. Next Friday I
am going to help castrate some of the boars though, and that will surely be
interesting.
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| One of the sows eating slop. Only the sows who recently had piglets get this delectable treat. They need it to produce all that pig milk! Mmmmm pig milk. |
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| Me and one of the week-old piglets |
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| Ricky "Ricardo" Richard |
One of the best things about my job is Ricardo, my dear, dear co-worker. Richard is from D.C. and is one of the most kind, well mannered, hard working and piss-your-pants funny people I have ever met. I already feel like he is one of my close friends, but not like that I assure you all. Anyway, working with him is so much fun.
We are the animali team and we take care of the heritage breeds of Tuscan animals Spannocchia has. I apologize if I am repeating myself. We kind of have the most responsibility of all the interns, and we definitely work the longest hours, but I couldn't be happier with my job placement.
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| Here I am with 'il pickup', the funky little standard Skoda we drive around all day |
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| #selfie, crusising like a couple of thugs in the afternoon sun |
The weather in the past few days has taken a turn for the beautiful, and it tops out at about 67 degrees fahrenheit. I can't wait for it to keep getting warmer, the sunset to keep getting later, and to keep learning more about this ancient and magical place all the while. At this moment in my life things feel infinitely open and possible. I am very happy.
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