After long days of movement and busying away on the farm my favourite part of the day is after dinner laying in the hammock i have strung up under an olive tree ,the sunsets here are a real sight sometimes.
Swinging in my hammock this landscape spread out before me unchanged by this year or that , thinking about the outside world and all its problems and how they seemed so unimportant and so very far away from this Eden , the next news story and the chatter about it all around just couldn't be heard here ,the worlds tension was long forgotten and my only worry was caterpillars were eating some of my cabbages.
I was glad to be up a mountain in the wilderness and that caterpillar stress was my biggest problem i thought to myself “ man i love this country life”
The concrete parliament of nature
I say "concrete" as it is really the true permanent, the cycle of life, nature itself ,here that is all there is ,wilderness, it does feel like a wild life.
As i say the seasons govern here whether you or i like it or not ,when it rains here it rains inches overnight that can fill the wheelbarrow to the brim , huge drops of rain amazon jungle style rain, very quickly flooding pathways and little parts of the land .The extremity of the seasons here is harsh but it is reassuringly reliable, summer is brutally hot ,winter is mountainous cold.
I could tell this to visitors to the farm on a sunny day here golden green all around, but i see it would be hard for them to imagine the bleakness of Decembers punishing cold on days like that, how it can go from Eden to bleak snowy winter peaks within weeks here ,its like they wouldn't believe me how drastic the seasonal change is, in 40 degree mid summer heat it's hard to imagine the wood stove in the house is going almost nonstop for five months in the colder months.
The pine peaks always stand inviting
Already walking them in my mind
A noisy crow echoes in the valley
All the locals are well prepared for winter and chainsaws cutting firewood are heard all through the October valley ,the first year i wasn't much prepared for winter as I've said but the second year i had the logs stacked,another sense of reassurance and safety ,a good stack of wood piled up ready for winter.
That time of year the woods around the village are still visited daily by the old woman who go to gather their firewood for the day ,the fallen pine branches are enough to fill their wood stoves and the old law here is what wood is on the ground is free for the peasants to use, so many of the old folks still gather the little branches and twigs below the pines to take home for their wood stoves.
It sounds awful in one way, an old lady having to go out in the cold morning to go gather firewood to bring home just to keep warm, yet they seem so healthy and relaxed about the chore they have each year, they don't have a heating bill to worry about the village is surrounded by forest the same like there are fresh water springs in and around the village that the old woman collect water from every few days , neither chore causes much worry or little effort to enjoy their benefits other than a 10 minute walk.
It seems to keep them young anyway they do age well around here, my 75 year nearest neighbour is still hacking away and tending to his vines on his land for his home brew every year ,people have no idea how unchanged some of these old folks lives are ,they mostly all have little veg gardens and few fruit and olive trees, each year the olives go to press and the families oil returns, a year's supply stashed away, oranges are worthless around here in winter.The 60 kilos produced here on the farm you couldn't give away, at that time of year everyone has oranges in this area.
The old man with the vineyard my nearest neighbour, he makes 150 litres of wine a year, every Sunday he tends the vines and the land a little, wine he never buys, he has a years supply right there with his vines, for years he has not bought wine, but he loves to drink it. He inherited the land from his long gone father who planted the vines years ago, vines can live for over a century the oldest ever recorded was over 400 years old. The old man knew that with his vines had a lifetime's supply of wine right there he kept them in good shape year after year just as his father had done, i love the fact his father planted them, he had planted fruit trees also and then years later his son is still enjoying those fruits ,that's such a poetic inheritance i think
Talk about tangents..... i could go on and on, who could think the importance of a few old vines, they really are a great thing to have. This dead looking ancient stump that springs forth juicy grapes each year for a lifetime without even watering them, it's no wonder they have been cultivated for thousands of years. Country people know how easy it really is to make wine they have been doing it all their lives they know the value of these old stumps year after year their families enjoy together their bounties.
The old man my neighbour didn't often find himself in a supermarket queue to pay for his wine but he did go tend his vines on Sundays for a few hours and get a sneaky cup in the sunshine to boot, his storey tells inherent value in a nutshell, it's no exaggeration when i say a lot of the old people here are living a long unchanged way of life ,i was in great company to have such neighbours, as again it proved to me the old ways were the best ways more secure and reliable as they have been tried and tested throughout the generations ,those wise old country ways.
The sheep here on the surrounding slopes of the valley each wear a brass bell quite large in size and such a chorus they create that echoes across my side of the valley in the mornings and evenings i love it, you can hear the occasional shout from the shepherds instructing their sheep and the sound of the bells, give you a Swiss mountain kind of feeling when they are being herded out to graze or herded home at night.
They are friendly folk the shepherds like most of the people around here they have have no particular rush so always have time to stop and chat ,The Artist farm right in the middle of the valley now for two years, they have had time to get used to me and the other weirdos from far away lands that have been here, they all know me and acceptance was a feeling i had from very early days, these old farms are all falling into the pages of history fast and this whole region is full of abandoned homesteads, the locals know this, so seeing some young blood come in and restore some of these forgotten farms and work the land is a welcome sight for them ,they are usually always happy to assist you with advice and i am all ears for it.
It must be said these old shepherds of all people here know the seasons in this region better than anyone else, its all their lifetime, its in their blood line. That`s why they and their families thrive here when other people cannot hack this way of life and the extreme climate, i would gratefully take their advice and follow their ways, when they harvested their olives so did i ,when they pruned the vines i knew it was time to prune the vines on the farm, it was easy lessons for me and i trusted their knowledge above anything i read online as a matter of course.
For me these people were real teachers as they were living in real life what it was i was wishing to learn, the old ways, the country ways, the lay of this new land i had found, the new old way of being. Here no one really has much money but in the pure mountain air those shepherds were rich men living with a beautiful quality of life, yet such a simple one at that, their old but still supple bodies a testament to that quality, most likely due to a lifetime of pure mountain air and stress free living.
Myself i was feeling the benefits of the slopes, the air, the farm and the walks to the spring i was feeling fit all round its really true you lead an active life keeping a farm going but like all things it's just organising and effort, i know its a healthy life because so many of the people who came here in the last two years looked healthier to me when they left, after exercise, plenty of sun, good air and good food, mountain terrains keeps your legs in good order and it trickles up to the rest of you after a while, you cant help but gain better core strength.
I love the country tiredness i get after a day busy around the farm, that feeling of a good days work been done soothes my achy limbs. I would lay them out in the hammock, sit back , smoke and quite often think back on all the back breaking work i did in my lifetime,and how this farm was such an Eden, such an epic labour of love it was. Labour it certainly was and love it indeed i did, i could hardly wait for the next new day to begin.