FARM. Shake the Dust On.
I am unearthing writing and reflections from ten years ago when I had just graduated college. With great fortune, I ended up on a farm in Tuscany for the Fall season of 2014. I had sent out emails while there to my family and my few closest friends that Fall. I just found out these emails I shared had been forwarded and actually inspired someone to come on my first Bella Vita retreat a decade later to this same farm and experience that was so impactful for me ten years ago. In that light, I have found and am sharing my writing from that Fall, as both a reminder to myself and perhaps something of use to others. These posts are unedited - double spacing after periods and all.
Written: September 9, 2014 / Part 5 of working on a Tuscan Farm
Shake the Dust On
It’s only day 2 of a regular schedule, but signs of our work here at Spannocchia are visible. My once crisp Carhart work jeans are now sufficiently dirtied and stretched out from my exertions pulling weeds: me versus the root in a deep squat position in the asparagus patch. The string beans we harvested made an appearance in our dinner last night, and we took some fresh parsley and basil from the garden to accompany our lunch feast today.
Garden work is just that, work. Take, for example, searching for green beans (fagiolini) in their thick bushels; you’re not quite sure if you’re looking at a string bean or a stalk of the plant. It takes a long time to sort through the thick plants, which must seem like the most dense forest to any small, crawling creature, all while in an awkward sitting or squatting position. Or, take weeding around the beautiful azaleas. Then there’s harvesting the zucchini, carrying loaded crates from place to place. Weeding the dried vine beans and using the wheelbarrow to take them to compost pile a ways off. Harvesting the sumptuous and plump eggplant (melanzanna) - which turned up in the incredible red sauce for our pasta tonight. Weeding the leek bed. Crushing parasitic snails under foot. Taking buckets to the compost. Shelling dried cannellini beans. Harvesting the butternut squash, some that are as tall as my hip and feel half as heavy as I. Weeding the asparagus patch from small trees that are taller than me and have their roots so deeply entrenched into the ground you are sure that they could give the most stubborn person you know a run for their money. Weeding. Harvesting. Compositing. Weeding. Weeding. Sweating. Bugs. It’s no misnomer - farm work is work. There’s no way to shake the dust off here. You gotta embrace it and shake the dust on, dirt driven into the fingernail beds and all.
Luckily, the work is satisfying - practically instantaneously. Pull a weed and it comes out, hopefully with the root intact. You can see a visible difference - the progress you're making to some end goal. You know how, you know why, and you just do it hour by hour. I feel like oftentimes farming has a misconception about that it is a simple work and that it doesn’t take much thought. On the contrary - I believe farming to be some of the most introspective work possible. You’re there in the dirt and you have a rhythm, a sort of melodic process that you are performing that allows you to think about pretty much everything. My mind takes me to people I am missing or maybe a small dilemma I am facing. Sure, I may not be solving world hunger or philosophizing about the Big Bang Theory, but my mind is busy and relaxed all at the same time. My body is moving and accomplishing something. I feel satisfied.
Then there’s the food. I haven’t quite found the words to describe it properly yet, but having a plate served to you that contains string beans that you picked just hours ago, bending over for hours and searching through the thick bushes, are now feeding yourself and others … It is joy, satisfaction, appreciation all jumbled up in one delicious bite.
After a long day of weed, harvest, weed, sweat, weed, weed, I went over to the dried cannellini beans and wanted to work just a little bit more. The easy snap of the tan, crisp shell along the spine and easy release of these white pearls into a bowl is, strangely enough, a form of enjoyment and the first thing I want to do after a day of work. As I slipped my boots off, removed my damp and dusted socks, rolled up my now not-so-clean Carharts and slipped my feet in the pool, I thought about if this is something I want to do for the rest of my life. This constant cycle, and some even call it a battle, of weed, weed, harvest, toil, weed, eat. It’s only day 2. But it’s something that is definitely at the front of my mind as I go through the cycle of my day and one of my meditative thoughts as my hands rhythmically pull, pluck and pull some more.
