EcoG in Ascoli

This week I have so many things to look forward to, not to mention the great week that just passed. 

Next week I will start an internship teaching English to Italian elementary students which will be a great experience, and hopefully they will help me with my Italian! 

I am leaving tonight for Munich to go to Oktoberfest for the weekend. Even though the forecast is not in our favor, this is going to be an amaaazing weekend. Hopefully I will remember my camera charger this time...

This past week I found the little cafe I had been searching for since I got to Ascoli when I accidentally got lost and found it. I'm not telling anyone where it is so I can have time to come here and relax when I want to have some time to myself. Its hidden and in a little garden area... so basically its perfect. 

Top: The table Mario, Fernanda, Monica and Roberto graciously opened to us for lunch

Middle left: the massive pile of dried chick peas which we then took out of their pods. We only collected 1 kilo of ceci for tomorrows lunch

Middle right: freshly made ricotta cheese which we bought to sample today and we will have as part of tomorrows lunch when we return

Bottom left: cooking lesson from Mario!

Top: pomodori (tomatoes), peperoni (bell peppers), sedano (celery), fiore di zucchini (zucchini flowers), ceci (chick peas)

Middle left: polli (chickens) (that we didn't eat) 

Middle right: just some of the food we picked for our lunch that we cooked!

Bottom left: Nio, the horse who provides the only fertilization used on the farm

Today we spent the day working on a 100% all natural permaculture farm. Two families live on the property; Mario and Fernanda, and Monica, Roberto and their son. They do not use a single chemical on their 3 hectares of land. They live almost completely off of the food they grow; which they don't sell, but trade with other local farmers. We went around with baskets, gloves and knives and were able to pick out our favorite fruits and vegetables so we could make lunch later in the day. There were tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, olives, grapes... if you want it, they probably have it. We were asked if anyone wanted to have chicken with lunch, but were then told if we wanted to eat it we had to kill it. We opted for a vegetarian lunch.

We learned about their horse Nio, whose "shit" they put in their compost piles to use as their only fertilizer for their land. They weren't shy about calling it like it was. They showed us their "lake" which was a large collection pool for rain water that they use to irrigate their land through a series of tubes that flow down through the hills of the farm. The pool never gets emptied or cleaned, because the life that grows in it is all beneficial towards the plants.

Once we collected everything for lunch, we laid it out and decided what to cook. For the next hour or so, we all cooked together everything we had just picked. We had 3 kinds of pasta: pesto and green beans, tomato with eggplants, and a cold pasta salad with peppers, cucumber and sunflower seeds. There was also a zucchini dish made with eggs (from the chickens) and a hot pepper spread. Everything that wasn't from their farm, was given to them by a local farmer.

After we ate and ate, we separated anything left on the plates for either the horse or the chickens. Nothing went in the garbage. I made juice out of the leftover watermelon which we had later in the day as a snack, while other people helped wash dishes and get ready for the next activity of the day. We spent some time gathering wood for the oven we will use to bake bread that we started to make today. We took a break to drive to another local cheese maker to get some fresh ricotta. We briefly learned how she makes it, but the best part was when we got to eat it on bread made from the cereal grown on the farm. Don't forget the jams from the fruit they grow too. If you like chick peas, appreciate the convenience of them coming from a can. Each chick pea is individually packed in a pod that comes on a hay like straw. We collected 1 kilo of dried chick peas. Christian said, "We are strengthening our patience".

Once we finished the days tasks, we all gathered around the table once more to discuss our favorite parts of the day and what we looked forward to tomorrow. It was hard to pick one thing that was my favorite part; picking the food? cooking it? I decided it was their generosity in inviting us into their home to teach us about their way of life and how rewarding it is for not only themselves, but for the Earth as well. Fernanda talked about our responsibility to the Earth and how we should leave it better than how  we came into it. It took them a lot of hard work to get to where their land is now, but if people realized how rewarding permaculture is, we can still change the path that we are headed down. I wasn't sure how I would like being put to work on a farm early on a Saturday morning, but this experience was one I wouldn't trade for anything.