Hi friends and family!
I have started a new blog, specifically pertaining to my WWOOFing and explorations into urban sustainability.
www.urbanwwoofer.blogspot.com
If you are interested in learning how one builds a rooftop garden; manages worms under an apartment counter; uses a bicycle for a primary means of transportation; and all around tries to live more ecologically, check it out!!
Peace, Love and Compost,
Alex
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
WWOF Italy: WWOOFer Turned Host
May 10 2011
Andrea: 29, Torino native, followed his father's career of financial analysis, began to travel, and woke up. Quit working with his father, WWOOFed in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. Has not really worked for four years as he tries to figure out the world. In the meantime, has WWOOFed on over twenty Italian farms, one in every region. Between farms, returns home to Torino to bring back to life his grandfather's country home, its garden, and hundreds of hazelnut trees. Now considering hosting WWOOFers of his own. Still not quite sure if he is ready to live this life on the farm permanently--at the age of twenty-nine choosing isolation with the threat of almost no income and all neighbors over the age of sixty is a difficult decision to make--but he is surely trying.
I met him on my WWOOFing travels and told him that I would come to his farm to help him out, so at the end of my time on Finocchio Verde, I joined him in the country. His life there is not glamorous, and it is not easy. When I see someone older doing it, especially surrounded by a WWOOFer or two, it seems beautiful and exciting, but when I see someone else my age doing it, it somehow seems melancholic. Waking up everyday by yourself to water plants, all so that you can eat the fruits of your labor...by yourself. I never will be able to do something like this alone. As one who is dependent upon sociality, community is of the utmost importance for me. That said, I applaud him. He is slowly fitting into the lifestyle, but young and restless like me, he knows that there is a small part of him that still has the disposition to up and move to Cuba and leave everything. On the farm, he is slowly working his own land and perhaps spending more time with his eighty-three year old neighbor, not only helping but learning from his experience.
I wish I had his guts! ...I also wish I had his grandfather's empty country house to inherit. I would set it up to become a WWOOFers paradise, find some way to make income (maybe first write a "grant" request to WWOOF Italy, asking for start up cash, and then instead of selling nuts from the trees as commodities, baking hazelnut cakes or making hazelnut butters to sell in the local town, at the churches, and in Torino.) As is the case with almost any commodity, selling hazelnuts alone pays next to nothing; you need some sort of markup, for better or worse.
I would return to Italy to help a fellow WWOOFer make an idea like this come to life! We already talked about getting married: for me a European passport would be convenient, and likewise for him with an American passport. Neither of us are very keen on traditional marriage in life, anyway, in the meanwhile we might as well use the institution for something mutually beneficial, yeah?
Andrea: 29, Torino native, followed his father's career of financial analysis, began to travel, and woke up. Quit working with his father, WWOOFed in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. Has not really worked for four years as he tries to figure out the world. In the meantime, has WWOOFed on over twenty Italian farms, one in every region. Between farms, returns home to Torino to bring back to life his grandfather's country home, its garden, and hundreds of hazelnut trees. Now considering hosting WWOOFers of his own. Still not quite sure if he is ready to live this life on the farm permanently--at the age of twenty-nine choosing isolation with the threat of almost no income and all neighbors over the age of sixty is a difficult decision to make--but he is surely trying.
I met him on my WWOOFing travels and told him that I would come to his farm to help him out, so at the end of my time on Finocchio Verde, I joined him in the country. His life there is not glamorous, and it is not easy. When I see someone older doing it, especially surrounded by a WWOOFer or two, it seems beautiful and exciting, but when I see someone else my age doing it, it somehow seems melancholic. Waking up everyday by yourself to water plants, all so that you can eat the fruits of your labor...by yourself. I never will be able to do something like this alone. As one who is dependent upon sociality, community is of the utmost importance for me. That said, I applaud him. He is slowly fitting into the lifestyle, but young and restless like me, he knows that there is a small part of him that still has the disposition to up and move to Cuba and leave everything. On the farm, he is slowly working his own land and perhaps spending more time with his eighty-three year old neighbor, not only helping but learning from his experience.
I wish I had his guts! ...I also wish I had his grandfather's empty country house to inherit. I would set it up to become a WWOOFers paradise, find some way to make income (maybe first write a "grant" request to WWOOF Italy, asking for start up cash, and then instead of selling nuts from the trees as commodities, baking hazelnut cakes or making hazelnut butters to sell in the local town, at the churches, and in Torino.) As is the case with almost any commodity, selling hazelnuts alone pays next to nothing; you need some sort of markup, for better or worse.
I would return to Italy to help a fellow WWOOFer make an idea like this come to life! We already talked about getting married: for me a European passport would be convenient, and likewise for him with an American passport. Neither of us are very keen on traditional marriage in life, anyway, in the meanwhile we might as well use the institution for something mutually beneficial, yeah?
WWOOF Italy: WWOOFing Without Work
8 May 2011
It can happen that a farmer has too many workers at once with not enough work for them to do. At times six WWOOFers will request to come in a certain period and in the end only one will show up, and at other times every single one will decide to come, making it difficult to get the numbers exactly right. WWOOFers coming and going, depending on the farm, can be difficult on a farmer, as each time new ones need to be trained. That is why on this farm, the host requests a minimum of a three week stay. Then the WWOOFer begins to understand his place and can work without needing guidance.
Unfortunately, I have not reached that point, here. Everyday, when I ask, “what needs to be done today?” I can tell that the farmer and his wife avoid it; they would prefer not to have to find a job for us or stop to show us. Today, for example, I have done nothing. All morning I sat and waited for a job, and finally I got one in the garden about a half hour before lunch. Right after lunch, however, it began to rain, right away ending garden work for the rest of the day.
It can happen that a farmer has too many workers at once with not enough work for them to do. At times six WWOOFers will request to come in a certain period and in the end only one will show up, and at other times every single one will decide to come, making it difficult to get the numbers exactly right. WWOOFers coming and going, depending on the farm, can be difficult on a farmer, as each time new ones need to be trained. That is why on this farm, the host requests a minimum of a three week stay. Then the WWOOFer begins to understand his place and can work without needing guidance.
Unfortunately, I have not reached that point, here. Everyday, when I ask, “what needs to be done today?” I can tell that the farmer and his wife avoid it; they would prefer not to have to find a job for us or stop to show us. Today, for example, I have done nothing. All morning I sat and waited for a job, and finally I got one in the garden about a half hour before lunch. Right after lunch, however, it began to rain, right away ending garden work for the rest of the day.
WWOOF Italy: More on Agritourisms
7 May 2011
At this farm the agritourism was added seven years ago in addition to a small garden, olive trees, vinyard, the sheep and goats, the cheese production, and the bees. Agritourism in Italy can mean two things: or beds for a stay and/or a restaurant. Here they have both. Beds cost about 25€ per person and meals about 15 €. The few beds that they do have are secondary, though; most people come for the restaurant. The “restaurant” is basically the dining room where the family always eats. Everyone in the restaurant eats together at the same time and at the same table, and unless there is no room, the family and the WWOOFers join them. There is one meal and I doubt that guests are told what it will be in advance: basically they come to be fed by Mario and Isa. Most of the food comes from the farm: cheeses, sausages (made on the farm from pig meat bought from a local farmer), handmade pasta, veggies from the farm (in this season all wild growing greens), and a dessert (typically some variation on ricotta from the farm). In my experience, this farm is fairly atypical. While agritourism restaurants are obliged to use 70% of their own production in the restaurant, it seems that it rarely happens. In my interviews, in fact, this has sort of been the joke: that agritourisms rarely follow through with the goals and government criteria for agritourisms, mainly because there is nobody checking up on them.
The weekend is when most guests come to eat. This past Sunday at lunch, for example, we had a couple of two, a group of three, and a group of eleven. Lunch lasted from about 1:30 until 5:00. We, the WWOOFers, helped prepare, serve, and clean up the entire ordeal. If we had not been there to help, I do not know if such an agritourism would be possible with a farm that still functions so smoothly.
At this farm the agritourism was added seven years ago in addition to a small garden, olive trees, vinyard, the sheep and goats, the cheese production, and the bees. Agritourism in Italy can mean two things: or beds for a stay and/or a restaurant. Here they have both. Beds cost about 25€ per person and meals about 15 €. The few beds that they do have are secondary, though; most people come for the restaurant. The “restaurant” is basically the dining room where the family always eats. Everyone in the restaurant eats together at the same time and at the same table, and unless there is no room, the family and the WWOOFers join them. There is one meal and I doubt that guests are told what it will be in advance: basically they come to be fed by Mario and Isa. Most of the food comes from the farm: cheeses, sausages (made on the farm from pig meat bought from a local farmer), handmade pasta, veggies from the farm (in this season all wild growing greens), and a dessert (typically some variation on ricotta from the farm). In my experience, this farm is fairly atypical. While agritourism restaurants are obliged to use 70% of their own production in the restaurant, it seems that it rarely happens. In my interviews, in fact, this has sort of been the joke: that agritourisms rarely follow through with the goals and government criteria for agritourisms, mainly because there is nobody checking up on them.
The weekend is when most guests come to eat. This past Sunday at lunch, for example, we had a couple of two, a group of three, and a group of eleven. Lunch lasted from about 1:30 until 5:00. We, the WWOOFers, helped prepare, serve, and clean up the entire ordeal. If we had not been there to help, I do not know if such an agritourism would be possible with a farm that still functions so smoothly.
WWOOF Italy: Agritourism
4 May 2011
My fifth and final WWOOF farm! I have arrived to Finocchio Verde, a farm, agritourism in Murazzano, Italy, in the beautiful Piemonte. “Piemonte” is so called because it literally sits at the “foot of the mountains,” or the Alps. That said, it has been so overcast that I have not yet seen the glorious mountains that are supposedly surrounding us!
This is what an agritourism should be. The family consists of Isa and Mario, sixty or so sheep, forty or so goats, one horse, six or so cats (including a black one named Obama and his sister named Hillary), and six or so dogs. Then there are the WWOOFers...somewhere around seven of us, currently. There are three permanent WWOOFers (not including the three year old horror who is the child of one of them) and four short term ones currently.
Then the agritourism itself only has four beds. Four. They are available when Mario and Isa feel like having guests…and not when they do not. The agritourism also has a restaurant, where guests eat along with the family and the WWOOFers, all at the same big table. This also is open when Mario and Isa feel like hosting…and not when they do not.
Agritourism was created as a government supported concept to help farmers who may otherwise have to leave the land to find a way to support themselves. Often, you see agritourisms with something like fourteen beds (the only excuse, according to Mario, is that they must become consumed with the idea of making money). In those cases, though, either the agriculture becomes secondary, or they must hire outside help for the agritourism, OR they must hire outside help from a farmer to take over the farm responsibilities. These results of farms turned agritourism annul the agritourism's original goal, to make the farm more financially sustainable as it is. At my first agritourism in Gubbio, for example, the farm was completely secondary and completely taken care of by hired outside help, completely in contrast with agritourism's original goal.
For Isa and Mario, it is serving its exact purpose of making their farm more financially sustainable, but it is not being exploited beyond that. They are able to sell their products to their customer, but selling prepared salad in a meal that costs fifteen Euros a person is economically much better than selling it at a commodity price or not selling it directly through a market. Also, it gives them the opportunity to gain customers who will come back and continue to purchase their cheese and meat, their main products, in the future. The agritourism has not been so overwhelming that it has forced them to hire more help or give up parts of their farm work, such as the bees or the garden, but it has helped them make ends meet.
My fifth and final WWOOF farm! I have arrived to Finocchio Verde, a farm, agritourism in Murazzano, Italy, in the beautiful Piemonte. “Piemonte” is so called because it literally sits at the “foot of the mountains,” or the Alps. That said, it has been so overcast that I have not yet seen the glorious mountains that are supposedly surrounding us!
This is what an agritourism should be. The family consists of Isa and Mario, sixty or so sheep, forty or so goats, one horse, six or so cats (including a black one named Obama and his sister named Hillary), and six or so dogs. Then there are the WWOOFers...somewhere around seven of us, currently. There are three permanent WWOOFers (not including the three year old horror who is the child of one of them) and four short term ones currently.
Then the agritourism itself only has four beds. Four. They are available when Mario and Isa feel like having guests…and not when they do not. The agritourism also has a restaurant, where guests eat along with the family and the WWOOFers, all at the same big table. This also is open when Mario and Isa feel like hosting…and not when they do not.
Agritourism was created as a government supported concept to help farmers who may otherwise have to leave the land to find a way to support themselves. Often, you see agritourisms with something like fourteen beds (the only excuse, according to Mario, is that they must become consumed with the idea of making money). In those cases, though, either the agriculture becomes secondary, or they must hire outside help for the agritourism, OR they must hire outside help from a farmer to take over the farm responsibilities. These results of farms turned agritourism annul the agritourism's original goal, to make the farm more financially sustainable as it is. At my first agritourism in Gubbio, for example, the farm was completely secondary and completely taken care of by hired outside help, completely in contrast with agritourism's original goal.
For Isa and Mario, it is serving its exact purpose of making their farm more financially sustainable, but it is not being exploited beyond that. They are able to sell their products to their customer, but selling prepared salad in a meal that costs fifteen Euros a person is economically much better than selling it at a commodity price or not selling it directly through a market. Also, it gives them the opportunity to gain customers who will come back and continue to purchase their cheese and meat, their main products, in the future. The agritourism has not been so overwhelming that it has forced them to hire more help or give up parts of their farm work, such as the bees or the garden, but it has helped them make ends meet.
WWOOF Italy: WWOOFers Helping to Make Ends Meet
26 April 2011
Giancarlo lives alone in the house he grew up in..."alone" with an average of six WWOOFers at any given time. He has mainly olive trees, a garden, and an organic produce box drop off business. In essence, alone, this man organized with other local organic farms, gained clients, and now drops off boxes, general and upon request, every Wednesday and Thursday at people's doorsteps. It is a fabulous business, and it is amazing that he has somehow made it run so smoothly. It perplexes me the complexity of what he organized, and even more it perplexes me how he ever managed before the help of WWOOFers, which he has only had for the past eight months.
He needs to prepare how much produce to order every week because, only using organic, seasonal produce, the actual products change week to week and season to season. He then emails everyone who purchases a personalized box with the list on Sunday, and prepares a spreadsheet based on their requests on Monday. On Tuesday, he picks up all of the produce from several different farms, organizes it into different boxes, picks and prepares the produce from his own farm, and loads his truck for the drop offs the next morning. Wednesday he spends about ten hours dropping off boxes, returns home to prepare more, and has a shorter drop-off of more boxes on Thursday. The planning and the paperwork he does to prepare all of this is spread out through the entire week. This work consumes a good four and a half FULL days for him, so without the help of WWOOFers, I cannot imagine how he ever managed to maintain his own garden of produce before.
The work of his WWOOFers, thus, revolves around the garden and the olive trees. He has a regimented system: five hours of work a day, five days a week. We work in the morning, everyone 7:30 to 12:30, and then we enjoy the afternoon off. Giancarlo does a nice job of planning work for everyone. He either spends the time to demonstrate how the work needs to be done, or he makes sure that another one of the long-term WWOOFers can supervise. Thus, at any given time, he has between four and twelve young people doing work for him, each 25 hours a week, whether he is there with them or out running boxes of food around. That means that a HUGE amount of work is accomplished, unimaginable if it were not for WWOOFers.
WWOOFers at Giancarlo's farm are paid nothing to help his system work. However, they get exactly what they want: knowledge about agriculture and experience with it, without having their own farm.
Giancarlo lives alone in the house he grew up in..."alone" with an average of six WWOOFers at any given time. He has mainly olive trees, a garden, and an organic produce box drop off business. In essence, alone, this man organized with other local organic farms, gained clients, and now drops off boxes, general and upon request, every Wednesday and Thursday at people's doorsteps. It is a fabulous business, and it is amazing that he has somehow made it run so smoothly. It perplexes me the complexity of what he organized, and even more it perplexes me how he ever managed before the help of WWOOFers, which he has only had for the past eight months.
He needs to prepare how much produce to order every week because, only using organic, seasonal produce, the actual products change week to week and season to season. He then emails everyone who purchases a personalized box with the list on Sunday, and prepares a spreadsheet based on their requests on Monday. On Tuesday, he picks up all of the produce from several different farms, organizes it into different boxes, picks and prepares the produce from his own farm, and loads his truck for the drop offs the next morning. Wednesday he spends about ten hours dropping off boxes, returns home to prepare more, and has a shorter drop-off of more boxes on Thursday. The planning and the paperwork he does to prepare all of this is spread out through the entire week. This work consumes a good four and a half FULL days for him, so without the help of WWOOFers, I cannot imagine how he ever managed to maintain his own garden of produce before.
The work of his WWOOFers, thus, revolves around the garden and the olive trees. He has a regimented system: five hours of work a day, five days a week. We work in the morning, everyone 7:30 to 12:30, and then we enjoy the afternoon off. Giancarlo does a nice job of planning work for everyone. He either spends the time to demonstrate how the work needs to be done, or he makes sure that another one of the long-term WWOOFers can supervise. Thus, at any given time, he has between four and twelve young people doing work for him, each 25 hours a week, whether he is there with them or out running boxes of food around. That means that a HUGE amount of work is accomplished, unimaginable if it were not for WWOOFers.
WWOOFers at Giancarlo's farm are paid nothing to help his system work. However, they get exactly what they want: knowledge about agriculture and experience with it, without having their own farm.
WWOOF Italy: Pearls of Wisdom from Giancarlo
24 April 2011
The three best ways to loose your money.
The fastest way is gambling.
The funnest way is partying: sex, women, drugs, alcohol.
The slowest but most secure way: agriculture. You'll never go wrong. You'll DEFINITELY loose all of your money for good.
On the Economy.
I hope that the economic crisis gets worse. I know that people have not changed or learned because they still say, 'I have no money'. No!! There is too much money; THAT is the problem. As long as people see not having enough money as their problem, things will never be solved.
"Il povero non รจ povero; e semplicemente diversamente rico."
The poor man is not poor; he is simply a different sort of rich."
The three best ways to loose your money.
The fastest way is gambling.
The funnest way is partying: sex, women, drugs, alcohol.
The slowest but most secure way: agriculture. You'll never go wrong. You'll DEFINITELY loose all of your money for good.
On the Economy.
I hope that the economic crisis gets worse. I know that people have not changed or learned because they still say, 'I have no money'. No!! There is too much money; THAT is the problem. As long as people see not having enough money as their problem, things will never be solved.
"Il povero non รจ povero; e semplicemente diversamente rico."
The poor man is not poor; he is simply a different sort of rich."
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