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Welcome to our article, My farm life continues.
Dear readers, in my last article I was telling you, how I have felt during my life; and all those negative things that happened to me, but I have tried to turn those negative things into positive thinking.
Anyhow, now let me tell you about my farm life when I was young, in a different way, because I feel better knowing that somebody else knows my life story. Anyhow, I know that my life story, does not tell you anything important, except that you can compare my sad life story with your own life story.
Therefore, let me
review what I have done during my life, starting from my first job in the farm,
with the intention of telling you my life story, I
know that I have told you part of my life story, but I want to
tell you what I believe I have not told you yet, and if it happens that what I
am writing next you know already, then I want to explain the reasons why I am
writing my life story, in a language that is not my mother tongue which happen
to be Italian, but I am writing my life story in the English language, which I
had to learn as a grown up, because I migrated to Australia.
Anyhow, I feel that I am one of the few people left in the world that is willing to tell you the story of my life. I want to tell you how the world was when I was young, and what we did, so that a simple record can be kept. What I want to say is that everything is changing these days, but people don’t take the time to record those changes that occur, for this reason the old ways of life will soon be lost, because nobody is writing about it. But I believe that it is good to know how we used to live in the past, perhaps to compare the past with the present ways of living. Speaking for myself, I can easily compare the ways of life that I have lived myself, to the ways of life that my forbears were telling me about themselves, and then to the ways of life that we are living today.
Here I must say that the way of life is changing more quickly all the time, hopefully for better times to come. Anyhow, I believe that overall our standard of life is improving, as I have pointed out in our article called, Farming today compared to the old way, where we are trying to show you the great difference, how we lived then, and how hard it was to earn a living, compared to today ways of living, it is worth reading it if you want to understand the great difference, between today farming and the past. So, let us start telling you my first job in the farm.
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This is a small flock of sheep, they are somehow similar to the sheep I had to mind when I was young, anyhow, I had to take the sheep out in the fields and make sure that they did not go in somebody else fields, and also keep them away from the fields that still had a crop.
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My first job on the farm.
Dear readers, I
started to work in the farm at the tender age of eleven. Now I want to say
here, do not feel sorry for me for having lived my early life in the farm,
because in those times it was the normal way of life that farming people used
to live, anyhow, I was working in our family farm and not in a stranger farm,
where people can be mean to you, so, it was not as bad as it sounds. For
comparison sake I want to point out that even today there are people that are
worse off than I was then; you see, in the poor countries even today they not
only start to work early in life, with a boss that pushes them to do more; but
they also go hungry and thirsty, so, I say, think about them, before you think
about me, and if any of you are in a position that can help, then try to help
them if possible. Sometimes even shaming those people that use this slavery can
help; you see, to feel sorry for me now is useless because nothing can be done
as it is in the past, anyhow, let me tell you my life story and my first job in
our family farm, in southern Italy.
When I went to work
in our small family farm in Southern Italy, I was going to turn eleven that
year and the first job that I did was looking after a small flock of sheep,
which included also a ram and a couple of goats; I had to do that job because
the lad that my family had hired to look after the sheep left us suddenly, so,
I had to replace him for a few months until we were able to sell the small
flock of sheep. It was a boring job to take the sheep out of the sheep-pen and
into the fields to graze twice a day, I had to mind them that they would not
graze in fields that didn’t belong to us, or fields which there was a crop
still growing, I had to water them by driving then to a small creek also. I had
to take them out early in the morning and then in the afternoon for a few hours
each time, because this is how the sheep are grazed over there in summer times.
Then when the town’s Fair was held, we were able to sell the small herd of
sheep, we had to sell them because it would cost us more to hire a youth to
look after them, than what we could earn from keeping them. Anyhow even though
we sold our sheep I had to continue to stay in the farm helping with the other
farm animals.
Now I want to tell you what we did in the farms of those days, so, you can have a better idea, what
sort of life I had to live in the farm when I was young, I will start by trying
to describe you how a day in the farm was spend doing the farm chores, that
seemed endless since they are repeated every day. Now to make it easier for me,
I am going to start with those days when there was not much to do in the farm,
because the hard work in the fields had been done and all we had to do is look
after the farm animals.
So, let me tell you
about a day in wintertime, when all the main works of sowing had been done, and
we were resting and waiting for better weather and longer days. Those were the
days which we were only looking after the farm’s animals, but we also did
some odd jobs around the farm, so, even in those days there were lots of things
to do in the farm. So, let me describe to you what we did in a winter day in
the farm.
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Winter days in the farm.
This is how life
was in the farms of Southern Italy in the early fifties; in the morning we
would get up early before dawn, as the days are short in winter, they are about
8 to 9 hours of sun light; so, as soon as we got up we start doing our chores,
we would start by feeding the horses and other farms animals, and at the same
time we had to clean the stables, virtually we collected all the manure that
the horses and the other stable animals had made during the night, we loaded it
on a strange devise like a field stretcher made of timber and wire, and then
two of us would lift it and carry it to the manure heap, which was outside
about 20 meters or so away from the building, at the same time we would be
grooming the horses with a hand brush, and at the same time we would continue
to feed the horses and other farm animals, such as cows, pigs, chickens, and
other animals with fresh serving of straw, oats, hay, grain, and whatever else
was needed according to the animal’s needs, and sometimes according to the
tusks that those animals were supposed to do during the day, because if the
horses were going to do some work, we would give them more oats than normally
did, when they would be staying in the stable the entire day.
Once we had
finished grooming the horses and cleaning all manure from the stable, the
chicken coop, the pig stay, sweep the floors and everywhere else; then one of
us would go to the well with a couple of buckets or other containers, so, we
could bring some clean fresh water for the small animals to drink, and also for
ourselves to drink and to wash our hands and face, and everyday even if it was
very cold we used to wash our hands and face outside the building: Here I can
assure you that this was the main hygiene that we had in the farm each day, and
this was the only time and place where we used to clean ourselves; at any other
time, when we got our hands dirty, we had to find a way how to clean ourselves
with anything available around us; I know that for anybody that is used to tap
water sounds terrible, but it was not that bad because in winter time there are
several small creeks around the fields, where you could wash your hands.
Anyhow, by the time
we had done all these chores, it would be time for the horse and the cows to be
taken to the well to water them, (the horses and other large animals were watered
only twice a day in wintertime)
here, we had to stand on the well head to draw water with a bucket attached to
a rope, we had to let the bucket down the well, and then with a flick of the
rope we would make the bucket turn upside-down to fill itself, and then we pulled
the bucket up the well and empty it into the trough; we had to draw as many
buckets of water as they were needed until all the animals would stop drinking.
Today when I think about it, it was a hard and dangerous job for a youth of my
age, but because it was normal to do it, we never thought that it was
dangerous then.
After we had done
all those chores, it was time to eat something, so, we would sit down on some
wooden stools that most time we had made ourselves in our spare time. Breakfast
was usually brought in from town, from one of us or one of our neighbors',
there was always somebody on horseback that would go to town the evening
before, and then bring prepared food in the morning. Breakfast would usually
consist of a few fried dry capsicums and a few olives, and at the best one or
two small pieces of sausage, or something similar which my mother would have
fried in the early hours of that morning, and then placed it in a saucepan with
a few drops of fried oil at the bottom, we set around a larger wooden stool
which acted like a table, and with a slice of bread in one hand and a fork or
knife in the other hand, we would eat our small share of breakfast from the
saucepan with as much bread as possible, as there was plenty of bread of very
good nutritional quality, but not much of anything else. At lunch or dinner
time we would have something similar to eat, as we did at breakfast, and in the
evenings, we had to do our own cooking, so, I am going to describe here how we
used to prepare a warm quick and simple meal, by using stale bread.
How to prepare cooked bread.
How we prepared a quick meal called (panecotto) cooked bread
This may sound strange to you, that we prepared a meal of cooked bread, but in the farms we did; it was called with the Italian farmer’s name “panecotto” anyhow, let us talk about this quick meal called panecotto.
We know that when
it is cold, we need to eat at least one good warm filling meal every day, to
stay healthy and strong, especially if we have worked during the day, so, in
the evening we had a large warm meal that we had to cook ourselves, sometimes
we would cook pasta which could be bought from the shop or homemade pasta, but
usually we made a quick meal called ‘panecotto’ which was easy to prepare,
because it is just cooked bread; to you this may seem strange that we cooked
bread a second time for our main meal, but then over there it was the simplest
meal to cook in the farms and very filling, therefore, after a cold and long
day of activities, this very simple meal was welcome, and it was easy to
prepare, so, let me explain.
In order to prepare
this ‘panecotto’ all that was needed was a fire, which we had going in the farm
chimney, or we would light one easily to keep us warm and to cook, you see in
the farms to light a fire is very easy, because there is so much dry straws
around in the mangers of the horse or other farm animals; so, all we had to do
is grab a bundle of this straws put it in the chimney and light it with a
match, then we could add wood to it and you have a fire going. Anyhow, to cook
this meal called ’panecotto’ we had to make this fire more lively to boil some
water, sometimes we would add to this boiling water some vegetable, since they
were available in the farm, or some slices of potatoes, since we would grow our
own in the farm; then when these vegetables
or potatoes were nearly cooked, we would throw in this boiling water as many
slice of durum wheat bread as required, and in a minute or so we would drain
the water out of the saucepan; now let me tell you, this sort of panecotto
works well if you use bread made from durum wheat, because the durum wheat is
like the past, you see the best pasta is made from durum wheat, anyhow, over
there in those times we did not need to look for durum wheat bread, because all
the bread that we were eating in the farm was made from durum wheat; anyhow,
once we had this durum wheat bread in the saucepan on a lively fire, in a
minute or so we would drain all the water out of the saucepan, at the same time
while we were cooking the bread, we would fry a small amount of olive oil in a
frypan with garlic and pepper or tomatoes and when this was ready we would pour
it on the cooked drained bread, or cooked bread and vegetable and that was all
that was required, at this stage the ‘panecotto’ would be ready to be eaten, usually
from a large plate and sometimes even from the saucepan itself, depending on
how well we were organized in the farm, and how many people had to eat this
meal.
Anyhow, this was
one way of how to prepare a quick warm meal in the farm in those days; of
course, there were other ways, but this was to most popular one, since we had
everything there already and was easy to make. Now let us talk about what
else we did in the farms during the day.
Some farm work in wintertime.
Anyhow, now let me
go back in the morning, after we had breakfast, weather permitting we did some
minor jobs outside, like hoeing in the kitchen garden, which was about half an
acre of land, or working in the vineyard, or going out to cut and collect firewood for ourselves, and
for our families in town, since they depended on us for their wood supply, in
order to cook their meals including our meals and keep themselves warm, because
in the town in those times there was nothing to burn, it all had to come from
the country, so, we had to supply the wood to them to keep warm and prepare
meals for themselves and us.
Now, I want to
point this out to you, that in those days, this was the way of life that most people
had to live, they had to look after each other’s, so, from the country side we
would supply our produce and fire wood to the town, and from the town we would
receive back whatever we needed and they could give us, it worked out all right
both ways; anyhow let me go back to tell the farm work that we did.
During the day we
would feed the animals every now and then and bring in the stable new straw and
hay for the following night.
This is how life in
the farm was in winter times, when the days were short and the weather was cold
and wet.
But when the days
became longer and the weather was fine, there was work to be done in the fields
even if it was winter. We would have to get up earlier then, to feed the horses
and get them ready for the tasks that they had to do: it could be that we had
to plough a field or something similar, but to do that we had to harness the
horses and attach them with their harnesses to the appropriate devices; all
this had to be done early in the morning even if it was very cold, so that some
work could be done during the short winter days in the fields. We had to start
early also for safety reasons, you see, we wanted to be back to the farmhouse
well before sunset, it was safer that way.
In this photo, there is a single horse feeding on hay in a modern stable, we used to have in our stable up to a dozen large animals, like horses, mules, cows and donkeys, we would feed them in the manger.
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Apart what I have
said above, there were also other chores which had to be done in the farm in
wintertime, like pruning and hoeing the vineyard, planting trees, pruning fruit
and olives trees, cutting and collecting wood, and other small jobs, so,
everyday there was always plenty to do.
But even though in wintertime we were busy in the farm, wintertime was very dreadful and sad especially for young people, because we were more isolated than at any other time of the year, therefore, it was boring and it was very easy for one to become dull, since we did the same things every day, therefore, if we young people became dull it was due to this harsh environment, at other times of the year it was better as there was more contact with the town’s community, and because there were some important happenings to talk about, even if it was in a restricted way, because in the farm we would still be isolated. So, we were happy to see springtime coming. So, in our next article we will talk about, Springtime in the farms, and what happens there. So, see you next time with our article. .
To see more click on this link, My farm life continues.
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