BROCCOLI!

Titica is finally making friends with the dogs!

So I realized this week that from my blog, it seems like my days are filled mostly with playing with puppies and kittens, and that there’s not a whole lot of farming going on here.

Which of course is not true.

At the beginning of a Friday morning attack on the broccoli patch.

It’s fall/winter in Greece, and though it’s unlike any winter I’ve ever experienced, this time of year means broccoli. And we’ve been picking a lot of it. About ten crates three times a week for the past two weeks or so.

Basically Lida and I walk behind the tractor, using our knives to machete any head of broccoli deemed “ready”.

This broccoli is NOT ready.

For the past six weeks I’ve been refining my machete chop and can now chop off almost any head of broccoli in one fell swoop!

Yes, this was a staged picture.

The cabbage field is almost ready to be harvested as well, so usually we take a drive through that as well.

This cabbage IS ready!

Probably my favorite part, other than machete-chopping.

After all the chopping, we ride back to the warehouse freezer thing, where we clean everything and pack it into crates for the market.

Dirty boots on the ride back!

I’d like to say that after the broccoli, we go back to playing with the puppies….

Alexandra with the two, as yet-unnamed, male puppies.

But really, there’s lots more to do everyday, especially on Fridays before the Saturday market.

A view to Ancient Corinth, located on that hill in the background.

Good thing I kinda love this work….and this kitten!

This is Gandhi, leader of the dog pack at the farm. If Titica has his approval, then she’s going to be just fine.

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Small Animals

This week we had some chicken deaths. From what I can understand the chicken coop wasn’t properly secured and some small animal (maybe a weasel?) hauled off four entire chickens. Truly I was baffled how an animal that small can drag away something as large as a chicken, much less four of them, without any big holes or any trace of the chickens that used to be.

For obvious reasons there will be no pictures of no longer living chickens. But today I’ve got a couple pictures of small animals that usually don’t kill chickens.

Two boys and a girl, venturing out of their home in the outdoor fireplace for the first time!

The puppies are so fat! And so whiney, which I didn’t quite expect. As soon as they even think you’re going to reach over to pick them up, they start making this pitiful noise that makes you feel like you’ve just ripped their tail off.

Then there’s this little furrball.

A self-portrait of sorts with Titica.

 Today Titica and I had a minor tiff, when she would not stop chasing the broom while I swept the floor and then the mop while I mopped. I ended up locking her in the bathroom for the duration. She didn’t seem to mind though, as there’s always some invisible spirit for her to chase after.

It looks like I’m becoming an animal-lover, friends.

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Freedom and Chickens

This week has seen progress. I’m finally beginning to understand why we pick certain heads of broccoli and leave others for later.

My strategy of one hour of weeding a day has been painful, but not as painful as four hours in one day and then being paralyzed for the next three days.

I’ve done a fair bit of exploring over the farm in the past month. And there is a lot to see.

A church for one. I’m not sure if churches come standard on large properties in Greece, but Konstantis and Alexandra kinda act like they do. This particular chapel-type structure is located a few hundred meters from the main house and is kept in pretty good shape.

Interior of the chapel.

I think somehow Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox are really close, historically and whatnot. A lot of the religious practices in Greece remind me of how people relate to religion (or don’t) in Russia.

We also got chickens this week! Ten beautiful hens, a bit past their prime, and thus only 4 euro a piece!

Anyways, after several weeks of just walking around the farm and surrounding areas, I realized that I wasn’t really enjoying being dependent on Konstantis and Alexandra to take me anywhere I might want to go.

So I decided to buy a bike!

I named her Thelma. She cost 30 euro and she’s a piece of shit, but I love her.

And now I can go wherever I want, whenever I want! I’m already getting a Saturday routine going: the morning market in Korinthos, a bakery where the owner speaks no English, and then random wandering for the rest of the morning.

Saturdays are the cherry on top of good weeks here. The work really is hard and I guess that’s why I haven’t taken any pictures of it. Picking spinach for hours doesn’t really encourage one to run inside for the camera.

But it really is nice. I enjoy the people I work with.

Konstantis hard at work, repairing one of the tractors.

And last but not least, Titika. I’m not sure but I think her name is loosely based on Lake Titicaca in South America somewhere. Somehow it fits her well. She’s fierce, viciously playful, and definitely the cutest thing in farm’s kitchen.

The cat that is ending my long-reigning aversion to cats.

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Of Bathrooms and Sunsets

There hasn’t been a bad sunset in the month I’ve been here.

A little corner of Greece.

On this particular evening I went into the bathroom downstairs to take a shower and got a glimpse of this out the bathroom window. Then I ran up the ladder we’ve placed strategically next to the grapevines and sat and watched til it was gone.

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WWOOFing in Greece

This post is long overdue; on Wednesday I’ll have been here a full month.

And where is here?

Ktima Tripou, Korinthos, Greece

Here is where I went after I left Vladivostok in July, with a short (but definitely long enough) stopover in Knoxville, TN. It took me awhile to get things (read: visa) lined up, but I did finally and headed over to Greece without really knowing any Greek, Greek people, or what exactly awaited me in Korinthos.

Mavrucca (one of our seven dogs and counting!) in front of the main house.

Only good things were waiting for me, of course. I got picked up at the airport and taken to an early 20th century farmhouse that, oddly enough, was a French consulate for most of the 1900s.

The fields with a lone cyprus, probably a close 2nd for my favorite tree, after the weeping willow of course.

My days are pretty predictable.

Get up with the sun, breakfast, an hour of weeding before the sun gets hot.

I conquered all the weeds of this row of cabbage! It truly does feel like a battle every morning.

Then we, that is me, Lida and Jamil (Albanian and Pakistani respectively), either pick, plant or weed some more. I’m not going to lie and say that it’s always fun, but it is always outdoors and I’m actually doing something. At least I feel like I am, especially in my lower back after weeding an endless row of broccoli.

Side of the house with grape vines that we haven’t devoured yet…

My first couple of weeks here I was absolutely in love with this place. I mean there are grapes growing on the side of the front porch; a huge fig tree outside, mandarin trees around back, and once I looked hard enough I found olive trees ready to be picked.

Fields next to the road.

I’m still pretty much in awe that all that is still available, but novelty fades I guess.

The couple I live with Konstantis and Alexandra are wonderful, extremely welcoming people, who just happen to speak excellent English. We work together, cook together and go to Athens to sell produce at markets too.

I truly lucked out in finding them.

Everyday they set up a farm stand on the road next to the farm, and two days a week we take the produce to Athens to sell.

Alexandra and Jamil at the farm stand on a Saturday morning.

There will be more details of my farming life to come. Including pictures of me driving one of three John Deere tractors. Thank god I learned how to drive Aus’s manual Mazda this summer!

For now I’ll leave you with a picture of puppies and myself. The puppies were born last week.

Three bundles of joy to add to the seven others that bark at all hours of the night!

I was born almost 26 years ago!

On a crisp mid-November morning. Yes, that’s an abandoned salami factory in the background.

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