Dante's Inferno

I have made it to my third farm of the summer. One more to go! This farm is called Frutasè and located in Cumiana, a small village outside of Torino, in the north of Italy. They grow tons of things as well as raise chickens and donkeys. The donkeys are not currently on the farm, though. They are being used to go through a month long trek through the Alps. The farm also has one mule and a horse.

My favorite of the animals, though, is Dante. He is a HUGE black lab who is full of love. Whenever you come in the door, he comes galloping towards you and just so much as knocks you over. He sits everywhere he's not supposed to and gets in everybody's way, especially Malena, my host mother. He is always in the kitchen when she's trying to work. From the garden I can hear "BASTA (stop) DANTE!" at least once every hour. It's a great comical release from the work that we do, which brings me to the Inferno part of this post.

On the farm, we are setting up synergistic gardens in the greenhouses. Synergistic gardening is pretty much what it sounds like. Because of how we set up the bed, all the plants in that bed work together to replenish the soil and stop most of the weeds...aka do a lot of the work for us! Well, in order to begin the bed, we had to dig a large trench along each side that will eventually be lined with hay. Digging in the middle of the day in a greenhouse is not really a walk in the park. By lunch, every piece of clothing I had on was drenched in sweat. Nothing a good shower can't fix!