Farming and Growing in Galicia

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Well now. It´s taken me long enough to get this thing back up and updated, and I´m sorry to have kept you waiting. Nothing life shattering to report, though probably pretty life shaping for me. I¨ll try to fill you in as best I can with a brief summary and then an example of one of my average days this past month.

I’ve been spending the past month in a farm in the north west of Spain in an area called Galicia. The landscape is completely different from what most think of when they here ¨Spain¨. It is very green with beautiful rolling mountains that are covered in fog in the evenings and early mornings. It´s hot in the day time and cold in the night, but with a siesta mid-day the heat is not so bad. Galicia was settled by the Celts and never concurred by the Moors so it´s rather different from the rest of Spain. They even have their own language, Gallego, which I don´t understand of word of, of course. But, everyone speaks Catalan Spanish, so I´m fine there.

Hard work and such wonderful rewards

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I have been working for a family in exchange for my food and board. Some say this is not a fair trade, but I am happy with it. The family has been living here for 18 some odd years. Paul, originally from England, and Emily, originally from Germany, have three children who are fun to have around. While there has been its low points (mostly issues with management and personal moodiness) I’ve liked living and working with these old hippies. The house they own is very old, large and beautiful. The new part was finished in 1777, while the old bit is about 150 years older. Amazing when you think about it.

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I, on the other hand, spent my first 3 weeks living in what I fondly call a tenement on wheels, or a caravan that was absolutely falling apart. Oh well, I know I’ll never live anywhere worse!

I was also lucky to have 3 other workers to spend my time with. They were a young British couple named Harriet and Simon, who were my best friends here and then Peter a strange 25 year old Slovak you got meningitis the 2^nd week I was here and went to hospital so I didn’t really get to know him. I truly enjoyed working with Harry every day and spending my free time with the two of them. We also were lucky to have some great neighbours. Paul and Emily rent out 2 cabins, one to the craziest cockney I’ve ever met named Gary (you’ll hear about him later) and the other to a young couple and their baby.

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So. An average day.

I wake up around 9 am and realize that it’s too cold to get up, so I lay in bed smacking the carpenter ants that are eating my caravan when they crawl on my until 9:30.

Dress in work clothes, pick up the dead mouse I´ve caught that night in one of my traps and walk down to the farm house for breakfast. This is my favorite meal of the day I think, because you probably all know what a sweet tooth I have.

We eat home made yogurt (which I can now make) with granola, jam on bread (both made at the farm) and tea. I think you´ll see a trend in the food that it´s very healthy and made at the farm. This healthy diet at first lead me to buy myself a box of chocolate covered oreos and consume the entire thing making myself very ill. Bravo Jess. I later learned that I had gastro enteritis, so it wasn´t just the cookies, but anyway.

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Then Harriet and I clean out the horse stables and care for the chickens and ducks. Then the two of us head to the garden where we weed a bed for a while and then transplant some tomatoes. We chit chat about everything under the sun and I think how glad I am to be doing this instead of the more physically demanding work that the guys have to do. At around 2:30pm we are called in for lunch, the biggest meal of the day with a bugal blow.

Lunch is probably rice with a yummy veggie soup-sauce thing. Then it´s time for siesta.

The farm is called Tanquian and is located about a 25 minute walk from the tiny town of Ferrera, which thank God has an internet café in one of the bars. Very expensive, but I don´t know what I´d have done without it.

So, perhaps Simon, Harriet and I walk into town to use the interenet and of course stop at the tiny local grocery store to buy an ice cream or some tuna. You see, we don´t really get much meat on the farm so I tried to supliment what we did get with nuts and tuna. No biggy.

Around 5:30 we get back in our work clothes and it´s time to go pick up the hay that has been drying in the sun that afternoon. It´s tough work and the flies are possibily the most annoying thing I know, but it´s getting cool now and the sunset over the mountains is lovely. At around 9pm we´ve brought in and unloaded a huge truck of hay and call it a day. Showers, perhaps, perhaps not, are had and then a light tea of bread and cheese and a salad.

After tea Simon, Harry and I head up to Gary´s cabin where he is waiting. Gary is possibly one of the strangest people I¨ve ever met. He´s 51 and has done the following: travelled most of the world including India, Iran, South America and China before there was Lonely Planet to guide, he funded these travels buy trafficking mainly dope all around the world. Then for 10 years he fell in love with Alge, which he has published many books on. He´s gone to jail, he’s had 2 kids, he’s become a professional photographer and now is playing with the number 1 rock back in Galicia.

So, Gary is a trip. He has taken it upon himself to show us WWOOFers a good time, which we appreciate very much. Perhaps this night we’re on our way to Monforte to see Gary and his band play preceded by tapas and wine with the band. The food here is amazingly cheep and relatively tasty so I’m loving it. Like Madrid things are on a much later schedule, so bars may open at 10:30pm, closing in the early morning. Though, I’ve also found Galicians to be far friendlier and easy going than those in Madrid so that’s also a plus.

It’s a late night out, but we don’t have to work until 10 the next morning so it’s not a problem. While my muscles and sore I know that today I earned my way and with that thought I can sleep easy. Actually, I can’t sleep that well because I know that those stupid mice are running all over. But! That’s all over now because Simon, Harriet and Peter all left a week before I’m leaving so I moved into Harriet and Simon’s caravan which is much much nicer than mine. Hurrah! I feel like a queen!

So that’s that. I’ve learned a lot about plants and cooking and how just because you life an eco friendly life style does not mean you’re happy ore necessarily generous. I will miss Galicia though. I’ve felt I’ve learned to love my body here because for the first time in my life I’ve depended on it’s strength in a whole new way. I am looking forward to daily showers and indoor toilets, but to be honest nothing beats the view in the early morning as you look over the green foggy mountains of Galicia.