Apiary
Preparation of two new fields
From May, we started work on the logging and recovery of two old small fields, once cultivated, and now invaded by wild plants of different kinds and sizes.
Land access was made difficult by a spontaneous vegetation of wild cherry, oak, ash, fig, walnut and black alder, and an undergrowth made up of tall ferns, wild blackberry bushes, clematis and bushes of hawthorn and wild prunes.
The old and high retaining walls of the two terraces were partially collapsed, while the old vineyard bordering the downstream side, had almost completely disappeared (there remained some chestnut poles and old vines climb up to 20-30m in height in search of light). Some high locust-tree, rooted at the bottom of a ravine crossed by a stream that runs along one side of the pitches, had collapsed and rested with their trunks and their crowns on a part of the fields. Squirrels hopping around happy on hazelnut trees, and an old wooden collapsed barn, of which remains only the façade as in a movie set, was the home of any kinds of wild animals. The path to reach the camps was "unavailable" to the point that every time we lost and we invented a new path...
The first work done (late spring) was to retrace the path that leads to the site. We first identified the route more comfortable, ie without too roughness, and then we started to pave the path filling the valleys and digging the bumps, so to be able to afford to go down with the motor-wheelbarrow loaded of any equipment without running the risk of capsize . We gave the name to this path "Lucia and Massimo street", named after the two WWOOFers who helped us.
The work of clearing the two small fields instead began in July, with the arrival of three young French wwoofers: Armand, Cyril, and Ludivine. Unfortunately, a few days before their arrival, Brunella was hospitalized for a serious intervention that did not allow her to participate in this first phase of work. I, Guido, had tasked myself of the particular work that required the use of machines most "dangerous", as the chain saw and brush cutter, while the wwoofers were in charge of collecting the cutted material and of its mulching. After this first phase of cleaning, we began the preparation of the seat of the fence by digging a trench about 20cm deep underground. The fence will be 2.50 meters high to protect from wild boars and deer, which this year have really done a lot of damage in areas not fenced, especially to the new plant fruit trees.
After the departure of Cyril, Armand and Ludivine, and the return of Brunella, along with two other WWOOFers (Marcello and Massimo) we continued on the construction of the fence with the completion of the grooves, the plant of the support poles in the applying of the wired mesh. The work was particularly difficult and challenging a bit for our inexperience, a little because the ground was very irregular (steep in some places, crumbling in others, rocky in others). We also started to remove strains of wild trees that dotted the two flat, using picks and shovels.
The work is done last month, although there are still some finishing touches ... for example the two access gates, the ligation in some points of the mesh, the filling of the furrows ... and then I would like to contour the fence with hawthorns wild, especially from the sides of access ... Finally, I would want to prepare already the irrigation system and I would like to clean the drains water (behind the barn) so that rainwater can take the old bed without invading and dig the access trail ... but the time is limited and we have learned that we can't decide ourselves our times, but the nature that surrounds us, the seasons, and life itself.
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- Created on Monday, 02 January 2012 10:31
- Written by Guido Seu
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