Ca' Penelope: Thus Far

Sorry for the lack of updates over the course of the past week or so. I'm sure you have all been wondering what I've been up to over here.

The garden

In the greenhouse, waiting to be planted

My tasks on the farm have mostly involved the garden:

• Planting onions, squash, and watermelon

Onions flanking peppers

• Watering plants
• Weeding (mostly around the strawberries)
• Laying down straw around the crops
• Laying down cardboard and wood shavings between rows to prevent weeds from growing
• Setting up a fence to keep the chickens from messing up the garden
• Cutting grass and feeding it to the donkeys and cow
• Helping to care for the chickens, ducks, donkeys, and cow
• Gathering stinging nettles to soak in water in order to make bug spray

Samuel and Johnathan cutting up nettles (note the gloves... the name "stinging nettles" is not a joke)

• Picking, cleaning, and freezing strawberries (to make into jam eventually)

 There has also been a lot happening here aside from the farm work, and quite a cast of characters:
Valentina: runs the B&B portion of the agritourismo and is generally in charge of the place. She speaks excellent english. She is very nice and hospitable.
Samuel: runs the farming portion of the operation. He is actually a long term WWOOFer (he's been here for a few months). So, he's fairly new to farming, but he's got the garden in pretty good shape.
Valentina's parents, Atos and Fabrizia: they run the restaurant on weekends, and speak very little English. I can still usually understand what Fabrizia wants me to do. Atos wears purple converse high tops.
Dom: couch surfed for a couple of days and arrived on a bicycle. He was (and still is, I suppose) Australian, and has been travelling the world since the beginning of last year. He flew from Sydney to Hong Kong, then took trains all the way to Europe. He spent a year WWOOFing in France and is now nearing the end of his trip. He decided to finish things off by biking from Veneto to Napoli before heading back to Australia. Moral of the story: he is pretty epic and a really nice guy.
Marianna and Johnathan: Valentina's sister and her fiancée. She lives in Spain, he is from Colorado. They met when he WWOOFed at Ca' Penelope. Now he works in Antarctica at a remote camp doing weather spotting. Apparently it's a bitch to get married in foreign countries (i.e. there is a ridiculous amount of bureaucratic nonsense and paperwork).

Sorry I don't have pictures of anyone. I'm sure my camera has been feeling extremely ignored lately.

At any rate, I'm having a wonderful time here. The people are young and the focus is much more on the B&B as opposed to being a primarily farm oriented operation. It is a totally different experience, and I'm enjoy seeing a different side of things.

Ciao.