Work Work Work

On Thursday I cleared out brush around the vineyard so that the grapes are not shaded and have plenty of sunlight to begin growing! While cutting back the brush I chased out a scorpion! They're pretty cool. They are small and black and apparently only sting like bees.
This is the view from the castle Saturday morning. I opted to do chores for the animals this weekend because I enjoy working through the cycle of the day. So I was up in the morning to take this pretty picture. Brunnenburg is seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but what's nice is that as you climb out of paradise you end up in a little village called Dorf Tirol. Here are the outskirts of it on the hill. Its an cool view from the castle :)
Here are a few pictures of the trail that leads down to the new vineyard, weberacker. The climate is just a little bit warmer so that there are more plants. Vines cover trees and there is green everywhere! What a beautiful place to work :)

Playing in the Garden!

On Wednesday I tricked Nik into letting me play in the garden - all day! I only worked two hours in Weberacker in the afternoon. I weeded and mulched everything down so I'm ready for lessons from Brigitte when she returns!

Permaculture
Below is the magnificent rosemary bush! Brigitte says she has bigger ones at their home in Tuscany!
Here is the equally brilliant sage bush, see in the next pictures how big the leaves are compared to my hand! Warm weather and longer growing seasons work wonders on food production!
Here is the bean patch that I weeded and mulched.
Here, the onions and lettuce are grown together, in a way known as companion planting, or permaculture. They are planted this way to help each other as well as make the most use of space. In the same area, not as many of just lettuce, or just onions could be planted. Also, many times one plant will deter certain pests from another. I will wait and ask Brigitte more about this certain patch, when she returns from Tuscany.
Here, I have weeded and mulched! It was a jungle before I began!Here is a picture of the sweet corn and squash that I planted below the garden. This will also be the winter pig area. After the corn is harvested, the pigs will have fun pulling down the stalks and eating it! I will also seed some other plants around the corn to help with runoff and for roughage in the fall/winter.

Viticulture

Here are the anchors for the corner posts in the vineyard. We had to dig holes, then twist these suckers into the ground, and then pray there were not rocks underneath (which many times there were!) Miche said he got all the rocks, but I barely got any!Here are a few that are almost finished.Here are Miche (left) and Nik (right) after a long day at work, in high spirits, as usual :) Nik has irrigation tubing on his shoulder, while Miche wields the crow bar we used to do numerous things around the vineyard.Majik!

Here are the unicorns that I get to see twice a day for chores! Aren't they beautiful? Its only fitting that there are unicorns at a castle. They live in the fields around the castle, and I feed them peanuts!

Here you can see their majikal horns through the trees...

This is Lily, leader of the unicorns. This is the youngest unicorn. She is very shy, and has one crooked horn.Here is the majikal creature about to disappear until this evening....


Here are Pan and Grace (above) and Glauke (below). They are big clowns and have lots of fun teasing me and jumping up like puppy dogs.

600+ vines!

Well, we are done planting this vineyard. This particular one is called Weberacker, which translates into weaver-field. Weber is one of those last names like we have here such as carpenter or mason, except this one is weaver. Nik adds "acker" or "field" to the end to show that it is a vineyard. Weberacker has been planted with a hybrid grape that is resistant to fungus. This vineyard will be an experiment and if all goes well, he will not have to spray this field as he would a venifera variety.

The other vineyards are called: Piwiacker, Schlossacker, and Goldenrautacker. In the Piwiacker he grows a fungus two fungus resistant varieties (which is what PIWI stands for). The Schloss is the castle, where he grows a little Vernatsch, Schardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and a few others. In Goldenrautacker he grows primarily gold muscateller. Nik says this is normally known as a sweet wine, but he likes to make a dry wine with this variety. Now that we are done planting, we need to put in the irrigation system. We started that today as well as finished off raking the rocks out of the paths for easy mowing.

I am getting to know the animals and they, in turn, are beginning to trust me. Today I had four Zackleshaf come up to me at feeding, when in the past only one has - I'm sure it must be the peanuts! The Zeige (goats), shaf (sheep), and swein (pigs) all love peanuts! Mira and Bella even "sitz" (sit) for peanuts!!

There was a thunderstorm this afternoon - what fun! Lightening was crashing off the Alps. The picture below is the view from my breakfast balcony. My kitchen is huge and I dine on spiced meats and local cheeses with yogurt for breakfast (no, I am not on a weight-loss plan). I am really settling in now and find myself getting a lot of relax time in. People asked me along my travels if I was "going on holiday?" Well, I feel like I am on holiday, I find time to work in the garden and do yoga almost every day!

I finally got these evasive chickens on my camera! They are called Appenzeller Spitzhaunbenhuhn, and now I do not have a translation for THAT yet :) The ducks and the chickens here have very dignified "tufts" on their heads. Sometimes I think they look like poodles, and other times, like royalty.
I need to find better pictures of the Zackleshaf, but this is the best I can do right now. Below is the ram, whose horns slant outwards, and a ewe, whose horns curl straight back. They are like black and silver unicorns with two horns each. They're very cool!

Permaculture:

Brigitte, one of the owners of The Brunnenburg Agriculture Museum, has been taking classes in permaculture and has also learned a lot from her grandmother on the subject. Permaculture is companion and ecological design in gardens. Its mostly used with vegetable gardens or other edible landscaping. The idea is to create more of an ecosystem than a garden by planting things together that will help production and well-being of the whole garden, while building the soil structure and life at the same time.

Brigitte is gone for the week, but has left me with instructions and will teach me a lot when she returns. I am reading Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture right now and before I came here dabbled in the Edible Forest Garden texts. Both are fascinating. I will have pictures and updates of the garden soon - it is beautiful and I will begin drying herbs to bring home soon. The climate allows rosemary bushes to grow as small bushes and are beautiful!

First two days in Italy

I arrived in the night and awoke to...the Alps! I arrived in Bozen (after some train mix up) at 1:30 AM and walked 1 minute down the street to a beautiful youth hostel with a bathroom in each room! It was very nice to stay there and a nice change from traveling. When I woke I only had a 40 minute train ride to Merano where Nik picked me up and drove me to the Agriculture Museum.




So, let me introduce you to Brunnenburg Castle, Agricultural Museum. Here is a way for people to see what agriculture is like in the Alps. They have historical equipment and heritage breed animals. Because of the slope, special tools may be used in unique ways to grow food and support livestock in these beautiful mountains. Here is a view from where the animals live of the castle that I live next to (there are several at Brunnenburg). In this castle there are apartments for Nona (grandmother), Nik (my "boss"), and other family members.

Here is where I live. Go up the stairs and into the little door. I will move up to the main castle next week after some other guests leave. Its a wonderful place to live. There will be no other students here while I am here so I have the place all to myself!This is the courtyard that goes up to my room.This is the view a few steps out my front door - you guessed it! Another castle.Here is to the left, showing how productive the little village of Sudtirol is! They are some of the biggest producers of apples and grapes in Italy! What a wonderful way to live! While exploring I found this beautiful part of the castle! Notice anything magnificent about this place? There is a tree growing IN the castle! How fantastic!Here is one of the many "secret staircases" in the castle. Its so much fun when you find one! Everything is on the edge, so views are spectacular.This is the view from that lovely cedar tree growing in the castle balcony.

Heritage Breeds on the farm:

This is Mira and Bella, the two Mangalitsa Swein. They are woolly pigs! They are wonderful girls, the love scratches, peanuts, and to go for walks! (They have a boyfriend too, but he's staying in the hut in the picture).

This breed was originally bred in Hungary and are endangered. Austria currently has a breeding program where Brigitte and Sizzo got Mira and Bella from. Both are going to farrow (have piglets) later this summer. They should have 4 - 6 piglets each. There are also two Blaue Tiroler Ziege (Blue Tirolean Goats) on the farm:

There are also heritage breeds of Poultry at the agriculture museum. Below is a pair of ducks.

The term "heritage breed" refers livestock old breeds of livestock that are usually in danger of becoming extinct. Before simple and fast transportation, many regions could have more than 20 breeds of one kind of livestock (be it goat or pig) that was acclimated to the certain area. They would be resistant to local parasites, do well on little or poor, local forage, and be manageable on a small farm. They did not have a lot of offspring and were not high producers like today's breeds in modern agriculture. It simply was not needed on a small homestead. Mira, Bella, and Gulliver (the pigs) originated in Hungary and are being bred mainly in Austria now, they are a fairly local breed, here in Dorf Tirol. The goats are originally from the Tirol region, and the poultry here are all alpine breeds as well

Breeding heritage varieties of livestock is improving the genetic diversity of that breed. Having a diversity of breeds promotes biodiversity, which is important for many reasons. Biodiversity is a major concern in the environmental movement with conservation projects as well. There are also other heritage breeds on this farm, so stay tuned for more pictures.

Viticulture, Lesson 1: planting new vines

Grape growing starts with a new vineyard. Over the winter Nik, his family and friends, built stone walls to reinforce a new vineyard. Below is the finished product (before vines). Nik showed a friend (Miche) and I how to finish straightening the posts before he put the wire in.

These particular grapes came by mail in this box, and were stored in a moist, cool environment until we could take them out for planting. This is a new variety that Nik is going to work with this year that is fungi-resistant. He will be able to see what kind of wine it makes after harvest in about three years.My first assignment was to cut the ends of the roots so they could assimilate water more easily and stimulate growth. We then put them in crates of water and brought them down to the vineyard for planting. Nik put the holes in while Miche and I planted.

The tops of these grapes are green, they were sealed with wax when they were sent to keep them sterile and keeps them from being damaged. There are buds poking through on many of these vines - they are ready to be out in the sun!Here is the first stage: fill the hole halfway with dirt. We then go back and fill each hole with water. We keep planting while the water is absorbed into the soil, then go back and fill in the holes.Here is a hole filled in with a little "mote" around it to keep water from the irrigation system from running off.Here are the loving hands making the moat.Here is the owner of the hands!There are amazing places to be seen from anywhere on the mountain. I can't wait to go further up for hiking and exploring. The only way to truly enjoy this is to actually experience it. The pictures just don't do it justice.

Thank you for reading about my trip to Italy. I will post again before I leave and I hope you email me with any questions while I am here. As you can see - I'm having a blast!

email: whitemountainllamas@hotmail.com

Lisbon, June 2