It is hard to believe but we are coming home today. We are taking Iceland Air so I will be sure to say hello to the volcano. It has been a great trip and I now hope to see everyone soon!

Today we saw two very nice castles, Caernarfon and Beaumaris. I will put pictures of them up at another time along with all the other pictures that still need going up!

I would say that I am pretty much fine with driving on the left now. What is my evidence? Today Rachael fell asleep on the way home rather than almost having a heart-attack every few moments!

Today we climbed Mt. Snowdon the highest mountain in Wales and England too. It is in Snowdonia National Park which is very close to where we are staying at the moment, Llandudno, Wales. I think we chose a good place because, though we are now truly entering the tourist season, we are not running into too many tourists here. Tomorrow we will see two famous castles which should be a lot of fun.

I am starting to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Like all things it seems to just take a bit of getting used to. However, I have a funny story. The Brits seem to really be into saying “thanks” on the road by flashing their lights. So, at one point I tried to do this as well, but confused the light flasher with the wipers! I wonder what the other driver thought of that. Anyway, Rachael does not think that we will get into an accident anymore.

Yesterday, Rachael and I picked up our rental car. It is a VW Polo which is very nice.

I have to admit that I have been nervous about driving on the left side of the road. Let me just say that it is a bit of a shock to the system. But worse than driving on the wrong side of the road is all the roundabouts! Crazy!

Anyway, Rachael is convinced that we are going to get into an accident. I don’t think I am driving that badly though. We will see!

We visited Stonehenge and Avebury today. Then we went to Telford where we are staying for two nights to see the Ironbridge area. After that we head to North Wales for 4 days before heading back. Then we head home. Hard to believe that it is so close.

I have not been writing as much as I originally planned. I am sorry about that. Right now we are in Rye, England helping out on a Bed and Breakfast. It is nice and we are having fun, but the people that live hear would make a great comedy movie or book. Let’s see. We have the drunk owner, the dead-beat boyfriend, the gay business partner, the three toothed handy man, the one and a half armed gardener and the foreign other gardener. Plus we have the random bee keeper. And of course, they all interact in variously hilarious and kind of mean ways. It is an experience! Simon, the guy who is in charge of us, is great though. I a real nice fellow. (He is the gay business partner).

I will write more later I suppose when there is time for it. Now I don’t have a ton of time. France was very nice. French people are nicer than they get credit for (with one exception). The exception is the fellow at the information desk when we arrived in Paris. I asked him for a map in my best French “Pouvez-vous donner moi une carte de la ville, si’l vous plait.” And what does he do? He sighs loudly, rolls his eyes, and hands me a map. How very French!

I still need to write about Berlin, Paris, and the farm we are currently staying at, but I have something to write about now as it is currently fresh in my mind. Today I witnessed the killing of a rooster. Now this may not seem interesting to some of you, I don’t know, but for me this was the first time I experienced the killing of an animal. If you are feeling squeamish you might not want to continue.

First, I will spend a few lines getting you up to speed on the situation. We are currently in Normandy on a farm near the town of Vire. The farm sits on 27 beautiful acres that encompass a, more or less, miniature river valley. Rather than a river, though, there are many fresh water springs which feed a creek that runs through the farm. A dam of earth was created at one section of the creek in order to create a fish pond which is approximately 40 by 20 yards. On the farm there are two pigs, eight ducks, ten rabbits, 25 chickens, six cats, a dog, and I would say 1,000 fish. In short, it is a very nice place.

Now back to the story. Along with growing a good portion of their vegetables, the English ex-pat couple that we are helping raises most of their meat too. Their freezer was nearly out of chicken earlier today and so it was time for one of the chickens to be slaughtered. Earlier in the week, Jenny chose the older rooster (he was nine and a half months old) to be killed. I and another helper volunteered to help her out when she said that she was going to slaughter the chicken. I did not like the idea of watching something die, but I felt that it was something I should do given how many chickens I have consumed so far in my life and how many more I will eat in the future.

The rooster had been locked in a cage earlier that morning so that Jenny could catch him easily when the time came. On this farm all the chickens run free throughout the yard and so, if one tried hard to get away, it would be a real difficult thing to catch it. Jenny pulled the chicken out of the cage and walked him up to a wood block with a hatchet next to it. She made odd comments in the process (to the effect of “time to die chicken” and “any last words?”) which in the moment I mistakenly took for heartlessness but soon realized was actually a psychological defense mechanism. A sort of de-anthropomorphizing I suppose.

Jenny put the rooster on the wood block and raised the hatchet. Not sharpened as well as it could be, the hatchet did not do the job on the first whack. A second whack was quickly administered. I would say that the rooster did not die on the first whack though Jenny said that it did. Whatever the case may be, the second severed the spinal chord and this (for reasons I don’t quite understand though I will look it up) caused the rooster’s body to flail about; yet, it did not take his head off and so he did all this flailing and running around with his head dangling. This stopped after only a few moments and Jenny picked him up and finished taking the head off.

The killing was gruesome. There was a brief moment in between the first and final hatchet whacks where I seriously considered becoming a vegetarian, though that feeling did not last.

The head was put in a plastic bucket and then the rooster’s body was hung up by its legs. Blood poured out of the neck for a second or two and then became a trickle as Jenny began plucking the feathers. The other helper and I joined in. The plucking was awful and fascinating at the same time. It was surreal. Not five minutes before the rooster had been cockle-doodle dooing and now its head was in a plastic bucket being slowly covered by the feathers we were pulling out of its still warm body. And yet, as the feathers piled up and covered the head, the nearly featherless body looked less like something that could run around the yard and more like food.

Jenny untied the body and we went into the house. The body was then soaked in hot water to make it easier to pull out the last few feathers that were deeply rooted. While the other helper and I were getting out the last of the feathers, Jenny broke off the legs at the knee. She did this by bending them the opposite way until the ligaments broke and then she used a knife to cut through what was left. This accomplished, the body was taken out and paid on the table. A cut was made in the back end and Jenny began pulling out the rooster’s insides. First came the intestines and here I will say that, though the macabre feeling had not yet left, I felt more like I was watching a science experiment than the gutting of something that was alive 20 minutes prior. In the intestines you could see food that was partially digested. The gizzard came out next and is, more or less, the chicken equivalent of a stomach. Jenny cut it open to show us the inside. It was full of grass, grain and grit (which is sand and dirt and helps the chicken digest). The liver and heart came out next. Jenny cut open a part of the liver to show us what the toxins the liver had taken out of the food looked like. Green liquid is what it looked like. The lung (chickens only have one) and windpipe came out last.

The body, which now looked exactly like something you could find in a grocery store, was brought back to the sink where the emptied out inside was washed so as to remove the last few bloody bits. The cleaning completed, Jenny put the chicken in a plastic bag and then put that in the freezer.

It was a gruesome experience but I am glad that I had it. Seeing how your food gets to your plate is a good thing. That being said, it was no fun at all. The whole thing was fascinating but none of it was enjoyable. But that is how some things are.

It would be impractical for every person to kill the chicken he eats, but I do think that if a man is going to eat a chicken he should at the very least be willing to do the dirty work involved; be willing to be a part of the killing that is required for his meal.

Axel is tending the fire in the Bakehouse.

After leaving Munich on either the 25th (I think) of March we headed north. The trains were exceptionally packed that day because many German schools started their Easter vacation that weekend. As a result, we had to stand for the whole train ride. We were very tired when we got to Bremerhaven that night and were happy to meet our HelpX hosts, Axel and Angelika, at the station. There were two other helpers at Axel and Angelika’s aside from us. Marie-Claude was a french-canadian and Michael was an Englishman. I found it highly amusing that Marie-Claude referred to herself in English as a Quebecer (sounding like Ka-beck-er). I always think of them as Quebecois, but I think this is one of those things that you would had to be there to think that it was funny.

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A sheep.

This farmstay was very different than our one in Italy. Located in Grossenhein (south east of Bremerhaven and south south west of Hamburg) Axel and Angelika’s farm has been operating for over 30 years. Whereas Ev and Claudia were just starting out and trying to create a successful vineyard, Axel and Angelika already had the whole operation running smoothly.

We made around 60 loaves!

For the two weeks we were there around 80 to 90% of the food we ate came directly from last year’s harvest. I found the food to be excellent and was amazed by how comparatively little work they have to do to have such a great yield. (They do not sell any of their produce though so the money they have comes from their pensions.) They have around 10 acres of land and own 17 chickens and 19 sheep. The purpose of the chickens is obvious but I can not understand why they keep sheep. They do not eat the sheep and do not sell or make anything from the wool so they seem like a drain on the pasture land to me, but Axel likes them so I guess that is enough of a reason.

Our work was varied while we were there and I enjoyed it. I split some logs, learned how to uses a chisel to split 6 foot logs into posts, turned the garden with a garden fork, planted potatoes, built a fire pit, chased down and captured chickens in order to clip their wings, and some other things as well.

Rachael took this picture of me sitting on one of the chairs I made by the fire pit.

One very interesting thing that I learned was how to graft a fruit tree. The point of grafting is to combine the heartiness of one variety of fruit tree with the productivity/flavor of another. I think that I will write a separate post about this though because I have not yet uploaded the pictures that go along with it.

Anyway, all the people we met there were very nice and it was a fun time.

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So it has now been a long time since my last post and I am sorry about that. A lot has happened since I last wrote something so I will fill in the details with a couple separate posts.

The last time I wrote we were in Umbria on the vineyard. We left there on the 15th of March to go to Venice. Venice was very nice but it was not like I remembered it from my first visit. In my memory it was much prettier and less crowded. The Venice we saw was filled to brim with people and was, ultimately, only a so-so experience. I suppose that the novelty of canals in place of streets wears off after the first visit. At any rate it was still fun to go. We also visited two of the surrounding islands, Murano and Burano, of which Burano was a real highlight.

The colors of Burano.

Burano is about 45 minutes away from Venice meaning that less tourists visit it. Thus, its economy relies on fishing and lace making rather than tourism. What was particularly charming about the island was that all the houses where painted with bright and different colors.

In Venice we also visited the Peggy Gugenheim Collection which is a modern art museum. I thoroughly disliked it, but am glad that I went. Even though I do not like modern art very much I like looking at it sometimes. Every now and again I will find something that I enjoy. I do not have very sophisticated aesthetic tastes. A painting either pleases my eye or intersts me with its meaning (in that it tells a story or is in some way allegorical). Modern art generally fails these two tests as far as I am concerned. That it does so was made even more clear to me given the great variety of beautiful and meaningful art that we have seen (such as in the Sistine Chapel, the Accademia, and more recently the Geldamagalerie). I don’t want to disparage modern art too much, however. Some works, such as one by Dali that I can not remember, are good despite not appealing to my tastes.

Anyway, on the 18th of March we left Venice behind on a night train for Munich. It was a rough ride. We did not realize that we would have to take a night train because trains during the day seemed as though they would be available, however all the seats on them were taken when we tried to make reservations. We were left with the night train as our only option. The only reseravations we could make were for seats not beds which, at the time, did not bother us. Sitting, though, when you want to sleep is not a ton of fun. It was tolerable though and we arrived in Munich early the next morning where my cousin, Christiane, and her boyfriend, Derrick, picked us up. It was very nice to get to see them and others from the Kenter side of the family during our eight days in Munich. Along with Herbert, Sylvia, Phillip, and Simone, we saw Gabi and her son, and Dorothea and her husband and children.

A few sights really stand out. For one, we visited a salt mine in the South East of Bavaria and learned about the production of salt which is much more complicated than I would have guessed. The process involves locating sodium desposits, pumping water into them so dissolve them and create a brine solution, then pumping the brine out, and then evaporating it. Anyway, it was interesting to see. I really enjoyed visiting the Alte Pinakotek as well. There I learned that I really enjoy the paintings of Rubens. One that I really liked was a scene from and ancient Greek myth about a satyr’s belwilderment at what he took to be the irrationality of humans. In the myth, the satyr first watches a farmer in the cold blow on his hands to warm them. Then, inside, the farmer blows on his hot soup to cool it. The saytr thinks it is absolutely crazy to perform the same action while trying to bring about different results. Actually, that is not irrational at all, but it was a nice painting. Rubens also had a nice Last Judgement painting. I always enjoy Last Judgement paintings because the artist’s depiction of heaven and hell is fascinating to me and the figures are generally symbolic which I like trying to figure out.

Our hearty German meal at the Hofbrauhaus.

While in Munich we also visited the Hofbrauhaus with Phillip, Simone, Christiane, and Derrick. After eating Italian for a month, it was really nice to eat some wurst, brotchen, and sauerkraut. It was also fun to try the beer there which was served in one liter glasses! After trying a few different varieties, I have decided that the Weissbier is my favorite. But, don’t worry Keith, I still like Guinness too!

We had a very nice time.

We arrived at Ev and Claudia’s vineyard near Todi in Umbria on March 1st. The past ten days have just flown by. I can’t believe that it is a full month now that we have been gone.

I have not written anything about our time here so far, so I will now get you up to date on the facts. Ev and Claudia bought this piece of property seven years ago. Before then it was abandoned and so was unsuitable for living in when they first bought it. Ev is 58 and an American and said that when he sold his house in California he thought that he would be able to retire. Instead, he bought this house and literally emptied his bank account to do so. As a result, he has continued to work in order to fund the restoration of the house and to create a vineyard. Claudia is originally from Sicily but has moved around a lot. They are both extremely nice. I really had no idea what to expect from a HelpX host and did not know if I should expect to be treated as an employee or what. Ev and Claudia treat us like guests for which I am very grateful.

Their main project at the moment is growing a vineyard on their property. When they bought the place, there were some vines already but only a few. They had originally only planned to restore the house and had no plans for growing grapes and making wines. A neighbor asked them, during the early stages of the restoration, if he could make wine out of their grapes. They consented and he gave them some of this product. After tasting it, they agreed that it was awful and, Ev told us, he decided that he was certain he could make better wine on his own. He gave it a try and it turned out well. They currently grow enough grapes to produce about one barrel a year into wine (there are 333 bottles of wine in a barrel). The wine they make is very good (I can tell you from experience).

They really enjoyed the whole wine making process and, to make a long story short, they decided to try selling their wine commercially. With the help of a few friends they worked out a business plan that, if successful, ought to allow Ev to quit his current job and earn enough money from wine making alone.

This season they were hoping to plant 2,100 vines and were hoping that we would help in the planting process. Sadly, however, we have been unable to do so. In the ten days that we have been hear seven have been rainy. One day it even snowed (which is extremely rare for this area at this time)! This is a real set back for them, yet the weather is supposed to improve in the weeks ahead and they have more helpers coming after we leave.

Since planting grapevines is out of the question (the roots would rot in soggy soil), we have been put to work building fences. Building a fence on a flat piece of earth takes a little bit of time if you are being precise, but when you are doing it on four levels of terraced hills amongst olive trees that have not been tended to in decades while slogging about in mud and over slippery grass then it takes a lot longer. Before we started I thought that we would have the fence up in two days of working (which is from ~8:30 to ~1:30). Instead, it has taken around a week. Now, don’t get the idea that I am complaining as I have been enjoying the work quite a bit. I am just trying to help you understand the situation. At any rate, the fence is nearly completed and it will be quite pleasant to compare the orderliness of a fenced off and pruned olive grove with the memory of a tangled and overgrown terraced hill. If it stops raining for a moment I will be sure to take pictures.

So the work has been enjoyable. We wake up around 7:30, eat at 8:00, and then start working at 8:30. As I said, we finish working at 1:30 and then have lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and tends to be pasta. We then have the rest of the afternoon off. Some days we have spent taking walks in this time but many other day’s we have hung around with Ev and Claudia. We have dinner around 7:00/8:00 and then sit around and chat until around 10:00 at which point we head back for bed. Ev and Claudia have also been kind enough to take us on little trips to see the local sights. You can see them in the pictures that I have posted.

In the time that I have been writing this I have had to stop and start again because of having to go eat lunch. Thus, I forgot where I was going with this. I know it was supposed to go in a particular direction but I don’t remember what that direction was. So instead I will talk about something else and that something is my interest in having a small farm of my own one day. I don’t intend to have one for quite some time or to earn a living from it. It is more of a long term goal. The start up costs are pretty incredible. Ev told me that just purchasing the 2,100 grape vine plants cost him 15,000 euros (~19,000 dollars). So my thought is to wait until I have built up some serious savings before I start my own. I have been browsing some of their small farm books have been learning some interesting things. Apparently, you can grow enough food to sustain yourself on 4,000 square feet (of course this depends on what/how much you would like to eat). The whole thing fascinates me.

OK, I can’t remember if I had anything else to say. I have posted some new pictures so you can check those out by going to the pictures page if you are interested.

We have been away from Naples for a whole week and I am only just now posting the pictures. Anyway, we had a very nice time there despite the fact that it is not a really nice city. The best thing in Naples is the archaeological museum. Other than that there is not much else to see there. Our stay was very nice though because we spent most of our time away from the city. Here is the rundown:

Day 1 – Pompeii:  Our first full day in Naples was spent exploring Pompeii. There were more other tourists there than there were in Ostia, but it is still a great place. We spent the entire day there and had a very nice time.

Day 2 – National Archaeological Museum: This day was a little rainy and not so nice, so we went to the museum. I really enjoyed looking at the collection and finding the sculptures of people/myths that I knew. After we finished with the museum we explored Naples a bit and decided that we did not like it. There was trash all over the streets and certain side roads looked like they belonged in a city of a third world country not in one of the largest cities of a western country.

Day 3 – Herculaneum, Mt. Vesuvius: In the morning we went to Herculaneum which is Pompeii’s less famous cousin. In the eruption of AD 79 it was covered much faster than Pompeii and so was better preserved. However, only about 4 full city blocks have been excavated as the site rests directly under a modern town! After that we took a bus to the top of Mt. Vesuvius and walked around the cone of the volcano. It was fun to see and the views of the surrounding area were fantastic. Vesuvius is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and they say that it is only a matter of time before it blows. After being up there and seeing just how heavily populated the surrounding countryside is I am sure that when it does erupt the results will be devastating. I certainly would not want to live around there.

Day 4 – Sorrento: We had intended to go to Capri on this day but we discovered that the trip would be way to expensive. Basically, just buying round trip tickets would have put us over budget for the day! So instead, we took the train to Sorrento which is a beautiful hill town overlooking the sea. We took in the sites and made friends with a Polish couple that we met there. Their English was perfect and they were as appalled as we were with the state of disorderliness and decrepitude of Naples. Both of these things surprised me a little as I would not expect a Pole to know English (German or Russian instead, I would have guessed) and I did not think of Poland as being in a much better state than that of Naples.  From what they said it sounded very nice, so I guess I need to reevaluate my opinion of Poland. At any rate, it was a fun day.

So that wraps up Naples. We are now in Umbria working on a farm. I will talk more about that in another post; suffice it to say that it is wonderful. The Naples pictures are now up, by the way.