Showing posts with label Best Posts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Best Posts. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Harvesting the very old ways

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
This is how people harvested a long time ago.  

Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Harvesting the very old ways
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Dear readers, usually here we paste some photos that belong to this event, but unfortunately we are having difficulty to do that, so if you would like to see some of the photo that we had in mind, you have to go to this web address in hub pages, where the entire article is shown;  Farming today compared to the old way, I hope it works for you.

Harvesting the very old ways


Now, before we come to a close, because we want to compare the old ways of farming with today farming, we need to say how harvesting wheat was done before; here we need to say also that I have witnessed the last part of this old practice when I was young. You see, when I was young we were already using a horse drawn harvester, and it was very helpful; but there were people that had some very small holdings and we had one of these ourselves, so we had to use the old ways of harvesting our wheat for that small wheat field, because that was the only way to do it for one reason or another.

So, let me describe how harvesting was done in those old bygone days; at harvesting time strange as it may seem today, one could hire some specialized people that were good at using the sickle, these people usually went from town to town to do this seasonal harvesting job; we need also to explain that in Southern Italy because the terrain has different altitude the wheat reaches maturity at different times, this was helping these seasonal workers to have a longer span of work, now just to compare those very hard times with today times, I have to tell you that these workers were sleeping anywhere they could on a sack filled up with straws under a shelter if they could find one, as they could not afford anything else. In the morning they would get up early and wait in the town square hoping that somebody would hire them for the day.

Now let us say that we had a small plot about one acre and we could not use the harvester of those time, because it was not possible to go there, we would then hire four people and form a gang that could harvest one acre in one day and collect it in hips that would be later on taken on a cart to the farm house to be threshed one way or another.

In the old times anything that had grown in the field was collected, it needed to be collected for the people to survive, it was the only way because the fields did not produce as much as they do today, because they could not be cultivated as good as we do today. You see today we have the tractor to cultivate the fields and we have many types of fertilizer to help us grow more wheat, but let us go back to talk about old harvest times.

Wheat trashing the very old time

Now I suppose I have to say briefly how the older generations used to thresh their harvests, in order to collect all their produce. Now, let us suppose that it was only a few bundles of wheat to be threshed one could even extract the wheat by hitting them with a stick, but let us say that we had a cartful, or many cartful’s for that matter, then we had to use a different method, which is the way that most farm used in the very old times for centuries, so let me tell you how it was done.

I happen to know this procedure, because in the farms when I was young we were still using this method with smaller crops most likely broad beans, lentils, chick peas, linseed, and other farm produce, and the elder would always be telling us that this was the way that they used to collect their wheat as well and usually it took them a few months to collect all the season produce. So now let me describe this to you, so that we would be able to compare the great difference.

In order to do this, first of all we needed to prepare a piece of ground that is very solid and smooth, this could be achieved by stripping the old dry grass on a piece of land that had a large clay content, then wet it with a little bit of water to make it compact; once that was ready we would place our wheat or whatever was to be threshed and collected on this clean ground, then we would get our horses mule and donkeys whatever animals were available and drive them around and around until everything was threshed. Of course there was a lot more to say, but let us make it short otherwise it would become too boring.

Now, once the threshing was done we has to separate the produce from the straw and any other foreign matter, this was achieved by removing the straws from the top layer making sure that no produce was left with the straws, at the same time we would collect the bottom layer in a hip, once that was done we would have to clean that produce by using the wind, to take away the finer parts that were still mixed with the wheat or whatever it was, and there were many other things that we could use to get this wheat clean, by the end of the day we could have collected two or three hundred kilograms of produce.

In the very ancient times was even worse, see what they were using in the Medieval Times, here is a link to check out some ancient farm tools including the Flail and Winnowing Basket used to collect and clean wheat.


I hope that this gives the modern reader a view of how thing were done in the old times, so I do not want to say much more about how all this threshing and cleaning of the wheat was done, because even writing about it is boring today, but anyhow it needed to be done in those days, because that was the only way to collect our wheat to make bread and other things. Now, my dear reader’s do you see how hard was then even to collect wheat for ourselves.

I hope I have been able to write something that really sets up the great difference of the ways of life that we were living then and the ways of life that we are living now, for this I want you to compare and judge for yourself how much better off we are today.

To the young people who think that today life is hard, let me describe to you what I have witnessed when I was young, because then life really was harder then today, you see those days everybody had to find how to earn enough to feed themselves there were no handover from the government. So, the very poor people of those days were trying to collect anything they could to feed themselves.

So at harvest time this is what I have witnessed, I have seen old and poor people mainly old ladies go around the fields and pick up any ear of wheat that was left behind in the fields, one ear of wheat here and anther there until they had the strength, each day until harvest time was over and there was nothing else to collect; and I tell you what these poor people were happy if in the end they had collected enough ears of wheat that they could trash and clean themselves, perhaps they could have collected enough to make 50 to 100 kilos of wheat during harvest time and they were happy because, they could make bread from this wheat and not go hungry for a few months.

Now I hope that you see what I mean when I say that the youths of today don’t know anything about hard times?

Anyhow as you can see this is just another story of my life, which I am telling in Hub-Pages, and I am posting some links for the other stories here under, if you like to read them?

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Genzano it story
Farming the old way
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, framing the very old way
------------------------------ Some useful links


Some hub links

 
 

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Farming the old way

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
ant this post, farming the old way
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This is similar harvester machine that we were using when I was young
 
This is a small trashing machine, compared to the trashing machine that we would hire to trash our wheat and other cereals.








Farming the old way

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our previous post; farming today compared to the old way; in order to explain how farming was done at the time when I was young, what we are going to write here-under is the way of farm life that was going on then, we know that things have changed for the better since then, as we have already written in our previous post, because of the tractor and new farming machinery that have come out since then, all this progress has been due to the modern industrial progress, but when I was young these advanced machinery were not available yet, of course there were some, but they were a lot less advanced farming machine that could make farming easy, so we had to do most things the old ways, so let me tell you how life was in the farms of southern Italy in the early fifties and earlier.

It is a well-known fact that in those times and even now, there were/are two times during the year, when in the farms everybody would be really working hard and working very long hours; one of this was/is sowing time and the other is harvest time, let us start with sowing times. When I was young the working day at sowing time would start two hours before dawn, because we had to make the horses, mules and other animals ready for working in the fields, we had to feed them and water them as well, it had to be done in such a way that everything should be made ready in order to go into the fields at daybreak.

At that time of the year in the morning it would be very cold and there are lots of frosty days, so in the morning the outside temperature could be around zero or below, it is very hard then to harness the horses to the plough as everything one touches is so cold; but then when one gets going it is not so bad, because walking in the fields holding the plough in one hand and guiding the horses with the other hand is hard work and it makes one warm. This type of very hard work at sowing time goes on for about a month if the weather is good and perhaps it could be longer than a month. When the sowing is done then everything slows down again, but we had still to look after the farms’ animals and do other farming chores; see this article My farm life continues, in this hub, in a sub article we describe what we did after sowing our wheat and during the winter.

Anyhow, now that we have said what we did in the farms at sowing time, let us talk about harvest time, since this is the busiest time in the farms, because harvest time is when the farmers collect the fruits of their hard labour that they have done during the year, so there is no time to waste at harvest time, therefore this was and still is the most hectic time of the year for all the farmers, and it is a very worrying time too for the farmers as well, you see if something goes wrong all their work goes down the drain for the whole year, so to speak. Here we are talking about mostly how things were run in the farms when I was young.

Now let us say a few things about today farming, especially about wheat farming, because wheat is one of the main important produce that we need from farming, as we have already said at the beginning of this article. With wheat we make bread and pasta and other bakery products, therefore it is perhaps the most important farm produce that we use. So, let us compare what is changed in wheat farming since I was young:

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Wheat harvest in the fifties

The following description is the way of wheat harvest time in the fifties when I was young. When I was young we had already a horse drawn harvester that was helping us, this early harvester was able to cut the wheat plants and tie them in bundles, so we were already half way down the track of progress, as this machine saved us a lot of work, because we did not have to harvest by hand. Anyhow, at this time of the year everybody in the farm works hard and for very long hours, it is very hot at this time of the year and everything is very dry. We get up very early in the morning, we get the horses ready for working by feeding them and watering them, then we harness the horses and set them to pull the harvester, and off we go in the fields for another day of hard work, if everything goes well, we might be able to go over a ten acre field just in one day with this harvester. The harvester needs two people to get it working, one drives the horses and another regulate the harvester, the harvester goes around the field and leaves these bundles of wheat or other cereal, whatever has been sown in the field. Now these bundles of wheat will be collected in hips around the field from other people as soon as possible, the hips of these bundles of wheat are made is such a way that if it rains the rain would run off easily, these hips of wheat will be collected later on when we finish with the harvester, perhaps in a week or two, we will go back to the fields with a cart to take everything on a special plot near the farm house, where the trashing machine will be hired and set.

When we collect and cart everything to the farm house, we work very long days, we get up before 4 am, but we have a break of two or three hours at lunchtime because it is too hot to do anything, then we go back to work and between real work and looking after the animals we finish at dusk around 8 pm, after that we only have to feed the horses: this sort of work goes on for more than a month and sometimes up to two months, with no breaks at all seven days a week. Everybody in the farm works to their maximum and they are very tired, they are also very worried about the possible fire hazard, and also of any thunder storms at this time of the year, since anyone of these happenings can destroy the whole crop, and a whole year of hard work could go up in smoke. So we all would be waiting for the trashing machine to come and finish our harvest.

When some famer did not have a lot of wheat to trash, they could use a place in common with other farmers, so that, the trashing machine would not have to be set several times. The trashing machine that were around and we would hire together with other farmers came with a large crew, because it was a much larger machine than the one shown in this post, it had a crew of about twenty people, it was a very interesting time when we were trashing our own wheat, oats, barley, etc. Because we were anxious to see how much wheat and other product we had made.    

Now there were many other things that I would be able to tell you, but I better not just to make it short; but here I would like to say that when one goes through these life experiences in the farm one knows that it is really hard life farming, but since this is the only way to grow these things for food, we the farmers keep working in our farms to feed the rest of the community.

So we feel that it would be right if the rest of the community should be thanking us for all the hard work that we have done, but it does not happen that way because, even when we are working our guts out, and while we are doing that we are becoming dull, the rest of the community does not care and they label us as dull people, just because we are farm people, but we did our part of hard work for our own benefit and also for the benefit of the entire town community.

This is how life was then in the small farms of Southern Italy. Now this town people attitude as I have said above, plus some very lean years when we hardly could survive and also because we had only a very small farm and it would have been hard to expand was one of the reasons why I migrated to Australia. But anyhow let us continue and describe how harvesting was done the very old way, so that we could compare it to today’s living.

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Genzano it story
Farming the old way
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, framing the very old way
------------------------------ 
Some useful links


Some hub links

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Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Farming today compared to the old way

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and our post, farming today compared to the old way
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Wheat farming the modern way
With these combined harvester machines to collect wheat is easy these days. anyhow we have to point out that in this photo there are just too many machine, just to make an impressive photo.



By using a tractor and plough or other devises to cultivate the soil today is also a lot easier than it used to be; well, not only it is easier but it is also better, because the soils is better prepared, when the time comes for sowing whatever one needs to sow.



Farming today compared to the old way
Wheat farming the modern way
Dear readers, starting with this post we are going to write a few posts, where we would like to show you that overall we are better off today than we were in the past, one of these improvement has been happening because of the new machines that have been invented in the last century or so, but perhaps to understand this progress we need to describe one of the main improvements that I have witnessed myself personally, so I would like to talk about; Farming today compared to the old ways.
First of all let us acknowledge that modern wheat farming in Australia and in many other parts of the world as well has been able to slash the present cost of living a lot; today modern farming thanks to the many new farming machine available and also the many new fertilises available are able to produce wheat and other produce a lot cheaper than in the past, so, food for most of us people has become a lot cheaper, therefore we are better off today in many ways.
In this post including another couple of post that we are going to post later, we would like to invite our readers to compare how different farming and farming life was at the time when I was young in the fifties, and also, how hard was life then because most of us had to work hard just to earn enough to feed ourselves and our families, as you will become aware by the time you finish reading this articles.
This difference that we are talking about would apply to the farmers and the general public as well, because today it affects both of them in a beneficial way. So there is a lot to be said about this great difference in cost and also hardship or easiness and it all has happened during my life time, so, there are good reasons to believe that our standard of living has improving a lot, at least in the sense of being able to feed ourselves with wheat and other farm products, because the cost of farm products are more affordable today than in the past; so let us compare the cost of living and some of the reasons why this has happened and also talk about the farming life that we used to live, at the same time, perhaps just for the sake of seeing where we have come from.
Today we often wonder how easy it is to grow and harvest wheat, at least it seems so when we look at a video that shows harvest time in the wheat farms, we see a few harvester machines in a field collect the wheat in no time at all, and because of this speed of these wonderful combine harvester machine food is a lot cheaper today than it used to be; of course these machines are only part of the machinery that helps the farmers produce the wheat, because there are many more machines required, so, just to inform the general public a bit more, because some of them we guess would not know what is involved at all, let us talk about and show here under a few more machines that are required to work the fields and produce wheat today.
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Some farmers' machinery

We could say that the most important machine in the farms is the tractor, as this machine could be used in all sorts of farming, in wheat farming the tractor is followed by the harvester machine and other devices to till the soil and to sow the seeds, and all these machines put together make farming a lot easier today, and therefore wheat can be produced a lot cheaper, this of course helps keep the price of bread and other wheat made products down, since wheat is the main food elements required in the western world to prepare food, therefore, this new way of farming helps a great deal just about everybody, since wheat would be one of the main ingredients to make foods for us to eat and we require lots of it.
Of course if we want to talk about farming in general there is more to say than just wheat farming, because there are many other things that the bloke on the land would produce, see this link here-under how Wikipedia explains farming.
Dear readers, now let us continue to talk about wheat farming and the great benefit that we get from it; we should be really happy about what is happening here because it is good for us all, so, today while we are writing this article, we would like to point out that there is a great difference in the ways of living and definitely we are a lot better off today than we were, when I was young:
Now, for comparison sake let me explain this to you, today here in Australia there are a few places that a 600g loaf of bread costs you just one dollar, we know that this bread is sold at a very special price from these supermarket, in order to get the customers to the shop, but we often wonder and we do not know how it could be done so cheap but they do it anyhow, this very low price of bread is possible only because the farmer can produce the wheat cheap for a start.
Then, because the wheat is cheap the price of bread could also be cheap, the supermarkets make it even cheaper to attract customers, because the supermarkets have a price war to attract customers on bread and also on milk, so, we can buy a loaf of bread for one dollar and we can buy a two litre bottled milk for two dollars, that works out at one dollar per litre, again how they can do it I do not know, but they do it anyhow; so there is plenty of cheap wholesome food around for us to enjoy, thanks to the farmers and the supermarkets.
But even though bread and milk is cheap beyond compare, there are people that still complain about the cost of living today, I know that what I am talking about here are only a few items and a lot more are needed to live well. But just for comparison sake let us show you how easily we can afford to buy bread and milk to day, you see today most people on the government old age pension in Australia would receive about 700 dollars per fortnight, which would be about 50 dollars per day, they could very easily afford to buy bread and milk and other food items.
Now that we have said how easy it is to buy bread and other staple food today, let us leave behind this affordability of food today and let us see how things were done in the past. You see, when I was young things were a lot harder than today, for sure we could not buy bread and milk as easy as we buy them today, because to produce these things took a lot more physical work than today and therefore they were a lot more expensive, they were so because the way of producing them was different, in order to show you what we mean, hereunder we are going to describe how wheat farming was done at the time when I was young and also how hard it was for some people just to have something to eat, even if it was just a piece of bread and butter, or bread and tomatoes or other basic things that one could find in the fields if you were in the farms. Anyhow, to start with let me describe how farming was done then, in this following article, farming the old ways, so that we could have a better understanding of the whole issue and be able to compare the past with the present way of farming. Anyhow how I said at the beginning of this post, we are going to write a few posts about this subject and this post is becoming too long, so we will write about ‘farming the old way’ in our next post. 
Do not forget that this is only the first post and to understand what we want to convey you need to read our next to post at least.  
See you soon.
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Some hub links

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Our life observations

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Simple man life observations
-Our life observations
Welcome to my blog of Genzano it story,
And this post ‘Our life observations’. 


Just as this photo tells us, life is whatever you want it to be, the best way to go about life is that we need to observe and learn from it, and if something is worrying us, let us try to overcome that by using what we have already learned from our lives observations.
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Simple man life observations
These are my life memories and observations
Dear readers, this time we are not going to talk about what is happening in the world, as we have done in our last two posts, where we have tried to point out the negative effect that the illegal migrant could have on the receiving countries, because that is not our main aim in this blog, as you can easily find that in the news, but we have written our last two post just to let you know how we see the situation from here, now that we have done that, we would like to go back to talk about our own personal life that I have lived in Genzano di Lucania, because that is the town that I came from and lived my younger life, starting from my own life observations. 
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The human eye is one of the best vehicle to observe and learn all those things that happen around us, and together with our other senses would help us learn many new things. We should try to remember what we have seen or heard, as this may be useful one day.  
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 We have to learn from our own life and our observation of life; first of all let us just observe what I am doing just now: Well I am writing my own life observations in this article, we will call this first part, simple man life observations; and then, observe and learn from life, let me talk about my childhood and my childhood pains; one can still learn from the hurting part of life; these are the subject that we would like to talk about, some of these in this post and some in our next post. Here I have to make the following observation, which is that this post or article could have been the beginning of my life story; instead I have moved it towards the end of the first part of my life story, which is the story of my life before I migrated to Australia.
Anyhow, as I said we have to observe and learn, and then when we can try to use our observations to guide us during our life; our observations of life if we remember them well, they would be like our own shadow that follows us everywhere we go and it never fails on a sunny day, so let us all learn from life by observing whatever happens around us. I know that sometimes we might want to forget what has happened to us, because it is painful to recall, but even those painful memories are worth remembering, because they might teach us to avoid them next time. Now let us look at my own life story and observation and perhaps compare them with today’s living.
Looking at the ways that we live today, one could certainly say that living today is not as simple and easy as it used to be, because of the changing ways of living that progress has brought with it, and living one’s own life today is a very complex event that needs to be looked at closely, even if it is just a normal simple life of a simple man like me.
You see, in the old times it was easier, because life usually would follow the same pattern like the generation before us, so everybody would copy the previous generation. But today is different, because things have changed and continue to change, so, we have to change also if we want to succeed in life.
Today when we start thinking about the beginning of our own life in general terms, no one could ever tell and no one could ever even guess what life would or could be bringing to any of us. Of course the best way for any of us is to plan ahead how we would like to live our own life; and here I mean that we should really make up our own mind about what we want to do with our own life, and then try hard to keep to the chosen plan if we can.
But even if one plans well ahead, there are times during our life when one has got to do whatever is most appropriate at that particular time in order to survive and thrive, and be able to earn our own living. Therefore even if we have made up our own mind, and perhaps we have decided that we wants to study, or we wants to learn a trade, or do something special during our own life, it may not happen just the way we have planed it, because life events may override those decisions, so we may end up doing a different job, or being something else other than what we had planned to do in the beginning. But then because these things happen we learn from life what we need to do and we do them since that is the best way to solve the problem. You see, we need to observe and lean, it is necessary to do that even if it is done just to survive those times that we happen to live in.
Observe and learn from life
We should observe life events and learn from them
We have to learn to accept life just the way it comes, because sometimes this is the only thing that we would be able to do, without upsetting ourselves too much; I am saying this because, during my life I have had a few of those life experiences that are not the best; but I could do nothing about it to change the outcome, so I had to accept them and continue to live the best way I could.
Today, I am looking back at my life that I have already lived, and I am thinking that I have already lived the most important part of my life. You see, I happen to be in my sixties while I am writing this page here for the first time; so, I can look back at my life and wonder at the great changes of lifestyles that we have been living in this new present era including my own life. While I am looking at these changes I also wonder at the events that have changed our lifestyle, and also of how it all has been happening and still keeps happening and changing even now while I am writing here this article.
Therefore, right at this very moment I am wondering why I am writing this at all, because writing articles is new to me and so it is still another one of my lifestyle changes, which has been brought about from those changing life events, you see when I was young I could never have guessed that one day I could be writing something and be able to publish it in something called the Internet, and I would be writing in a language that was and is not my native tongue.
All this has happened to me, because there have been lots of changes since I was born, there were life events that have changed my lifestyle during my life, and so they have forced me to change and to adjust with them as required; and it was one of these changes during one stage of my life, when I felt the need to start writing, so that I could fulfil one of my emotional personal needs. And in doing so I have written a few things, which I would very much like to preserve at least for the time being, although sometimes I wonder whether my personal written articles are really worth to be saved.
But here I am talking about my own personal writings, and even if they are worth nothing to the rest of the world, they are my personal writings and my experience of life, and therefore I would like to keep them forever while I am still alive, and perhaps even after I am dead, if they could make sense to anybody, so that, if one day somebody happens to read my personal writings they will be able to understand them. So, now I will try to write them down in a way that people will understand them. So here are my life events and changes, according to the observations of my own life, as it evolved starting from when I was a child, so let me talk about my childhood now and the problems that I went through when I was very young.
I am going to talk about my childhood in my next post as this post is becoming too long, and the readers become tired very easily these day if a post is too long, so, see you in our next post, talking about childhood.

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 Genzano it story
Our life observations
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED; 
Next time with, talking about chilhood
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Some hub links