Day 2 June 14

Post 6/14

Journal:

I’m sitting with Noura the house dog in my lap and Mork beside us. The rows of outward nails around his collar are intimidating still. There are four or five dogs to keep foxes and wild dogs away from the chickens. We’re watching the sheep from under the olive trees, out of the sun. Yesterday, these dogs wanted nothing to do with me and today they are my friends. Woke up at 2:30 this morning. It’s around 8 now. Andy brought me out today with the sheep and went back to the farm to pluck a chicken. He sales for 6 ½ Euro…Sheep tried to go back home and I just jumped the fence and scared them back out. It’s not time for them to go back in, boss says keep ‘em out 2 hours. …he sales his chickens for 6 ½ Euro per kilo while factory chickens sale at the market for 3 Euro per kilo. He says it tastes better too, organic grain fed and free range without any hormones. I wonder if he’ll let me buy one then cook it for us.

He is an excellent cook. I’ve had a feast every day here. He’s been cooking for his 3 children since their mom died 16 years ago, sending them off to school and working on farms around their schedules. The girls moved back to England while the youngest, Nick, wants to stay on the farm, making this his life as his dad has done.

Noura’s left me alone with the sheep now, gone , startled I guess by my sudden yelling, “Pisso! Pisso, Back!” to the sheep and running off after them before they got to the gate.



Andy mentioned a mineral hot springs pool nearby that he wants to take me to at siesta, during the afternoon rest. It sounds so good to get into the water today. I better go around toward the olive trees in case they keep moving.

Night journal 6-14, Saturday

It’s late now. The sheep are in for the night. Can’t enhance photos on this computer. Andy met me on the porch in the glow after sunset with a cold beer. Now it’s 11:30, I’ve taken a xanax to see about sleeping through the night, and talked to mom and dad with this fading high. They sound so much more relaxed and happier for me than when I was in Palestine. Dad even mentioned the value of this experience for me. And mom gave me her first cousin’s phone number. I’ll call tomorrow. Maybe I’ll stay the night somewhere toward the end of June between farms while heading south through Athens.


It’s as romantic as I dared not believe it would be. Perhaps more. Even the occasional hassle of sheep sometimes, like tonight when they kept grazing up the hill toward the corn and clover then back down again toward the oats they feasted on yesterday. It’s more like a mountain really…and rough from the plow but dried up, in large rock like, hilly clumps that I traverse while they seem to glide protecting the corn, clover and oats. A few nabbed a corn leave or two but no real damage.

I saw another snake today but it was a baby. Don’t tell mom and dad. But Andy gave me his gollashes to wear, tall rain boots so I don‘t worry about them and keep moving. But the hassle is far outweighed by the downtime when I write or read while they gently graze without moving much. And her on the farm, there is a lot of downtime. It‘s like there are two days for each one elsewhere. We wake, work, siesta, wake work, evening rest. But the siesta’s also become times for delivering freshly slaughtered chickens to a house (like today) or visiting the hot springs for an hour, stopping off for a beer along the road at a café, then buying a couple for the 20 minute drive back to the farm, like today. It’s all up to the boss as he arranges our schedule and cooks a feast after a light breakfast each day. He reminds me mo Cheech or Chong or a combo with a natural inclination for Mediterranean hospitality. I guess it’s not just in Palestine. And he encourages me to take it easy on the wrist and tell him what jobs I shouldn’t do. Always a spirited hippy with a child’s kindness, gentleness and generosity. Like Sunday morning.

The therapeaudic hot pool was so soothing and the cold Heinekins that followed were the refreshing thing that hit the spot until the second, or maybe the first and then…dinner.


Barley is green when it’s mowed, then let to dry before rolled into bindles as nutrient rich hay. Nick was out with a tractor mowing it this afternoon when I took the sheep out.


The rhythm on the farm and in the fields, so foreign to me on that first day-yesterday when I let the sheep eat up the barley field, that rhythm is familiar already on my second day. It’s still new enough that I continue to carry my camera with me to graze the sheep. And the photos keep getting better. Is this really my life right now? These days and nights are so remote from what I woke and slept to before. I get enough of my time, out there with the sheep and then during siestas and evenings like this,

And I have a private room with a double window letting in freshest of air at night.

and I co-exist with the family, with Andy and his son Nick. This is what I get to do in my room sometimes, write, read, set photos and blog posts for a future day when we go to an internet café, maybe when he drops me off in Delphi to see the sights and get a bus ride back home. Its, ahhhhhhhhh. Then I also read my book anywhere, herding sheep, sitting on the porch before jobs, dinners, naps…And when they argue to each other about something in Greek here and there, son and father, business partners on the farm, I get to tune out and be with myself again. It’s a harmony I’d never considered before coming, one that I haven‘t got right at home. There are so many places to find it, even the spiders and the snakes. I consider them and they consider me. It’s brilliant, it‘s a matter of achieving balance. Shhhh.

Tonight I’ll sleep through.
Good night.