Organics

I came here to work on an organic farm, but I’ve found myself posited in the midst of a total cultural experience. Cheese, wine and all foods fatty. Here, coffee IS breakfast but our lunch is as considered and cared for as dinner. We rise at 0830 and if the family wants us to work we’re outside in the fields by 0900. The farm is completely organic (while a common cause for farmers to orientate towards organic practices is due to the considerably higher prices fetched on their produce, this family has chosen the organic route based primarily on their feelings towards their industries need for a more ecological approach and the belief in a superior product resulting from organic practices) and grows apples, plums, grapes, cherries and even saffron.
The morning is cool but within the still blue sky is always the promise of sunshine and by 1000 we find ourselves removing our sweatshirts, allowing the sun to bathe us in her heat. So far our work has consisted of walking down the many rows of grape vines while ‘training’ them to grow in a way that allows the vine to support the weight of the grapes it will produce while ensuring it will receive sufficient amounts of sunlight without interfering with its neighbor, then we position nets to protect the vines from the hail experienced in Autumn and Winter. We’re sent to do this by ourselves and can move at our own pace; so imagine us walking through a vineyard, surrounded by fertile hills sprouting all variety of colour, sun in our eyes and mp3 players singing perfect harmonies to our rhythmic actions. Montcuq, our village, like all villages in France posses a church, which as the earth hits the middle of its daily spin strikes its bells; triggering our meandering journey back to the farm-house for a 2 hour lunch ordeal. Duck, beef and chicken steaks, risottos, seafood plates, rice salads and pastas for the main dish, a ridiculously generous cheese platter containing countless types of cheese follows then desert is presented as locally made organic yoghurt’s and of course, coffee. Throughout lunch we attempt to converse with our host family, aided only by their youngest child who has a basic understanding of english and our rudimentary grasp of the French language. After Lunch we’re set free to do as we please, usually using this time to lay in the sun, catch frogs and fish in the dam, ride our bikes, practice knitting or continue working in the fields.

Dinner is just after the sun seats itself behind the hills and lasts for around 1.5 hours and is as equally a feast as lunch, with the added ingredient of wine. Wine – especially red – plays a big part in the Culture of South France, and each region is quite fond of the wine they produce — here it is Cahor wine and if you don’t like it, well don’t confess it too loudly. Fortunately the wine is superb and has set in motion a new phase of wine appreciation — I can’t get enough. We finish dinner with coffee and more attempts to communicate before retiring to our own room and organise ourselves to repeat another day.

Wine and cheese. Man, we don’t wanna leave.

Sun in our eyes; dust in our wake.

Sun in their eyes and dust in their wake, they follow the curving road as it charters its way through the wilderness, their eyes staring with idle calm into the scenery exploding by them; watching natures own cinema. Parking the van in an abandoned driveway where the vines long ago begun assuming the role of the decaying fences, the three make their way to an enchanted track just passed; here leafed giants are standing guard on either side of the path, joining their arms together, creating an entrance to their world and the boys not feeling threatened but invited step inside the archway, quickly noticing the land leaving its accord with the trees and sloping away to the right so steeply it appears to be perpetually sliding, the trees to the left remain true and continue without concern to overhang the constricted path. With their entrance begins a cardinal race, holding the single aim of finding a new adventure, and so they run with fever; heads angled up as though using the sky to navigate to the promised land, but their compass stays blocked by a thick canopy which only seems to break its continuity when they avert their eyes groundwards hoping to avoid tripping over the rocks scattered along the dirty path they travel.

They walk, they run and eventually rays of hope are reaching out and leading them to the end of the tunnel; to the end of the race. Their upward turned eyes are greeted with a sky fused of more blues then language can account for and in front of them a shallow canyon with water so bitterly cold it forcefully gouges its path through the rocks. One area pounded so heavily by the onslaught a deep bowl has formed, above sits a lone wooden pole anchored into a crevice with adolescent ingenuity; two kayaks heavy with water and sand bags. The thin elliptic pebbles that cover the beach they are lazing on become engaged in competition to defy water tension; and with each pebble they pick up they assure one another that this pebble is going to go further than the last, and further than any previous pebble has ever skimmed; each newly selected pebble is THE ONE.

Fear of the cold has so far left the three arrested to the beach, but the allure of jumping from the pole-cum-diving board has overcome the youngest and as he strips to his briefs the others less brave assume the role of photographers — hoping that being so involved in his actions will allow them to feel exhilaration as he falls then remove them from the venomous cold as he lands. The first jump takes nervous minutes to perform and is limited to a simple step off, each subsequent jump becomes more ambitious — from bombs to flips. They take their shots, he takes his jumps and as the water fails to grow warm with his body heat and using the loudness of his chattering teeth as a guide they decide to leave their new territory behind. The return trek is less majestic though just as hurried, this time spurred on by a mutual feeling that the world just visited is closing in behind them and nipping at their heels; attempting to swallow them whole and forbid re-entry into their own world. Safely out and standing by the van, dinner is prepared and served — nutella and bread, and with the finishing bites arrives the realisation that daylight is fading. They leave to chase the sun as she drowns herself into the horizon. Just another day.