When we first bought our olive grove, we didn’t even know anyone who owned a tractor. Not a tenable long term position. When you’re talking about more than 20 acres of land, mostly on vertiginous slopes, even simple jobs such as cutting the grass become major ventures. So we started putting word about that we were looking for a tractor, probably with driver attached, at least to begin with. Quite a few local farmers came to have a chat and to size up the work. Most of them left quickly, the appeal of manoeuvring their cumbersome beasts over very uneven ground and inclines improbable in nature, evidently being less than beguiling.
There was one person, though, whose eyes positively lit up at the challenge: Ardelio (who has since become much more involved with Nudo, and whose groves now form a part of the Nudo collective). He drove his tractor up and down and in and out of the trees and up and down the hills with the gay abandon of a three year old let loose on his trike. We could only stand and gawp, delighted that we had found our man.
And then we found our woman. Lina, Ardelio’s wife, not only drives the family tractors with a force and zeal that make Ardelio seem restrained, but she produces the most incredible mouth-watering lunches of salami (home made, with meat from the family pigs), cheese (ditto, but from the sheep’s milk) and bread (flour milled from their wheatfields). She smiles calmly, modestly, never breaks into a sweat and even in overalls and covered in dirt, is all woman. The simple fact that Lina exists gives one cause for optimism about the future of humanity.
Lina and Ardelio we salute you!
Thanks for sharing the story – they sound like amazing people!
I find myself coming to your blog more and more often to the point where my visits are almost weekly now! Keep on posting!
I read your blog frequently and I just thought I’d say keep up the amazing work!