NAUTILUS à ORIA

Tourism is over! We are working a little bit now. Direction of the Brindisi region which as Salento (that is to say all the heel of Italy) was dedicated to the monoculture of olive trees. Thousands of trees were planted and several are hundreds of years old. Their twisted trunk, puffy, and dug make us thought of old frozen souls who have to bear the heat of the sun. Among these old branches, fruit trees, fig trees, prickly pears, pear, apple, plum, orange, lemon trees and vineyar, produce fruit basking in the sun and sweet as you wish! The land is dry there. The rain will be scarce for a period of 6 months. Rain is in fact not the best friend of the olive trees, it can cause premature onset of flies that are rampant due to larvae that eat unripe olives.

 

Here I arrived in Oria! Mattia picks me up at the train station with a big smile. We talk over a beer and then go to Monti where the young father develops his permaculture project. Both handyman, professor and alchemist to his hours, this man is an encyclopedia of permaculture and embarked on a great project for the past 1½ years. Mattia realizes in parallel with his project, courses, consulting in permaculture and chromatographies of the soil. The chromatography enable to know in particular soil quality by distinguishing minerals, organic matter and other components necessary for good soil cultivation.

 

 

Mattia and Francesca are for me examples of healthy living manners. Regarding food, they produce through their garden vegetables. The land they bought enables them to produce their own olive oil, as well as their own flour. The rest, they buy mostly at Coop or the market, and mainly organic. The vegetables are not expensive in the region.
They produce their own muesli, pasta. Francesca is an excellent cook.
There are also careful to recycle as much as possible. All fruit stones are kept to produce fruit tree plantations thereafter. The skins of oranges and cherries tails are dried and stored for infusions.
Lemons (difficult to put in a compost) are soaked in a tray of water and by decomposition produce nitrate to be used for the production of a compost, by watering the dried grass with the produced solution.
Daily compost is given to hens.

 

With olive oil that is in abundance in the region, Francesca makes soaps. We had the chance to make a one-day workshop production of soap and detergent. Soap production is done by a chemical reaction between a base (caustic soda solution) and fatty acids (here olive oil). Francesca taught us how to produce soap, thanks to the calculation of amounts of ingredients and the amount of sodium hydroxide by the use of saponification coefficient. The oil and fat or other ingredients such as beeswax, are mixed and heated. On the other hand, the caustic soda is mixed with a calculated amount of water, the mixture produces an exothermic reaction. The solution can even heat up to 80C. It is then necessary to bring the two solutions to the same temperature, around 45-50C. The two solutions are mixed and precipitation occurs instantly. The mixture is again heated and has to be mixed until some extent. For laundry, after this step, the solution is put into a container and will be kept several days to complete the reaction. Then the material will be cut into pieces and dried for several weeks.
In the case of soap, we add essential oils to the solution  and other ingredients (coffee powder, aloe vera mixed) to add properties to the soap. The paste is then dried.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

In addition to eating healthy. Francesca and Mattia want to be autonomous. Like most houses of Puglia, the hot water is produced by solar panels. Mattia wants to produce electricity by photovoltaic panels which part of the electricity produced is stored in batteries. We met their friend Jean Claude who is able to demonstrate that this is possible. This man is equipped with photovoltaic solar panels s and a wind turbine. From his experience, and as we know, the harder is the storage of electricity. In addition to the batteries, we could discuss systems using electricity directly produced by putting a pressure vessel with the compressed air. Other experiments are done for other energy sources such as gas production by organic materials, or coal production by simple craft 'ovens' that generates wood pyrolysis guided by airflow according to shape of the chimney pipe.

 

 

Course of a day: the alarm rings at 4:45! Ouch! Even the rooster will not sing at that hour! Quick breakfast and we embark in the zapa direction Monti! As required,  we prepare compost bins to put under the trees recently planted. Or make the lime paint in one of the houses, or move piles of branches. The work is more or less physical depending on the tasks. We often work until 10-11am in the morning, then the sun becomes too hard to continue. We go home to eat a bit and most of the time we help Francesca with meal preparation and other household tasks. The afternoon heat is heavy, the sun beats on the head, it's time for a nap. Everyone is at rest even dogs who are hiding in a corner of the garden looking for freshness. Around 5pm, activities continu. We give a hand as we can and we eat all together in the candlelight. Sleep is not long in coming.

  

Lime paint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collection of black and white chick peas (cece in Italian)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monti : this field is quite emphasized. Two zones are for olive trees. In one of them, Mattia has wheat and lupine to grow, in the future there will also be a vegetable garden and a small lake. The lupine crop has been made just before my arrival and we pick the most beautiful wheat heads in a morning. In front of this area is a land on which Mattia and Leila measured the height differences to guide the flow of water and planting of future trees. A well a water well has been drilled, but it is currently fairly dry. During the two weeks spent with the family, a backhoe came to dig roads and lakes on the field. The most important thing at the moment is the future management of the water which is scarce in summer. Four new routes are traced and help ease traffic on the ground.

 

Installations have already been implemented last year. A kitchen, and a bathroom with dry toilets. Since everything is recycled, all that comes out from dry toilets is collected and stored for potting soil. A slot for a yurt is also present in the field.