Event report: Baratto/Sbaratto Inauguration Party - Part 1 - The Preparation

An inauguration party was recently held at Casa di l'Amuri to celebrate the constantly smooth progress and increasing popularity of our project and our blog. The party was held on Sunday, November 14th with huge success, and as we are not yet registered as a public association it was not publicly advertised and the invitations were spread by word-of-mouth through our friends. Nevertheless, we were pleasantly surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the large number of guests who attended. What follows is Part 1 of the coverage and describes the preparation process carried out before the event.

The idea of holding an inauguration party had been floating around in our minds ever since the inception of the Casa di l'Amuri project. However, the possibility of holding the party truly solidified several weeks ago when the crew decided it was finally time to tackle the grand task of cleaning up a large room on the ground floor of the house which held inside it an ancient wooden oven.

The oven had not been used for a very long time and the room had come to be utilized by the Garozzo family over the decades as a storage space.

 Peppe Minniti came along to assist the cleanup operation, during which we found that the majority of the stored items were comprised of books, clothes and trinkets which the Garozzo family had no further use of. For the most part, the items were found to be in an acceptable condition and it was at this moment that an idea came up: our inauguration party could be combined with a Baratto/Sbaratto event where one of the aims would be to distribute the recovered items amongst friends who have need of them. A lengthy (and heated) discussion with Aureliano's father Salvadore took place.....

Our public relations negotiator Peppe Minniti.

.....before we were given the go-ahead to start removing things from the room...

.....with a few accidents occurring on the way:

Some horrors (which probably should not be posted here) were unearthed in the process but they were vastly outnumbered by the treasures. The gold which Carmelina sometimes mentions being hidden in this room was no-where to be seen, but we did find some things which more than made up for this, such as this rather beautiful old shelf.....

.....which we quickly reconstructed and began using to store our spices and herbs:

The big spoon was traditionally used to
stir tomato sauce, apparently.

It now proudly hangs next to our door-way to the kitchen:

This was followed by some beautifully preserved ancient containers......

.....a grinder....

.....and as if it had heard us planning for the party, the oven room in response miraculously presented us with a full set of spotless cutlery.....

A small portion of all the cutlery we found, enough for
all the guests, standing next to one of the several
 awesomely medieval metal goblets which were also
recovered.

.....and all the necessary shiny cooking utensils which we were looking for:

Aureliano's nephew Dario and Manuela hanging up the utensils.

Just one of the dozens of times I have witness this happen while arriving here. Almost every salvaged/donated carpet, curtain, table, marble slab, counter and piece of furniture which stands in our house has been put in its intended place and fit within a millimeter of perfection without needing any alteration. The right things and the right people turn up at exactly the moment when we need them most and random detours lead us to places, sought-out plants and unique individuals that all hold an integral place and specific function in our mission. An excerpt from "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, found in the library of Aureliano (our guru on all things woo-woo) reads: "When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream". Or perhaps it really is all part of a string of convenient coincidences. Who truly knows? 


Speaking of unique individuals, it was around this point in time that we had the grand pleasure of seeing a good friend coming all the way from France to visit us:

Marie-Annick!

Me and Aureliano first met Marie-Annick during our studies in Djanbung Garden, Australia, where she and Aureliano took part in a Permaculture Design Course. Marie-Annick promptly came to visit us in Sicily upon Aureliano's invitation, and upon her arrival I truly began to realize just how immensely deep and varied her knowledge base is. From her experience in studies of sustainable arid-climate living in Spain to her intricate understanding of Holistic Management and its application to both project management and personal development, all the way to her interests in low impact/natural building, Eco-village living and her near-future plan of living with and recording the traditional knowledge of the nomadic Nenet tribes which roam the Northern depths of my homeland Siberia, all across the board I could sense that Marie-Annick had joyously crafted her vision of the world in celebration of various lores and saw life through a kaleidoscope-like collection of knowledge, experiences and ambitions which far outweighed my own. Needless to say, I was honored to be able to glimpse at the world through her mind, even if it was for a brief period of 10 days during which she managed to successfully steer and organize our energy so that we could most effectively execute the planned event. --|||||Sergie|||||


With Marie-Annick's help we began to prepare for the event with a massive cleanup of the garden area:

It should be noted at this point in time that the entire property has been poorly maintained in recent decades, and to put it bluntly, it had slowly been transforming into a private garbage dump. Hence the ground was riddled with plastic.....

.....and large metal pieces such as door frames and portions of roofing stood about providing nothing short of a hazardous eye-sore:

We did our best to collect as much plastic off the ground as possible.....

.....and turned our attention to a large pile of freshly pruned wood that someone had attempted to burn using plastic as a fire-starter:

Though this was not the doing of the Casa di l'Amuri crew, it was deemed obvious that visitors to a future community and environmentally-ethical-living and education center should not be confronted with such a ghastly view. We decided that the best course of action was to cut the wood into small portions and collect it for drying to be used as fuel in the future.

Marie-Annick, Aureliano and our good friend Romina helping to sort out
the wood.....

.....which Aureliano and Marie-Annick had a lot of fun doing.

In the end, we decided to leave the pile half finished and put the wood to
the side in order to demonstrate to visitors how we had taken what seemed
to be waste in someone's eyes and turned it into a usable resource.

After several days of working in the garden we felt that the space radiated an acceptable level of organization and was deemed presentable. Our attention turned to the main house:

Romina helping Aureliano to clean up the front terrace.....

.....and make it look clean and presentable.

Manuela did a grand job of polishing up the bathroom.....

.....and kitchen areas.

Furniture in the main room was moved around to accommodate the guests.....

.....and Aureliano's brother generously let us use his projection system so that
we could perform a presentation on the day of the event.

Appropriate cups and glasses were arranged on the tables in the dining/office
 area for guests to pour themselves cups of tea/coffee/wine. 

Once the house had been appropriately arranged for visitation by guests, the last task which remained was to sort out the recovered items from the oven room, which there were quite a lot of:

Working well into the late evening hours, Marie-Annick and Aureliano went through each container sorting out the treasures and discovering some more horrors (most of which fell upon Marie-Annick's hands).

Eventually, the clothes were sorted from the books and hung up on the clothesline to be aired out:

An old broken down car had been standing uselessly around close to our garden area and it was decided that the car's protective nature should be utilized to house the books in case of sudden rain:

The books and trinkets were presented in the car for the taking, the clothes were on display on the clothesline, the garden was more organized than before, necessary food and beverages were purchased, all rooms in the house had been made ready, the invitations had been sent out and the stage stood ready. Anxious and excited to see our efforts culminate into a joyous gathering we retired for the night to get a good rest before the grand day of the event.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the coverage.

Two cats in two days.

It is with great pleasure that we present to you our two new energetic crew members, who arrived within a day of each other and came well equipped with fuzzy ears, long whiskers and sharp claws! Allow us to introduce to you:

Nico and Pistaccio!

  Our new orange member approached Peppe Minniti and Aureliano on the street as they were coming back from a morning jog. Exuding dangerously high levels of cuteness, he very quickly overpowered and convinced our two morning joggers that the best course of action was to take him up for adoption. A few people in the area were consulted on the subject of his owner/s, however since there were dozens of other cats in the vicinity that came daily to the same spot to be fed by generous locals, we concluded that our new friendly orange companion was most likely a stray. Our phone number was given out to the local residents so we could be reached in case the kitty was reported missing.

Peppe Minniti holding our bewildered new cat.

Back at home, Grandmother Carmelina's caretaker Nuncia was consulted about a suitable name for our new friend and recounted a story about Nico: a similar-looking cat she once lived with a long time ago, and hence our companion has come to be called Nico as well. Nico's first day at the house was relatively uneventful as he spent most of his time becoming comfortable with his new surroundings and calling out to us from a corner.

Word had spread quickly about our big new orange crew member, and the very next day we were being asked if Nico needed another furry friend to play with. The donors were Giacinto Pappalardo and Laila Tariq: two good friends of ours who have begun to visit us increasingly often, especially in times of jam sessions.

Giacinto Pappalardo playing the guitar and Laila Tariq
reclining on the couch.

Things seemed to be going smoothly with Nico's integration into the house life and so we promptly agreed to adopt Pistaccio, who came very willingly and took a quick liking to Nico and his new surroundings.

Pistaccio radiated youthful energy and with their combined courage they set off exploring the rest of the property as a formidable team.

Honestly, up until this point I wasn't so sure that two cats in two days was such a great idea.....

 .....especially since we immaculately cleaned the floor and were given some fancy carpets too. However, as I followed the cats into the garden I saw something which made my heart sing: Nico suddenly took a big poop right under a fruit tree! 

Pistaccio followed suit by fertilizing a spot on the other side of a tree which marks the edge of our closest garden bed. 

As soon as I saw this my fears quickly settled and I knew I could trust these guys. So far, their presence here has definitely been appreciated and they provide us with constant companionship, laughter and warmth. They've been here just over a week and its already hard to imagine life without this awesome duo.
--|||||Sergie|||||

Progress update #6: Further into the garden.

In one of our recent posts, the condition of our garden bed was described and shown to be ready for planting as soon as our possible choices of available seedlings were researched and considered. There has been some progress made in regards to seedling acquisition and planting, and this post will attempt to cover the relevant developments.

After much searching and talking to locals we eventually began to hear talk of a nursery which was said to produce seedlings of superior quality in terms of growth speed and yield. We were determined and excited to acquire the best seedlings that Sicily could provide, and were told that our quest would take us to the sea-side town of Acireale approximately 30 minutes away from our home in Via Grande. We promptly set out on our search for the nursery, during which we saw some amazing autumn colors by the sea-side.....

.....as well as some gigantic produce sold at the local markets.....

.....and some rather large bananas which seemed to be vigorous despite the onsetting cold weather.

After asking some locals about the existence of the nursery we were told that it was indeed in the area, and that it was indeed well known for its quality of seedlings since some of the previous customers apparently spent several hours on the road just to reach it. Eventually after some driving through the winding roads we came across this rather unusual sight.....

.....and confirmed that these series of beautifully intricate terraces and open aqueducts was the place we were looking for. The shack with the sod roof and the old wooden door seen on the right-hand-side of the photograph was the main office of the nursery and the seedlings grew quite happily under open air on a south-eastern slope with only the aid of horse manure, water and warm moisture-rich Mediterranean winds. Since we are currently heading into winter, the possible choices for seedlings were slim and we could only choose from several kinds of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli and celery. We ended up getting 50 mixed seedlings, and paid a grand total of 4 euros for all of them.

Back at home, some of the purchased seedlings were quickly transplanted to the already prepared garden bed standing close to the main house entrance.

A particular method was used when planting the lettuce and celery seedlings, which involves making a hole through the mulch and cardboard, placing a handful of soil in the hole and placing the seedling firmly into the soil. In this way the humus structure of the soil provides a low-nutrient mixture which the seedling roots can grasp onto, while the intact cardboard surrounding the seedling prevents any weeds from penetrating and growing around the lettuce. The seedling roots are motivated to grow downward and outward to reach the slowly-decomposing food scraps and compost. This promoted root growth is important for healthy stable plants and it has been said that the application of fertilizer to the soil in direct contact with seedlings diminishes the speed of root growth, as there is no need for the roots to grow out in search for nutrients.

After the garden bed had been planted it was decided that some large pots which stood nearby should be utilized, and that the nature of the pots should be used to our advantage to conduct a comparison study. The 3 pots seen in the image below were filled with varying materials, the first pot being filled with soil and food scraps/compost, the second with soil and composted horse manure, and the third just with soil. All pots were topped off with a cover of cardboard and mulch.

Aureliano explaining the process of planting seedlings to his
nephew Dario.

The last area which was nominated to be prepped-up for food production was a strip of suitable land located very close to the property entrance/exit point. This strip was viewed as a top priority area for quite some time, due to it receiving the majority of sunlight during all times of morning and afternoon hours. The brightly colored wall next to the strip was thought to assist the creation of a warm micro-climate through reflection of light onto nearby plants.

The strip of land on the right-hand-side, viewed from the main
entrance/exit point of the property.

The area from a different perspective with the main gate in the background.

A close up of the area to be worked on.

The scales seemed to be in our favor, until we decided to clean the site of any residual rubbish and began to dig into the soil. A stubborn obstacle was soon unearthed and stared us straight in the face: a slab of concrete extended all the way underneath the planned garden bed and the soil was no deeper than 5cm at any point.

The 5cm layer of some rather life-less and rocky soil.

However, this was a prime area for food production and a solution was quickly decided upon: the necessary soil would be built on top of the strip through the introduction of compost, food-scraps and horse manure which will break down into a rich humus over time and help introduce the necessary micro/macro organisms (which this area has very little of). We went about collecting the necessary ingredients for our raised garden bed, all of which were within several minutes driving from Casa di l'Amuri. The food-scraps were obtained from the Garozzo family house (who have been assisting our project by collecting all their food waste and storing it for us in a container) and from some nearby vegetable vendors who were more than happy to have us take their "garbage" (or "gold", as we saw it) off their hands.

Aureliano conversing with the nice lady who runs the local veggie shop...

.....and stuffing artichoke leaves from another shop into boxes,
buckets and sacks.

In 5 minutes we had a car loaded with free plant food.

The horse manure was obtained from our local riding club, who generously mix the manure with straw and leave it in the open to compost or to be picked up by anyone who has need of it.


Being slightly squeamish about parasites, I was relieved to find that certain areas of the pile had reached a scalding hot temperature, which should have incinerated any baddies crawling around in the horse poop. --|||||Sergie|||||

A slightly unsure Peppe Minniti watches a confident Aureliano wade into
the mountain of horse manure, in search of the good stuff....

....which smells about as good as it looks.

The horse manure was mixed with the food scraps and some compost which we had made several weeks earlier, resulting in a nutrient-loaded mixture which was topped with a layer of cardboard and leaf mulch. To avoid the mixture spilling out onto the driveway, some large bricks were used to outline the area, give it more definition, and increase the vertical limit of the bed by approximately 30cm. The bricks also provided additional space for planting seedlings and should greatly increase the thermal insulation of the bed.

A front view of the raised garden bed, with an outer border of various lettuces
planted in the bricks. Each hole in the brick contains the same materials as the
enclosed bed.

A top-down view of the bed. The old sink which can be seen
in the photo will be used to create a small aquaculture system
to encourage predator habitat and further increase the capture of
thermal mass.

A few days after planting, the seedlings were found to be stressed, and
some plastic trays were placed to reduce the amount of direct sunlight
which hits the plants, as well as provide a temporary windbreak while the
root system establishes. The result?

Overnight success.

The poor-quality soil underneath the raised garden bed was found to have some plastic waste and bits of paint which had chipped off from the adjoining wall. To assist the breakdown of any contaminants in the soil, old rotten logs were placed around the perimeter of the bed to help the beneficial fungi spread and lock up the toxins. A soil test is being planned to determine whether more serious measures should be taken to detoxify and regenerate the area.


Essentially, the seedlings are sitting on a giant compost pile which slowly decomposes and produces more than enough heat to keep the plants warm and cozy all through the winter, and at the same time provides them with a constant source of nutrients. While this method is extensively talked about in various Permaculture books, it should be noted that this technique (like most others mentioned in Permaculture books/seminars/workshops) has already been practiced traditionally for a long time by various cultures across the globe. In particular, I was surprised to find my father telling me that the method described above was used (with minor variations) quite extensively and with great success in my homeland of Siberia.  --|||||Sergie|||||