After Dad died, I found myself sorting out the storerooms and sheds at home and out in the countryside. Tools, sacks, mats, utensils of every kind (seemingly useless), salvaged and kept. And then ropes, nets, sheets…
Stored in an old fridge used as a sort of safe, arranged in a myriad of containers of every type and shape (jerrycans, jars, screw-top bottles, boxes…), carefully selected and catalogued, there were a great many seeds.
Pumpkins, Courgette, Meloncella, Round tomato, Winter tomato, Basil, Turnip tops, Mugnulu (Green Cabbage), Chicory, Romanelle, Onions, Garlic, Parsley, Celery, Chard… and then: Chickpeas, Black Chickpeas, Peas, Roveja, Broad beans, Lupins, Dòlica (Grass peas), Lentils, Beans, Black-eyed beans, Borlotti beans, Green beans…
I stood there, amazed that, unlike the rest of the room, which seemed to be in total disarray, this corner, this fridge full of compartments, was so neatly organised...
Mice! I told myself – he had arranged the seeds in the fridge like this to protect them from mice, it was obvious!
I went back to the cleaning; I was in a hurry to tidy up and put things in order, throwing away everything that seemed useless to me, and that is what I did.
I started with a thorough clear-out, trying to keep all the tools that might still come in handy, as well as the oldest ones, as a keepsake for the future.
Sacks, ropes, canes, ladders: I sorted everything out, removing and throwing away whatever was superfluous, but there was one thing I couldn’t work out: how was I going to get rid of that bulky, ugly fridge? It was too heavy to move on my own and, above all, I had no idea where to put it… I’d think about it later.
A few days later, while I was chatting with a friend, he told me that this kind of waste is in demand, because various materials such as iron, copper and other metals can be recovered from it. He gave me the number of a man who collected scrap metal: I could call him and he would take care of carting away that bulky piece of junk, and at no cost at all! I called him straight away and we agreed that the next day he would come and load up the fridge along with other scrap metal I no longer needed and had to get rid of.
They say it’s always best to sleep on it, and so it was: in the night I was literally struck by a very simple thought: That fridge was the Legacy handed down to me by my Father.
I didn’t sleep a wink all night and, afraid that “the scrap man” would take away my safe with Dad’s legacy inside, by 6 a.m. I was already out in the countryside… luckily it was still there! I carefully emptied the fridge, putting all those jars into wooden crates, so that the fridge was ready for the scrap man.
The “Treasure” was safe at last; now I could get rid of the safe!
That was where my passion for the countryside began.
