La Campagna

One of many lemon trees in the Campagna

La Campagna, or "The Country", is used to describe a small cottage kept in the countryside just outside of the city. The Italian concept of "countryside" in this case is much more like an American suburb, though if you consider that most Italians live in crowded apartment buildings without any kind of yard or garden, a little house surrounded by a small plot of land must feel like the great outdoors.  



La campagna is not to be confused with a villa however. From what I have seen a villa is intended as a primary home, whereas a campagna is intended strictly for occasional activity and contains only the bare necessities which, if you're lucky, include electricity and running water.

Our campagna is a small, single room, stone house on the edge of the city. I say "our" campagna, but it really belongs to Nonna Michela. She loves spending time there though, and likes all of us to keep her company, so in the end the entire family has keys to the place and uses it at their leisure.

AmoreMio says that when he and his cousins were all younger they spent nearly every Sunday there and usually spent the night in fold out cots. On especially hot nights they would build little forts out in the garden and sleep between the olive trees.

These days everyone is all grown up, so no more sleeping in the dirt, but they still visit the campagna nearly every Sunday during the summer to help the Nonna with five main activities:

1. Caring for the animals: The Nonna has chickens and rabbits in a small shed at the back of the garden, and Zio Massimo keeps a dog in the yard as well.

2. Watering the plants: Mandarin orange, lemon, olive, pear, and grapefruit trees, bushes of basil, sage, oregano, mint, and rosemary, plus various decorative hedges all need constant watering during the summer.

3. Harvesting: While some produce is as easy as picking it from the tree (such as the lemons or mandarins), others are a little more time consuming. Bushels of oregano have to be carefully dried, crushed, and then agonizingly sifted to pick out all the needles and twigs. Sacks of almonds have to be cracked open and separated from their shells. Olives are pitted by crushing them between two slabs of marble until they just begin to split, and then preserved in either jars of water or salt depending on the type.

4. Maintenance: There's always something to repair around the campagna, previous projects have included tiling the courtyard, building a roof over the porch, putting in a septic tank, and fixing the garden pathway.

5. Eat and Socialize: Every day in the campagna usually includes a huge Sunday lunch, followed by an afternoon of baking pizzas, calzone, and bread in the large wood stove.