Winter
My childhood memories speak of long, cold winters with lots of snow, which buried everything. Families with the wooden "palozzo" and the "poiane" pulled by oxen made the "rotta", that is, they opened with much time and effort the few existing communication routes, each one doing their stretch.
In the long winters slow to pass, the artisan skill of the country people was expressed to the fullest: poles for vineyards were made, willows were pruned and with their vines, by hand, numerous tools were made: "I coragh", large baskets for collecting grass and leaves; "I gobi", baskets for collecting stones from the fields; "Le cavagne", larger baskets carried with two hands, also used for collecting stones.
Women spun wool and hemp and with these natural fibres they produced all the clothes and linen the family needed. Brooms were also made at home. Everything needed for the survival of families was the result of the creativity of these people, many of whom could not even write their name, but had great wisdom and knowledge.
Winter was hard to get through for those who had little. I remember that many people knocked at our door: nothing was ever denied to anyone, in honour and respect of that great sense of solidarity that distinguished the people of old.
Spring
Gradually the days grew longer and the sun returned to shine, slowly emerging from the long and icy winter. In this season the woodland pastures were cleaned of chestnut thistles, to allow sheep and cows to feed: the grazing period was beginning.
"Scassi" were made, that is, an attempt was made to increase the size of one's fields, stealing a few centimetres from public land. It was a furtive activity since the risk of being discovered and getting a fine, which no one could afford to pay, was very high.
In this season barley and chickpeas were sown, which were then roasted to make a coffee substitute, and corn — in dialect "furmantun". In the vegetable gardens hemp was grown for textiles and Malga for brooms.
Summer
This warm and beautiful season began with haymaking: the grass was cut with the "frina" (scythe), left to dry in the sun, turned several times with the pitchfork and then with ox-drawn carts taken to the haylofts or gathered in haystacks.
In July the wheat — a real wealth for the inhabitants — ripened, the golden ears were reaped with the msura to make sheaves to be piled up in the threshing floors awaiting the harvest. The wheat was tall because it also had to produce a lot of straw.
In August the wheat was threshed by hand in the threshing floors: with a tool called "cerchia" it was separated from the straw. This moment was an important event in the life of the population: a day of hard work but also of celebration.
Then the fields were prepared to collect future harvests, ploughing began. This work lasted a month: the soil was fertilised with manure and ploughed with oxen, then all the stones that emerged on the surface were collected and taken away with the "coragh" and "cavagne", they would then be used to build dry stone boundary walls. Malga, corn and hemp were harvested.
Hemp, then very widespread in our areas, once harvested was placed to macerate in wells where it was left for a month, after which it was beaten with a stick, put in the sun to dry waiting for Santelli who tanned it to make the "carzolo", that is, making it ready for spinning. Spinning hemp was not an easy job: to make the thread the fibre was wetted with saliva and to have plenty of it, it was customary to keep a dry chestnut in the mouth. The tow was also separated from the actual yarn.
Autumn
At the inexorable rhythm of passing time, the days began to shorten again and the north winds — the Tramontana — blew over the mountains. The chestnut harvest begins, the staple food of peasant civilisation. Acorns are also collected: nothing of nature's gifts was neglected or wasted, used for animal feed or roasted as a coffee substitute (it was very bitter).
Shortly after San Martino we began to collect leaves with the "coragh" to make bedding for animals: straw was not used then, it was too precious because mixed with hay it created the mistura, the basic food for cows.
And then quietly... we waited for the snow.