Agritourism and my Passion for Country Life

I recently launched the first Seven Directions' Agritourism Experience http://www.sevendirections.net/english/2010featured/High_desert_farm.html. I had an urge to do it. Let me explain why.

I grew up in the countryside and later on a small farm surrounded by vineyards and wheat. poppies and cornflower blues. I used to play with goats, cows, geese and chicken (plus cats and dogs). My life then moved on to a corporate life with no cows nor poppies! A lot of other weird kind of animals though!

When manure's smell is in the air for me it's like being home again. I know you are beginning to giggle, but it's a question of imprinting! I was born and raised with that thing in my daily life.

Get the idea?

New Mexico is still a rural state with many farms of different kinds and sizes scattered from north to south. Here especially, but all around the world too, we all want more of the real thing in terms of food and produce. No GM organism is safe here! Therefore the appreciation for organic and genuine food is great and farmers' markets flourish. Most farms in this state are still today similar to those I remember from my childhood because here it sometimes feels to be still living in the post-war years. I'm not saying this in a derogatory way, on the contrary!

I was extremely interested in the growing agritourism movement since my days near Lake of Garda where my country house was embraced by corn fields, alfalfa, sunflowers, persimmon and fig  trees and cows with their "natural product". I don't mean milk!!          
                                                                                     

Not my house, but it gives you an idea

I observed some small farms I used to buy my greens from embracing the then very new idea of opening up their homes and fields to people willing to share their life for a few days and work along them in the fields, rewarded by simple farmers' food at night. Was that agritourism? Yes, indeed, at its very beginning.

Nowadays, around the world one can find deluxe farms with fluffy beds and all the rest or other creative variations on the theme of agritourism. That's not what I like nor what it is. That is the usual distortion of good ideas carried out by people only looking for..guess what...money! This is how it works: a new concept is gaining ground but you businessman want to cater only for the wealthy; therefore you use the new concept's name and adapt it to your target. Et voila', another great fake!

I think that the simplicity of rural New Mexico's life is an experience every urban citizen should have once in his or her lifetime, if not more often.

I have some pictures of myself, age 3, carrying a basket which was bigger than me to go pick fresh eggs. I will never forget the excitement of my daily ritual! We all need to pick eggs more often, don't you agree?

It's not me as I was only wearing white (my mother's idea!0

By the way, someone should tell Google to allow the word agritourism without marking it as a mistake. Get real, Google!

I can go on forever about my life on a farm but this long foreward just wants to send a message to all my readers: there is a fantastic life out there in the fields (and a lot of work too) that can't be missed.

So come with us on one or two days agritourism exploration and then, I can guarantee you, you will want more!