With the first streaks of dawn, Abu Muhammad wakes up every morning, prepares his provisions, ties his scarf on his forehead, and gathers his belongings and all the necessary plowing tools on his animal and heads out to plow the lands.
The sweet smell of the earth is on his way with the morning breeze and the first strands of the sun, which caress the tangled grasses and overhanging trees, and reflect the glory of their colors, heralding a good and abundant season of crops and work. This is the time for plowing to remove the harmful weeds from around the vegetables and trees, so that the soil can breathe and the crops and trees will grow well.
Abu Muhammad says with conviction and satisfaction, despite the hardship of his work while cultivating the lands with the old plow, or the “Faddan” as it is known in the Syrian countryside, “What distinguishes plowing using animals from plowing using tractors is that it is less expensive for the farmer, and it is also more beneficial to the land and reaches every part of it, and it also reminds us Also with a past that is beginning to fade and stories that we always yearn for”.
Grandparents and the elderly prefer farming by the Faddan over tractors and modern machines, especially among cherry trees and various fruit and olive trees, because it is “tender,” as they say, as it does not uproot the roots and is flexible. It enters between the straight lines distributed between summer and winter crops smoothly and flexibly, which allows for getting rid of weeds and contributes to aeration of the soil, and gives it freshness and softness so that there is an abundant crop, while this is not possible with a mechanical plow due to its large size, so it causes the destruction of the crop and the soil and its clumping.
Abu Muhammad finds plowing by the” Faddan” a means to earn his living for his family. Between the high wages of tractors, the scarcity and difficulty of living, and the lack of seasons for farmers, farmers always find alternatives, even if the result is a return to relying on muscular effort and ancient heritage, and reviving what they inherited from their ancestors.
