As he digs and gathers, he tells me his story.
“I worked as a sales representative for many years,” he explains.
“So many hours in the office, so many hours in my car. Many hours lost from my life.”
But those hours, those years of work did not end with happy retirement and a pension.
Instead, while still in his mid-40s, Aristotelis Loukas was made redundant.
Like so many others in Greece nowadays, perhaps 25% of the population, he found himself jobless, unable to find new work, and with a family to support.
But what Mr Loukas did have was an idea.
“
I always wondered how it would be to be a farmer,” he says.
“Whatever happens with the economic crisis, the sky will still be blue.”
…
“We have had applications triple in just the past year,” says Dr Panos Kanellis, the Farm School’s president.
Many of those showing up have good degrees, even MBAs, but still cannot find a job in the Greece of today.
“I was shocked,” Dr Kanellis says.
“They wanted to know how they can use a piece of land that their grandfather owned in a village.
“They were trying to find an alternative.”
…
Certainly, he is aware of the changes demanded of him.
He laughs as he tells me how he used to be an athlete, but then got old and unfit: “Now in my forties, I have to re-make my body.”
He looks down at his somewhat rotund figure, and laughs again, a little nervously.
But in that laugh, there is mirth and optimism, as well as apprehension.
“When I look back at my life in the office, I think ‘that’s the past, now I have better things to do,’” he says.
“At least I don’t have thoughts on my mind about banks, about debts. I am okay with my family, and yes, I am happy.”
Source: BBC News Europe Very few of those living in the old paradigm of consumption, debt, and 40-hour work weeks will be able to maintain this lifestyle over the coming decade.