An Outdoor Oven

These ovens are attached to almost all farm houses in the area. Underneath the oven there is almost always a small, dark room with a small, barred window -- for the family pig.

The ovens, often called pizza or bread ovens, were also used for roasting meat and were kept hot most of the time. It takes four days to heat up otherwise. Needless to say, we do not keep this one hot. It was the only feature of the house that had any charm at all. The rest is a small, square, stone box. The oven, along with the house, was caved in and had to be restored.

Where a pig once lived there is now a washing machine and heaps of laundry waiting to be done. As for the newly cleaned platform of the oven, there is normally a pile of rubbish waiting to be carted off to the dumpster. :-(