May 31st, Chimayo, NM:
This was a work day. I woke up at 5:56AM, expecting to be visited by Mario at 8AM. Unhurried shower, breathing, and oatmeal breakfast followed, along with Yogi mint tea. Mario arrived soon after, he found some work gloves for me, then we rode in a truck to Adán's dad's house. Ted, as he introduced himself, seemed hearty and welcoming. He talked to me about the layout of the land and the farms, then continued to tell me about te history of the area's land ownership, since the "mercedes" from Spain, until when the Federal government took major pieces of the land as natural reserve. All the while I paid attention, while looking at Mario through my eyes' corners, wondering if I could be of help as he took a chainsaw and a gasoline tank out of the truck.
Soon after we were told what the task was: cut down several trees to prevent them from casting their shade on the nearby chile crops. I hadn't quite grasped the concept until Mario gave me ear mufflers, turned the chainsaw on, and began to saw through the first tree trunk. He gave me the task of picking up fallen leafy remains, and putting them in a nearby empty area off the road.
It wasn't pleasant. The trees, handsome, green, and in seeming perfect health, gave no apparent reason to be sawed down. They rose tall and lean, their bright green banners waving in the wind. But down they came, one after another, and I dutifully took the leafy remains and dropped it into what became a surprisingly large pile of branches. All the while I paid my respects (in my mind) to the dying limbs, feeling as if I were carrying freshly made cadavers. I felt a simpler and less drastic solution was possible to light the chile crops adequately, but I said little, as I know little of this context I'm in.
When we finished, I walked around the property to take a look around. Small cacti and taller thorny bushes abounded in the area, and I got several thorns inserted into my skin when I walked into one inadvertently. I was happy to see they came out easily after pulling, despite them piercing deep.
The dusty, light brown path took me to a small summit, with a field of small cacti over it whole. I could not have stopped on the field without stepping directly on the thorny plants. The view from that spot was magnificent, though, off in the distance, flat and angled rises layered in light reddish brown decked the horizon with uniform splendour, clearly marked by its sharp contrast with the cloudless morning-sky blue directly above it. Then I walked back to the truck, and we drove back. Mario declared lunchtime, dropped me off at my cabin, then left to eat.
I fried two farm eggs and reused the mint tea bag from the morning for lunch. The eggs' yolks were bright orange upon cracking, and the resulting fry had an intense yellow golden color. Their flavor was rich, and the mint tea itself was not too weak. After washing the dishes and some purposeful breathing, Mario knocked on my door.
The afternoon's task was to dig a hole, 2 feet deep, in which a wooden post was to be interred, then serve as support for a new metal gate. First we removed the covering rocks, then he marked the area for the hole, and we began digging. One pricked the earth with a long, heavy metallic bar, to loosen it up, then the other shoveled or dug a layer of earth with shovel or "digger", a heavy metallic instrument that scooped up the earth vertically. We chatted about our latin origins and different words and accents between regions as we dug away.
Once the hole was dug (more due to Mario than to my sincere efforts), we drove out to pick up the wooden post. Six feet nine inches long, about a foot wide and three fourths deep, solid wood, that thing was HEAVY. I could not stand to lift it in front of me, so we placed it on our shoulders. Once on the truck, we drove back and slid it down into the fresh cavity. Then Adán came by just as we were holding the post up, and overrode his father's directions to cover it up with earth by cementing it down instead. He then left with his family to celebrate Ashley's (his girlfriend's) birthday, and we pulled up a cement mixer to do the job. Carlos, a nearby worker making wooden doors, helped us hook it up to power, and I got water for the cement mix from the nearby "acequia". I saw Mario shovel sand, rocks, and cement alternately into the mixer as it dutifully turned and homogenized the gray blend.
A few cartfuls of cement mix and a cleanup of the cement implements later, we all sat down under the wooden shed, at Carlos' invitation, to partake of some spicy Rancheritos chips, drink a soda, and talk about the weekend, immigration statuses, families, and other such topics. Mario then gave me a small tour of the farm. He showed me how to turn the drip irrigation on, how and where to collect eggs and feed the animals, and gave me his phone number in case I needed anything. I thanked him for everything during that day, put in and marked 30 eggs in the egg fridge notebook, and came back to my cabin for a shower, a frozen spinach+peas dinner (after cooking them, of course), some breathing, and an early sleep.
This was a work day. I woke up at 5:56AM, expecting to be visited by Mario at 8AM. Unhurried shower, breathing, and oatmeal breakfast followed, along with Yogi mint tea. Mario arrived soon after, he found some work gloves for me, then we rode in a truck to Adán's dad's house. Ted, as he introduced himself, seemed hearty and welcoming. He talked to me about the layout of the land and the farms, then continued to tell me about te history of the area's land ownership, since the "mercedes" from Spain, until when the Federal government took major pieces of the land as natural reserve. All the while I paid attention, while looking at Mario through my eyes' corners, wondering if I could be of help as he took a chainsaw and a gasoline tank out of the truck.
Soon after we were told what the task was: cut down several trees to prevent them from casting their shade on the nearby chile crops. I hadn't quite grasped the concept until Mario gave me ear mufflers, turned the chainsaw on, and began to saw through the first tree trunk. He gave me the task of picking up fallen leafy remains, and putting them in a nearby empty area off the road.
It wasn't pleasant. The trees, handsome, green, and in seeming perfect health, gave no apparent reason to be sawed down. They rose tall and lean, their bright green banners waving in the wind. But down they came, one after another, and I dutifully took the leafy remains and dropped it into what became a surprisingly large pile of branches. All the while I paid my respects (in my mind) to the dying limbs, feeling as if I were carrying freshly made cadavers. I felt a simpler and less drastic solution was possible to light the chile crops adequately, but I said little, as I know little of this context I'm in.
When we finished, I walked around the property to take a look around. Small cacti and taller thorny bushes abounded in the area, and I got several thorns inserted into my skin when I walked into one inadvertently. I was happy to see they came out easily after pulling, despite them piercing deep.
The dusty, light brown path took me to a small summit, with a field of small cacti over it whole. I could not have stopped on the field without stepping directly on the thorny plants. The view from that spot was magnificent, though, off in the distance, flat and angled rises layered in light reddish brown decked the horizon with uniform splendour, clearly marked by its sharp contrast with the cloudless morning-sky blue directly above it. Then I walked back to the truck, and we drove back. Mario declared lunchtime, dropped me off at my cabin, then left to eat.
I fried two farm eggs and reused the mint tea bag from the morning for lunch. The eggs' yolks were bright orange upon cracking, and the resulting fry had an intense yellow golden color. Their flavor was rich, and the mint tea itself was not too weak. After washing the dishes and some purposeful breathing, Mario knocked on my door.
The afternoon's task was to dig a hole, 2 feet deep, in which a wooden post was to be interred, then serve as support for a new metal gate. First we removed the covering rocks, then he marked the area for the hole, and we began digging. One pricked the earth with a long, heavy metallic bar, to loosen it up, then the other shoveled or dug a layer of earth with shovel or "digger", a heavy metallic instrument that scooped up the earth vertically. We chatted about our latin origins and different words and accents between regions as we dug away.
Once the hole was dug (more due to Mario than to my sincere efforts), we drove out to pick up the wooden post. Six feet nine inches long, about a foot wide and three fourths deep, solid wood, that thing was HEAVY. I could not stand to lift it in front of me, so we placed it on our shoulders. Once on the truck, we drove back and slid it down into the fresh cavity. Then Adán came by just as we were holding the post up, and overrode his father's directions to cover it up with earth by cementing it down instead. He then left with his family to celebrate Ashley's (his girlfriend's) birthday, and we pulled up a cement mixer to do the job. Carlos, a nearby worker making wooden doors, helped us hook it up to power, and I got water for the cement mix from the nearby "acequia". I saw Mario shovel sand, rocks, and cement alternately into the mixer as it dutifully turned and homogenized the gray blend.
A few cartfuls of cement mix and a cleanup of the cement implements later, we all sat down under the wooden shed, at Carlos' invitation, to partake of some spicy Rancheritos chips, drink a soda, and talk about the weekend, immigration statuses, families, and other such topics. Mario then gave me a small tour of the farm. He showed me how to turn the drip irrigation on, how and where to collect eggs and feed the animals, and gave me his phone number in case I needed anything. I thanked him for everything during that day, put in and marked 30 eggs in the egg fridge notebook, and came back to my cabin for a shower, a frozen spinach+peas dinner (after cooking them, of course), some breathing, and an early sleep.
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