18 Diciembre 2010

When the calf was born she was carried to a corral near the house with her mother. If she was left in the field where she was born, it is likely a wolf would eat her. However, the corral is dirt, and has no food for the mother cow to eat. It is day three and we are out of corn husks to feed the mother, so she needs to be walked to pasture. The dilemma is that the calf is not yet strong enough to make the trek down the canyon where her mother needs to graze. The solution? Leave the baby iun the corral for the day and escort the mother cow to the field an dback. As you can imagine this would be very challenging as the mother cow weighs a ton, has horns, and will not want to part with her baby. As the baby cow lets me pet her, my job was to wrap my arms around her tiny\huge body and keep her calm while her mother was taken to get food. Now let´s see. A 60-year old woman, 13 year-old girl, and my inexperienced self cs. mama cow. There was really no competition. I was only abke to hold the flaling alf for a matter of seconds and mama cow would have none of it.
To be honest, I have never really likied mama cow. She has been moody since I met her, and I coudln´t get on her good side, so I just tend to leave her be. I prefer getting kisses from Hercules, the bulls, when I am in the corral. I thought, perhaps she was just boody because she was pregnant, but now I realize eh is just a brat. Milking her is like a video game in the attempt to keep the milk from being spilt while at the same time avoiding being kicked in the face with her moody hoof.
So since we couldn´tget mama gow to the field, we had to bring the field to mama cow. My host mother, sister, and I put on our hats, grabbed our scs, and headed to the most rich alfalfa field the family owns. It is dwn the canyon, close to the river.


I have to say, I thought I would hate it, but I love it. I felt like a human lawnmower. More efficient in a way because we can get to the very bas of the plany by hand and not wast any greener. As we sat on our knees, slicing away, listenng to the wind whistele through the canyon behind us I explained to Roxana how slave in the US used to wing when the worked in th fields. So, we traded songe. I would sing an old spiritual in exchanve for a Madrigalanian quechua melody. We went back and forth for hours. Singing, then translating the lyrics, then somtimes repeating. M host mom piped in a couple time with some really ancient quechua pieces I will ahve to record. She is such a fun-loving woman. She proudly sang each song then asked if I liked it. We had a couple mini dance parties in the field when we stretched our legs and bouned around a little to old ¨huatitis¨. We had more alfalfa thatn the donkes could carry back to town so Roxanna and I strapped stalks onto our backs with blankets. I ske dher how many weeks this would feed the cowsand she laughed at me, ¨two days¨.


I have to say the best part of the way was when one of the donkeys farted unusually loud and scared himself so mch that he took off running and Roxnna had to chase after him to calm him down and return him to the path back to the house.