¬ As I go back to the village ( Taos Pueblo ) where I grew up I see remnants of haying equipment, each year becoming taken over more and more by the plum trees and various weeds that creep in as worked land becomes feral again. On one hand these remnants remind me how little importance we actually have, no matter what we build nature will always take over if we neglect it, but on the other hand it lights a fire in me to work harder, to reignite the flame that was once lost.
These remnants were my Grandfather’s ( Lupe Concha ) and are scattered around the property I grew up on, but by the time I was born Lupe and family had already stopped working the land. I was never able to learn how to farm/ranch from him, something he learned with/from his father and so on, but like a seed I can feel that knowledge in me somewhere.
When I decided to move back home to Northern New Mexico from travels around the US cooking I knew I wanted to have my cooking connected directly to what I could produce / harvest from the wild. While harvesting wild, endemic plants to cook with is the primary practice of food for / shed as well as a connection to my hunter/gatherer ancestry of Tuah-tah ( Taos Pueblo ), being able to tend to the land I am on was just as important. As the years back home went by I slowly inched myself closer and closer to having a place like Lupe’s where I grew up.
I found myself in a mountain valley of Northern New Mexico not too far from Taos as the crow flies, that feels like where I grew up, where now my partner Maida Branch and I take care of 20+ acres of land, raise landrace churro sheep and criollo cows, among all the other creatures. We have these animals for many reasons, their history to this terrain, their connection to my ancestry, for our livelihood, for dinners, to nurture loved ones, and to aid in the regeneration of our land, for materials like leather, et cetera. For all these reasons, like all creatures ourselves included, their food is imperative. The hay that we start flood irrigating off the Acequia ( diverted river water ) at the end of winter and will eventually cut, rake, bale, and store will be the food source of these creatures for the cold months.
It’s hard to explain, but this work is unbelievably rewarding. It also, is unbelievably frustrating. You are racing against nature ( or working with ) to cut, rake, dry, bale and stack before the rains hit it and diminishes its quality all while the low autumn sun beats down on you, a process that takes us at least one whole week straight. As you ride the tractor trying to keep the wheels on track, while looking back to make sure everything is going as it should you can see the yellow leaves falling one by one off the cottonwoods with the slightest breeze as the hawks circle above , and coyotes below, to snag one of the snakes or field mice that got caught in the machine. The air is thick and you get to spend your days alone in nature in the climax as everything is getting ready to go into the cold months. The moment the sun goes down the temperature drops drastically and it's time to go inside and start a fire.
This year we cut our 22+ acres, Arnold Gurule’s 16, and Ernie Giron’s 4. This means we moved 40~ acres of grass from the fields to the barns. Each bale weighs roughly 65 pounds and we ended up baling roughly 800 bales ( a slightly below average amount ) meaning in the course of two days and at least 20 hours of moving Maida and I moved ~52,000 pounds of forage twice, once from the field to the trailer and once for the trailer to our barns. This is also ~52,000 pounds of organic material that will nurture our animals and after going through their digestive systems will end up back on our fields. Providing nutrition to the soil for the following years as winter’s snow blankets everything which then slowly breaks down the organic material below for all the creatures under the soil.
We have some help time to time, this year our friend ( who I grew up on the pueblo with ) Midnight Lujan joined in for a few loads as well as one of the locals who has been in this valley his whole life Gene Martínez, who drove the truck for us as we threw each bale off the field onto the trailer. While we all forked out last years hay debris from the barn Gene recalled to us how he used to have to help his father and grandfather rake the hay from the fields onto horse wagons and into barns. There was no tone of romanticism in Gene’s voice when he said this, only an objective recollection. Remembering this makes me feel so grateful to be able to move ~50,000 pounds of grass from our land that we day in and day out tend to. After we unloaded the load into the barn Gene and Midnight went home and the next morning Maida and I got out at first light to start this process all over again. It was going to rain the next day, which it did, and we felt the push of time against our skins.
The village we are part of also bales a lot of hay, besides firewood and cattle, hay is probably the thing most folk up here produce. On the field next to ours our neighbor Rudy Jaramillo and his son Juan Jaramillo also decided to cut. It’s fun to have a community where everyone has the same things to do, and mutual understandings of the consequential beauties and hardships that come with it all. At times I would look over and try to race them. There were times it seemed we were in the lead, but this was a race we could never win. The Jaramillo's probably have more than 200 acres to cut and have been doing this year in and year out since they were kids. They now have newer equipment, including a bale wagon, which you drive through the field and with hydraulics picks up each bale that then stacks it into the wagon. Watching them drive the wagon to collect all the bales while we manually drive around and load each bale by hand we couldn’t help but think “must be nice”. While it must be nice, it also is nice that we are young, strong and healthy and that we get to do ours all by hand. We are pretty much the gathering hay by pitch fork folk in this modern world baling our hay into small bales with equipment made in the 80’s.
“Your life is your medicine” and moving ~50,000 pounds of feed for your animals is some pretty strong medicine.
Besides the weather, the list of frustrating components is endless. As each hay season ends and a year passes I tend to forget all the things that went wrong and get excited for the following season yet again. How I can flood the field better, how I can rebuild the compuertas better, graze better, et cetera. This year the tractor I rebuilt with my neighbor and dear friend Olin Christy a few years ago after sitting over winter decided to give me a run for my money. Each day as I raced against time something else, like clockwork, would go wrong. I would think maybe I should call Olin to help, but knew he was too busy to come help, but he would, so I would take a deep breath ( or maybe kick something ) and get to work. All the issues that happened over the course of these 7 days I had diagnosed and solved by myself, either properly or with some wire laying around. It’s like magic. And now that it is all over I couldn’t be more grateful about it. This is the way that my grandfather learned and his father and so on. By doing the things and having a tenacious mindset. Each year I learn more and more and get closer and closer to the impossibility of perfection I know I will never achieve, but nonetheless is always the goal.
↴ PHOTOS ( from the year prior 2021 )
