The pace of work on the farm swings between long periods of maintenance and shorter intense periods of planting and harvesting. Maintenance days are filled with weeding, irrigating, repairing things that break, fertilizing, caring for Ricardo's rodeo horses, pruning trees, to name just a few.
Juan Vila, Julio harvest corn; Don Pedro and Juan the wholesaler load corn for market; Julio's wife and her mother cut down stalks of corn harvested last month.
Jose Pablo checks the books; Juan Vila repositions the irrigation hoses under orange trees VIDEO; Don Pedro pounds in stakes for tomato plants.
Juanito washes down horses VIDEO; Ricardo gives his horse a daily vitamin.
Don Pedro uses the water wagon to irrigate the tomato plants; pt picks spinach for lunch; Susaan shells walnuts for delicious banana bread she makes an hour later - the walnuts come from the walnut tree at the end of the driveway!
Tuesday is one of the two days Don Pedro is allowed to divert water from the canal that runs from the Aconcagua River a few miles away. He has a system to irrigate the entire field.
Juan Vila patches a bicycle tube then checks the brakes on the bike I use to ride around the countryside.
Things break. Chairs and farm tools.
Don Pedro waters flowers from the small reservoir Ricardo built behind the barn.
Juan Vila pumps diesel fuel into tractor; Jose Pablo checks a tire, adjusts spray nozzles...
mixes fertilizer into water tank, dons his protective gear and is off to spray the orange trees...VIDEO
wholesalers in will not accept oranges that haven't been treated with pesticides.
VIDEOS Don Pedro spends most of this day pulling weeds from the entire pasture or Clearing irrigation channels or overseeing irrigation day and finding creative way to water tomato/watermelon patch.
then rakes alfalfa!
Juanito's wife Theresa keeps the stables clean and feeds the fish!; Gato tends to one of the horses after he and Ricardo practice for rodeo in the media luna practice area Ricardo built behind the farmhouse.
The fourth cutting of the alfalfa field...
Julio, Christian, Juan Vila collect 168 bales of alfalfa, store it in the barn...and the beat goes on.
Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
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