pt at large

Dispatches from Chile: A Sweet Encounter with Blackberry Pickers

February 2, 2017...first pics posted in February, story finished in April!

One of the most unexpected and surprising moments of my stay at Chilefarms in Nogales, Chile.

February 2, 2017  The Berry Pickers

Churning away on my afternoon spin, I brake to watch two women, a mother and a daughter as it turns out, picking berries from the bushes on the roadside.

There are miles of blackberry bushes along this country road. Tall, thick, and thorny, they act as a fence.  Since the outer portions are on public land, citizens are free to help themselves when the bushes bear fruit. Which is what is going on here. For the next couple of weeks, families from nearby towns will come to the roadside to harvest them. There's enough for everyone.

"Photo?" I ask, mimicking clicking the shutter on my camera.

The older woman seems embarrassed, puts her hands to her hair, points to her clothes to say that she is not dressed properly. Her daughter, unsure of what to make of this gringo, shyly turns away. I put my camera down.

"Where are you from?" they ask.

"Boston, Massachusetts, USA." Which steers us into talking about the weather, a universal starting point for conversations all over the world.

"Mucho calor," the mother says.

I mimic shivering. " Mi casa es frio!" They get the idea.

"Invierno," they say...winter.

Before long they're comfortable that I'm not a crackpot and am genuinely interested in what they're doing. The mother says the daughter has learned some English in school. Of course she's too embarrassed to try it out but a few minutes later, she can't resist giving it a whirl.

By the time we're done using a combination of my fractured Spanish, the daughter's fractured English, and a good helping of sign language, we know each other's names. The daughter, Lesley, points to my eyes, "Same as my father's,"  (and the same blue as her own). Her mother, Layla, smiles when i tell her that was the name of my grandmother (Leela).

Layla reaches into the clear plastic bucket she's tied around her neck to give me a handful of the small dark sweet berries. "Mermelada!"she says. Now I know what will become of this fruit.

A few more Q and As and I learn that Layla's husband is a construction man, "Numero uno," she says with pride. And they live in the Artificio, a neighborhood just outside La Calera, about a half hour away.

"Do you like music?" Lesley asks haltingly. I nod. "Do you know the music of Justin Bieber?" I nod.  "He is the love of my life," she says in a teenage swoon, her eyes rolling toward heaven, her hands tenderly covering her heart. We're  on a roll.

"Do you like Beyoncé?" I ask.

"Yes...and Katy Perry ... Ariana Grande, too!"

By now we are having as grand an old time as you can have when none of you speak the other's language very well.

I get ready to hit the road and raise my camera just in case. They smile beautifully. A lovely moment, a sweet "one world" story, and a testament to the small bridges that connect us.

I hop on my bike.

"Be careful of the cars!" she says with a big wave.

Just like a mother.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: Don Pedro Biernay, Genius in the Fields

February 3, 2017

Don Pedro Biernay, at 75, moves more slowly than he did the first time I saw him in 2008. His mind, his ability to fix, repair or create anything in or around the fields of Chilefarms, is as vigorous as ever.

Having worked in the countryside since he was 16, his only tools are a shovel with black tape wrapped around the handle, bits of wire, a single-bladed scythe, a sharp pocket knife, and a sledge hammer. He's never set foot in a hardware store. Even if they existed when he was younger, he was too poor and would have had to walk miles to find one.

With those earthly possessions he can organize scores of canals to irrigate acres of corn, alfalfa, or potato fields, cut  skinny poles to stabilize tall plants or tree branches, tie bamboo poles or long lengths of eucalyptus together to make railings or widen a small bridge. This year, in a concession to age and arthritis, he built a hand railing to help him climb up and down the steep hill at the edge of the recently built reservoir. In Don Pedro's case, genius was born of scarcity. Pride takes a back seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TR52V_ULno&feature=youtu.be

Video by Paul A. Tamburello, jr.

 Profile of Don Pedro, 2008

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2008/02/saturday-februa.html

Dispatches from Chile: Massive Fires Ravage Southern Chile Part4

February 5, 2017 Sunday edition of the Boston Globe.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2017/02/04/chileans-hope-recover-from-country-worst-wildfires/jezRa1o8uCp9RzPC49vMRK/story.html

The fires are now under control but for many Bostonians, this story about historically massive wildfires in south-central Chile, on one of the last pages of the first section, was one of the only ones to appear in my local paper while was in Nogales, Chile for two weeks.

QUOTE "The ferocity of the blazes led President Michelle Bachelet to issue a state of emergency, deploy troops, and seek international aid. Supertanker planes from the United States and Russia have dumped thousands of gallons of water on the area.

In all, some 20,000 people, including firefighters and experts from a dozen countries, have battled the wildfires that Bachelet has called the worst forest disaster in Chile’s history. At least 11 deaths have been blamed on the fires." END QUOTE.

On February 4,  President Michelle Bachelet declared that the Wildfire Emergency Is About to End

QUOTE According to the latest report of the Onemi emergency management office, a department of the Interior Ministry, the fires left 11 dead, 6,370 affected and 1,603 homes destroyed.

The government said Friday that the forest fires' preliminary cost has reached 233 billion pesos (some $333 million), money invested chiefly in helping the thousands of people affected by the flames.END QUOTE

Chile is not a subject of news often unless there is an equally devastating earthquake or tsumami. We are connected with it more through fruits, flowers, and vegetables than through disasters.

Links to a list of organizations involved in relief efforts is at the  bottom of this link.  One of the six organizations is for relief to the people in Santa Olga in which 1200 homes were burned to the ground. The list is in Spanish but you get the idea.

I can't vouch for how well the organizations are run but do know how good it feels to donate to a worthy cause. Despite the turmoil going on around us in America, Americans are really good at donating to others whose lives have been turned upside down.

Check this translated page about desafiolevantemoschile. Let your conscience be your guide.

https://cl.usembassy.gov/u-s-government-assists-fight-chilean-forest-fires/

https://www.desafiolevantemoschile.cl

 

Dispatches from Chile: Mowing the Alfalfa Fields

February 4, 2017

The alfalfa in this field can be mowed and baled an amazing six times a growing season. It will provide winter feed for the farm's horses. Correction: This is a two step process, not three. The tractor mower this year leaves the alfalfa piled in rows ready for baling, which will happen in two or three days when the alfalfa is sufficiently dry.

You can see alfalfa being left in neat rows after its mowed. Next step, the baling machine will scoop it up, compress it, tie it, and produce compact bales of dried alfalfa for winter feed.

 

Videos and photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: Don Pedro Biernays, General of Field Expediency

February 3, 2017

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TR52V_ULno&feature=youtu.be

Video by Paul A. Tamburello, jr.

 

Dispatches from Chile: New Pumphouse for the Walnut Fields

February 3, 2017

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4FO-j1mm8M&feature=youtu.be

Videos and photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: Trees Bearing Fresh Fruit Five Minutes Away

February 3, 2017

 

 

 

and this tree with hundreds of peaches almost ready to eat!

 

Photos by  Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: Fertilizing the Orange Trees

February 3, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kD8VfuD60Q

Photos and videos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.
 

Dispatches from Chile: Massive Fires Ravage Southern Chile Part3

February 2, 2017,

Thousands of farm animals have been killed in the wildfires and thousands are in need of life saving treatment,food and shelter. Local groups have called on the services of volunteer agencies experienced in helping animals affected by natural disasters around the world.

The update below is from the manager of one of these groups who have set up camp  in Doñihue, 68 miles south of Santiago.

http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/news/ifaw-gaap-respond-chile-wildfires

"As you might already know, the wildfires currently consuming Chilean forests have been declared one of the worst tragedies in the country's history. By this Thursday over 6.000 people have been evacuated. An entire community burned to the ground. People and animals have died, and many are injured. Right now our IFAW-GAAP team is working on site, evacuating and assisting those animals still trapped or badly injured.

Much more coming up on this. Please follow both IFAW and GAAP's social networks for updates about the current situation in Chile.

Remember you can support the IFAW-GAAP Disaster Assistance program by donating here."

+++++++++++++++++

On an individual level, some people,like the veterinarian husband of a friend of Susaan Straus is caring for burned horses on his own nickel, and raising money for the cause personally.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/01/28/more-than-100-fast-spreading-wildfires-rage-in-chile.html

An Associated Press story dated January 28 wrote that "The carcasses of charred horses, lambs and chickens have been buried in pits to avoid the spread of infectious diseases. TV images show town dwellers outside their wooden homes armed with buckets of water, hoping it will be enough to battle the flames. But those efforts are often undone as winds or smouldering ash spread the fires anew."

Not only have thousands lost their homes but they've lost sources of food and income and in the case of horses, power to pull plows and transportation by cart or horse.

Gathered from media sources and from friends of Susaan Straus of Chilefarms in Nogales, Chile, which is far from the danger zone.

 

Dispatches from Chile: Chile, Australia, and the best Empanadas in Maitencillo

When i get home, I’ll finish the story that has the biggest small world story of all!

February 1, 2017

We drive to the tiny Restaurant Koala for its renowned empanadas in the bustling beach town of Maitencillo. It's high season, summertime, school is out, families and friends flock to the beaches across the street and the other restaurants in town. Another big draw are the two dandy covered bazaars filled with  a vast collection of clothing, a stunning array of costume jewelry, toys, skin products, snf knick-knacks, all priced to sell. I dare you not to leave empty  handed. I never have.

Halfway through our meal, a fellow rests his elbows on the railing in front of our table. "Where are you from?" he asks in an Australian accent thicker that a kangaroo's pouch. That's when this story really begins.

To begin be continued as soon as I get a chance to write about it!

 

 

 

 

 

Dispatches from Chile: Urban Sprawl in Nogales

January 31, 2017

Urban Sprawl in Nogales?

INTRODUCTION: Hard to believe that the area on the road from Chilefarms to the town of Nogales has just sprouted a subdivision of parcels of land for sale. I haven’t seen development like this in the ten years I’ve visited here. I wonder if the number of homes built will have the same effect on this community in South America that big housing developments have on communities in the USA…demands on water and electricity, schools, increased traffic, subtle changes in community life. Time will tell.


Amazing. The heretofore sleepy area between Ruta 5 and Nogales  12 miles away is experiencing a boom in housing. On a bike ride from the farm to Nogales  this afternoon I passed a huge area of cleared and leveled land with signs saying “TOPOGRAPHIA SUBDIVISIÓN PLANÓS” then “VENDO PARCELAS 5000 M SQ”

Businesses along Ruta 5 north and south of La Calera, a city of 50,000 eight miles from the Chilefarms in La Peña (an outskirt of Nogales) have appeared since my visit last January. The economy must be in good shape and jobs must be being created (sound familiar?). Saturday and especially Sunday parking places in the huge parking lot of super stores like Tottus and Sodimac and Falabella at the edge of La Calera are jammed.

During a weekday visit shopping for SIM cards, medicine from the pharmacy and a trip to an ATM machine for me, La Calera was bustling.

Pedaling back to the farm, I passed a house being built on land previously pasture. There’s a stark contrast between the house under construction and the ramshackle houses across the street.

Are there yuppies in Chile? We'll find out soon.

Sign advertising “TOPOGRAPHIA SUBDIVISIÓN PLANÓS”

One house being bult on the property.

Property is  for sale, buyers build their own homes. Are there any restrictions about what is built? Who will maintain the roads, build the wells for water, install electricity? No matter what, the subdivisions will attract skilled and non skilled labor, increase traffic on roads now often used by tractors and men on horseback.

Chilefarms is on a rise at the left of the treeline in the distance.

 

The neighborhood road

Panoramic view, road from Nogales to La Peña is on the right.

New house being built on the road between La Peña and Nogales

This road heads to  superhighway Ruta 5 about 12 miles away. The 2093 mile well maintained toll highway stretches from Puerto Montt in the south all the way to the border of Peru.

The location of the 5000 sq meter subdivisions (a little more than one acre) makes it an easy commute for people working in the large businesses on Ruta 5 like Propal and more recently built  Europlant,  Amdes Quality, and Emu Chile.

Propal is an international company that exports avocados, lemons, oranges, clementines, kiwis, and onions. Euro plant is a worldwide import/export company of fruits and vegetables. Andes Quality is a global company that exports raisins.You might have bought something produced by one of these companies when you shopped yesterday.

 

Photos by Paul A, Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: Massive Fires Ravage Southern Chile Part2

Recent photos and data from the New York Times

Gigantic wildfires in south central Chile
• so far destroyed more than 700,000 acres of forest land
• caused the government to declare a state of emergency in four regions
• caused 4,000 people — including firefighters, troops and national forestry bureau officers to be deployed to fight the fires
• more than 2,700 people have lost their homes
• thousands have been evacuated from the affected areas
• killed ten people, mainly firefighters and police

The wildfires are from 100 to 400 miles south of Nogales. The smoke from the fires obscures the sky for hundreds of miles.

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2017/01/dispatches-from-chile-massive-fires-ravage-southern-chile.html#comments

 

Firefighters in Pumanque, 179 miles from Nogales, in the O’Higgins region, on Saturday; Hualañé, in central Chile, on Saturday. Hualañé is 203 miles from Nogales.

The remains of homes in Santa Olga, a small hamlet in the Maule region; Fires raged in Santa Olga on Wednesday. The hamlet was destroyed. Santa Olga is 404 miles from Nogales.

 
The central Chilean region of Bío Bío on Monday; Cajón del Maipo, southeast of the capital, Santiago, on Tuesday. Cajón del Maipo is 100 miles from Nogales. Nogales is 74 miles from Santiago.

 
Volunteers in Pumanque on Saturday. Some residents have used tree branches and bottles of water to try to douse the flames;Near the town of Florida, in Bío Bío region, on Monday, 364 miles from Nogales.

Nogales is 74 miles from Santiago.

Photos and data from New York Times

Dispatches from Chile: Massive Fires Ravage Southern Chile

Massive fires , the "greatest forest disaster" in Chile's history, are ravaging south-central Chile.

 View toward the south from Nogales, Chile, January, 2017

View toward the south in a past visit to Nogales in January

The fires thousands of kilometers away are so massive that their smoke obscures the views of the mountains from the farm I’m visiting in Nogales. A daily coating of microscopic ash covers the wraparound porch of the farmhouse.

When we visit Ricardo’s sister in nearby Quillota for lunch, the fires and all the news associated with them consume every minute on TV. Same when we pass TVs in stores in La Calera, a few miles from the farm in Nogales. Think Katrina.

In Nogales, a few miles away, a tractor trailer is parked on the main street. It’s destination? South- central Chile where the fires rage and thousands of people have lost homes and everything in them.

Within a day the trailer is filled with rice, staples, water, bread, fruit, even dog food. By the next morning, fully loaded, it’s on its way south.

People did the same thing when the earthquakes struck the southern parts of the country three years ago, says Ricardo. As awful as that was, this disaster is worse, causing more loss of property, homes, perhaps even a way of life.

Listen to the audio that accompanies the video on this link.

http://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/wildfires-ravage-chile-dw-news/vp-AAmdtKV

This link below is more horrifying. Entire towns have been wiped out. In Santa Olga, a town of 5,000 in Maule, 1,000 homes were destroyed. Santa Olga is 400 miles south of Nogales.

http://www.dw.com/en/death-toll-rises-as-wildfire-wipes-out-chilean-town-of-santa-olga/a-37295124

More videos that show the vastness of the wildfire's fury. Above: The entire town of Santa Olga, 1200 homes, were burned to the ground.

http://www.dw.com/en/death-toll-rises-as-wildfire-wipes-out-chilean-town-of-santa-olga/a-37295124#

The wildfires have caused displacement of thousands, destruction of residential and business properties and huge swaths of countryside. On January 3, I saw one story about an earthquake and some fires in Chile. Since then, I found nada in The Boston Globe. The New York Times has been covering it all along.

Earlier this week, the Colorado Springs-based Global SuperTanker Services LLC sent a Boeing 747-400 Supertanker to help fight over 120 wild fires that have scorched about 700,000 acres of land in what President Michelle Bachelet calls "the greatest forest disaster in our history."

According to The Gazette of Colorado Springs, "The company sent a crew of 12 people to Chile that was underwritten with a grant from Fundación Viento Sur (South Wind Foundation), which is part of the Walton Family Foundation and is headed by Boulder residents Ben Walton and Lucy Ana Walton de Avilés, who is a native of Chile."

The political heat from the fires is focused on President Michelle Bachelet. Many in the countryside around Nogales say she is acting too slowly to marshal forces to combat the fires. Some say that conservative former President Piñera was more direct and timely dealing with disasters.

There is a rumor in the countryside (that I have not been able to substantiate...fake news?) that the government waited two days before allowing the supertanker to douse the fires. Meanwhile, the government has accepted offers of aircraft and firefighters from several other countries to help control the mind-boggling size of the wildfires.

There will be political consequences to pay when the fires are under control and the final ashes have fallen from the sky.

Top photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. Other images courtesy of local news stations.

 

Dispatches from Chile: The Trials of Growing Oranges, Part 2

January 27, 2017

The upgrade to a small section of trees at Chilefarms in Nogales began in January 2016 when he orange trees in the sector did not produce the quantity and quality of oranges anticipated. The backstory at
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2017/01/dispatches-from-chile-the-trials-of-growing-oranges-part-1.html

The story continues in January 2017,

The upgrade began in January 2016 when the orange trees in the sector were not producing the quantity and quality of oranges anticipated.

Orange trees with the qualities that Ricardo desires are grafted onto root stock, a sturdy base tree trunk with deep and tenacious roots that will be able to support thousands of pounds when oranges on them mature. Will the grafts grow successfully?

Think of it as a layer cake. Grafts of a type of orange tree that will not be as large as the first grafted tree were inserted onto the flat stump grafted of the trees that were cut down. We now have grafts of new trees inserted into the stumps of trees that grew from grafts that were unsuccessful, both of them placed on a sturdy base of root stock. Of 700 trees whose graft base were cut down, 350 are promising enough, 350 not good enough.
Got it?

Videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: The Mystery of Walnut Sector 2

Chilefarms
Friday, January 27, 2017

Three sectors of walnut trees were planted on Chilefarms last August. Ricardo has asked Rodrigo, an agronomist, to inspect the sectors. Rodrigo says that the trees in sector one and three are doing just fine. Some of the trees in sector 2, not so good. A few appear to be dying and some are growing more slowly than the others.

What’s up?

Rodrigo decides to do some random checking. He suspects some trees may be receiving too much water from the irrigation tubes that run alongside each tree.

As he watches, Juan Vila digs up soil at the base of several trees. At one tree, Rodrigo hands me a handful of soil. He speaks enough English so I can get the drift of what he’s doing. He wants me to crumble a handful of soil that’s been dug up. It is moist but crumbles easily. “Good,” he says. Juan Vila replaces the soil and both of them replace the poles that help the tree maintain its shape.

Next Juan Vila digs up soil under a tree that is clearly dying.

“Try to crumble this,” Rodrigo says. It is a heavy chunk of clay soil so thick that I cannot make it crumble. It feels like the clay I used to play with when I was a kid. The solid clay is so thick and heavy that roots cannot penetrate it and the tree is dying.

Ricardo arrives.  A pow-wow ensues. The trees in this sector that are doing poorly are all next to the alfalfa field. And the affected trees are all next to a low point in the footpath between the fields.

Eureka.

During the weekly irrigation of the alfalfa field, water from the irrigation ditch a few feet away is cresting the ditch and migrating into walnut sector 2. Ricardo will have the ditch deepened. Water meant to irrigate the alfalfa field will stay in the alfalfa field.
Water will no longer migrate toward the adjacent walnut trees and load the clay soil with so much water that the roots cannot grow properly.

Not all problems on the farm are solved so quickly. This is a good day.

The story in photos.

While Luis applies herbicide to control the voracious 'malessa' (weeds), an agronomist inspects the tree roots. The soil under this tree is not compacted with too much water. He points out that tiny roots are growing through the soil, a sign of good health.

Juan Vila replaces the soil; they replace a 3 meter pole of bamboo and a sturdy shorter pole that supports the tree as it grows to maturity.

Next, they inspect a tree that is clearly dying. The clay soil is soaked, so heavily compact that root structure cannot penetrate it, depriving the tree of nutrients. If I were to leave a chunk of it in the sun, it would be hard as a rock in one day.

Ricardo arrives; the problem of over-watering is discovered. Water meant to irrigate the adjacent alfalfa field has migrated into sector 2 of walnut trees.

Next on the to-do list - dig a deep enough irrigation ditch so water will not crest it and flow into the walnut tree sector.

A view of the alfalfa field and walnut sector 2 next to it.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dispatches from Chile: Bird Flu Scare in Nogales

January 26, 2017

Bird flu is serious matter around here. Thousands of chickens are kept at tens of thousands of homes in central Chile. Outbreaks of avian bird flu have been detected in the Valparaiso region of Chile in which Nogales is situated.

Yesterday, two officials drove to the farm and informed Ricardo and Susaan that they needed capture one rooster and two hens. Tomorrow they will return to test the birds. If blood samples are positive, all the chickens on the farm will be killed and incinerated. So far they have inspected over 8000 farms with no flu detected. http://afludiary.blogspot.cl/2017/01/chile-moa-reports-2nd-lpai-h7-outbreak.html

Roosters and hens, with a great deal of cock-a-doodle-do-ing and clucking, roam around the farm all day long. Try to get near them an they scramble, always staying out of reach. Their lives depend on being alert and a fast moving target.

Did you ever try to catch a chicken with a long pole with a hook at the end to grab their bright yellow feet? I didn't think so.

In what was a comical pursuit reminiscent of the Keystone Cops from the barn to the yard in front and back of the farmhouse, it took two wily men one hour to capture this rooster. Half hour later, they captured two hens.

Don Pedro and Juanito got the easy jobs of trussing up the hens.

And were pretty pleased with themselves, and probably pretty happy they weren't the ones doing the chasing.

Luis, Don Pedro and Juan Vila place the birds in an orange crate with some food and water.They will be tested tomorrow.

The preventative measures began on January 5, 2017. The first outbreak of avian influenza occurred near Valparaiso. Over 350,000 birds were slaughtered. Another case occurred on January 18 at a nearby turkey farm called Sopraval located in the El Melon district of Nogales.

According to news sources, "All protocols exist to prevent the spread of the virus biosafety were triggered, and the immediate slaughter of about 35,000 turkeys of the sector, the sanitary landfill in the same place and the implementation of actions determined disinfection." Wherever it is found, no traces of bird flu are allowed to remain on the farms.

The Agriculture and Livestock Service ordered that chickens on every farm in the region had to be tested for avian influenza.

I won't keep you in suspense.The next day, the blood samples officials took from the chickens were negative. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile: The Trials of Growing Oranges, Part 1

The details of this story began in 2016. An upcoming post, written at about the same time in 2017, will illustrate the need to have patience, good luck, and the long view that farmers across the world have come to understand as facts of life.

Chilefarms
Nogales, Chile
January 11, 2016

The learning curve on a small farm can be steep and filled with surprises. Lesson number one is that agronomists, the people with training and experience, are not always right.

The orange trees in the northeast sector have not produced the quantity and quality of oranges anticipated.

The trees in this section had grown so large that a tractor could not drive down  the rows  between them, making it difficult to apply  insecticides and then to harvest the oranges. The oranges, crowded out by the unwanted brush, were slower to ripen because sunlight could not penetrate the overgrown area, were not as good quality as those in other parts of the property and therefore not a good return on investment.

To correct the situation, an agronomist recommended  that the trees in 22 rows affected be chopped down to within a foot of the ground and a new type of orange tree grafted on top.

Farm crew Juan Vila and Luis are clearing the area of downed trees, back breaking work since the wood has dried, become very hard and the  branches have nasty two inch thorns. Juan Vila cuts away large branches and piles them on the high rise of ground the trees are planted on.

Ricardo has made arrangements for someone to remove the wood. In Chile, there is always a way to re-purpose material.Smaller brush cut away from the trees will be tossed into the rows between the trees and cleared away.

The moment of truth for the brush comes when José Pablo drags a seriously noisy and heavy machine called a triturador through them. The machine has powerful blades that shred everything in the rows. After three passes, down each row, it will have shredded the  piles into bits. The shredded debris from the weeds will be several inches thick and act as mulch thick enough prevent new weeds from growing. It will take  three seasons for the grafts on the trees to produce - if everything  goes according to plan.

After clearing 5 rows, it is clear to Ricardo that it take months  to cut down then add grafts to remaining 17 rows in the section.  He makes a Plan B. He will have his crew cut back the overgrowth in the remaining rows to allow the tractor to squeeze through and hope they produce enough oranges to be profitable.

At least, that’s the plan. Mother Nature and other unpredictable forces may alter the reality. I just returned in 2017 to see how the plan worked. Or didn't.

Stay tuned. Report coming in a few days.

Five rows of trees chopped down and the cleanup begins in January 2016.


The new grafts are protected while the clearing operations are completed.

Wood from large branches is piled on the raised bed where orange trees are planted. Later, they'll  be carted away by someone who has use for them. Nothing is ever wasted in the countryside.

The triturador shreds everything in its path.

Branches of all sizes collected by the daughter of the wife of caretaker Juanito. She will use it the ovens she uses to bake bread!

You wouldn't want to use this machine to  mow your lawn!

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.ispai

Chile 2016: Classic Wraparound Birthday Party Photo Album

January 9, 2016
Nogales, Chile
Chilefarms, home of Ricardo Ceriani and Susaan Straus

 Ricardo Ceriani's 61st Birthday party. Uncles, aunts, cousins, neices, nephews, everyone here related by blood or marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you next year...

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Chile 2016: Classic Wraparound Birthday Party

January 9, 2016
Nogales, Chile
Chilefarms, home of Ricardo Ceriani and Susaan Straus

Remember those old European movies in which a family celebrates a momentous occasion? It's always a warm sunny day, generations gather – grandparents to toddlers –  home-made food is heaped in bowls and spread onto plates, everyone eats dinner at one long table, glasses clink, toasts are shouted out, family tensions are neutralized by red wine and a general sense of goodwill. if it's a birthday, songs are sung and magnificent cakes are served.

Transfer this scene to Nogales, Chile, on January 9, 2016, one of the early days of summer in the southern hemisphere and you have the setting for Ricardo Ceriani’s entry into the sixth decade of his life.

Everyone is related by blood or marriage. Some have come from the next town, Quillota, and Ricardo's brother, his wife and daughter, from as far away as Montréal. Starting at 11:45 AM, the guest list gathers steam like a locomotive chugging downhill until by 3 PM 26 people gathered in pods around the farm house’s wraparound porch, the grassy front yard, and the inviting pool behind the house. About eight hours later, most will consider calling it a day.

When the teenagers in the group are having a great time, you know this is one hell of a party. They gleefully play with their toddler cousins, cavort in the pool, and hug their uncles and aunts. The smart phones are generally holstered. And calls go unanswered. That goes for the adults too.

No one is here on this Saturday who hasn't planned on making a day of it. Presents are not expected or required. The biggest gift they are giving Ricardo and each other is their presence. Complete and undivided. 

The setting would make a cinematographer drool. The foothills of the Andes to the east, the coastal range that spills into the Pacific to the West, orange groves and cornfields, barns and stables visible from this farmhouse perched on a sturdy hill in the midst of its 50 acres of land.

The party begins to wind down at 8 PM. Each goodbye last about 45 minutes, perhaps a universal event on occasions like these. By dusk at 9 PM the dust from the last car rolling down the driveway has settled.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Photo page to follow

 

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

A slew of other photos at http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2016/01/chile-2016-classic-wraparound-birthday-party-photo-album.html#comments

Dispatches From Chile2015: A Crisis On The Horizon-H20 Part3

November 7, 2015

I’ve been visiting ChileFarms for two weeks every January since 2006. The activity on fields around the farm have worked the way agriculture has worked for centuries: plow, plant, irrigate, cultivate, harvest, plow under, start again.

Water has always flowed like clockwork into the canal that passes through ChileFarms property once a week. Farm hands have diverted water from the canal to replenish a small reservoir and into the fields of alfalfa, corn, honeydew and cantaloupe melons, and occasionally potatoes, broccoli, and carrots.

I knew the flow of water into the canal came from the Aconcagua River x miles west of the farm.  I knew that the canal ended in Nogales x miles east of the farm. Even a city boy like me could tell that the valley owed its success, nay, its very existence, to the silty water that filled the canals every week of the growing season.

Over the past five years, reliance on the annual snow-melt from the mighty Andes in the east has gotten dodgy. Less snow pack on the mountains was bad enough.  A nearly five year drought has spurred farmers like Ricardo Ceriani and Susaan Straus toe enlarge the reservoir on their property, and consider drilling or digging new wells, or finding efficiencies with their irrigation practices.

But what about those canals? During my stay, I peppered Ricardo with questions. Are there other canals? Who controls the water after the snow-melt descends from on high? Who maintains the canals in this valley? Who built them? And why?

https://books.google.com/books?id=_a1EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA85&dq=who+built+the+irrigation+canals+in+central+chilee&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hTXMVMnSL9HhoAT9joHYAw&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=who%20built%20the%20irrigation%20canals%20in%20central%20chilee&f=false

Government subsidized irrigation canals were proposed in 1915 when a drought resulted in a scarcity of water in the spring and summer growing seasons. Canals diverting water from the Aconcagua River in the central valley had already been dug years before by wealthy landlords who had time and cheap labor. A few canals had been built by loosely organized groups of farmers but many poor or small farmers could or would not participate.  

The outbreak of World War I shut down Chilean nitrate plants. Unemployment ensued. A canal project would solve several problems. A government plan to construct irrigation canals was subsidized by the issue of bonds to finance construction of four canals.  The law required farmers to organize irrigation districts if the owners of over 70% of the land subscribed to the irrigation project.  

In March 1915 a department was created to supervise contracting for and digging the canals. The first canal completed, the Manco Canal, was 45 miles long and diverted water spring and summer from the Aconcagua River to about 8000 acres of land. The land served today is exponentially larger. Local administration of water distribution is organized by Canal Users Associations. ChileFarms is a member of the Nogales association.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7iaPvbZ3iKkC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=construction+of+irrigation+canals+in+chile+aconcagua+valley&source=bl&ots=_UmFTVjUHf&sig=5pZK-9usa6GE5CuIfUO-8tQr6bw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ljPMVNKQMI7SoATL8oLADQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=construction%20of%20irrigation%20canals%20in%20chile%20aconcagua%20valley&f=false


Further research is necessary to determine if the canal passing through ChileFarms from the river to Nogales was part of that first project or had been dug previously.

https://books.google.com/books?id=x4JFjuIfdQQC&pg=PA42&dq=canal+users+association+chile&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PzTMVP-ICYewogT_k4GoCQ&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=canal%20users%20association%20chile&f=false

Policies about water rights were a mess before Augusto Pinochet rose to power in 1970 and didn’t get any better afterward. Wading through this document is a mind boggling exercise. Public vs private ownership of water rights had been debated since the mid 1950s and no clear and enforceable policy had been agreed upon. From the late 1970 to early 1980s, economists and engineers argued about market incentives vs. government regulation. Policies about of agricultural water use, problems about river basin management, economic and environmental concerns were left unresolved or referred to the ill defined Water Code written in 1981.

Currently, powerful landowners in Los Andes, the first area through which snow melt from the Andes flows, control the release of that water into the central valley. The central valley is one of the largest exporters of ‘’off-season” fruit to the United States.

Between the current drought and the increasing practice of planting and irrigating avocado trees on previously unused mountainsides in the valley it is taxing the valley’s water supply to its limit. Something has to change soon. The future of every farm in the valley is in the balance.

Dispatches From Chile2015: Photo Essays Coming Soon

January 22, 2015

ChileFarms,Nogales, Chile

The internet has been so cranky I haven't been able to send little stories that fill every day here. Today, ironically my last day here, the 'net' is robust. I'm going to write little photo essays about farm life when I get home,with words to go with photos like the ones below.

 

 

  

 

 

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

 

Dispatches From Chile2015: A Crisis On The Horizon-H20 Part2

ChileFarms
Nogales, Chile
January 19, 2015

During my annual visits to ChileFarms, I see a well-run farm that treats its workers fairly, lots of interesting local activities, including Chilean rodeos in which Ricardo excels, eat Susaan’s delicious mid day meals every day, and find loads of everyday farm goings-on that fascinate me. My blog from past years is full of stories documenting this. I have taken the weekly water flow from the Aconcagua River into local canals and through this farm for granted, unaware of the politics and infrastructure involved. 

After talking with Ricardo and Susaan this year, I opened my eyes wider to discover a complex and volatile combination of politics, a faltering natural water cycle, climate change, and Chile’s cultural history.

Two recent stories and one government initiative about water consumption for avocado and other crops are startling and point to Chile’s growing water management crisis.

The first story shows a shocking graph that depicts the average amount of irrigated water, in gallons, that it takes to grow a pound of avocados in several countries.http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/10/avocado-drought-chile-california

Chile produced 200,00 metric tons of avocados in 2014. Do the math. Think about that next time you dive into a bowl of guacomole.

Charts for Mother Jones by Julia Lurie, who notes that the figures in this chart, and the one later in this post, include only blue water—which comes from rivers, lakes, streams, and aquifers—and not rainfall or recycled water.

Think about this next time you walk down the beautifully displayed produce in your local market.

Much of Chile’s avocado crop is exported to America. Statistics suggest that because of demand from the United States and the EU, avocado farmers in Chile have used so much water that some towns' wells have run dry.

Here are some facts from this story in Mother Jones October 2014:

• Chile's Central Valley (in which Nogales is located), like California's, lies between a snowcapped interior mountain range and a coastal mountain range.

• Chile is in the midst of a drought for the past several years.

• Chile's Southern Hemisphere location gives it a "counter-seasonal production schedule with the United States", that is, Chile's summer starts around the time that ours ends. That’s why your local market has such a range of fruits and veggies all year long.

• As in California, climate change and drought have meant less surface water flowing from mountain ranges to irrigate crops—and a shift to pumping water from underground aquifers. As a result, producers have "used so much of the region's waters that small farmers with shallow wells—and some nearby towns—are left with no water"

• Like California, Chile takes a laissez-faire approach to groundwater regulation. The results are scary.

• Large, export-minded farm operations have the wherewithal to drill larger and deeper wells, squeezing out small farms and nearby communities, author of "Civil Eats" Eilis O'Neill reports. Meanwhile, the profits from Chile's farm export boom remains pretty concentrated in the hands of large landowners.

The second story titled “Avocado farming straining Chilean water supplies” hits close to home for ChileFarms. The theme of the story is that a perfect storm of climate change, privatization of water rights dating from Augusto Pinochet’s reign from 1973-1990, and 5-year drought is leading to extreme water shortages.

A farmer near La Ligua (36 km from Nogales) stands in a dry riverbed that once fed water to his avocado trees. He says the problem began when avocado farmers who used to cultivate on the valley floor began to plant trees on hillsides and mountainsides. When water was pumped to vast tracts of avocado trees on the hillsides, it depleted his supply at ground level.

Couple this with a drought of five years, sometimes towns and small farmers get drips when they turn on their taps. Shortages this dramatic haven’t reached ChileFarms and Nogales but the issue was raised last week at a meeting Ricardo Ceriani attended in Quillota, a large city 23 km from Nogales.

An American author quoted in this story says the water problems began during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Individuals and companies could apply for water rights. In the free market environment, the government granted water rights free and forever and those rights could be sold to others.

“There were no avocado trees planted on hillsides when Ricardo and I first arrived here in 1996,” ChileFarms Susaan Straus recalls. Now even the hillsides of the road leading to ChileFarms have avocado trees planted on them.

Avocados on hillside along road to ChileFarms about two kilometers away (January 2015)

According to the story, Adolfo Ochagavía, of the Committee of Chilean Hass Avocados, says building better infrastructure such as large reservoirs could help solve La Ligua's water problems. Both he and Felipe Martín, president of the Chilean government's National Irrigation Commission, agree that as much as 85% of snowmelt from the Andes is lost because it flows into the Pacific Ocean.

I was shocked (again) today when Ricardo and Susaan agreed that there is an accumulation problem, that huge amounts of river water flow into the Pacific especially during winter months when there’s little need for irrigation. I thought for sure that the officials claiming Chile allowed 85% of water from the Andes to flow into the Pacific was a bureaucratic ploy to play nice to wealthy landowners who have powerful connections in the government.

Rodrigo Mundaca, an agricultural engineer and the general secretary of the organization Movement for Defense of Water, Earth, and Environmental Protection, says, Chile needs to "have a deeper discussion about renationalizing the country's water, about enshrining water access as an essential, unalienable human right in the constitution." The deeper the current crisis becomes, the more traction this discussion will get.

The most promising proposal comes from the government of President Michelle Bachelet which is considering a program to spend US$1bn over four years to tackle water scarcity. The three parts of the proposal:

• Build desalination projects benefiting the country's north in particular, to build reservoirs and to bring existing storage and regulation ponds back into operation.

• Restructure the government departments to create a water resources ministry or a dedicated department within the public works ministry.

• A reform of the country's water law so that water rights can be restricted or terminated, and for an end to perpetual water rights and a Constitutional reform to prohibit ownership of water rights.

This proposal could be a Chilean version of “The New Deal”, with the familiar tag line of “job creation.” But the third part of the proposal is certain to meet strong opposition from the most wealthy and powerful ranks of corporations and landowners.

President Michelle Bachelet has had the proposal on her desk since June 2014. Ricardo Ceriani has told me “the government doesn’t do anything for the farmers, only for the people of Santiago.”

If history is any guide, he is probably right. For the sake of the farmers of the central valley, I hope he's not.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dispatches From Chile2015: A Crisis On The Horizon-H20

January 18, 2015
Chilefarms, Nogales, Chile

The repressive Augusto Pinochet government in the 1980s was free-market oriented, much to the benefit of large farming and mining corporations. In the decades since, water consumption by these companies has soared, particularly by gigantic avocado growing corporations. It has reached the point at which owners of small farms in this valley have seen their water supply diminishing.

Ricardo Ceriani of Chilefarms attended a meeting recently in nearby Quillota at which area farmers relayed their concerns and anger to Congresswoman Andrea Molina, a member of the Chilean Parliament from V Region (Valparaiso). Ricardo's wife Susaan Straus says that local farmers complain but rarely organize. Congresswoman Molina listened to their concerns and surprised Ricardo with her response. "Keep coming to these meetings, your attendance here sends a message I can use to help you," he recalls she said.

Chilean farmers in this region, especially ones without deep pockets, have never felt empowered to have any effect on the vested interests of wealthy landowners, some of whom are members of the Parliament themselves. Some of the wealthiest landowners and farmers live in Los Andes and San Felipe. Situated at the base of the Andes Mountains, they are the first to be supplied with the annual snowmelt that courses over land through rivers and streams and underground through subterranean rivers flowing through cave systems in the mountains.

The wealthy farmers with political clout in these two towns already control water distribution into the valleys westward toward the Pacific. They release water into the Aconcagua River from their reservoirs once a week. Farmers downstream, including Nogales, divert water from local canals into their farms.  

For some small farmers, this is the only water they have to irrigate their crops. Farmers with more resources are digging reservoirs on their property along the canals to capture water to use the rest of the week. Chilefarms and several nearby farms have done so in the past year. Farmers with even deeper pockets and increasing concern about a reliable source of water have begun drilling deep wells to pump water from the aquifer. A drilled well could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The value of farms with independent access to water immediately increases. All well and good for the near term but what about the future?

Areas of California that have supported huge avocado farms have gone through a similar series of events being played out here in Chile. The avocado farms in California are exhausting the water supply. Entire towns, let alone farms, have run dry. Informative graphs on the link that follows:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/10/avocado-drought-chile-california

The farmers in this valley have a two-pronged uphill battle ahead of them. They fight powerful vested interests in the agricultural sector and their own belief that the government will not respond to grass roots organizing to affect change.

Without some form of regulation, water usage and management is going to become a contentious issue with dire consequences to the people of the central valley of Chile.

Dispatches From Chile2015: Prepping The Fields, Water On The Way

Chilefarms, Nogales, Chile
January 11, 2015

A big story is brewing on this farm and in the entire central valley in central Chile. Water, the resource once thought to be limitless here, is reaching its capacity to supply farms and homes alike. Farms like Chilefarms are increasing their capacity to store and conserve water. Ricardo Ceriani and Susaan Straus, the farm owners, have been voicing their concerns to me as I visit. More about this subject to come. In the meantime, this post shows a typical Sunday, a day of water is supplied to valley farms.

Water is delivered to the orange trees, walnut trees, alfalfa, melon and corn fields from different sources on different days of the week.

The melons, corn, and alfalfa are watered once a week Sunday into Monday when water flows into the farm's canal from the Aconcagua River. Don Pedro is a regular Chilean Pythagoras when it comes to devising and managing a system of channels criss-crossing the fields. Before he opens the gate into the fields, he prepares dams to guide water where he wants it to travel.

 

 

Water is diverted into these fields when Don Pedro opens the third portal along the canal which is nearest the fields.

He and Juan Vila open and close hand dug channels along the fields that irrigate one row of crops at a time. As each row is saturated, he or Juan Vila move the barrier along the side of the fields to admit water into the next row.

Elsewhere on the farm, water is used to irrigate the orange and walnut trees on a regular schedule during the week. Farms of varying sizes growing fruit and produce line the roads through this valley. All of them use water. More and more of them have begun drilling wells. Concern is mounting about the capacity of the aquifer.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile2015: Debut of the New Reservoir at Chilefarms

Debut of the New Reservoir at Chilefarms

Sunday, January 11, 2015
Chilefarms
Nogales, Chile

By noon on Sunday, water released from Los Andes reservoirs has reached the section of the Aconcaqua River running through Nogales and La Peña. The valley farmers heave a collective sigh of relief.


A complex system of canals that wind through the valley fill with water. There are three major portals from which water from this canal can enter Chilefarms.


The first is through a portal on the southern side of the farm that is opened for approximately 36 hours, Sunday to midday Monday, each week. Water from this portal fills the small reservoir behind the tractor barn and horse barn. Water from this reservoir is used to irrigate the orange and walnut trees on this side of the property.

This portal is padlocked for the rest of the week. An official rides his motorbike onto the farm, unlocks this portal and returns in about 36 hours to chain and lock the gate closed. Chllefarms pays a local agency for this service. The service also includes an annual maintenance in which weeds are cleared from the canal bank.

The second portal admits water into the larger reservoir on the north section of the property. This reservoir (tranque) was enlarged this past week and a new cement entry point with an adjustable gate was installed; workers will close it when the reservoir is filled. Water from this reservoir is used to irrigate the orange trees on this side of the property and to supply the smaller reservoir with water as needed.

Farm workers and their familes gather to see the grand opening of the new entryway into the enlarged reservoir (tranque).

 

The third portal is at the far north side of the farm next to the neighbor’s property line. Don Pedro opens this gate later on Sunday.

Water from this portal is used to irrigate the corn, melon, and alfalfa fields on this side of the property.

Figuring out the complexities of water management - how water arrives, how it it distributed during each week, and the impact of increased usage  - is worthy of a Sherlock Holmes novella. pt at large is spending the week unraveling the story.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dispatches From Chile2015: Reservoir Ready, Water Flows Tomorrow

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Chilefarms, Nogales, Chile

The excavators have spent the past six days enlarging the major farm reservoir (tranque). By Saturday morning, their work is complete.

Heavy equipment operators check facts and figures with Ricardo and farm manager José Pablo

Tomorrow, water held in reservoirs in Los Andes to the north will be released into the Aconcagua River. As the river meanders through this valley, it will flow into a myriad of smaller canals throughout the valley providing farms with water to irrigate their crops. The water release is a weekly event, begins Sunday and continues for between 24 and 36 hours.

Ricardo says he pays an annual fee to the local water agency to access water as  one of these canals passes through Chilefarms.

The new portal into the canal was finished Thursday. Don Pedro will lift the gate into the reservoir when  the canal begins to fill tomorrow around noon.

By tomorrow afternoon, the canal bed that runs through Chilefarms, now bone dry, will be filled with water.

Saturday night, Susaan surveys the new reservoir (tranque). Tomorrow is a major test of the new reservoir and the newly constructed gateway into it (visible in the reservoir bank at right of photo above).

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile2015: Water Management2

January 9, 2015
Chilefarms, Nogales,Chile

The excavator and payload machine work in tandem to scoop out thousands of cubic yards of clay rich soil. Once dry, the reservoir bed will be quite impermeable. Water flowing in will not seep through it.

The reservoir is about four times larger than the original size.

This is an expensive but necessary undertaking. In the event that the weekly discharge of water from Los Andes higher up in the mountains is interrupted, it's critical that there's water available to continue watering thousands of orange trees, walnut trees, melons, corn and alfalfa growing on the farm.

The project began on Monday, January 5 and will be finished by Saturday, January 10.

  

There's a palpable sense of anticipation today as the project nears completion.The new gate into the reservoir (visible just behind Ricardo in photo above) is untested, as is the capacity of the enlarged reservoir. The excavators carefully kept in place the wall of the original reservoir to keep water from flowing into the newly excavated section. The sight of Ricardo and Otoño in the pit gives you a sense of scale of the area being expanded.

and Otoño has to check the water in the late afternoon sun.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dispatches From Chile2015: Water Management1

January 9, 2015

Developing story at Chilefarms: the water supply to the farm, abundant in previous years, began to diminsh last year and continues to be questionable this year. As a measure to prevent shortage, Ricardo has hired a company to enlarge the "tranque" (reservior) that is used to irrigate the orange trees.

The water saga, like the Aconcagua River, has twists and turns and drama to boot. Over the next few posts, pt at large will attempt to illuminate the dimensions of the problem.

 
Large bucket excavator and a front-end loader have been enlarging the "tranque" (reservoir) since Monday (the original size is contained behind the levee seen at right of photo above).

They have finished for the day Friday afternoon. Ricardo hired a mason to construct an adjustable gate that will allow water to flow into the reservoir when water flows down the valley waterways one day a week, Sunday in Nogales.

LEFT The new gate. The canal, dry until Sunday, is to the right of planks above. RIGHT The dry canal bed at left and the new portal into the reservoir visible top right.

Dry canal bed heading toward the new reservoir. View from the farm of the earth piled up from excavating the tranque (reservoir). The heavy equipment operators will finish excavating tomorrow, Saturday. Just in time. Water released from Los Andes in the mountains to the north will flow through the canal Sunday.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Dispatches From Chile2015: Traditional Chilean Dinner

January 9, 2015
Chilefarms, Nogales,Chile

For my first dinner at Chilefarms, Susaan prepares my favorite Chilean dish - pastel de choclo. And Ricardo prepares the tangy salad that's part of every dinner here, peeled chopped garden tomatoes, diced cucumber, cilantro, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and olive oil.

Pastel de Choclo: preparation as written.

It is the custom to spoon the tomato salad into a nest inside the paila (clay pot in which the pastel de choclo is cooked). The tastes marry beautifully. The honey dew melon fresh from the melon field!

Dinner al fresco: Ricardo's nephew Christhian, Susaan, Ricardo.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile2015: A Birthday, A Welcome Back,A Hemispheric Change in Weather

Dispatches from Chile2015: A Birthday, A Welcome Back,A Hemispheric Change in Weather
January 8, 2015
Santiago to Nogales

Today is host Ricardo Ceriani's birthday! Susaan made a reservation at Eladio, renowned for its choice selection of steaks, Ricardo's favorite dish, on Pio Nono Street in the bohemian Bellevista neighborhood and invited surprise guest Erica Gardener. The steaks and the company all first rate!

Welcome back from Ottonio, then Glenda, old Akita in background. Occita, Olvideo and Monkey watched from their comfy spots in the shade on the lawn.

My neighbor just informed me it is -2 F at home in the northern hemisphere. The temps at my digs in here in Nogales...mid 80s F. How sweet it is.

  
My bedroom in the rear quarter of the farmhouse is visible through the French doors photo left - also pool dining table where we have lunch; one of two twin beds.

Second twin bed and second French door leading to deck and pool; view inside bedroom from rear deck.

Bathroom; scene from deck facing south.

I jumped out of my skin when I glanced at the shower curtain i just closed. "Susaan!" I yelled. "Oh, it's just a tarantula," she said with equanimity then slid the creature the size of a small mouse into a jar and released it over the deck. Now i shake ny shoes before putting them on. Susaan says they're  pretty rare around here. I am on Code Red every time I enter the bathroom.

Adventures to follow as long as Internet service is up and running (always dicey). Great videos shall be added upon my return - impossible to upload here.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr (and one guest at Eladio!)

 

Dispatches From Chile: Re-entering the Northern Hemisphere

January 26, 2014

Speak about rude awakenings...today is 69 degrees colder than my last two weeks in the dry, sunny Aconcagua Valley in Chile...  I'm trying to register 17 degrees, wind chill to 2 degrees. My uniform of t shirt and shorts now resides in memory. Today, sweat pants, a fleece, a cap, and warm socks. Inside. Ouch.

A tale of two porches: Nogales - 86 degrees, humidity less than 10%. Watertown - 17 degrees, wind chill-bone chilling 2 degrees

Arrived home Saturday afternoon January 25, reprogrammed the heating system (the mechanical one in the basement and the internal one in my nervous system), and shuddered every time I looked out the window, snow and ice most prominent through frosted windows. Was that the same sun that heated the earth a few thousand miles away in Chile, I wondered.

This morning I missed the sounds of the imperious rooster from pre dawn till dusk, the doggies barking just about anytime they got excited or talkative about something, Ricardo singing jingle bells (yes), Susaan rattling a bunch of pots and a pressure cooker to create a fabulous lunch, the gentle gurgling of the pool pump, laugher and joking around between Susaan and Ricardo, the occasional call of a swallow or quiltehue, the wind rustling through the eucalyptus or alamo trees, and the sound of 'no sound' compared to my urban environment.

I missed my daily trip down to the cool, shaded barn to see what's going on, horses being tended to by Juanito, Juan Vila hand-pumping gasoline from a barrel into the tractor or wandering into the fields to see Don Pedro or Juan Vila or Julio or Jose Pablo in their assigned roles weeding or irrigating or fertilzing or cutting harvested corn stalks or loading bales of alfalfa into the storage shed or straightening out water hoses that run under the orange trees, all 14,000 of them, and the 1126 new walnut trees Ricardo planted when he pulled up a few thousand orange trees that weren't producing well.

I spent so much time walking around the fifty acre farm that i could feel its pulse, its rhythm. The simple routines of farm life fascinate me. I learned the roles of each of the workers, who seem to regard it as a sin to stand around idly. Most of the work is not mechanized - it's old fashioned manual labor. This is life these men know, have ever known. Watching them I realize how much about the food I eat is the result of efforts like them and others in far away countries. And how much the food industry changed since I was born in the 1940s when just about everything in the market was trucked in from some near or far corner of America. Here I am now spending time in a valley that's a major source of the fruit and vegetable food chain.

Back in  the northern hemisphere, I'll get accustomed to the winter weather. I'll fall back into my own routines. But, next time I see the melons, walnuts, apricots, flowers, lemons, peaches, figs, and avocados in the market, I'll think  of the dust my feet kick up as I walk around Chilefarms... and labors of people like Don Pedro who planted and cultivated the glorious produce on display.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile: Alfalfa Days

January 22, 2014

Of all the crops grown here at Chilefarms in Nogales, alfalfa is lowest in maintenance. Prepare the soil, plant it, water it. It has been cultivated as livestock fodder as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans.Through one growing season, October to March, it will yield six cuttings. Ricardo hires a neighboring farmer to mow it and bale it. He stores the bales in his barn as winter feed for his horses. If the market is high, he has the option of selling some during the winter.

The farmer, dressed in red coveralls, is a real pro, has a system for mowing the field so he has to make as few passes as possible. The sweet smell of cut alfalfa wafts behind the tractor, a land-based vapor trail.

VIDEO Alfalfa field being mowed

Thursday,  January 24, 2014

VIDEO Alfalfa being raked

Farmer returns,rakes alfafa into neat rows, will return soon with his baling equipment.

The farmer returns with his baling equipment attached to his tractor rig. Next step, storing the bales.

VIDEO Hay baling operation

 

Juan Vila drives the tractor, Julio and Christian load bales onto the wagon. They haul several loads to the storage barn. VIDEO Hay wagon1, one of several trips to offload hay into the storage barn.

VIDEO Storage in the barn 

The bales weigh about 50 pounds each. Christian, Ricardo's nephew who occasionally works for him, asks me if I can lift a bale. Juan Vila, who throws them around like seat cushions, tries to stifle a laugh while I try to lift one. Within a few hours, the crew loaded 168 bales into the barn. I took photos.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile: Rodeo Practice

A morning practice for the rodeo next week...

Gato and Juanito saddle up and ride to the practice area, a "media luna" Ricardro has built behind the farmhouse.

Ricardo takes the back way, Juanito brings the cow into the practice area.

The men spend an hour practicing. Notice how the horses are trained to ride sideways and keep their chests in contact with the cow. This horsemanship actually occurs on the open range when a cowboy wants to separate a single animal from the herd.

Horses are washed down after each day of practice.

VIDEO Rodeo practice1

VIDEO Rodeo practice2

VIDEO Rodeo practice3

VIDEO Rodeo practice4

VIDEO Rodeo practice5

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile: Peace and Quiet

Peace and Quiet

For the first few days here I thought I’d gone deaf. I couldn’t ‘hear’ anything. It felt like I checked in to a soundproof room. It was almost unnerving.

At home, the radio is usually tuned into the new s or music. Outside, cars and UPS trucks pass, dog walkers chat, lawn mowers purr, leaf blowers whine, carpenters hammer away somewhere, jets from Logan Airport whoosh up to cruising altitude, a basketball thunks on my neighbor’s wooden deck as their son practices his dribbling, a radio broadcasting the news in the next room. I had no idea how much “sound” there is at home and how much energy I spend taking it in. They’re sounds that I hear but don’t register.

Here, I feel like somebody switched my intake dial from AM to some as yet unnamed station on FM. Up on the hill where the farmhouse stands, the most constant sound is the wind sighing through the alamos and eucalyptus trees. The resident rooster declares his presence on the hour. In the distance, the faint rumble of a tractor. When the wind is right (depending on how you think about it) I can hear traffic on Ruta 5, the superhighway that connects northern and southern Chile. Occasionally the neighing of a horse. And dogs barking. It’s surprising how fast the mind adjusts to a new environment. There are five pretty energetic doggies here. At home, that sound is annoying. Here, I take it in not much differently than birds chirping at home.

I haven’t heard a jet or a UPS truck in days. Rural environments are like this. I’m sure I could drive a few miles from my home and find this kind of peace and quiet VIDEO. In the Aconcagua Valley, there are miles and miles of it. It’s positively therapeutic.

 

Video Peace and Quiet1

 

 Peace and Quiet2

 

Peace and Quiet3

Peace and Quiet4

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile 2014: At Work On The Farm

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.

 

 

Dispatches From Chile: The Magnificent Cerro San Cristobal

January 16, 2014

This mini-mountain in the middle of Santiago is a pretty fabulous place to visit for a bunch of reasons. The funicular ride up to the top, the breathtaking vistas, first rate people watching, and the funicular ride down that feels like a descent from a heavenly cloud.

The line to buy tickets (2000 CP) is long but moves swiftly. An attendant swipes the x bar code from my ticket as I climb a steep stairway to one of the four open-sided, covered green cars perched at 45 degree angle.

A bell clangs.You can feel the funicular vehicle’s hydraulic pulley system hum with the brute force it needs to haul four carloads of tourists up the steep little mountain. Within a minute, as the view begins to appear over the tree line, ooohs and ahhs spontaneously erupt, as does the chirping of digital cameras, iPads, iPhones. This is gonna be special, I’m thinking.

VIDEO Ascending San Cristobal1

VIDEO Ascending San Cristobal2

Thank god for photos and videos. Describing the panorama in words is challenging…let’s just settle on breathtaking.


There’s breathtaking level number one VIDEO at the lower of three levels of viewing areas that sit like tiers on a wedding cake. Cars and bikes can access this level by a Tour de France steep road from the little mountain’s base at the end of Pio Nono. No one can keep from gawking. The two universal reactions are take photos, take ‘selfies,’ and hand your camera to a fellow visitor to take your photo with the vista behind you. I do all three.

The haze today is thick. Forget being able to see the vast and mighty snow-topped peaks that are the backdrop to Santiago’s east. If  today’s vista is so overwhelming, it short-circuits my mind to imagine what a clear day from this exalted height would offer.

If you had any doubts about Santiago being a hub of commerce and industry, scores of skyscrapers in view in the business district put that to rest.

Another word that comes to mind: sprawl. Outside the downtown area, the neighborhoods of Santiago and suburbs fade into the distance. Six million of Chile’s 17 million population live here.

Once I get over the initial awe of the view, checking out my fellow travelers is almost as rewarding. This is high summer, tourism is at its peak, and tourists from foreign countries mingle with Chileans from downtown or distant provinces.

Bikers in spandex or baggy shorts and T-shirts park their bikes. College kids, families, a group of handicapped kids, couples from the love- or lust-struck to those who’ve passed their silver anniversary, take in the views. The small concession stands selling water and souvenirs aren’t too busy yet at 11:30 AM. The place will be buzzing toward 6 PM when the breeze a bit cooler and the Andes may or may not be more visible through the haze and smog.

Huffing up to breathtaking level number two VIDEO, the first thing I hear is Gregorian chants from a sound system surrounding an outdoor chapel. I know I’m getting high but the heavenly music is a little over the top. Not surprisingly, there’s a stone-walled little store selling all sorts of religious artifacts. Commerce and religion are intertwined at most holy places in the world. This one at the “Sanctuario Immaculada Concepcion” is no exception. One glance above, the reason for this is clear.

A 40 ton, 72 foot tall statue of the Virgin Mary dominates the top tier, breathtaking level number three VIDEO. Standing under her, I feel dwarfed. Maybe that’s the idea. You can see her, hands extended in welcome (grace, forgiveness, acceptance, take your pick) from everywhere in Santiago.

Several religious motifs are in the terraces leading up to it VIDEO. Pilgrims kneel in front of the glass doors to a small chapel at the base of the statue’s pedestal, others take photos.

I didn’t come here to pray but find myself on my knees in front of the chapel. Just a moment between the Virgin and me. I learn later that Pope John Paul prayed here and blessed the city of Santiago in 1987.


Maybe it’s the spirit of the statue looming over me but the panorama from here is heavenly. This is one of the reasons cameras were invented, to show in images what words fail to convey. Even the most ardent camera-wielders pause, overcome by the enormity of the scene,  to make a mental image they will tell their friends about in the years to come.
Descent from San Cristobal 1

Descent from San Cristobal 2

Correction: in videos I state the population of Santiago is 17 million. The population of Santiago is six million, the population of Chile is 17 million.

Photos, videos by  Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile 2014: Bellavista, A Happening Neighborhood

January 15, 2014
Barrio Bellavista Neighborhood
Santiago, Chile

I have no idea where they come from but by 4 PM, a young crowd is beginning to fill the tables along the sidewalk in the lower part of Pio Nono. This street, like the part in the middle of the hair, splits both sides of the historic Bellavista neighborhood in Santiago.

VIDEO 1 PIO NONO

Kids in shorts, T-shirts, jeans of every style jam together in couples or tables pulled together like boxcars. Servers from the small bars/restaurants wade in to serve beer, fries, empanadas, and pizza (yes) and try to squeeze another table into whatever space they can claim. Personal space? Forget it.  We’re talking a can of sardines here.

VIDEO 2 PIO NONO

By midnight, the sidewalks are packed. At 4 PM, the group on R is just  getting started.

The high-energy din expands by the hour. It will continue until well past midnight. By around 10 pm, another wave of hormonically charged kids fill the Patio Bellavista, the upscale two level courtyard halfway down the street. They’re dressed for nightlife, more upscale versions of jeans and shirts, more attention to “ the look,” showered, and shiny. They’re not interested in the souvenir shops or toney eateries. Hundreds of them are packed around both levels on all four sides cheering for the band on a small stage. The deep blue sky overhead, stars barely visible, is a serene canopy for the action below.

VIDEO PATIO BELLAVISTA

Bellavista is a destination for an evening on the town. Constitution Street, one street over, is where the older brothers and sisters, aunts uncles, and parents of the crowd on Pio Nono come to eat and drink. Some will even filter over to youth territory later in the night.

An older crowd sits inside the bars, ceding the sidewalks of Pio Nono to the young. I stop dead in my tracks as I pass The Crazy Bar. Where was the bandstand? Surely the gorgeous voice of the woman singing the ballad had to come from there. Nope.

Scanning the interior from the open window, I spot a middle-aged woman in a red and white knit dress holding a microphone… a moment later I see the screen on which the lyrics are crawling along. Karaoke! The place rings with applause when she finishes.

VIDEO - KARAOKE AT THE CRAZY BAR

(I was astonished when I played this video two days later for Ricardo's 20 year-old niece Marcelita - she began to sing along just like some of the crowd had done inside The Crazy Bar! "The name of the song is Piensa En Mi, it means 'think of me,'" she says in halting English, "it's very popular." Indeed.) 

This is Santiago. Social life is just getting up a head of steam by midnight. Me?  Sixteen hours on the go and I’m ready to stop. I’m heading back to my Hotel Castillo at the end of Pio Nono.If I could sing karaoke, well…that would be a different story.

Photos, videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches From Chile 2014: Tiny Bar, Big Hearted Music

Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Bar Cuatro y Diez
Calle Antonia Lopez de Bello 0175
Santiago, Chile

Every so often, by mistake or by design, I end up exactly where I need to be. Several streets away from the hustle and bustle of Calle Pio Nono in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago, I am in search of some music. As soon as I pass the Bar Cuatro y Diez on Antonia Lopez de Bello Street I know I found it.

Strains of an acoustic guitar, a haunting voice beckon. This living room-sized bar feels like a comforting waystation for a weary traveler - a perfect setting for the intimate music floating from the lone musician perched on a high stool in one corner.

The softly illuminated tangerine and ochre painted walls, candles on a handful of tables, the bar with four seats, and the soft music embrace me. "Sit down," they say, "This is where you want to be." I think that’s the idea of some of these songs, lovers saying to each other, “Stay, I’m who you’ve been searching for.”

VIDEO Gallo's original compositions

Koko Gallo, a Chilean guitarist, is singing gorgeous Argentine ballads, accompanying himself on an unplugged acoustic guitar. I’m not leaving. I have no idea what the Spanish words mean. I imagine themes of the softened edges of a heart in the first moments of love, full of promise, wistful notes of heartbreak of separation, good hearted wishes to a lover at a relationships end, and hope of another love to fill dreams and needs of someone yearning for connection. The world-weary tone of his voice tells me he's been there. (story finishes below)

An hour later as I leave, the bartender writes down the name and Internet address of the gem of an outpost. “Come back next time you visit Santiago,” he says in Spanish.

You can bet on it.

Photos and Videos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

Dispatches From Chile 2014: Universidad San Sebastian

Universidad San Sebastian, Bellavista,Santiago, Chile

The university is located in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago. One of the most well-known attractions in Santiago, the Cerro San Cristobal lays a few blocks away at the end of the street. 1/15/2014

This is a real show stopper…. one step inside and I was stunned with its beauty.

The Universidad San Sebastian Bellavista is a truly spectacular example of the innovative architecture being erected in Santiago. It simply was not there last time I visited Santiago five years ago. Standing at the beginning of Pio Nono, the main drag through this bohemian neighborhood, it's the most modern building within miles.  

No photography is allowed inside  (I couldn’t even find any photos of the interior on the Internet). My words are a poor substitute for the breathtaking, terraced interior design.

Just inside the entrance, the entire block-long length of the interior is in view.

Sound is beautifully muffled, floating up toward 20 translucent skylights eight stories overhead that suffuse the space with sunlight and energy. The terraced interior allows you to ascend by foot to the top level.  Doors to classrooms and offices are tiered to the top floor on three sides. The entire open space is uncluttered, bathed in more ambient light from glass panels on the upper stories at the far end of the structure.

On several tiers of the lower terraces, students with laptops sit by information desks representing the areas of study. Although the rectangular structure fills a city block, the sight line from to the far end appears to narrow to a vanishing point. What I wouldn't give for one photo!

Immediately inside the entrance, students, many of them with their parents, wait to sign up for classes.  The whole range of activity inside here appears calm and purposeful, kind of surprising given the amount of hormones in this space.

Two students representing the Faculdad de Ciencia sit at a low chrome and steel desk on the third terraced tier. They tell me in halting English that the building is six years old. Most of the people at desks in view are students, all friendly, approachable and knowledgeable.

As I reluctantly leave, two young men at a booth outside the entrance (one a student in nursing, another studying administration) tell me that there are five Universidad de San Sebastian’s. One believes the university in Valdivia is the most beautiful, the other thinks the University in Concepcion is the most beautiful.  

The campus for this university is pretty much the lively, youth-oriented main street of Bellavista, Pio Nono, a delightfully scruffy enclave loaded with sidewalk cafés and bars.  The other universities may have lovely campuses but I would bet a truckload of Chilean pesos that none of them has a building with the grace and elegance of this one.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Google translate got me this information.

++++++

Sehool has a capacity for 3,900 students. The construction of 27,000 m², has eight floors, housing the faculties of Engineering, Business & Finance, Law, Education Sciences.

 The modern building has 45 classrooms, each with a capacity for 60 students, libraries, study rooms, video libraries, sport fields, an auditorium with 450 seats, gym, casino and WiFi technology. Emphasize the Harvard graduate and rooms specially equipped classroom simulations to perform oral trials.

 The northern sector of the campus is an Extension Center, with ample space and an auditorium for 200 people, to promote the university and academic life, as well as open to the community with artistic and cultural activities, among others.

 

Dispatches From Chile: Afternoon Tea

Well, actually coffee and light snacks, the meal called "once" (pronounce 'on-say') late in the aftenoon. Breakfast is called desayuno, lunch almuerzo, light afternoon meal 'once' and light meal before bed is 'cena'. Important words for a tourist to know, right up there with 'baño', bathroom.

Ricardo's nephew Christian, who lives in a small apartment near the farms main gate, walks up to the front porch late every afternoon for coffee and conversation with Susaan and Ricardo. Every day he comes with a question: "Who is better - Caruso or Pavarotti?" "Do animals have souls?" and certainly livens up the conversations.

The porch of the farmhouse is perched atop a little hill, a "cerro", offers a view of the property and usually a gentle breeze. The dogs never miss a chance to join for some TLC. They get it from Susaan every  afternoon.

 

Photos and video by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile 2014: All In A Morning's Work

Tuesday morning, January 14, 2014

Chilefarms is humming this morning... I'm sure there was activity that I missed - this is what I saw on a walkabout between 10 AM and noon.

Clearing the irrigation channel - Annual snow melt from the Andes Mountains to the east descends into the Aconcagua Valley from the Aconcagua River and is channeled into farmlands. Clearing the sides of the canal facilitates water flow when the water level in the canal rises.The Chilean Coastal Range, Cordillera de la Costa, runs parallel to the Andes to the west of Nogales. The Coastal Range affects the climate here, producing a rain shadow eastward in the Aconcagua Valley, which gets its water principally from the Aconcagua River. Chilefarms is a member of a cooperative utility that moderates canal conditions and water distribution to farms in this area. The men work for the utility and have been clearing miles of the canals in Nogales. Water distribution is a contentious issue between farmers in Nogales and San Felipe, who draw  volumes of water upriver from here. 

VIDEO http://youtu.be/Vhgxo6z_LJU

VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpOMFaR2vqQ

The export standards for oranges are stringent. Regular pruning of the trees, water management, and pest control are necessary to produce oranges of export quality. Although the farmers might like to grow organic oranges, the truth is, they will not make it to market.

Horses are excercised and trained for the rodeo then cooled down, watered, and fed. Juanito Perez has worked here since Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriano bought the farm, Chilefarms, in 1995.

Corn is picked and counted as it's chucked into the baskets then loaded into this truck. Corn is the second most important annual crop after wheat in Chile.

VIDEO

 

Trucks from two wholesalers harvest corn today. The men in the green truck are from Sgr. Pompino's business. Chliefarms farmhand Juan Villa supervises the counting as baskets are loaded into Pompino's truck.
VIDEO
The blue truck belongs to Juan. Chilefarms farmhand Don Pedro supervises the count into the truck. Loose corn is loaded then sacks are filled and loaded on top of the loose corn. By late this afternoon, it will be hauled to the wholesale market in Vina del Mar, on the  Pacific coast just over the Chilean Coastal Range to the west.

Trucks are loaded to the brim and the corn inside is fastened securely. Business owner Juan is a hands on businessman.

VIDEO 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMSwi3QbHjc

VIDEO 2 https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=uudJ3XkqsKg

The women, wife of a neighbor and her mother, cut and pile the dry corn stalks in a field harvested two weeks ago The stalks will be hauled away,chopped up and used by the woman's husband to feed goats, cows, and horses. Soon, the field will be burned then plowed under for the next planting. Nothing goes to waste here.

VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4yjkcGSOxI

This fellow, who's been amused watching me take photos, hands me a watermelon, also harvested today, and slices a huge piece. Language is no barrier to friendliness.

Don Pedro Biernays,who oversees the wholesaler's counting, lived on the property when Susan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani bought it in 1995. He slices watermelon for the neighbor's wife who's chopping corn stalks nearby. Don Pedro lowers his hand to knee level and points to her, signaling he's known here since she was a litle girl. "Secundo papa," he grins as she beams beside him. The two men from Sgr.Pompino's wholesale company share a laugh with me. I'm getting along with sign language and smiles.

Shortly after midday, trucks are loaded and ready to roll to Vina del Mar. Work on the farm halts around noon for dinner (almuerzo) then continues till late in the afternoon.

Dispatches from Chile 2014: An Afternoon At The Rodeo

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Rodeo in Conçon, a popular destination on the coast

For a story explaining more about Chilean rodeo
http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/01/2011-dispatches-from-chile-chilean-rodeos-real-cowboys.html

Friend and families meet and greet; kids in Chile are as drawn to video games as kids in the U.S.

The rodeo draws a wide crowd on Sunday - entire famiies, friends of the riders, people taking an hour to watch the rodeo then hit the beach in Conçon a mile away. This is not a sport like polo exclusively for the rich. Most of Ricardo's neighbors have horses, some of them participate in rodeos - small ones that attract local horsmen, larger ones like this that attract riders from Santiago.

Can you imagine a sports event where the Minister of Defense rides with horsemen from small towns? If you ride well enough and train your horse to ride sideways you can. Today, Ricardo spent time chatting about his orange business with Chile's Minister of Defense!

Rodeo is a national sport. The rodeo replicates work on the range, where a huaso ("cowboy") picks out a cow from the herd and has his horse nudge it into an area where it can be worked on. The horse has to be able to run sideways to do this!

Three times around this inner semi-circle  (media luna) then the riders and calf ride into the larger ring. Calves await their turn. Ricardo says some rodeos are actually held in open fields that better mimick the horsemanship where it was first used. He also says that women are beginnng to enter rodeo competitions.

Choice spots to watch the action where the horses and riders try to pin the calf against the cushioned section at each end of the media luna. The horses are nimble, have strong chests, and can gallop sideways to keep a cow moving in the right direction. Chances are you've never seen anything like this.

Trophies for the winners. Two riders await their turn. Rodeo season runs from September to April.

 

 
Similar to a ballgame in the U.S., spectators come from all walks of life and social class... and enjoy being photographed.

Riders rest their horses after a round.

Ricardo and his riding partner Gato Ledezma won enough points Saturday to compete again on Sunday. Now they await their turn. A moment later, the door opens and the calf bolts out with Ricardo and Gato in pursuit.

You have to see this to believe it. This breed of horse can be trained to ride sideways so they can pin a cow against a cushioned area (to minimize injury to the calf).

Teams work in tandem. Ricardo's partner, his horse riding sideways, tries to pin the calf against the cushioned area at one end of the media luna. Ricardo and his horse will do the same thing at the other end of the media luna shaped outer arena.

 

I waited for Ricardo's next round to make a video. Thirty three seconds after his round began, my camera battery lost its juice!

Another video

 

As is the custom, the winners dance the cueca with the queens of the rodeo.

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Dispatches from Chile 2014: Friday January 10

January 10, 2014

Ricardo's rodeo partner Gato Ledezma (bottom R), his father Don Pio (top R), and caretaker Juanito Perez practice for the upcoming rodeo in Con Con early this morning. Ricardo practiced earlier this morning. Chilean rodeo description http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/01/2011-dispatches-from-chile-chilean-rodeos-real-cowboys.html

Ricardo picks spinach for lunch today - doesn't get any fresher than this! To the left of the spinach, tomatoes plants which are just beginning to ripen. An early frost this December ruined lots of fruits and vegetables usually growing in abundance on the farm: apricots, figs, lemons, limes, watermelon, honeydew melons to name a few.


Maestro of the fields Don Pedro poles he'll use to support the seeds from organically grown tomatoes Ricardo's son brought to the farm.The bamboo he's using for the poles grows on the farm.

Ricardo's sisters Uka and Veronica, with their daughters Marcelita and Nicole, pay a visit after lunch.

 
Marcelita is in a five year program studying commercial industrial design in Valparaiso. Nicole is studying early childhood education at the University of Chile in Santiago. Given the growth in population and burgeoning commercial economy, their job prospects are good.

Sun begins to set around 8:15 PM, dusk fades into evening about an hour later... another day at the farm begins to wind down.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

 

Dispatches from Chile 2014: Home base in Nogales

More videos to follow...slowly, as internet connection, much like the pace of life here, is slow...

 

Susaan and Ricardo are very welcoming. I feel at home. Lemonade, milk, yogurt in the my little guest refrigerator, always one of Susan's home-baked goodies on the kitchen counter. Ricardo singing jingle bells, Susaan and Ricardo joking back and forth. The sound of the rooster from dawn until dusk. The tubular wind chimes gentle lullaby. Dogs barking. No rumblings from UPS and FedEx trucks. No overhead sounds of jets taking off or landing at Logan Airport. An occasional distant shout of one of the fieldworkers hailing another... this is music to my ears.

Dispatches from Chile: First Glimpse 2014

Dispatches from Chile: First Glimpse 2014...I arrive in Santiago on January 9, 2014, my 7th excursion to Chile since 2006.

The Andes Mountain range about 50 miles north of Santiago.The Andes mountain range is about 4,500 miles and spans seven countries along the entire western coast of South America  — Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina...forbidding terrain to say the least. The highest mountain in the Andes is Mt. Aconcagua, visible from the farm of Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani in Nogales, where I am staying.

Santiago is growing by leaps and bounds-I don't remember seeing these buildings in photo at left in 2011. The Gran Torre Santiago (Spanish for "Grand Santiago Tower") is a 64-story tall skyscraper. In 2011 it became the tallest building in South America and in 2012 the tallest in Latin America.The modern architecture co-exists with the traditional. Normally, the trip from the airport to Nogales is superhighway all the way. We made a wrong turn so we took the scenic route through Santiago back to Ruta 5. It got my visit off to an interesting start.

Chileans are natural entrepreneurs, this man hawking food in traffic next to the Mapocho River that flows through Santiago...

and this pair of girls at the beginning of Pio Nono in the Bellavista neighborhood dancing the cueca, the national dance of Chile. We gave her a few pesos for her imaginative spirit.

Scores of new developments like Los Manzanos sprout along  Ruta 5 north of Santiago. My host Ricardo says the roofs have solar panels that heat water. Visibility has been limited for over a week due to large persistent fires that roar through the dry grasslands dotted with espina trees. Susaan explains the 'Three Thirties" that are perfect conditions for grass fires: "temps over 30 degrees C, winds over 30 mph, and humidity under 30 %". The humidity Thursday was 4%!

Route 5  (Ruta 5) is one of the best maintained roads in the world.

Route 5 known locally as Ruta 5 is Chile's longest route, 2090 miles long. It is part of the Panamerican Highway, stretches from the Peruvian border to Patagonia. It is the commercial lifeline of the country. Thousands of tractor trailers and trucks of every conceivable size bearing produce, wholesale and retail goods, construction material rumble down it night and day. The state is in the process of widening the road in one of the rockiest stretches north of Santiago, a huge project that will take over a year to complete.

Traffic is halted for several hours a few days a week as crews dynamite rock formations at the sides of the  highway. The loudest noise around my guest quarters at Chilefarms in Nogales is usually the rooster who claims provenance to the little hillock on which the farmhouse sits. I can deal with that.

My guest quarters...lovely views and a sparkling pool a few feet from my door.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

El Patron Rides High: Tres Punto Bueno

Tres Punto Bueno
A Chilean Rodeo in Concon, a coastal city within sight of the Valparaiso skyline
January 5 and 6, 2013

When Chilean cowboys hear the announcer utter those words, they smile. Not a big show-your-teeth smile. That’s not their style. When Ricardo Ceriani heard “tres punto bueno” (three good points) boom from the loud speaker over the judges’ box, he and his riding partner, young Pio Ledezma Rojo, known as Pollito (Po-yee-toe) since he was a tot, sat higher in the saddle, ramrod straight, and cantered off the competition arena, their colorful mantas flowing in the breeze. The highest score in a round is cuatro punto bueno. I’ve been to several Chilean rodeos (this one in 2011). I never saw one of those awarded.

In the steer roping part of an American rodeo, there’s the rider and steer to be roped and tied. Two moving parts.

Chilean rodeos are complicated, choreographed equestrian events. To win, horsemen need skill, nerves of steel, patience, lightning fast reflexes, a well trained horse under them, and a good shot of luck.

Two riders act in tandem and ride around a semi-circular earthen packed arena called a medialuna with the goal of pinning a calf against cushions at either end of the arena. The timing of pinning the calf against the cushions, the coordination of the skilled horsemen and their highly trained Chilean horses is crucial. One split second of indecision spells a low score or worse, a score of “un punto malo,” (or “dos punto malo” for larger infractions the strict rules of engagement between horsemen and calf), a deficit very difficult to overcome in succeeding rounds.


Ricardo and Pollito: Tres Punto Bueno; points awarded for where the calf is pinned against the padded area.

Ricardo built his own medialuna behind the farmhouse in which he and Susaan live from November to May every year. At 8 AM several mornings a week, you can hear the snorting of horses and their muffled hoofbeats as horsemen and horses trot from the stable to the practice area. Farm caretaker Juanito Perez escorts the calf Ricardo owns into the medialuna.

One hour of intense practice ensues. Horsemen shout, clods of soft brown earth, churned by shod hooves, cartwheel into the air and arc back to earth, as riders wheel horses into the best position to pin the calf at each end of the arena. The ground shakes under my feet as the trio of horses and one uncooperative calf pound past me. From one pass to the next, there’s no predicting what the calf will do. Perfect. Managing unpredictability with speed, discipline, and coordination is where a punto bueno becomes possible.

Ricardo practices at his medialuna in Nogales; Ricardo and Pollito relax a moment before their turn to compete.

An hour later the horses are lathered up, washed down, brushed, and returned to their stable. Ricardo resumes his life as El Patron, overseeing the daily operation of Chilefarms in Nogales.

By Saturday morning, he’ll be ready to load his horses into his truck and head for the rodeo. If he does well Saturday, he competes again Sunday. Being well prepared and winning are two different things. Win or lose, Ricardo will be prepared. In the 12 years he’s been competing, his opponents know to expect a man who comes to win, has the grace to lose with dignity, offers no excuses, and is easily the funniest and most popular “huaso” (cowboy) in the rodeo.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Scenes from a rodeo in Concon 2012

On the road to Concon; cowboys wait their turn to compete.

Dozens of calves will be used in the rodeo but only a few prizes will be awarded

The rodeo in Concon is always well attended.

Ricardo wearing a striped manta he won at a rodeo; pinning a calf against the cushioned area takes skill.


Concon, a coastal city a few miles from Valparaiso; the "Queens" of the rodeo.

Photos (except for photo in the middle of the story) by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Chilefarms Oranges Imported by Costco!

There might be plenty of green all around but operating a small farm in the black and not the red is a formidable task.

Challenges abound.The unpredictability of Mother Nature, the recent decrease in water descending into their valley from the Andes Mountains, and the red tape surrounding production and exportation of fruit are annual uncertainties. Chilefarms owners Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani made one small step in the right direction last month.

Big News...

My friends Susaan Straus and Ricardo Ceriani have been establishing an orange grove on their 50 acre farm in Nogales, Chile for fifteen years. Getting a grip on agronomy and the onerous and byzantine pathway to succeed in exporting from a small farm in Chile to the shores of America has presented a steep and often frustrating learning curve.

I've been watching the process since my first annual visit in 2006.

From here in Nogales, Chile...

to Costco stores in USA!

Top photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Chile 2012: Invitation to G-20: Evidence Around Nogales

Chile Invited To Participate In G-20 June Summit In Mexico -FinMin
Wall Street Journal story at bottom of page

Dow Jones. January 19, 2012

If Nogales is a reliable indicator of Chile’s economic status in the world, the invitation to the G-20 Summit is deserved.

Nogales, Chile, the site of Susaan Straus’s and Ricardo Ceriani’s farm in Chile, is 75 miles from sprawling Santiago, the nation’s capital and home to six million of its 17 million inhabitants. Nogales population of 21,000 is spread around the countryside and one small town.

Nearby La Calera, is a mainly working class city of nearly 50,000 inhabitants with a robust commercial downtown filled chiefly with small businesses. Sometimes it feels like this area of Chile has hopscotched from the 19th to the 21st centuries. On a drive from Susaan and Ricardo’s farm to La Calera, you’re just as likely to see a horse-drawn cart clopping down the road as a new automobile whizzing along. Cell phones are ubiquitous.

Even while visiting their farm in a rural section in the Aconcagua River Valley, I see evidence to support Chile’s ascension to G-20 status.

The highway system is impressive. Route 5, the major N/S route through the country, is maintained robustly. Privatized, the tolls on the road continue to pay for its upkeep and keep money rolling into the companies that operate it. On every visit since my first in 2005, I’ve seen new roads being carved out of the Coastal Range leading from the Aconcagua Valley to the Pacific Coast. Beach communities are experiencing a spike in construction of second homes, condominiums, and rental apartments. The ingenuity of construction on the steep mountain terrain that spills down to the ocean is remarkable.

When Susaan and Ricardo bought their farm, the long road from Route 5 to their farm in Nogales was unpaved. The road is now paved, there is garbage service once a week, and electricity has been linked to the whole countryside.

A rural electrification program initiated in the 1990s has succeeded in providing electricity to 90% of the countryside. In 1995, there were no streetlights on the road to their farm.  Night used to be ink black, the Milky Way, Southern Cross, and millions of stars were as easy to see as if you were in a planetarium. Now streetlights line the road from Route 5 to Nogales. The yellow/orange halo over the nearby city of La Calera makes it harder to see the constellations and stars near the horizon.

Propal, the exporter a few miles away in La Calera, was not even there when Susaan and Ricardo first came here 18 years ago. It launched with one warehouse. Now it’s expanded into a huge complex of tall buildings just off Route 5 fifteen minutes from their farm. Propal exports kiwis, lemons, clementines, Asian pears, grapefruit, oranges, avocados, onions to North America, Europe, and Asia.

Euro Plant, a Spanish corporation, arrived in nearby La Calera 3 or 4 years ago. The plant constructed metal greenhouses with modern heating and ventilation systems to produce disease free seedlings.  “We’ll buy broccoli or cauliflower seedlings they grow there later this year as our winter crop, ” Susaan says. The tiny seedlings are just big enough to plant and are sold in trays one meter long.
Soproval is a huge turkey growing and processing plant on outskirts of nearby La Calera. It’s the second largest turkey producer in Latin America and has markets in U.S., the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China and South Africa.
“The company was here when we arrived in 1995 and was founded in the 1960’s,” Susaan says.

The Sakata Seed Company, headquartered in Yokohama, has a small presence in La Pena, five miles from Susaan and Ricardo’s farm and a huge presence in nearby Hijuelas, the self–proclaimed “Flower Capital of the World”. Sakota grows flowers and vegetables to produce seeds. The Sakata family has been in this valley for generations, drawn by the moderate climate. The company has research facilities in Europe, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Guatemala. Sakata’s broccoli and pansies, for example, that maintain an overwhelming share of the global market.

The chain stores Falabella, The Sodimac Home Center, and supermarket Tottus had not been built yet when Susaan and Ricardo first bought their farm in Nogales. Low income neighborhood was torn down to make way for the complex that houses them. Falabella partnered with  Sodimac Home Center and Tottus to form a destination shopping plaza.

A car dealership has just been built across the highway from these huge three stores.

Cemento Melon, producer of cement, concrete, mortar and aggregates, is few miles outside La Calera off modern highway Route 60. Rich deposits of limestone have been extracted from the hills outside La Calera (Spanish for “quicklime mine”) for years.  The company has changed ownership from British to French ownership during the years.


The modern highways have become magnets for industry and wholesale and retail businesses. Like other developing nations, Chile has wide gaps between income classes and will have to grapple with the tensions arising from the disparity. In the meantime, it is intent on developing into an economic power of G-20 stature.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 Chile Invited To Participate In G-20 June Summit In Mexico -FinMin
Dow Jones. January 19, 2012

SANTIAGO (Dow Jones)--Chile has been invited to the June summit of the Group of 20 largest industrialized and developing nations to be held in Mexico, Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said Thursday.

It will be the first time Chile attends a G-20 summit, the minister said.

"This is a testament of Chile's solid economic and international standing and to the seriousness with which it faces its difficulties," Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno said at a joint press conference with Larrain.

In addition to Chile, Colombia was also invited to the summit to be held in Mexico June 18-19.

The ministers said the participation of several Latin American nations in the summit will allow for stronger coordination with other economies.

"The G-20 is the most important international forum for relevant issues financial and economic issues and for Chile it's extremely important to join these cooperation efforts in order to counter the effects of the global crisis," Larrain told reporters.

-By Carolina Pica, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-715-8919; [email protected]

 

 

 

 

Chile 2012: January 22, 2012 9:30 AM

 

January 22, 2012 9:30 AM. A Sunday morning is the quietest morning of the week on a working farm in this 360 sweep of the horizon from the front of the farmhouse.

Chile 2012: Hauling A Over a Ton of Shredded Corn

 

Still moist, the shredded corn stalks weigh tons. The wooden bridge over the canal is stout enough to support big rigs. Later this week, the field will be cleared. The shredded corn stalks will be used as silage to feed a neighbor farmer's cattle this winter.