Stephan Schwab

Now that I am officially a cattleman it is time to look at the world with the eyes of a cow.

So what’s a cow to think about the world? Food… Pasture… Fruits… and water of course.

In this post I want to focus on the pasture that is left from the earlier uses of it. To start with here is a picture from the time we did the land survey. In the center of the image you can see a white object. That’s the antenna dome on the top of the pole the surveyer carries. It is taller than a man. Sure the terrain is low there too but still you can clearly see how tall the grass is. There is a whole section of this type of pasture at the higher grounds of the farm. The elevation there is about 500m.

The next image shows the view from that place backwards. Down there and around the corner to the left is where the rancho is located. Takes about an hour on horseback to get there. The trunks of dead trees were Nispero (bulletwood) trees. They are left from the time the former user of the place burned the forest to make room for pasture. Well … He did a thorough job. There are hardly any trees left.

On the other side the pasture extends to where a huge stretch of still virgin forest begins. This is the second part of the farm. It has been estimated at 160 hectareas but based on the experience from the real land survey with GPS I feel that it might turn out to be 200 hectareas. We don’t intent to do any damage to this forest at all. It helps us to have water all year around and feeds the river.

Elsewhere the grass grows quite high. I’m not really sure about the nutritial value of that particular grass. I think it has invaded and destroyed the real pasture that was there before. The horse still grab a bite. We’ll have to see what the cattle thinks. In the end we have to create many small segments and let the cattle feed in a controlled fashion. The former user had very large division but that causes the cattle to feed here and there a bit roaming large areas. We want to feed intensively in one area and then move on the next. That way we can control better what they feed on and hopefully achieve our performance goals.

Before it all started to grow over this large area had certainly beautiful pasture. Needs some cleanup and cattle starting to graze there.

We are preparing to buy more cattle in the coming weeks to have a first herd of about 20 animals at the farm. The pictures in this post show mostly areas located at higher elevations than the areas close to the entrance and the rancho. Pasture close to the rancho is in better shape than further away so we going to start there building some additional fences and prepare it for the arrival of more animals.

Last month I was telling the stories of the land survey we did. In one of the posts I told you where the rainforest is. In another article I described how we were exploring a true jungle that is located in the second part of the farm. So you already have a good idea of that.

During the survey we had to climb uphill following a quebrada which was used to simply determine the limits between the two segments. I got to shoot a few interesting pictures and here they are:

This is “grillo” – the land surveyer. He is talking on his cell phone, which is kind of a nice detail given the location and surroundings. The farm has great cell phone coverage despite its remote location.

Do you believe me that his guy is 67 years old? Over three days straight he was walking to and from the farm and all around it carrying this heavy battery pack and the pole with the GPS computer and antenna dome. No sweat. No fatigue. And always a smile or a joke.

Now comes something that explains well what it means to be in a real jungle. Have you heard stories about indigenous people appearing and disappearing before one’s very eyes? I know now that these stories must be true.

See here. Now you see the group:

And after a few steps they are gone:

Impressive – isn’t it?

Last Sunday afternoon I took Toby for a ride to explore this part of the mountain where from a distance you can see quite a lot of trees. I was hoping to find a few trees with construction wood. The area has been pasture before and is now mostly overgrown. From a distance a dead Nispero tree can be spotted to the left (look for the white trunk). It has burn marks due to the fire the former user of this land used to clear it. I can say I’m still mad at him for wasting all that good wood.

Nispero is a very strong wood and it is resistant to fungi and insect attacks. You can cut poles from it and stick them into the ground. They will last for more than 20 years without any treatment or protection.

The next picture shows what I found after going up the hill. In the lower half you can see two barb wires and a stretch of pasture on the other side. This is kind of a plateau and there the former user created a subsection with that fence. Due to that I could not pass so next time I have to figure out a way to get on the other side without cutting the fence. We want to use as much as possible of what’s currently there and improve later after more of the area has been weeded. Either by machete or by the cattle feeding on it.

Up on the mountain I cut myself with the machete a path of about 20m through a lot of brushwood. Sorry – no pictures of me swinging the machete. I was there alone.

What I found is that all these trees grow on the edge of a quebrada. Somewhere in there water flows out of the mountain and downhill. This has to be the same water that passes by the rancho. Down at the rancho the water is a bit muddy but up there it has to be crystal clear and fresh. Maybe we can take it from there and build a few bebederos in that section. A bebedero is kind of a tub with a roof on it. You add something to store salt and minerals and that’s where cattle should go to lick on the salt stone and drink water. We don’t want our cattle to make the long trip down to the river.

Speaking of the river. After we were done up there on the mountain Toby and I went to the river so he can drink water. I also wanted to see the flat pasture area next to it.

The river flows around an edge and forms a nice swimming pool. I don’t know whether Toby was thinking about taking a bath ;-)

When I got back I found Rigu cutting down brushwood. It’s important to cut down all those little trees that have grown in about four years so that the pasture gets light and nutrients to grow.

Around the corner Luis was doing the same. Our plan is to clean the pasture of all the brushwood but leave enough young trees for shade. There are areas where fruit trees have been seeded by birds and cattle in the past. Those are very important. Not only for the shade but for their fruits. Cattle likes some sweets once in a while as well.

Weeding manually with the machete takes some time. We can’t do it all ourselves so our plan is to hire local guys to help us with that. That area left and right of the quebrada should be cleaned so that we know how the terrain looks like. I have the feeling that we should fence off the steep slope that we certainly will discover there. Cattle likes to roam but we don’t want to loose any due to accidents.

Actually one of our neighbors, Chano, lost a cow that way. The animal walked into the wrong place, slipped and then could not get up anymore. So the blood circulation in its legs got cut off and it was too late once they found it. In that case there is no other way than to kill it. Chano was quite sad about the unnecessary loss. It was a cow and would have given him a few calves over the years. They killed it and butchered the animal right there. The meat got loaded onto the back of a 4WD pickup truck and by the time we left Buenos Aires we saw people in taxis going up to buy the meat.