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Tuesday
The day’s main task was to sell cattle. The buyer and extra crew arrived by 9:00.
The men had been out and rounded up the waiting cattle that had been in the field next to the house, herding them into the field by the corral.
They drove them into the pen by the corral. The mud was nearly as deep as some of the cattle stomachs, one went down and was dragged out by a lasso around the neck, poor guy, looked busted, but he did get up again.
The cattle were then herded into the next corral which led to the chute. Through the chute, they were pushed/encouraged/prodded along to the gate.
We were right there, Jack using the electronic wand to read the numbers. John writing the numbers, (each bull has a tag attached to it’s ear with all it’s information there); my job was to read out all the numbers: the bull’s number, identification and weight.
The bulls needed to be over 900lbs or close to it to sell. We went through just over 100 bulls during the morning and from them there were just under 2 truck loads, they needed 16 bulls per truck.
The largest from the group were found by their tag numbers, lassoed, added to the group until they had 32 bulls the average weight of 906lbs.
Those rancheros were amazing! Their riding skills the best ever, they were like one with their hoses. The horses nimble and so fluid. One ranchero had his dog with him. The dog was nearly as good as the ranchero. he really knew his stuff!
Those poor bulls were off to market.
The next step for the cattle buyer and the men was to herd the sold 32 head of cattle through the jungle path up the mountain to the awaiting trucks from there they headed to market – Guatemala City.
We did hear one of the trucks got stuck in mud…… (I learnt that most of the cattle are trucked from Central American countries, eg Guatemala, El Salvador and trucked through Mexico. Fattened up on corn grain imported into the US. Shot full of growth hormones then slaughtered as American beef).
While Jack finished off the sale we went out on the ATV, to find his special walking stick he had left behind the previous day. We used the 3 wheeler again, went through the gate, across the very soggy field that was getting quite churned up by the bulls,
through another gate, an even muddier field all the way to the creek. There we retrieved the stick, and headed back.
After our lunch Jack and John went off on the same cross country ATV machine to follow the border out to where the excavator guy, Jose was digging ditches for drainage.
This is actually a full time job. So far 35 kilometres of ditch has been dug to drain the fields. They had quite a time, getting stuck and unstuck in the mud, both of them were covered in mud after.
Me, I tidied up, read, wrote and got ready to make dinner. When John and Jack returned they took the big excavators out for exercise,
John drove a huge excavator into one of the fields, around and back, his 1st ever experience driving a huge excavator. (It had been used previously to make/excavate Jack’s airstrip.)
Wednesday
Today we were injecting bulls with dewormer, (that one that some folks are taking for covid lol) and other necessary meds, weighing them, recording their tags and registration numbers. We needed to complete a minimum of 200 head of cattle.
Now, we arise everyday with the sun, yep, Jack’s making coffee before 6:00am. The men go out before 7:00am to round-up the day’s 200 odd bulls.
The first 100 odd were brought to the outer corral. They then are herded, pushed, prodded through into the second corral where the chute is located. This can take several rounds of trying to get them into the corral, bulls are not the most cooperative of animals.
Into the chute the first 10 or so go.
This can be a very unpredictable situation, the bulls jump on each other, crush each other, push, shove, rear, go backwards, somehow manage to turn half around, get their legs stuck in the bars, just so many possible scenarios.
Fortunately, there were only a couple of ugly situations where they got into impossible situations and by lunch just one poor little white bull with a broken leg, who had to be put down.
The rancheros directed the bulls into the shoot then climbed the sides, injecting them with 3 different medications. The bulls really did not like getting injected.
My job was checking and reading the electronic recorder numbers to John. 1st the bulls number, 2nd his weight, and 3rd the last 4 digits of his registration. John’s task to find the number on the list, check it, write the weight and check the registration.
Meanwhile Jack used the wand to get the number from the red ear tag and when I pressed record he opened the chute gate, staying out of the bulls way.
We did two shifts, one hundred plus in the morning, had lunch, then back out into the hot sun and did a second shift of over another one hundred – total of 226. Many of these were the younger, newer bulls which were more difficult we were told.
Then it was back to the house, for John and I a nice cup of tea. Following which John and Jack went off to start up tractors and I had a wonderful shower getting rid of all the bull dust and dirt aka BS.
Thursday
The main objective was to finish the herd, injections, tag, registration count and weight taking – of about 230 more bulls to do. As per yesterday the rancheros drove the rest of the herd in to the corrals.
This morning there seemed to be less fuss. I was told it was because most of these were older, and so had been through the process a few times.
All went well until we had one crazy physio bull. He got right up to the end of the chute, just before he was to enter the weigh bay he forced his head around, flipped up and got half way over the bars at the top. He was standing on the others and the sides of the bay.
He crashed down on a couple of others, was facing the wrong way, tried to charge out past all the others, of about 8 of them, causing a right pile up of bulls, with him on top, being unpredictable and dangerous. Believe it or not the rancheros got the ones beneath him out and down the chute to us, we read their info and weight and released them. Next the men forced the mad bull backwards down the chute into the weigh bay where he was finally read, weighed and released….… Everyone rancheros included got well out of the way when he was released.
The readings and weighing did go faster meaning that we were finished the 130 odd by 11:30 doing as much in the morning as took us all day the day before — easier cattle.
Our total was 438, making 12 unaccounted for. Jack had 800, but had sold off half over the year.
The afternoon was a quiet one, Jack paying off the men, checking his airstrip. John doing odd jobs, me getting packed up, watching for birds
and gazing out across the ranch watching the weather move in. The clouds approached from the northwest, gradually covering the sky,
the wind rose, the temperature dropped by about 15 degrees, the rain never fell.
Friday
The next morning started at about 4:30, I think……we had been told there would be an early start. I heard voices outside, the workers, Jack ground his beans in the kitchen area in the bathroom, (off the sleeping area is a bathroom with an added counter and small gas cooker for Jack’s morning coffee). We took that as a sign to get up. Then we were told to put our stuff outside ready to go....I nearly didn’t even get to use the bathroom or get dressed. John went down to make breakfast, so he never got to use the bathroom as it was locked up. We gobbled breakfast, washed up, everything was put away and out we went to the skiff.
Meanwhile a hog had walked past with a few men and was being put into a kayuko.
It was a very hasty goodbye to the ranch, the stuff was loaded, stacked in the skiff with a tiny bit of room for us. By 7:00 we were headed out.
The passengers this day were ourselves, Jack, Juan again, Lucy his wife and 4 of her prized turkeys.
Back down the canals, past the kayuko with the pig,
through the next 2 canals and out onto the river. The journey was just as beautiful on the return. Birds galore, in fact John and I saw a Questrel in the air above us, it’s long distinctive forked tail below it.
Once back at the ramp it was a reverse of when we arrived. Unpack the launcha, fuel up the gas containers, load up the jeep and off we go.
Back down the humpy, bumpy road towards Fronteras and Aeeshah.
It was one of the best trips ever. I just adored my time at Jack’s ranch….why? I love living simply, in wide open spaces surrounded by nature, able to observe all of the wonders around me.
Sitting on the top porch, watching the birds, the workers, the sheep, bulls, dogs, clouds, trees and the changing weather was wondrous for me.
John too loved the space, the totality of the space, but surrounded by jungle, mountains and the river with the sound of howler monkeys to fall asleep and wake up to.
