Visit to the farm

Dominican Republic July 2008

Our friend Mingo who does not look 77 years old arrived as promised at about 5:00 in the morning. My wife and I hopped on his little motorcycle and he drove us to his farm which is about 45 minutes outside the city.

Mingo

The idea was to get an understanding of how to milk a cow. Here is a picture of me trying to milk a cow.

The cow is giving an indication it is not amused.

Mingo showed us how it is done.

Farm life starts early. Canon when are you going to include a lantern setting in the white balance? Great Coffee by the way in the Dominican Republic.

After we milked the cows we led them with the help of a farm dog to the river. The cows were led along the river to the grazing land further along. Mingo will come to collect them later in the afternoon. The littlest brown cow is only 15 days old and quite big I thought.

The milk was delicious. Mingo's gracious wife Maria fixed us a country breakfast. here she is boiling plantains. I mentioned that the milk somehow reminded me of the taste of really good rice pudding and so before we knew it she cooked up a batch on the fire. It was amazing as was coffee with fresh hot creamy milk.

On this simple non-commercial farm the chickens are definitely free range. The eggs have a delightfully orange color and a wonderful flavor.

I call this picture submission and sacrifice. It represents for me a taste of farm life. To make a fence they take a living tree. They cut into it with a machete and insert a wire into the wound. The tree grows around the wire. Man and nature in a certain harmony at once violent and yet sustaining.