"Your Public Awaits You"

Along with tending the huerta, feeding and monitoring the health of the animals was an integral part of my contribution in helping the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques run smoothly.  In fact, in some ways, the two duties went hand in hand.  Since the arid summer heat was rapidly approaching, the wild grass and weeds around the finca were quickly drying up to dust.  Luckily for the sheep, Borris the donkey, the geese, the bunnies, and the chickens, there was a bounty of delicious and nutritious weeds extracted from the huerta every day. 

One morning, while cooking our breakfast, the sheep were bleating extra loudly, “We’re hungry! We’re hungry!”  Jonathan leaned over and between bites of over-easy guinea hen egg and roasted tomato, he nudged me, “Your public awaits you.”  I scooped up the last of my breakfast and headed out to do my daily dance. 

Coordinating the feeding of the sheep and Borris, who were penned together, literally was a play of stealth and trickery.  See, the nine sheep could gobble up a bucket of Pienso (mixture of corn, grains and other natural goodness) faster than you can say, “Bobs your uncle”, whereas Borris savored his half bucket, fifteen chews per bite, for a good twenty minutes.  Clearly, throwing a bucket and a half of Pienso in the trough was not going to cut it.  Protocol: place Borris’ bucket just outside the fence gate, take the sheep's bucket through the gate, close the door behind me and act as if I were heading to their trough, at which time all the sheep make a mad dash to the trough, then lure Borris back through the gate and tie him up on the other side of the fence to eat his bucket of breakfast in peace.  The duped sheep would stop mid-trot and look at me with their simple minds bleating, “WTF?” until I gave them their bucket.  

Leghorn Chickens

Farm Fresh Eggs

While Borris took his time munching and crunching his breakfast, I fed the leghorn chickens whose cage was located under a shady cork tree near the sheep trough.  This was a pretty easy one: dump the food in their bowl, rinse out their water dish, refill the water dish, and climb into the cage to retrieve the eggs.  The leghorns laid an average of about six eggs per day.  These eggs, along with the "downstairs chicken" eggs, which averaged about one egg per day, were sold on the sly out of Brin’s friend’s liquor store for €1.85 ($2.30) per dozen, which is currently the going rate in San Vicente for fresh farm eggs (compare to the Monterey Farmer's Market price which can be up to $7 per dozen).  

After the leghorns were happily clucking with their breakfast, I would check on Borris to see if he was nearly finished so that I could put him back in the pen with the sheep.  If left too long on the other side of the fence, he would move on from his empty bucket of Pienso to the innocent plants and herbs.  Really the plants and herbs were the least of my worries with the possibilities of what Borris would attempt to eat next.  Jonathan and I were both warned not to leave cardboard, empty cement sacks (a particular Borris favorite) or anything else a donkey might like to sample, and always close the shed and garage doors because he will undoubtedly push the limits to see what kind of trouble he could get into.  Despite his sweet donkey face and long fuzzy donkey ears, Brin admitted that Borris was possibly the most useless animal on the finca and definitely the most destructive!  Don’t be sad, Borris, you are still my BFF!

"Got Greens?"

Next on the list of animal duties were the adorably curious and sweethearted bunnies.  Every time I opened the door to their hutch, the 6 adults and 16 babies of various ages would optimistically poke their little bunny faces out of hiding to sniff my sack…got greens? 

Now before I continue, I need to digress.  At age 6, my baby brother was born.  Within days of the blessed event my uncle was in a terrible car accident that left him in a coma.  Needless to say, my parents had enough on their plate with juggling a newborn and a brother/brother-in-law in a touch and go medical situation without dealing with a rambunctious 6 year old (Me?  Rambunctious?  Never!).  So, I stayed with a few different family friends for a couple of weeks, one of whom raised rabbits.  For food.  This concept was NOT something my six year old brain was ready for, especially when it was considered normal to name the rabbits then casually say, “Ok, so we’re having Fluffy for dinner tonight.” 

Cute Animals

Delicious Cheeses

Thus began my tyrannical rein as Princess of the Dinner Table when it came to determining whether an animal was too cute to be eaten in front of me.  Examples of “cute” animals included: rabbit, quail (when we lived in Jack’s Peak my dad used to catch the baby quail and we would watch them run around in circles before rejoining their brothers and sisters at the end of the line behind their mother-cute!), deer, lamb, veal (duh), duck, etc.  I couldn’t bear the idea of witnessing the eating of said cute animals whereas I had deemed cows, pigs, chickens, turkey and fish as acceptable vittles.  Really, ask my parents, I was an obnoxious little dinner companion!  Then, ten plus years ago I eliminated cows and pigs from my menu, not for moral or political reasons, simply because the Romero family had never really been huge meat eaters anyway (yeah, never had a pork chop until I met my PigWizard!) and I figured that with the amount of fat that I would be eliminating from my diet by not eating beef or pork, I would be able to eat more of the stuff I liked better anyway, like cheese and avocados!

Baby Bird De-bones a Rabbit

Anyway, this diet continued until 2010 (yes, I managed to maintain my meatlessness for the year and a half that I lived in Barcelona, shocked?), when I decided to enroll in the year long program at the Culinary Center of Monterey.  I figured that if I was going to be serious about learning how to cook professionally, I should at least know how to properly cook and season a chili verde or beef Bolognese and  unless you taste the dish, how do you know if it is done properly?  Long story short, I gradually reintegrated meat into my diet and even, after 30 years of cringing, I bit the bullet (or the rabbit!) and ate the “cute” animals. 

So, within the week of living on the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques and feeding the sheep and bunnies, etc., I realized that my whole cute animal aversion had come full circle.  I knew before we left on this farm stay adventure that I would come face to face with the concept of personally being responsible for the caring and well-being of animals that were raised solely for the purpose of food and that it may pull at the heartstrings a little, thereby forcing me to reconcile the “cute animal facor" (oh, but they taste so good!).  Obviously these thoughts ran through my mind or I wouldn’t be sharing them, but, to tell you the truth, I really did not end up having a problem with it.  There is a certain survivalist attitude of farm people that is contagious, even to this city slicker.  You bust you butt taking care of these animals: hauling food and water, monitoring their health, making sure they have proper shelter and the best quality of life you can provide them.  In turn, when the time is right, they provide us with fresh, healthy meat.  Also, when it comes down to raising the animal and thereby personally controlling the quality of the product you are feeding your family versus buying that package of ground beef compiled of God knows how many different cows, if you have the choice, it is a no brainer. 

Preparing the Saltimbocca

Anyway, back to the cute little squishy bunnies!  Like I said, every day the pack of blond and brown coated bunnies would get a sack of fresh weeds from the garden supplemented with a half bucket of Pienso.  Feeding and cuddling these guys was one of my favorite parts of the day, despite the fact that I knew there was a freezer full of someone’s uncle and someone’s cousin, etc.  In fact, Jonathan prepared one of said cousins or uncles into a delicious saltimbocca: bone out the loin, insert fresh sage leaves, season with salt and pepper, wrap the loin in prosciutto, or in our case, jamón iberico bellota, pan fry and finish in the oven.

Baby Bunnies in Birthing Box

Given my love for all things little, cute and squishy, imagine my joy when one day Brin announced that two of the birthing boxes were now occupied by litters of baby bunnies, nine little schnookies all together!  Brin warned me not to open the birthing boxes and more importantly not to touch the babies as the mother will likely recoil from the unfamiliar scent of my hand and abandon the baby to die.  In fact, the technical protocol for touching unweaned babies is to rub your hand with bunny poop so as to disguise the human scent.  Despite this technicality, her logic was that the mother bunnies were used to her scent (despite the fact that it had been me, not her who had been in the hutch feeding and touching the bunnies for the last three weeks) so she performed the task of checking the boxes for still-borns sans poop covered hands.  And when she did, you betcha I was there leaning over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the two litters, one so young that their eyes had not even opened yet and the other, the size of my palm with teeny little bunny ears.  You think puppies are cute, ha!  Never in my life have I seen such precious little miniature versions of the adult animal!  So of course I did not want to be responsible for the abandonment and certain death of these baby bunnies so, despite my eminent desire to put my pinky finger between their little ears and stroke their little heads, I refrained. 

In the past, a few of the finca bunnies had contracted myxomatosis, a disease spread by mosquitos and ticks, harmless to humans but deadly to rabbits.  If one bunny in the hutch contracted the disease, the whole clan could potentially be dead within two weeks.  As a result, Brin had taken to injecting the baby bunnies with a myxomatosis vaccine.  The tricky part is of course deciding the correct time to inject them.  The sooner they receive the vaccination the less likely they will contract the disease; however, inject them before they are weaned and you run the risk of the mothers abandoning the babies.  Still confident that the mothers were used to her scent, thus eliminating the risk of abandonment, Brin chose to inject these two litters just after their eyes were open, thinking that they were old enough to withstand the stress and trauma of the vaccination process. 

Within a few days, six of the nine babies were dead.   Two out of four babies in one litter had died of stress and the other mother abandoned her litter all together with only one survivor.  Unsure as to which bunny was the mother of the abandoned litter, Brin locked two adult females in one of the cages in the hutch along with the surviving baby, hoping that the mother would once again allow the baby to feed.  As the bunnies were used to free reign of the hutch, a cement enclosure, windows closed to prevent myxomatosis carrying insects from entering (the screens had not been installed yet even though the structure had housed rabbits for two years now), the close quarters of the now locked cage proved too hot for the two mothers and baby and one of the mothers died of heat stroke.  Oh, and the attempt to rekindle the mother-baby relationship failed and the baby died. 

One of the Two Surviving Baby Bunnies

Needless to say, this whole situation was infuriating.  Animals die; neither pet owners nor farmers can control nature as much as they love their pet or rely on their animals for food.  Additionally, I understand that people make honest mistakes and errors in judgment; you learn from your mistakes and move forward.  My issue is when ignorance combines with arrogance and negligence and causes the death of nine animals: five starved to death, three died of stress, and one suffocated from heat stroke.  It was cruel and easily preventable (install the window screens and wait to inject the babies until they are weaned), not to mention a waste of time, energy and money (Pienso, myxomatosis vaccine, water, etc.).  The whole experience was especially crushing considering that I had been caring for these bunnies for three weeks and had just finally reconciled my internal struggle of bunnies as pets versus bunnies as food.  Sigh.

Borris: Ears Back & Angry Slanty Eyes

Anyway, on to happier subjects: geese!  One of my first responsibilities on the finca was the feeding of the "fattening up geese", who were housed in a smallish but by no means shoulder to shoulder cage.  Despite having to learn to navigate the complicated water system (i.e. which three of the seven levers needed to be turned to on to run water to the goose pool), tending to the geese was possibly one of the simplest of tasks when it came to feeding the animals.  Dump out the old water from their plastic swimming pool, add fresh water.  Bucket of fowl Pienso, sack of greens from the garden.  Done and done.  Pictured above is Borris, who had followed me and my bag of greens from the huerta to the goose pen only to be thoroughly ticked off that the ding dong geese scored the bag of greens and not him.  Insert lots of angry foot stamping and donkey snorting!

Escape to the Teepee!  Escape to the Teepee!

Funny side note: ever wonder where the phrase "silly goose" came from?  Well, geese are the most irrationally frantic of animals that I have ever come across.  You'd think that since I entered their cage every day with a bag of greens and a bucket of Pienso (i.e. food) that they would eventually get used to me, stop freaking out and maybe even come to greet me to get their breakfast.  Not so.  Every day I opened the cage, they made a mad dash to hide in their plastic teepee which ironically housed their wire feed trough and was always the first place I headed.  You'd think they'd learn.  Nope, every day, dash to the teepee, realize that I was heading toward the entrance and thereby blocking their escape.  What to do, what to do!  Step on each others heads, squawk, flap their wings, scramble three at a time through the one inch space between the teepee wall and the ground or shove their way through an increasingly large rip in the side of the teepee.  The poor idiots were perpetually scared out of their wits.  In their small minds they were barely escaping with their lives by pushing through the teepee and scrambling to the other side of the cage, one or two splashing into the pool, exhaling with relief until they realized that my next move was to empty the pool, which of course then caused a whole other drama of squawking and flapping to escape back to the teepee..."hey, there's food in here!"  I can't tell you how many times I was splashed with icky goose poo pool water just trying to help a sister out.  Sheesh.  Useless, once a year egg laying, stinky, oily fleshed, scardy cats, geese are.  Geese will not be an animal that you will find on the Roberts farm, I can tell you that much.  

Although, I have to say, if you're having a bad day, recipe of guaranteed giggle is as follows: place one person one the outside of one end of the goose pen, another person on the outside of the other end.  Watch the geese trample each other to get away from one end only to discover someone at the other end, noise or movement on your part unnecessary.  Repeat.  I realize it sounds kinda mean but you gotta trust me, they never actually hurt themselves and it is freakin' hilarious to witness! 

"Downstairs Chickens", Geese & Fruit Trees

Next came the "free-range" geese and guinea fowl who bunked with the "downstairs chickens" at the bottom of the finca property.  Again, the most complicated aspect of feeding these guys was managing the  four well-water systems.  Which four valves do I open to run the water to the appropriate place?  Water the fruit trees, dish out a bucket of Pienso, rinse and refill the water troughs, gather eggs.  Downstairs chickens and geese done and done. 

Guinea Fowl

See the Egg Deep in the Back of the Dungeon?

The most amusing part of the daily downstairs feeding operation occurred at the corner of the free range enclosure: the guinea fowl cage.  Feeding and watering these ding dong beasts was pretty ho hum, but watching me gather the 2" length eggs was the source of much snickering and ridicule from Jonathan.  Firstly, in order to access the eggs, I had to peel back the tarp roof of the cage, angle my sneaker just right between the bars of the cage (without falling), climb up and squeeze through the hole landing just inside the cage, which incidentally was not even close to tall enough for me to stand up straight.  Then, bent over at the waist, I had to crab walk to the back of the cage where the guineas laid the majority of their eggs, grab the eggs, and crab walk back to my sliver of an exit point.  Oh, and meanwhile, while inside the cage, I had to do my best to ignore the ear piercing squawk of the freaked out guineas, while they attempted to launch themselves through the small holes in the cage walls 'cause I was soooo scary and threatening!  Good thing the taste of the eggs, which we experienced every morning with delight, was worth the effort.

Gay Chickens?

So as I detailed above, the regeneration of finca animals in regards to the bunnies did not go as planned.  Thankfully, the same cannot be said for operation incubator!  Just before we arrived to the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, Brin was given two roosters by a neighbor.  Half convinced they were both a little light in the loafers, she conducted a fertility experiment (no, she did not use a turkey baster, only the old fashioned method) which resulted in an incubator full of about a dozen chicken eggs, some leghorn, some Rhode Island Reds and some of an ugly but tasty breed of featherless necked chicken, as well as about a dozen guinea hen eggs.  

Although the recommended incubation temperature for chicken eggs is between 37.2 - 38.8 C (99 - 102.5 F), and the recommended incubation temperature for guinea hen eggs is 37.5 C (99.5 F), Brin took a chance that one degree Celsius wouldn't make a difference for the guinea eggs and set the incubator at 38.5 C (101.3 F).  The reality is, however, two degrees F doesn't seem to make that big of a difference unless you consider your own ideal body temperature of 98.6 F and turn that into 100.6 F.  If all of a sudden you feel feverish and headachy, think of the damage two little degrees can do to the cells of a guinea egg.

See, No Neck Feathers!

Beep!  Beep!

I guess you see where I am going with this.  After the 21 days of incubation required for chicken eggs, we were rewarded with five strong, yellow, baby beep beep chicks!  As the normal hatch rate for incubators is between 50 - 75%, and considering that these roosters may have been more interested in fertilizing each other than the eggs, five out of a dozen or so was not too bad!  After the chicks dried in the incubator for a few hours, we took them to their new home in a bin under a heating lamp.  We made sure they had plenty of water and fed them mashed up hard-boiled egg (seemed kind of ironic, sick and twisted to me but hey, I guess that's what they eat while in the shell and they seemed to like it, so hell, what do I know?).  Sadly two of the chicks didn't make it but, on the positive side, each of the finca dogs, Marta and Filly, got a crunchy little treat.  I'll forgive a little cringe but wake up and welcome to farm life!  A week later the chicks were eating big chick food and had their own little home outside in a cage under an umbrella.  Their biggest worry was ignoring Cosmo's curious green kitten eyes, which followed their every move.

Requiring a total of 28 day of incubation, we kept a vigil for an additional 7 days hoping to see a few baby guineas.  Unfortunately, after 30 days in the incubator, not one guinea egg hatched.  Ah well, experiment performed, failed=learning experience (expect she tried it again...whatever).

View of the Pig Domain

Vicious Broom Nibblers

Housed next to the downstairs chickens and unarguably my second favorite beasts on the finca (ok, third favorite, only after Borris and Cosmo the kitten), were the half Iberian Blackfooted pigs.  Prior to my life on La Finca Los Tres Alcornoques, I had never really been in touching proximity to any pig, other than the little pink babies in the petting zoo at the Renaissance Faire when I was a child.  So, when Brin asked me if I was comfortable enough with pigs to enter their pig domain, sweep out their piggy pool and fill it with fresh water, I was determined to be confident.  I was assured that as far as pigs go, these pigs were friendly so, broom in hand, I hopped the fence and headed to the pool. Suddenly, before I had taken two steps, I was bum rushed by two snorting black hairy beasts!  As they charged, I kept repeating, "friendly, friendly, I have a broom and I'm not afraid to use it!" When they reached me, they took a few nibbles from the broom and snouted my legs with their mud & piggy goodness covered noses!  They then proceeded to follow me around the pen grunting with curiosity, thus beginning my affinity for these coarse-haired black beauties.

Sipping at the Piggy Pool

One of the many things that our parents instilled within my brother and me from a young age, and that I still rely on heavily in my adult life, is the concept of resourcefulness and wastelessness.  As a family we always saved leftovers from dinner, ate the oldest cheese first to prevent spoiling, etc.  My mom even made us cloth lunch bags so that if we didn't finish our lunch at school we were forced to bring home the rest of our sandwich or our apple instead of simply chucking the whole brown paper sack in the garbage.  Moms, always at least one step ahead of us kids.  

Wasting food or resources is never ok, but vigilance in this area is especially important on a farm where cash flow is limited and people's lives depend on using and reusing all available food and materials.  If it were my property, I may not have left all the junk (sections of broken pipe, random tiles, empty wine bottles, etc.) lying around the finca awaiting re-purposing (sheds are nice), but I did respect Brin's creative ability to think outside the box regarding the varied uses for each leftover bit of material.  

Awaiting Breakfast While Standing In the Food Dish

Along these same lines was the absolute zero waste in food.  Ever since I began living on my own, I have always wanted to compost but have never had the space or means to do it properly (a stinking pile of garbage in your back yard does not constitute as proper composting!).  Living on this finca, I got my chance.  Every bit of uneaten food, from onion peels to egg shells, from cherry pits to half of a quiche that was too far gone for human consumption, from lemon rinds to leftover soggy salad, every scrap was placed into a bin on the kitchen counter and was once per day given to the pigs, oftentimes enough food to maintain half of their diet.  It felt so good to know that not one bell pepper center or one apple core was going to waste.


The only kitchen scraps that did not go to the pigs was meat.  Don't get me wrong, not one scrap of meat nor one bone went to waste either.  The leftover roasted goose bones and roasted lamb bones went into the stock pot and were then portioned to the dogs, Marta and Filly and the cats, Sam and Cosmo.  Any unused bones, sheep heads, lungs, etc. were frozen as reserves for when there weren't any fresh bits.  Although I will say, walking into the kitchen expecting to smell whatever is cooking for lunch but instead getting hit by a wall of boiling sheep lungs is kinda a rude shock.

Look at Those Viciously Determined Eyes!

Baby Bird Caught the Kitten

Even funnier than a faceful of boiling sheep lung soup occurred one day when Brin took a rather large sheep bone outside to cleaver it into fair portions for the canines and felines.  Suddenly, out of the shadows leaped Cosmo the kitten with a lion sized yowl.  He snatched the bone that was easily twice his size and attempted to escape with the whole bloody thing for himself!  Laughing, Brin went after him to retrieve the bone.  She was met with the most guttural, vicious, yet pint sized growl, not hiss, but growl!  She picked up one end of the bone and along with it picked up Cosmo whose teeth and claws were so determinedly attached to his prize.  Finally, after detaching one claw at a time, Cosmo was forced to relinquish the bone.  Never in my life!   All time favorite kitten to date!


Thus ends the five week tale of Baby Bird as caretaker of the animals of the Finca Los Tres Alcornoques. The purpose of our trip is to learn everything we can through hands on experience and to bring that knowledge home with us.  Of course, as Jonathan and I arrived in Europe with varied personal backgrounds, what I consider to be a new experience will greatly differ from what he considers to be a new experience, and some experiences will be equally new to both of us.  That is partially the beauty of this trip; we will inevitably grow as individuals but also as a couple.  From each farm we will glean useful ideas and practices as well as gain an idea of what not to do.  From this farm, I learned so much about navigating small farm life, coordinating the contents of the garden with the season as well as the needs of the animals, utilizing and re-purposing every bit of "waste", and more.  Despite it's high highs and low lows, I truly treasured this, my first, experience of caring for the finca animals.

Next Up: Summertime Matanza: Two Lambs from Farm to Table, PigWizard Style