Michael: Old McDonald's

An iridescent
Violet hooded hummingbird
Feeds through its syringe.

Friday, June 25, 2015

Volcan is predominantly a farming community that revolves around a wide variety of crops and a few domestic animals. Almost all of these animals are either working or producing income. That’s why you won’t see the exotic animals here that I’ve seen in L.A. In L.A. I’ve seen camels, lamas and ostriches. Here, you get the basics; horses, cows, chickens, a few goats, and a couple of flocks of sheep.

Horses are the one animal here that are treated by some with an affection that many pets get back home. There are still quite a few working horses here used to do traditional farm/ranch work like herding cattle, repairing fences and I’ve even seen a few used to plow. But there are also a great many riding and show horses here. They’re treated well and seem to be living the good life.

Kimme wants to learn to ride a horse. As beautiful as they are, they’re big and intimidate me. I’ll just watch, thank you.

Volcan is a dairy community and the cows here are definitely grass fed all the way. We live at the entrance to a dairy farm which I’m going to have to learn more about. We’ll see a few cattle brought in some time on small transport trucks. We’ll see cattle taken away. Whether they’ve been bought or sold or why, I have no idea. Are they being promoted, demoted, punished, rewarded, retired…The cows seem as puzzled as I am.

One very good thing about the way the cattle industry here is that because they’re worked on a much smaller scale than in the states, the farms don’t stink. This is also a tropical highland environment with plenty of rain, streams and rivers to flush out any waste and carry it away. That’s why I’m not overly keen on swimming in any of the swimming holes around here. People say they’re fine and a lot of people indulge, but knowing that I’m sharing that pool with a great deal of cow dung particles heading downstream kind of puts me off of the idea.

If you’ve got a small parcel of land having a cow or two as living lawn mowers is also a pretty common practice.

Chickens and roosters, at least in the Volcan area, are very common. People raise them both for their meat and eggs. But even more so than cattle,  poultry are raised on a very small family home scale, like I’m sure it was done in the states back in old McDonald’s day.

We’ve heard that it’s an honor if you’re invited to someone’s house and they offer to slaughter a chicken for you for dinner. If we’re ever so honored, maybe I can act on the President’s behalf and grant the bird a pardon, or at least a stay of execution until after dessert and we’re on our way home.

Kimme and I have no big dreams of creating a sequel to Green Acres - Green Acres; Panama, but we can foresee having a few cows and chickens. Taking a siesta in my hammock while mulling on a wheat twig, or whatever the Panamanian equivalent is, sounds kind of bucolic and inviting. And that’s an idea that never would’ve come to mind a year ago living in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles.