When we arrived at the farm, I got to setting up the caravan just the way I wanted it. Once that was completed, Jap took me on a tour of the place. The house was on the very top of a hill, which was great for the views but being that there was nothing to stop the relentless sun and wind, it felt like a giant hair dryer blowing on me. There was a well but the water was only good enough to water crops with so drinking water had to be bought in town. Next to the house was a dog pen in which his 3 dogs were kept for most of their lives. On the other side of the house was a chicken coop with about a dozen chickens along with 2 roosters. The backside of the house was a small personal garden that Anna had made then it dropped off into rocks and weeds. In the front was the driveway with the caravan that I now called home and beyond that was the farm. It was also a big hill but they had landscaped the top third to make room for crops with further plans to landscape the rest for chickens and pigs. Along with finishing the house, Jap planned to use the money we made from the grow on finishing the landscaping. Until then there was a steep footpath that led all the way down the hill and into a valley. It was there that we were going to create our garden, it was not visible from anywhere except directly above in a plane or helicopter. It was a perfect place to keep it concealed but I knew immediately that it was nowhere near big enough to grow the amount that Jap was talking about. We maybe had room for 75-100 tightly spaced plants and it was already the middle of June so I knew that 50 kilos was out of the question. I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to start any friction so soon after arriving and also, I was going to be happy with anything over 5 kilos each, something I felt was a more reasonable possibility. All in all the farm was very nice with the potential of becoming truly spectacular with the right investment. After the tour we returned to the main house where Anna had cooked up some dinner for us, a tasty end to a long day, so far I felt good about leaving the camp.
The next morning I got straight to work on getting some seeds sprouted, I started 10 different strains with 15 seeds from each. I put them in cups of water and shrouded them from light inside a cupboard. Then Jap and I spent the next couple of days setting up a nursery inside the dog pen, along with a secondary area down in the main garden. We mapped out the grow area below and since the soil was questionable, I tried to get him to buy some good nutrients, but he used a reason that I was all to used to and could respect, he said he had no money. This would be a problem for sure, if we didn’t have the proper nutrients then the grow would suffer. He came up with the idea to use horse manure to line the grow area. He knew a guy who lived somewhat close who had a horse ranch and would let us come and take as much shit as we could shovel up. we spent a dirty afternoon sorting that out. We also spent a day setting up an irrigation system that ran from the well down to a barrel just above the valley floor. We didn’t need any kind of pump as gravity did all the work for us, it worked perfectly. After we had finished setting things up I transferred the now sprouted seeds into the nursery in the dog pen. His dogs were friendly enough so it was not too bad having to work in there. He had a big daddy dog with his two awkward looking sons. the momma was a wiener dog and the only reason they had put the two together is that they thought it impossible for them to breed. Nature had other plans and they were shocked when the momma gave birth to 6 puppies. They had short legs like momma but looked like they had been on steroids as they were very thick and muscular. Unfortunately out in the country they were unwanted so they had to kill 4 of them and kept the 2 sons that I now knew. I felt bad for them all as they were kept in that small cage for most of their lives, it was not a surprise to me when Jap told me that they all liked to run away from time to time, so I had to be very careful entering and leaving the pen. These dogs would not be denied and found ways to get out on a regular basis and within a week they were gone.
I was woken up one morning by the sound of Jap and Anna yelling out the dog’s name’s. It seems that Anna had forgotten to latch the gate on the pen the night before and the dogs had taken full advantage of that and split. I got up to help and we combed the surrounding hills, I was taken back by the way Jap was giving to Anna about leaving the gate open, he was screaming at her non-stop about it. I could understand being upset but he was over the top with his insults to her and I began to get the feeling that this guy was not the nicest of guys. I obviously kept my mouth shut and later that day when the dogs returned, he seemed to mellow out. I knew I had to do anything and everything to avoid his angry focus, first and foremost it seemed would be never forget to lock the gate. Later at dinner he explained why he got so angry. The momma dog had gotten out about 6 months earlier and ran on to a neighboring farm that had chickens. She was shot by the farmer who said she had been harassing the chickens. They didn’t believe him as she was a very mellow wiener dog and she had never harassed their chickens, but pets were thought of differently out here in the country and the Spanish system was cool with killing any animal that wanders on to your property. So his fear of losing his other 3 dogs fueled his anger but yelling at his wife like that didn’t change the fact and in my opinion was unneccessary.
For the next few weeks things were fairly mellow as I watched the grow progress. I had taken to spending a couple of hours each day down in the first tier garden, tending to the fruits and vegetables along with the growing number of plants in the secondary nursery. Miss Kitty, just like always, had adapted well living in the caravan. She spent the nights inside with me and the days outside exploring the farm. Jap and Anna had 2 cats of their own on the farm so I was always a bit concerned when she wandered off. One of their cats was an old girl that did not have an aggressive bone in her body and I had no worries about her. The other cat was a different story, he was an African cat that was the biggest pet cat I had ever seen. He looked like he could survive out in the African plains he was so big and I worried that he might eat Miss Kitty. He was very mellow around people but the way he looked at Miss Kitty when she was out was like a predator. Luckily, being that it was so hot, she spent most of the time sitting under the caravan in the shade. Everytime I would go down into the garden, she would follow me down and sit somewhere near by. It was like I had a little guard cat to watch over me, I loved it. One day as I was walking to the end of the garden with Miss Kitty, her usual 20-30 feet behind me. I didn’t notice Jap and Anna’s big male stalking from the hill above and neither did Miss Kitty. In an instant he leapt from the hill right on top of Miss Kitty and I was horrified by the sound that she made when he did. I turned to see him on top of her and looking to kill. If Anna had not been right at that spot in the garden and was able to quickly grab her cat before he could do any real damage, then I feel Miss Kitty would have met her end that day. Instead she only used up another of her nine lives and had only a bruised ego from the encounter. After that things mellowed again and it was back to business.
A Continuing Story About Life On The Run