Like a lot of things happen, it was slowly, and for a long time, and then... all of a sudden! (I think Hemingway said that about going broke.)
At any rate, after a couple of unsatisfying visits to the ranch here in early January ...we fired everybody and have been living here ever since!
It suddenly feels like "the polarity" has finally been reversed.
Longtime readers may remember that I prematurely announced that my Missus and I would be spending the majority of our time here in Cow Heaven and just visiting Buenos Aires ...instead of the other way around. (I think that may have been 2 years ago!)
Although the ratio was to have been 20 days at the ranch for every 10 days at in Capital, we've been here for almost six weeks with hardly a break.
We're chalkin' that up to "start-up" efforts: the place was in disarray, work not completed, wool pulled over our eyes, etc.
As the old Argentine saying goes, "The eye of the owner fattens the cattle." And we means to fatten some cattle!
As I was tellin' that Bad Hombre from the Great State of Texas, El Tejano, last month, I can't really get angry that our top-shelf salaries were bringing trash-bin results
...you can't expect employees to run your business as if it were their own ...especially if the owner only drops-in a couple times a month for another whirlwind visit. If I had ever been supervised that way, I'd have done (not done?) the same thing.
Another aspect of being an owner that makes me sound like some whiny "you just can't find good help anymore" bitch is: nobody wants to do gaucho-work anymore ...and you can't blame them.
The life of a 21st century gaucho (officially, "encargado" or as Slats G. Johnson would put it: HMFWIC) is not much fun ...and with the booming Argentine economy, everybody living in town is having fun with hi-speed internet, satellite TV, and REAL electricity!
My Missus and I do all we can to make life here on Yanqui Mike's Open Bar Ranch loads better than most ranches.
A gaucho's life at our place includes nice quarters (with room for a significant other) in the big owner's house with flowers and ancient trees, gas refrigerator, electricity from a generator a couple hours a night, wood-fired hot water heater, inside plumbing and toilets, pets and horses allowed, and some other little perks like legal pay and the required days-off and vacation.
Most ranches don't have a house at all.
After generations of splitting-up the big old estancias, most kids inherited a section of land without any buildings at all. Gauchos on those places live in makeshift shacks or trailers.
While interviewing for our new gaucho we heard some pretty scary stories about living alone or with other workers and no nothin'!
One couple told us that they weren't allowed days-off, had no electricity or refrigerator, and had to buy their provisions from "the company store" (as in "owe your soul to")
Even under the best of conditions, the work is hard and the workday is long. Up before sun-up every day and lots of horseback for quite a few kilometros, moving cows and caring for them in a minor veterinary way, mending fences and general maintenance.
When the sun goes down, you're happy to see it go down. You're tired and you want to shower, eat, and go to bed.
So there's really no wonder that few people want to do that anymore. Folks in the nearby town (friends and relatives) have been enjoying good employment and subsidies and all the comforts of modern living ...either right at home, or delivered, or right down a sociable street or corner.
Wages for an excellent gaucho today, however, are generally twice what is paid to the average worker in town or Capital...and are equivalent, on bigger ranches, to a professional in downtown Buenos Aires.
But to want to be a successful, long-term gaucho means wanting something that is at odds with the urbanity that I have always sought in my own life ...and that I am only now surrendering part of.
Hats off to those who still love the life and the tradition!
...more to come from the ranch ...and I hope to see you sometime soon in capital!
Love,
Mike
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