Today Marta took me to her mother’s farm, aptly named La Capitana. Aurora Algarra is one of the only women in the whole of Spain who breeds bulls. With four daughters and only one son, who is the youngest of the lot, Aurora is quite the matriarch. I have yet to meet her. I don’t think La Capitana is named after Aurora – The Woman Captain – but if it isn’t, she certainly deserves the title.
The farm is an only hour from Seville. The signs on the road make clear that we're worlds away from city life.
No horses and carriages on the motorway.
Warning: BULLS.
When Marta pointed out that the land on the right of the road was her mother’s farm, I assumed we’d arrive quite soon. I was wrong. It took a fair while to circle the perimeter of the 900 hectare farm, before driving through it to get to the main cortijo house at its center.
I’ve learnt that farmers don’t have time for a coffee and a chat. Socialising happens after work. In the morning, they’ve got animals to feed, stables to clean, and, in this case, bulls to inject. We went straight from the car to some steep steps, which led to a walkway on top of a network of white walls. The walls form a series of pens through which the farmers move the bulls. Every pen has a big metal sliding door on each side. The last pen leads to a metal chute, about 8 bulls long, which opens onto the field.
First things first, a man introduced to me only as El Portugués began spraying the hose down into the pens. The running bulls don’t raise as much dust if the ground is wet. Two of the pens contained about forty bulls each. They were mostly all-black two-year-old males, but there were also a couple of big brown-and-white females. These cows are older and therefore more experienced in going where they’re told. The farmers use them to lead the herd of flighty young bulls, and negotiate the passageways more easily.
The vet arrived, and it was time to get things moving. Two yellow labradors came up the stairs to watch. Marta and a worker called Davíd stood atop the walls, shouting and jabbing at the bulls with long poles to direct them into the chute. I was impressed with how deftly Marta manoeuvred the animals from such a distance. She shouted just as loudly and persuasively as Davíd – even if El Portugués did say she sounded like a peacock. Usually they directed the bulls from behind; scaring and pushing the animals away from themselves. It was only as a last resort that they would pick up an old white grain sack on the end of a long stick. Dangling the sack in front of the opening of the chute was enough to encourage the bulls to charge in that direction. When the chute was full, it was my job to slide the big metal door closed so that the bulls could go neither forward nor back.
Bulls are not particularly good at queuing in an orderly fashion. Some slid up next to each other, whilst others would try to climb on top of the one in front, so that they overlapped like roof tiles. I saw one smaller bull get pushed so far forward that he ended up with his head between his neighbour’s back legs.
While the bulls are in the chute, the vet and El Portugués give each bull two injections. One tests for infection, and the other is preventative. Apparently these injections are obligatory by law. Marta rolled her eyes at the idea. She takes the view that it’s in the farmers’ interest to raise healthy bulls, and that the farmers know best how to do so. The government needn’t – and shouldn’t – get involved.
When every bull has been seen to, the front of the chute is opened and they gallop across the field to join the rest of the herd. I slide the back door open again, and Marta and Davíd usher in the next lot.
Afterwards, Marta asked me whether I preferred seeing this process, or coming to the bull branding yesterday. I didn’t want to offend either her mother or her father’s farm, nor their cattle, nor did I want to be disrespectful towards the tough, painful, beautiful, complicated art of rearing cattle, despite my mixed feelings towards branding. I fudged my answer and said the noncommittal truth: both were fascinating. She shrugged and said, “Well, to me, yesterday was special because it’s tradition. We only have el herradero once a year, and each bull is branded only once in its life. Today … today is just work.” I began to understand why bull breeding thrills her so deeply, and so constantly. It’s drenched in tradition.
As Marta drove me around the farm, we passed El Portugés herding bulls on horseback. This is the real meaning of vaquero. La Capitana still hasn’t made the move to quadbikes, and Marta doesn’t intend to. Watching the herding, I momentarily forgot all about my fascination with riding à la Doma Vaquera, the upmarket cousin of the cowboy.
Marta mumbled to herself as she looked out of the car window, her big hoop earrings bouncing as the ancient Land Rover rumbled along. She was able to recognise each bull from a distance, without seeing its number, and was taking a mental note of how they were all doing. She shouted to El Portugés, “Have you seen number 20? He usually likes to be near this tree, but I haven’t seen him around in a few days.” Yes, he had seen the bull. Marta looked profoundly relieved.
“These are the fathers of the farm”, she announced proudly as I opened a gate. Bulls are normally sold to the Plazas de Toros (bullrings) at four years old. If a bull is particularly strong or brave, it’s kept on the property to father the generations to come. Sometimes, a bull performs so well in a fight that le perdona la vida; the matadors spare its life. It was these remarkable bulls that we saw next. Even I – who can hardly tell one bull from the next – was impressed. Their necks were thick with strength and spirit. Some were so old, so valuable to Aurora Algarra, that they were going grey along their spines.
Next, we visited the piglets that will one day become jamón iberico. Her eyes, which had been glowing with pride and admiration at the bulls, barely rested on the jostling piglets. A white dog called El Capitán guarded them closely. The dog lives in the pig shed, and knows his duty well. As if to prove his worth, he prowled along the wall while I cooed at the piglets. One litter was only a day old. They were barely big enough to climb up the small step in their enclosure. When they go to slaughter, they’ll weigh over 100 kilos. “They don’t even compare with the bulls,” said Marta.
We turned the car around, and drove back to the cortijo through the cork trees, los alcornoques. Just stripped of their bark, the lower halves of their trunks were bright ochre. It’ll be nine years until they’re ready to harvest again. I wonder how many bulls live to see two harvests.
Next blog: Visitors
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