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the animal’s feet would sink and there was nothing to do. During those times they would
make good use of the time by pruning and cleaning the vineyards. They would place
boards over the mud and that is how they would go about cleaning and pruning by hand.
They would take the board and pass it to the other side as they went advancing.
In February they would begin to plow in order to be able to sow the barley later
on. They would also sow wheat, oat, alholvas (a legume plant with fluffy leaves and
yellowish seeds that have an unpleasant smell), and hieros. The hieros were legumes that
were excellent for the animals. During the bad years, they had to peal them. There were
laborers who did this work in the mornings because when the sun got hot it could not be
done. They had to take advantage of the morning dew so that the straw would not break
and shell.
Luís Pérez sowing. 70s
Photo provided by Federico Varona
A long time ago, the grain was placed in a sack and the two diagonal tips were
tied together and hung over the shoulder. The grain would get picked up with a full fist
and would then be dispersed, making a semi-circumfrence with the edge of the arm
length of the sower. This way the grain was well dispersed. All of this was done at the
same time that they took step by step. (Information taken from an email from Arcadio
Varona).
One participant told me that the harvest was in the summer. In those times, they
had to go out to the field at one in the morning to collect the nías (in Burgos and
Palencia, this is grain that is cut up and laid out on the ground). They would hook up the
carts to the mules and outside they would go! If there was a moon out, they could see,
but if there was no moon it was darker than a wolf's mouth. And since there were smaller
lands that were in the middle of other people’s lands, many times they would make
mistakes. They would go about happy with their carts, but as soon as soon as it was
dawn, they would realize that they had done someone else’s land. There was no more
than to go discharge the neighbors land and the following day, do their own. All of these
anecdotes were told to me with a lot of humor. They laughed when remembering their
experiences of those times.
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