La Huerta de Don Bustos: A Year in the Life of a Traditional New Mexican Farm

[Music] I'll start to grind up some of this corn this is the old grinder we've been using for years mrs. Camilla grandpa get up we're still using it it still really well now they're a chili that I grind it up the force right we use a grinder for everything the first thing is it would harvest the blue corn and we roast it on the oven you get that really nice smoky flavor hey good morning video what's happening Mohito you're doing good yeah what's nice is you got the chili mixed I know it's gonna be a killer blend pretty color it's nice to get started like this I remember Kappa Bustos and he'd get up you'd have a little fire going grandma had a tea a little toilet for him and then as soon as the Sun would come up he'd be with a mules me right away starting getting the mule ready go through this farmworker getting this hole in his shoulder I gave him my grandpa to he'd leave early to go do he'd get up early and like have coffee and toast and then leave and then come back cows and the pigs and the chickens are the jobs to go feed them make sure they were okay make sure they had water for the game yeah this is my favorite part of the day Sandin salut next video thanks dawn special blend flame throwing honey no man it's just right we'll see you guys in a buy me do okay [Music] Vietnam on SEO [Music] go see what drama hardball but I'm kidding I do people [Music] [Applause] we're gonna get started now fun starts we're so blessed that we can still do this a secured work it represents freedom I don't have to depend on anybody to feed my family I don't have to depend on anybody to give me a job I don't have to depend on any government I don't have to be done on anybody it's when young boys are allowed to work with men and you're valued as a man and not a child anymore huh that's a pretty big piece for a young man and you're allowed to hang out with the guys that know what they're doing it's a rite of passage and then it's a it's a community effort there's a lot of layers involved with the is it nice and stiff cuz see how you need a little bit more I think it just keeps feathering it up I'll keep pushing it up maybe put a little bit of wood in here you know what I mean and then I fill it in here about an inch inch and a half thick and then I'll keep feathering it out as we go okay yeah let's make sense board by chance I did not bring the boy I didn't go get one real quick now [Music] before we couldn't even crawl through there we cleaned all that holistic y'all by hand that's what I say to myself I go man if you do this a few times every week stay pretty fit you know moving irrigating and making sure that doesn't get full of trash gotta make sure you don't get bit by dog all sorts of good stuff what do they say one person's trash is another men's so when I was a young kid which wasn't that long ago my dad and my mom would farm all of these 20 acres and we'd have sweet corn and green chili and my mom ran the farm and it was her and I remember a couple of aunts and they did everything and then they'd hire people as we need it at to weed or to hoard a transplant and they didn't seem like it was that big of a deal huh and it doesn't seem that big of a deal today yeah so if they can do it we can do it no doubt they telling me we're walking the same steps our ancestors walk 400 years ago you know the curve the same depth everything's the same it is so freaking awesome huh same land produces food for 400 years sustained our family and families in the community it's it's like this is the jest and right thing people should be doing not everybody's lifestyle but people that choose that should be allowed to to live it to its fullest no no this is cool that's piece of land of my ancestors farmed huh I can't imagine than just doing the same thing you and I are doing the same same thing that is so fricking cool huh you know there's a sane huh world pay up and you gonna hit yourself in the head enough times you'll learn he'll go at the upper end you don't know yeah what do you think is looking good [Applause] they're gonna think we know what we're doing sure has changed when I was a kid I'd be the one running around this and I cannot know everybody to be telling me what to do now I feel like the old guy standing around just watching yeah look at that ha ha Josephine was indeed get four blaster is good to go water flowing in your secular Santa Cruz so the water comes down flows down the river it's great water and silt you figure that we're irrigating with fish and mulch and if you think about it because the lake holds the fish and then the fish poop in it then the water comes down the river and we're Gator fields so a beautiful beautiful mixture of how nature works into the into our agricultural area so up there at the top we opened up s saw the water comes down the head gates it's coming down the Isetta right here we have a diversion this is called an ax saw where it's part of the cleaning of the acequia that head gate water will come down wash out here the sand goes back to the river we'll close the head gate there this head gate opens up the way it is and the water runs down the acequia de santa cruz see how the safety on the water line is going there you see the white water marks I think we got over a half maybe three quarters I'm going to let this water out a little bit more and then I can increase the volume but I'm going to go check little this highway again to make sure there's no trash and once I close that one then I can open this one and increase the volume for the longer length so it's a little gain back and forth and it's every year it's different and we'll practice it as we go here by year for a month by month varying on the pressure in the water in the river that's why somebody has to be here every week it's not like automatic you just turn it on and then go to sleep you come in here you gauge how much is in the river you gauge how much pressure how long sand everything's a science huh and then you release the water as you're kneading throughout the ascent yes to get the volume to push everything out and get the water you need [Music] Western water law dictates how water is used in a fire throughout the state of New Mexico the doctrine is Native people second people and then urban or city areas the third rights or junior water rights but that's being discussed right now you know is that's what the State Engineer is arguing about with us right now is that people aren't using their water and so that the State Engineer can we come back andrea judicata water rights and saying well you're not using the water we're going to riajuu de que Tim to people that are using it or best use of water which a lot of times is people feel that's urban development so to me it's a massed land grab and water grab to displace traditional communities and cultures because if there's no water where they're gonna get it they're going to steal it from us so we have to use our water we have to use every damn drop of it to just like that movie The Blob hello it sucks just rolls on to doing that this is good there we go home here we go and listen to it just push everything out of the way [Applause] whoo-hoo got it up see how cool of water runs backwards - it works the way it's supposed to he's being heat those are good enough well doing the same thing we did on the big ones if this is just a small lateral no we're making sure all the leaves are out all the flows good this is part of our ritual of survival who would believe this little stream huh four and a half acres can be irrigated on that little bit of water you see right there tens of thousand pounds of food vegetables and crops all of that little bit of water right there without this water no communities we exist no not earn cities nor bin areas no colonial cellars no native populations nothing does exist without this right here water so I grew up right here right here where you see me doing right here today I did this same thing 56 years ago 58 years ago I did the same thing we're doing right right now and I can guarantee you my ancestors did it 400 years ago same thing right here where we're standing the same same thing one two three I'm trying to lay out a really rough crop plan first of all I start off with the via de los Santos and I try to be real conscious about what the day's mean because it's about a spiritual process and it's about acknowledging the Creator so the first one I started off is dia de San Ysidro which is on May 15th and that's the farmers date so by that day the farmers should have the fields all planted up we should have most of the crops in their place and then I have another critical date that I really follow - and that's the other sign one and that's in June 24th by then in the Seine that's all been in our family in the past families that I know of is that make sure you get your corn planted by the other son hon Mohito then the other way I like to kind of plan a little bit too is I kind of like to plan her on the moon cycles also the new moon is best for like planting leafy greens or for doing the transplants anything above ground new moon is doing really really good but to me you know I got taught by grandpa grandma great-grandma it's more instinctual you just more or less know when the days are coming up so these things that we're doing right here are just a general guide and I tell people it's just a guide just to start to think about what you want to do because the real time to tell when to plant is when you walk outside yeah all grandpa remember would be walking the fields with Grandpa near me Rafael Rodriguez a Chiquita Tata Tata avatar dos hermanas passing Brad know so he would be observing and showing me and talking about this always looking down and I was observing what was going on so those are little baby sugar ants gets the first ones that come out and then after this one's the next one that we should be seen or the big black ants and then after that it's the red ants and once the red ants come on you see a few and hills of red ants then you know that the soil temperatures were warm enough to be able to grow any crops at a rapid rate now as I go through older and I learn about pest management mating seasons you know grandpa knew all about that he showed us as we were walking through a field Oh ty ya know leche Alto econo he would make a mix of Indian tobacco with water and he would spray it on the bugs when they were baby baby whenever changing from a larva to an insect and that would just kill their neuro system and make him go away now there's all science behind it and it's a toxin because it has caffeine in and stuff but all that all science that is amazing how much they knew and when to use it properly instead of just wasting it they knew exactly when to apply it but that's the kind of stuff I learned from grandpa just observation when to plant what to look for or then my mom too we have these lilac bushes back here two little lilac bushes like if it's flowering my mom would always tell me it's okay to go ahead and put peas and cold weather crops a kale the spinach arugula the cold weather crops are okay to put in because they can handle a small frost that's another indicator of what to plant and when to plant it we've been watering pretty well now in the spring it looks pretty pretty nice today it's a fight peak right there yeah that's all data so everybody has always said don't plant until after that snow melts up there that peak and I've done it before my mom always told me man dad dad go No and because I always always told it smart enough and most of the time it freezes and but thanks now to the technology we've been able to use and develop it allows us to be able to go produce like this in the middle of the winter huh so we've kind of broken the rules a little bit by using technology that allows us to pay the bills 12 months a year so that's what's so innovative about what we're trying to do and that's why we're able to do it still and have people help us [Music] this is surfing desert style but we're doing is we're leveling the land too so that we can get the land nice and flat so when we flood irrigate the water goes really really slow and asn't having to seek him to the ground and seeking through the reach itself but this is a lot of fun we've been doing it for I've been doing it for over 50 years 55 years since I was a kid I know my younger brother Robert when he'd be a little kid we're a little older than him and he'd follow the probe we'd run over him and then he'd jump up scared to jump back on the board again and he did it before our dad caught us because he would have chased us away to the Protestants I look forward to this every year this is kind of like my fun time in front of the year huh I make it thinking I'm going to charge people to start to do this on a yearly basis surfing the farm at Santa Cruz farm [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the fuel were blessed last year and watered with our with our spiritual water the water from a something whose River was grown it matured to green and then matured to red weed green chilli we harvested the red we dried it save the seeds and it's the same chilli that's been growing on our land for generations and generations I started by soaking the chilli seed about three or four days ago you know what I want to do is I want to loosen it up I want to get it nice and moist I want that shell to get start to break up I make sure that there's at least 40 or 50 seeds in each one and isudoko take on pune toda Samia para un po neeta C nada Samia sell upon a loss de ethos at the tip of your fingers and as that you're putting it in the soil you're bending down at the same time you're touching the creator's earth and you put it in the soil you can feel the spirit and you're saying una Pardo's Uno's policy knows you know panoho trois know yeah I just like the bottom of your finger the knuckle know that wherever that first knuckle goes okay cuz you don't want to get any deeper than that that should be about a half inch to three quarters no yeah and then when you throw the little soil on tap you just tap it lightly so you don't get that seed to soil contact no it might be a little bit on the dry area to you might want to try to put it right on the edge here where its moist that weight like that what you do go like gasps see hey go like that yeah and then you're doing it right on this side cuz the Sun comes out first it warms up the soil and then the warm stays warm know you always plant on the sunny side and then the wind comes from the south so the bottom of the hill protects those little tiny plants from getting the wind burn too and we'll build a berm up and as the plant grows we build a berm and we protect it more and more enough from the wind gets the Morning Sun but it's protected from the afternoon winds take a stretch break back when I was a young kid I'd do this all day Oh fart I take a stretch this is my office sure blessed uh-uh I don't get much better than this man I so when I was a kid I'd be following grandpa and grandpa had an old mule and he'd be plowing up the fields and the plow would get stuck and he'd have to wiggle that damn plow out of out of the stuckness out of the roots and and after the episode he'd get the plow back down in there so it'd be pouring down his head and the mule be ready to go and he think off his hat he'd put his hat like that and wipe the sweat off his forehead and then he go ha ha if the Creator wills it it'll be and then he just her and the mule would be going forward to get his plow and he'd be going forward so everything we do is if the creator wills it we'll have a good chili field huh not up to us we'll do our part we asked with the blessings of God over the Santa Cruz ranch and over the acequia on this peace day of Saint John the Baptist the patron saint of all the waters this we ask in the name of Jesus our Lord and our Savior now and forever and ever amen bless the water and the bridge [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] quisiera sur une San Juan quisiera cerro san pedro pave nithya salud our con la música el cielo de las estrellas del cielo tango cave a heart a doe Oona's para Saluda heart a low prosperous city of the cone husband AC flores israeli avoid or down whoa [Laughter] the other to south or David Nemo's harken [Music] and we pray for the blessing of God over this field and all who here work and all who benefit from all their goods in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen [Music] [Music] the spirit our median the spirit of our only the old stiff that I Madhavi [Music] money don't aspire see those leaders are when he goes keep our Beyonce as Lotus Sita's done this whole men over heba's con los pavo's gonzo last or ten years money Anita [Music] Oh [Music] for the yeah they are [Music] very good thank you [Music] between eight years old here watching the dance form in Irene and enjoying it a lot it's very challenging sometimes with the pizza pests and the grasshoppers and water and everything but it's nice it's a hard job though that's for sure yeah look at this piece this one it's a little bit old not old but it's more forum sweet so when the people ask me at the market how are your peas doing I have an answer for them same with the strawberries tomatoes blackberries you know so so I'm lucky that I'm that wonder it's first has to taste that flavor of the things we grow like char I'm not a fan of char but this is what I do at the farm I taste it and then I saw it at the market Yuval and juice it up you put your petals even though you don't sell everything sometimes people always appreciate you [Music] was always smiling to you and some people is telling thank you for giving us healthy thing and this is this is what it is you know we grow everything natural and that's what we do the people and that makes me feel like I need to go back to work and deploy my food pretty sure that if I were working in the office or some other place nobody's gonna tell me thank you for your job or thank you for what you do or we need you you know I'd like to see the plants healthy and full of life you know if you are surrendered by healthy things he also he made a lot of moves before she she did on ago she what not to work her baby finally and then she's here she never lived she got the good thing she got the good veggies sasha was gonna have a baby on October 12 and it's a Friday and usually Fridays are harvest a harvest day here in at the farm so we're gonna harvest a baby on October 12 yeah where I'm at you know probably like four or five years ago I was living just a little north from here and a little town called Penasco and I was addicted to painkillers I was addicted to heroin I was addicted to you know you name is Inez you know a bunch of different names for stuff and so I was able to escape that life by coming to the farm so by me coming to the farm it gave me something to do it gave me somebody to hang out with they gave me responsibilities and it just showed me a whole different way of life you know I'm be able to just escape and bill to come to a safe place and do therapy and come and do stuff like this like harvest salad arugula blackberries very therapeutic everything that we do here all the different ways that Don teaches us and all the processes we go through it all it all comes back to me because like my grandpa my dad everybody's done farming before and so I don reminds me of them in all these different ways so I think of my my parents Allah and it wasn't a job it was a way of life and that's what I'm trying to get for myself my ancestors used to farm land just like this you know I have grandpa's that used to go to Washington DC and fight for our water and just so many different things so it has connected me with my my roots the end of the day when you go home and you say oh I harvest at 150 pounds of salad washed and bagged a you know harvested 20 flats of blackberries or ten flats of blackberries you know it's a accomplishment and it's not even hard by Don being here it gave me a best friend he has saved my life for sure [Applause] I remember being a little kid and instead of us using a tractor and a trailer like this we'd be using a couple old an old wagon and gafas had his old mule and the mules would be pulling the wagon we throw in the corn inside the side the wagon just like it is right now the seat itself came from something the Mingo ears a long beautiful deer you're all beautiful long beards but look no worm tips nothing it's a beautiful deer of corn so I'm gonna say this and proceed I like to do this because I want to make sure that we pull a husk back and then the cord dries properly so that we're gonna be able to shoot any Sun dry yet and then we'll be able to take it to the mill to get it meal to be torn up on there and before meals if we take care of these leaves we can clean them all for this they can be used for come on yet till the leaves are so nice and big and wide but I want to point out that in the spring we're a real careful we planted so now I'll actually we harvest the corn and come back and harvest the beans and then maybe even if it were to frost tonight and we need to call the corn stalks the idea is that the corn stalks would protect the beans and we'd be able to harvest them and that you can see I don't know if you notice we try to pull out our corn in three stocks also right because this is a three sisters pass and I think the more we can stick to the theme the better theme seems to girl so we get beautiful corn like this beautiful green beans been a good thought for squash also all from the same piece of land you got into media yeah we've got it in [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think I'm on this last Chilean coordinate like when people say oh I have a job it's not a job once you get obsessed with the Chile Chile olds you so this is the way we preserve and we go ahead and start to roast them like this so that we can go ahead and peel them destem MDC dim take the skin off of them back when I was a kid we'd go ahead and roast it in an open flame with a grill on it and I remember my aunt my mom would sit around and then go ahead and peel it then leave the stem on it and they'd hang each individual chili on a line with a cheesecloth and then dry it so that we'd have dried chili throughout the winter dry green chili that they could mix in with different kinds of food well you know there was a study done they were doing cancer research and she was trying to give these mice and rats a bunch of chili so that they would get cancer in the stomach so they could do the research and they became the healthiest mice and rats in the lab and she goes those damn devil Chili's never got anybody sick you know this might be one of the magic fruits on the planet Earth the best chili is growing right here in Santa Cruz farm huh and it just because I grow up myself what do you want No yeah hi we're lucky yeah it's not the hot hot one no you don't like the hot one no this is a good medium partner Thank You TIA all these kids know and maybe one of these guys will be a farmer one day all those yeah that's what they need is that crew [Music] we're looking for toreador go ahead go ahead treat Spain we are on the upper level of Santa Cruz farm and we're looking where it's kind of dry and neglected that's where the gold heads thrive I'm surprised we haven't thrown some sometimes they're just all over but what happens is people eradicate them by pulling them so they don't recede I'll tell you what get on your bicycle you'll find the Tauri tough because they always give you a flat tire mmm no I am not seeing any HOD and it's so strange here we go Oh beautiful this is a nice one we'll find the center ow and we'll pull it by the roots see all the gold heads seller Tory toe those are the little goat heads Tory toe means little bull little bull but we call him in English goat heads not little bull heads but it's because they have that wicked kind of horns like a little ball might that's good that's a nice one we got it with the root and all there's a lot of good medicine there for treating pain that's a beauty this is what we were looking for also the mallow mallow is a demulcent that means that it gives moisture back to your skin so we don't need a whole lot we'll just get a little bit this one's nice because it has the blue flower yeah this is bloom owl it's a native I believe of the Americas that just feeds moisture right back into your dry skin that's beautiful that's a good amount there oh nice look at all the rose petals these are really good for your skin and what I found about roses is the whole stem is beneficial because of the chlorophyll and the wonderful aroma fragrance of roses extends into the stem so that's nice right there now we'll go cook these there's our roses there's our toreador that's beautiful then our marvel that's such good medicine and then the rose hips that are full of sunshine and vitamin C that'll be good so now the herbs have cooked down nicely we're gonna strain them out now we just have our strong tea that has cooked down by half here's our lard this is a really nice fresh natural product to use in your food gorgeous that's beautiful and now we're gonna boil this tea down until there's really just about an inch of tea at the bottom and that means all that other tea has been cooked out but it's been also cooked through the beeswax and the maanteeeca so now we'll leave the lid off turn the heat up a little and bring up a strong boil we're ready to pour our cream now the cream has set it does have a little moisture at the bottom but that'll just stay there you'll just will just be working off the cream on the top and we'll test it now it's still setting up but it's it's pretty nice and I'll use a little bit of this I'm Don Bustos is aching back oh yeah that chill be for misting back is saying oh thank you for that right man do I really feel good - man you can just feel the the smoothness of it and then you can do it in the ski and I started to run down into it no muscle soreness like when I come in from a day of working and I feel really sore we will use these these bombs and lotion Camila makes and you know we have a whole medicine shelf of remedies and medicines right here in the backyard that Camila knows how to how to prepare and how to apply them in a way that's beneficial to everybody in the community yeah no no that was really great thanks next to Grandma yeah thanks to Grandma I'm gonna help him carry that yeah but this desk and desk looking for grandmas grave here let's see Emilio the media remembers grandma grandma was taking care of Emilio and Chia when she passed away this is Emilio's grandpa right here I mean yeah the other line mom's is right there see this is grandpa right here I mean yeah look and that's grandma huh fine I know right here see grandma I know right there and here's our mom who's our mama yeah yeah so so by day my mom passed away she was taking care of Emilio and I came up from the field and she goes ee I'm tired me hito I'm gonna go take a nap well you take your lunch break so I told her okay no and I walked with her across the ASEC the other bridge Acosta a sec yeah she went to take a nap and then she never woke up so immediate was the last one I got to hang out with her she hung out with I mean you're taking care of it me yeah she's still taking care of him but that was the it man that was the last last thing man I got to tell my mom goodbye and I mean you got to see her and does it this is a chitlin my mom would probably all mad my dad passed away a little bit later huh and then my aunt goes oh oh I bet your mom is really mad now but they put in so close to her but the whole thing is - is who stayed with the land and who was in charge the women not the moms oh yeah I mean there was no doubt who was the boss anytime see the land that we farm on now has always belonged on the women's side of our family so it was my mom's Vaness it was her not about this I thought Gracia Valdez and then heard grandma before that that on that piece of land so women on both sides of our either Bustos of our deaths have always been the stronger family that the stronger side that holds the land and and kind of like the family together so that was my mom that he loved i des yeah so if it wasn't for for my mom no we wouldn't be farming yeah right oh yeah yeah she's what saved everything there it's been a long time [Music] i lo que quiero Taco [Music] I'll go [Music] this trees probably been here oh I don't know how many years but it's been here since before I was a kid and already given through so and if we take care of it and we'll be good for the next generation to be able to to eat good healthy food from it what are you trying to do here just take off all the old growth all the stuff that had been producing for years and years and then encourage the next the next growth the next new generation of growth just like we do in the farm just like we do with our nephew Nettie and on him all these young kind of folks that come around to learn is we want to encourage the new growth we want to see people flourish you and I see the lad continue to flourish and we're doing that right here in this tree the trees like the farm and the ASEC guys these things are all meant to live the individuals this tree the pruning is part of the process I think about this all the time about how this tree and how the farm really is a metaphor for for us and and for what we're doing I know it's it really important and I keep talking about all the next generations are going to farm it the Milio with is Down syndrome and his disability isn't gonna take over the farm directly Medi my nephew really wants to farm but life goes on and we hope that we can help facilitate him farming the farm and and that's what we're hoping for but the way I feel about it is that we're setting up or I hope people understand the value of a calling huh this is what the Creator meant for me to be and this is what other people the Creator has meant for other people to do so if you're not if you're not a Bustos or if you didn't come from the Santa Cruz they like another land grant or if you haven't suffered as much as we've suffered that's okay because all of us have a calling it's a calling do simple and easy now [Music]

Channel: THE WISDOM ARCHIVE

Views: 3,393

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: -l2yE2SXvcE

Length: 51min 40sec (3100 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020