A farm in Arcabuco

Recently my family and I went to get fresh trout at a friend's farm in Arcabuco, Boyaca. It's a really lovely, well-organized farm, and I wanted to share it with my readers.

Our friend's main product has traditionally been blackberry. That's how we met him; he was the supplier of fruit for our small company's jams. However, lately he's been working a lot as a tour guide at the nearby national park (Iguaque, a high-altitude lake where the Muiscas say humanity was born of a goddess and her son that emerged from the lake, bore children together, and returned to the lake as snakes). So the blackberry business is not his main focus right now. But the rest of the farm is a good example of a thriving, diverse peasant microfarm.

Behind Libardo's house there's a typical field planted to corn, beans, squash, fava, and even some young fruit trees that he's hoping will come to fruition.


We also spotted some malanga, an elephant-ear-shaped plant that produces a starchy tuber.


This tuber is grated and fried to make akra, Haitian fritters. Here in the high mountains of Colombia though, I think it's mainly cooked in soups, like a potato. I was surprised to see malanga in such a cool climate.

Around the farm's crop fields there are low electric fences.


I wonder what they're keeping out?


Guinea pigs! Our friend keeps a few of these Andean natives under a shed on his farm. They're free to roam about, and they graze just like cows.


You would think that being rodents, they would scamper off and escape, or get around the electric fence. But guinea pigs are really docile homebodies. They don't stray far or even move that much, though when they're scared they can dart off quickly like their other rodent cousins.


Speaking of rodent cousins, here's a free-range bunny. He's gotten past the electric fence somehow and into Libardo's brother's field of mar alfalfa (elephant grass), a forage grass that he cuts to feed his dairy cattle.

Here is a jolly pig in her pen.



The farm also has chickens and some regal turkeys.




Here's a good bunny that hasn't escaped anywhere. He's just grazing by a water sluice.


This sluice captures and channels a natural mountain spring on its way down to the major river. Libardo has widened two ponds in the spring, where he raises his trout.

Here is Don Libardo catching us some fish. First he throws the weighted net into the pond (pardon the sideways video, I can't correct it).




Then he hauls his catch onto shore.




Next he takes the fish from the net and puts them in a mesh bag.




Now we return to the washing shed to wash the slime off the fish. It comes out in bubbles, like soap.





The fish are dead by now; trout are fragile, and die after only a few minutes of handling out of water (unlike carp or tilapia, which can survive a lot of abuse and a fair amount of time out of water). Even so, Libardo gives the trout a final knock on the head with the back of his knife, just to make sure they're dead before he guts them.




Next he cuts a slit down the belly and removes all the entrails from the fish.





The guts go in a bucket and become a tasty treat for the dogs, cats, and pigs of the farm.




Even after removing the entrails, there's a bit of blood and gunk left in the fish. Libardo scrapes this out by hand.






Here is the finished product, beautiful trout that we'll roast the next day.


Our friend's just got to weigh it so we can pay him.



I close this post with a video overview of the farm.