#13 Goats and Rain …

The twelve hundred olive trees on the plot of land on which I once lived near the Andalusian village of Coín were about a hundred and thirty years old, planted after phylloxera had destroyed the grapevines that grew there until 1860. To properly grow and bear fruit, each olive tree had twelve meters of space in every direction, and whether rain was abundant or scarce, the harvest was substantial every year. And every year, for a hundred thousand pesetas—about nine hundred dollars—I sold the upcoming harvest to a familia gitana, a Gypsy family, shaking my head whenever someone accused me of being a numskull, business-wise, for only those who fail to include the budget item pleasure in a cost-benefit analysis end up numskulls one day.

Every year, in early November, two men, two women, and two or sometimes three of their older children would step out of a van that drove onto my land just before sunup. Beneath two olive trees, we spread nets on the ground, and chatting, laughing, and singing, my gitano friends and I beat the branches above the nets with long poles. Ripe olives fell into the nets, and when no more olives fell, we emptied the nets into wicker baskets and moved the nets to the next two trees.

By mid-morning, my friends would pull all sorts of healthy food out of a cloth with its four corners tied together, while I brewed coffee on my gas stove. Chatting and laughing, we ate and drank until we picked up our poles again. Around noon, everyone except me lay down under an olive tree for a siesta, and by mid-afternoon, we were beating branches again, chatting, laughing, and singing as one of my friends drove the van back and forth to a nearby almazara, an olive mill, to empty the full baskets.

After five or six days, the fun came to an end, but a month later, my friends returned. They brought me a few bottles of oil from my own olives, and chatting, laughing, and singing, we passed all twelve hundred olive trees again to beat the olives from the branches that had not come loose when we passed a month earlier. Done beating branches, we attached saw blades to our poles, pruned all trees, and two or three evenings in a row, we sat around a fire fueled by the branches we had cut. We chatted, laughed, sang, and danced sevillanas, and every year, just before the first rain fell, I watched my friends leave with a heavy heart.

Four or five times every year, the local goatherd would let his thirty or forty goats graze on my land and in the bed of a dry stream that crossed it. The latter was important because, once the rain fell, the dry stream would transform into a raging torrent that could cause damage if its passage was obstructed.

November 13, 2024. Heidi runs back to our cave house as I wait in the car in the parking lot just beneath the castle of the Andalusian town of Antequera. I glance at the threatening, dark sky and think of Diego, who managed my affairs when I still lived on my plot of land near Coín among old olive trees. One day, Diego asked me to sign a form that would entitle me to an EU subsidy on my olive trees. I refused to sign that form and told Diego that Spain would someday pay the interest on the subsidies the EU provides, misery the currency in which that interest would be paid, and … a soft snort! I glance sideways to where Heidi has filled the space between our seats with two cushions. On those cushions lies a tiny dog.

“Is Boris already asleep?” Heidi asks as she gets back into the car, holding our passports, which we had almost forgotten.

“Boris is sound asleep and dreaming,” I answer, upon which Heidi remarks, “Well, this will be an exciting trip. Two expired passports and a dog that isn’t registered.” “And,” I hear myself add in my mind, “a car whose Austrian license plates I should months ago have changed for Spanish ones,” but I know better than to say it out loud and suddenly realize how far we have strayed from living life, worrying about passports, unregistered dogs, and license plates. Yet, I also realize how happy I am to read joy in Heidi’s eyes once more.

Over ten years ago, Heidi lost contact with her children and half of her family in a way I only believe because I witnessed it myself. From the day that drama became an irrevocable fact, she gave her love to Moos the German shepherd—and a little to me, occasionally. But Moos passed away last March, and Heidi has not been doing well since.

Last week, Heidi suggested a walk through the wilderness near our cave home instead of driving to the Torcal, a beautiful rock formation where we usually walk, and so, not much later, up and down it went on muddy paths through the wilderness near our cave home. All we saw of Antequera was the occasional glimpse of the castle, above which the red and yellow of the Spanish flag contrasted sharply against the sky, which was as threatening and dark as it is today. Just before the first rain fell that day, I heard a plaintive squeak, and from the corner of my eye, I saw something unusual in the underbrush, next to the path we walked.

“Stop and don’t move,” I whispered over my shoulder as I walked on a few meters. I turned, and through the underbrush, I carefully stepped back to where Heidi stood motionless. I bent down and grabbed a wet, white-and-brown puppy, no bigger than a ball of yarn, by the scruff of its neck. The squeal it let out pierced my soul. I quickly set two steps toward Heidi, pressed the puppy into her hands, saw the joy return to her eyes, knew her love flowed into the puppy, saw the animal relax, and knew that both Heidi and the puppy would soon be doing well. Through the meanwhile pouring rain, we walked on in silence until Heidi sniffled, “It’s a boy, and his name is Boris.”

“Of course …”

As I cycled into Antequera, an hour later, soaked, to buy a flea comb and some chew sticks, Heidi, back home, cut the flea nests out of Boris’ fur and bathed him. I combed him until he was flea-free, and that night, the little fellow, his belly full, slept contentedly between our cushions on our bed—and twice that dark and rainy night, shivering with cold, I walked with him around the castle of Antequera.

Despite the threatening, dark sky, it is still dry as—with our passports—we drive out of Antequera. Heidi, grumbling because I won’t let her pour me my coffee—she always pours too much, which forces me to drink my last sips of coffee cold—pours rooibos tea from her Stanley thermos into her mug, and steering with my knee, I pour just a bit of coffee from my thermos into mine. Just in time, I see the Guardia Civil officer gesturing us into a checkpoint. Heidi already has one hand free, and as I clumsily steer into the checkpoint and brake, she grabs my thermos from my right hand. I switch my mug to that right hand, roll down the window with my now free left hand, and search for the words that might get us out of this situation when the officer I was about to address, after glancing into our car, gestures us to drive on. With my left hand, I take the mug from my right hand. I wink at the officer, who shakes his head disapprovingly, shift gears, accelerate, shift gears again—and again—take the mug back into my right hand, roll up the window with my left, and before the mug changes hands again and I shift gears again, Heidi and I exchange a surprised glance as Boris curls onto his back and sticks his still pink paws in the air.

Through the carpet of olive trees Andalusia has become, we trundle north. Most olive trees—no older than thirty years, planted after the EU subsidies on olive trees came into effect—stand far too close to each other to properly grow, and as the magnitude of the madness of what we drive through sinks in, I feel more uncomfortable than when we drove into that Guardia Civil checkpoint.

Harvesting olives—I have some experience—is labor-intensive, and eh… sure, the people who, at relatively low costs and at enormous profits, build the tanks that end up in Ukraine—and turn into scrap moments after arriving there—have also tried to sell machinery to shake olives from trees and vacuum fallen olives from the ground to olive farmers who are not really olive farmers. Every real olive farmer knows that machinery filters all pleasure out of the cost-benefit analysis of olive farming without adding anything on the benefit side of that analysis. With or without machines, it is impossible to harvest a single olive more than before the EU subsidies on olive trees came into effect, and for all I try, I cannot understand why Northern Europeans insist on including the budget item subsidies olive trees Southern Europe in their cost-benefit analyses.

Many Southern Europeans who planted olive shoots on the plots of land they own, to cash in on subsidies, irrigate those shoots to make them resemble real olive trees as fast as possible, which—it is not about hundreds of shoots, but millions—has disastrous consequences for groundwater levels. In addition, unlike the original wilderness, olive trees cannot hold the soil together on which they grow when the rain falls like it did, for example, in 1997. The dry stream that crossed my land did not turn into a raging torrent that year, but turned into a raging river, which would have washed parts of my land away, had it not been for the hunger of the local goatherd’s goats, and for all I try, I cannot understand why Northern Europeans insist on including the budget item subsidies goats Southern Europe in their cost-benefit analyses. Most goat herders now keep herds of four to five hundred goats in barns they occasionally visit to fill troughs with feed and water and shovel out manure. No goat satisfies its hunger any longer in the bed of a dry stream, and anyone trying to keep such a bed free by rolling up her or his sleeves risks a fine—supposing the Guardia Civil is not setting up pointless checkpoints on roads—and I don’t even attempt to understand why it has recently become illegal in Spain to keep the beds of dry streams unobstructed.

Spain—Andalusia more than other regions—meanwhile pays the interest on the EU subsidies granted in recent years. Chat, laughter, song, and dance die a quiet death, and if the rain this year falls in the amounts it looks like it will fall, it is plausible there will be quite some damage.

“Climate crisis,” mainstream media journalists will cry, while they should be crying, “Made possible by the EU.”

Just past the village of Montoro, I steered into a muddy path, and it was questionable whether our Berlingo would make it to the top of the hill that path leads to. Heidi shook her head when I steered into that path, but now, she lovingly stares at Boris, who clumsily waddles around, as I stare at the olives lying in the mud beneath the carpet of young olive trees stretching to the horizon in all directions, and … damn it! Since we left Antequera two hours ago, I wallow in negative thoughts, and I am tired of it! Heidi and Boris are doing well. Boris’s first teeth are coming in, and we think he is about six weeks old. I see him stumble over an olive tree root, hear the lid on the kettle of our gas stove rattle, and sit down on one of the folding chairs I just took out of the car and put in the mud. I pour boiling water on the coffee in the filter on the rim of my thermos, pour boiling water on the rooibos in Heidi’s thermos, pour a little more water on the coffee, and hand the snoring stove to Heidi, who places it next to her chair in the mud.

We eat the liver, onions, and sweet potato Heidi prepared, and in my mind, I see and hear people chatting, laughing, and singing as they beat the branches of the olive trees around us with long poles. Reluctantly, I admit that Andalusia has met its fate. Free money suited the Andalusians’ nature but broke their backs. Olive tree carpets will soon give way to solar panel and wind turbine parks, and … Boris nudges my leg with a paw. It takes too long before I offer him my fork again with a piece of liver or sweet potato.

Just before today’s first rain falls, I steer down the muddy path, Boris asleep on his cushions between our seats. We turn onto the main road, and after twenty minutes, we leave Andalusia and enter Castilla-La Mancha. Our surroundings feel more authentic than in Andalusia, but the rain makes it hard to see much of them. We pass Madrid, and it is already dark when a red road sign tells us we have entered Navarra. Not much later, between grapevines pruned to stumps, we make an omelet with shrimps and spinach by the light of the Petzls on our heads. The rain has stopped, and the air is crisp. Stumbling over his own paws, Boris waddles around.

We pass Pamplona, and once in the Pyrenees, near the village of Roncesvalles, we park in a wooded area along a country road I just steered into. Squeaking softly in protest, Boris follows us as we walk a few hundred meters along the road. Back at the car, I roll out our mats and sleeping bags on a bed of autumn leaves and place our cushions on top. We crawl into the sleeping bags and laugh about Boris, who sits hesitantly between us. At home, he usually sleeps on Heidi’s cushion, his head in her neck. In this dark forest, he decides to crawl into my sleeping bag, and I chuckle inwardly as I hear Heidi doze off halfway through something she is telling me. I inhale the fresh mountain air, remember how impressed I was, reading the Song of Roland as a child—knight Roland breathed his last in this area—reading about the days people still lived life, wake with a jolt when Boris licks my face, and discover that it is raining—heavily. I nudge Heidi awake, and laughing, we dress as fast as we can. We throw our mats, sleeping bags, and cushions into the car, and ten minutes later, it is still dark, we park next to a 4x4 of the Guardia Civil outside a café in the last village before the border with France.

Sniffing at everything that could be sniffed at, Boris waddles through the café as Heidi and I drink coffee at the bar next to two Guardia Civil officers, who are unaware of the crimes we are committing. When half an hour later, we drive into France through the village of Arnéguy, I think of the French and Spanish customs officers who, years ago, gestured me into a checkpoint there. Heidi and I, back then, had moved from the town of Bayeux, in Normandy, to the village of Álora, in Andalusia. To facilitate the move, we bought an old Citroën C15 for next to nothing and dutifully arranged its proper registration. After two trips back and forth together to Álora, I made one last trip to Bayeux alone to collect our remaining belongings. In Arnéguy, having been gestured into a French-Spanish checkpoint, I learned that the license plates on the C15 did not match our new registration papers. Searching for words to get me out of that situation, a French customs officer handed the registration papers back to me and gestured me to drive on.

Perhaps because we planned to scrap our C15 soon anyway, I neglected to have new license plates made in France. And when—after I had returned from France and just before we brought the C15 to a scrapyard—Heidi drove it to the coast for some shopping she could not postpone, she was, near Málaga, pulled over by the Policia Local. An officer glanced at the registration papers and said, “Algo no cuadra con la matricula something is wrong with the license plate, pero but … el coche está registrado a nombre de Nikko Norte the car is registered in the name of Nikko Norte, el matador! Eres su esposa are you his wife? Adelante drive on …”

It is late when, having started our day in the rain in Roncesvalles, we finally arrive in the Netherlands and pitch our tent at a campsite near the village of Noordwijk, where Heidi was born and raised. The whole week that follows, we travel from appointment to appointment. I am a guest on several podcasts, we hike with Boris through the dunes—the weather in the Netherlands better than that in Spain—and only by the end of the week, do I realize once again how far we have strayed from living life when Heidi tells me she discovered that dogs traveling within the EU must be chipped, must have a passport, and must be vaccinated against rabies at least three weeks prior to travel. Man, how long before humans will only be allowed to travel when chipped? So much safer! So much easier! But to prevent Heidi from worrying, I make an appointment with a veterinarian.

The squeal Boris lets out as a chip is implanted under his skin pierces my soul. The next day, quietly driving through Belgium on our way back to Antequera, Boris asleep on his cushions between our seats, his paws a shade less pink than last week, Heidi, after pouring me too much coffee, flips through Boris’s passport and asks whether he really is vaccinated against rabies. I chuckle and say, “Holistic veterinarian. She agreed with me that Boris faces no risk of rabies—Spain has been rabies-free for decades—and even if he contracts it, she confirmed what I had already discovered, he’s not better off vaccinated than unvaccinated. Boris does not endanger his barking grandmother while unvaccinated, but the side effects of rabies vaccines are more severe than most veterinarians admit or even know. She backdated the rabies entry in Boris’s passport, and to make her cost-benefit analysis add up, I paid for a vaccination …”

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