That Season Again: Etseri, Svaneti

Four years' living in this village, owning a cow who has multiplied, and learning the local farming seasons and rhythms and their variations, allows one to begin comparing times of the year with previous versions. It's not that long, but it's a start. What has changed? What has stayed more or less the same?

One constant so far is the cattle and their foraging habits. We only have two who go out each morning and (usually) return in the evening, but they're part of a herd of eleven or so. Sometimes this is convenient, sometimes not. Sometimes they belong together, others they need to be separate. Now is one of those times, because our two don't have "foraging rights" to one of the fields of the other nine's owner, which he'll soon finish scything of its precious hay and open to just them.

So we make sure that our two don't try to follow the other nine to forbidden locations. Once I've milked them in the morning, I stagger their exit from the barn so it doesn't coincide with the neighbor's nine, and herd them in other directions.

This field, that, as they are cleared of haystacks and opened up. However, even though some of these fields are fenced only partially and open elsewhere onto vast areas of grassland and shrubs, the thirty or forty animals or so all competing for graze soon get "fed up" and begin roving. At this point, chaos can ensue.

They get out, even if a gate is closed behind them (breaking it), and go on a quiet but detectable rampage through the village, usually aided by one or more huge, cunning plow-steers. Breaking out, they may break in, wherever greener pastures beckon: your potato field, your corn, your hayfield, even your vegetable plot, your orchard next to the house. Anything goes. Then you'll hear shouting and cursing!

We've only had one personal break-in so far, into the 2400 square meter area our house is on, and a neighbor quickly alerted us to the event, so we lost little. But I now have to replace a short section of fence, temporarily protected by barbed wire, in a tricky area with not much space to maneuver. Could be worse. At least cows are too stupid to stay quiet for long, and one way or another, even without the alarm raised by someone else, you realize that they've arrived with only food on their simple minds. Who can blame them?

The bell our main cow was makes a big difference in locating her of an evening. In earlier years, I was too stubborn and often refused to go looking for her and her predictably tagalong daughter: they always had a good meal of kitchen scraps and mash to come home to, and I hated the thought of them getting into the habit of needing to be driven home! Every night! Now, however, I just want to get the evening milking over while it's still light enough to do it without a flashlight. So I do humble myself a bit, seek and follow the melodious sound of that unique tinkle, seldom far away now, and patiently insist on their returning. Every bell is different, so I'm not going to go on a wild goose chase, so to speak.

Once the snow comes to stay (NOT that we're in a hurry for that), they'll be restricted to a couple of hours' daily escape from the barns, to congregate and gossip near a water source while we muck out the barns. Then, back in, to hay, foraging done for the year until next spring. And it starts all over again.

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1300 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/

He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:

www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti

Tony Hanmer