The name of the one hundred seventy cows and thirty donkeys that Emerita Llano has (Meri) knows one by one by one owner, one of the largest livestock in Asturias. This woman was born 61 years in the town of Cedemonium, in the Council of Illano, in the living room of her house, a humble house in which she grew up with her parents and her four brothers and where there was no milk for everyone. She is the second of five brothers.
Of that town full of people in which there was a school with 40 students, only the memory of when in the afternoon you would go to the meadow to take herb and you parabo to chat with a neighbor or with another. “I was a anthill of people, now I spend days in which I don’t see anyone.” Actually, there are the places where there was bustle and now the silence reigns, a silence that often suffocates.
Meri dreamed since childhood with marrying and having children, and having a happy family, and also dreamed of being veterinary. But the fact of being very hardworking and worth almost for everything, conditioned it to many things. I would not know how to say at this point in life if the fact of always doing what they told him, mainly his mother, was good or bad, because Meri never considered rebelling.
“I think that my parents did the best they could and thinking about giving me the best, that’s why they ended up sending me to learn to sew Torrejón de Ardoz and serve a villa in Somió, in Gijón. Before it was like that,” he explains, while putting the coffee maker in the fire and throws firewood in the kitchen so that it does not go out. And smile while remembering, without considering anything again. Life came like this and she adapted, yes, throwing all the guts of the world. Meri learned in those two places what he did not want to be; nobody’s servant.
Now he lives practically in the mountains, which is where he has his cattle, where he attends the births, where he feeds the cows, spends nights when there is a complication and where his travel companions are his dogs, a flashlight, the wool hat, the cold and the howls of the wolves. “What if I spend fear? I don’t think about it either,” he clarifies.
Sabina, her mother, who died of breast cancer with 56 years, marked the character of her daughter Meri. “Notice that it was a dermatologist who referred it to the hospital, she had been with a nipple that suppurate her for some time, but as in the field you are constantly stumbling with branches, with straws, we thought it could be a wound. When they gave us the diagnosis: carcinom I knew a lot. And Meri’s eyes, Sierra Verde, Green Prado, ten seconds are wet.
Three years Sabina lived with her cancer, three years of eternal trips to Oviedo, in a Renault 5 that her daughter was driving. “Realize that we took three and a half hours to get to the hospital and we had to go along the spine road,” he says. Meri had married young, a marriage that he does not keep good memory. As soon as his mother died he decided to divorce and return home, tired of a couple life that “was all but that.” And “without a hard fucking” he returned to Cedemonium, with his father, to help him with the cows, that when that were few and all of milk. The duel for the death of his mother is something that Meri coexists, throwing again of conformism and acceptance. “Losing my mother literally broke me, I didn’t know or buy my clothes without her, because she bought it to me. Look.”
He tells him while on the table he looks at her with big eyes and brown his daughter Laura, who has just finished medicine and wants to be a family doctor to live in the west, near her mother and her people. Laura was born as the result of love, because Meri fell in love again, but again life came as she wanted, and those dreams of having a husband and a happy and traditional family did not set the second attempt either.
“When mom died he supported me a lot, we were friends and I fell in love. Laura is the best I have done in life, with or without her father.” And it was there when he looked alone when she decided to bet for the first time for herself. “I took the relay of Dad’s livestock, we sold the fee and with that I bought the first meat cows, fifteen. I arranged with twelve thousand euros,” he says. And there began to forge the Torre Livestock, one hundred percent ecological and one hundred percent Meri.
The beginnings were not easy and I know that I have a fame of bad, of bad milk, there are some kids who work on the mountain and they call me “the widow of the club”, I laugh because I already tell you that I am not even a widow. With 61 years, now unbelieved from romantic love, it is when Meri managed to be happy. “Happy with mine, I have pigs, chickens, orchard, I do the homework, but I am practically all day in the mountains.” And there with the cold breeze that seems to cut your neck like a guillotine, with the clouds under the feet, it is where she feels free and owner of her life.
I always encouraged my daughter to study. He went to study Medicine to Santiago de Compostela and once I could go see the floor. I only took her the first day, I left her in the residence and turned
A slave life, which does not understand hours or days off, which does not allow him to go to the beach in summer, nor take vacations, but does not depend on anyone. “My daughter always encouraged her to study, she loves livestock and helps me a lot. He went to study medicine to Santiago de Compostela and once I could go see the floor. I just took her the first day, I left her in the residence and I turned.”
Laura decided to study medicine with three years, her grandfather had become ill and spent several days admitted to the hospital. Raising with your grandparents creates a very special bond, and more with a grandfather who served as a father. “I loved him and I love him, they say that when he returned home after being admitted I told him that he was going to be a doctor so he would never die. I did not succeed, but I took great care of him and I have fulfilled my promise,” says his granddaughter. Laura remembers her grandfather coughing, but her lap, her warmth of grandfather, and the discreet and sweet way with which she always honored her name is also to mind.
Today mother and daughter proudly look at her livestock. Milagros, which is Meri’s favorite cow, is called that because she went ahead in house kitchen. It was a complicated delivery, he was born with seven months, he didn’t suck, he didn’t stand. “And here in front (in reference to the firewood cuisine) we made a bed in a wooden box, we gave her the bottle, we dried it with the dryer and we gave her calm, which I always have in the freezer just in case, because being livestock is much more than having the loose cows in a meadow. It is almost uncommon the day when there is no setback.”
Milagros grew up in the kitchen with diaper, and with the same pampering that it was a baby. Today is a seven -year -old beautiful cow, blonde and affectionate. And when Meri appears in the mountains, she approaches and passes her snout through her leg in search of a caress.
It hurts me when my career companions, to whom I tell you that I come to the people, they tell me that my life is nothing more to see cows … how if it were a crime or a backwardness!
Last year his livestock won the most beautiful Asturias award: Best Asturian veal flock. It is Laura that is responsible for encouraging her mother to participate in livestock competitions and competitions. “I look at my mother with pride, I think she is not aware of everything she has overcome in life, and for me it is a reference. That is why it hurts me when my career colleagues, whom I tell you that I come to the people, tell me on many occasions that if my life is nothing more than to see cows … as if it were a crime or a delay! that is bought in supermarkets, ”says doctor Laura.
Meri, who does not think about retiring, and the one that still lacks enough years of contribution, continues to dream. But now he does it differently. “I want to have grandchildren and spend a week on the beach, I was just little.” And she says it, that in the clear afternoons you can see the coast from the Alto de la Sierra, so close and so far at the same time. But his “superlative” work does not allow him to take a free afternoon, they may not be instilled either. “What if I give luxuries? I’m going to the hairdresser …”, he says. And soon Laura cuts him, “mom, that’s necessity.”
Perhaps Meri’s luxuries are others, now that he no longer dreams of falling in love, or having a partner, he wants his daughter to be able to make her profession as a doctor with livestock. And Laura, just as her mother did with her grandmother, is also guided by Meri’s advice because she firmly believes that her mother takes her all the life she wants and fights for the best for her. “I am proud to have left Cedemonium and have finished my career. Be from town and get where you intend without forgetting where you come from,” says Laura.
And there, in that phrase, both look, and smile, knowing that when Meri takes that deserved rest to go to see the sea, it will be Laura that is in charge of Torre Livestock. And while the beach is still waiting, the Sierra is still the place of Meri … “In my house, up there, among my cows, I do not like the jar”, thirty kilometers below, in a straight line, the Cantabrian waiting.
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