Wed, 02/02/22 at 9AM – , Work in the Fields with Louis Rigo - Field Notes (condensed account):

Images of what appears to be a very well maintained land/farm. Senior Louis Rigo looks to be in his 60’s.
Well dressed, calm, confident, and professional looking man.

Beautiful day outside. I can hear a rooster/roosters in the background, along with dogs, and other types
of birds that make a unique sound that I’m not familiar with. These sounds remain fairly constant
throughout the experience.

Everything including fences, walking paths, and fields looks to be done very professionally, as good or
better than what you’d see in most fields in the U.S.. I notice barbed wire on a lot of the fences.
Probably to keep the farm animals in as well as potential thieves out of the fields. I did see a cow that
looked healthy within the fenced in field. “Wondering what other farm animals Senior Louis Rigo has”.

Quick Facts:

- Senior Louis Rigo works his mothers land. He’s retired but keeps watch on her fields to ensure all
work is being done as needed.
- He and his mother split everything 50/50 on the land. All cost associated with chemicals,
fertilizer (they use organic fertilizer), labor, etc, as well as food.
- They grow maze and beans on the fields “wondering if they grow squash as well”?
- Senior Louis Rigo was going out into the field today to replant some corn seeds and to work up
some of the ground that had been hardened due to a recent drought after a hard rain. Some of
the beans and maze weren’t coming in as they should because of the ground being so hard.
- On this day Senior Louis Rigo had 1 helper/sharecropper with him, his neighbor, that was
spraying a chemical to keep insects and grubs from getting into the bean and maze plants “what
did they do to keep the insects and grubs from destroying the plants before the chemicals were
available”?

Beautiful mountains in the near background of the farmland. Thick, lush appearing brush around the
fields. Land looks to be hard worked and very fertile.

Senior Louis Rigo mentions his mother, who has to be a much older women, with no regards to her age.
Meaning, he speaks of how he expects her to uphold her end of keeping up with land responsibilities
and has no doubts that she’ll be able to.

Senior Louis Rigo is very methodical regarding the distance of separation between each planted crop,
number of seeds used in each spot (3,4,3,4), depth of hole to plant seeds. He is clearly a very
knowledgeable farmer and has no reason to question a practice that he’s seen to be fruitful for many
many years of his life. Senior Rigo used a handmade poker/digging tool to soften some of the hard
ground to plant more seeds and to cover them back up with dirt. I see that he hardly bends over much
at all, which clearly has helped to save his back and knees over time.

Senior Rigo’s sharecropper for the day is a clean cut, younger, healthy looking male. Wears a mask when
he’s handling the chemicals to kill the grubs and insects. Very professional and serious about the task at
hand.