Expo Esperanza 2017

The 8th annual Expo Esperanza was held this past August.  Nearly 70 participants entered 475 projects in 7 discipline areas.  In some of the future posts, we will highlight the projects, activities and the people involved in the 3 day event.

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In the Arena...

The Presentation of the Mexican flag was brought in on horseback by the Interns who taught the horse riding classes.  The welcome and prayer followed before the competitions began.

Morning competitions were held in the arena on the campus of the orphanage.

In the ring, the Advanced participants show their "Bovinos" (cattle) projects in a showmanship class.  There is also an intermediates cattle class.  The cattle are owned by Rancho Agua Viva.

The Dog project was re-designed this year to focus more on dog obedience for Intermediate and Advanced participants.  

The "small species" class is unique to the Beginner Expo participants.

Sheep participants have 2 opportunities to show at Expo.  With the same lamb, they can show in the Showmanship and Production classes.

Equitation competitions are open to all age groups.  Historically, horse classes have the most entries at Expo!

Barrel Racing is a favorite of the participants and a real crowd pleaser!  Open to Intermediate and Advanced Expo participants, 5 horses ran the barrels with 20 participants.

Chicken projects are cared for by the participants for 4 weeks prior to Expo Esperanza.  The project has 2 classes, production and showmanship, and is open to all age groups.  There is especially a lot of enthusiasm with the Beginners!

RAV August 2017

Much like the entire summer, August has been busy! It all started in June with calving which continued through the end of July. The first part of August was occupied with EXPO Esperanza which was quickly followed by round up at the big ranch, Rancho Ojo de Agua. (Unfortunately, photos of this were lost due to a phone mishap in the river.) :( Sixteen weaned calves were brought down to the headquarters, 8 heifers and 8 bulls, which were subsequently sold in various places. Some were sold to private buyers, some were sold to Casa Vida y Esperanza's farm project, and the rest were sold to a local exporter. Next up on the ranch schedule is preparing to AI (artificially inseminate) the heifers.

Another job which has circulated from the front burner to the back burner to the front burner again at RAV headquarters was fixing the secondary well. The primary well is absolutely essential for all irrigation operations at headquarters; the secondary well is not. However, it provides additional support that can double the number of sprinkler heads running at one time. As mentioned in last month's update, we were abundantly blessed with rain this year and the secondary well visibly rose by about 12 feet. After the rains stopped, work resumed to dig the well deeper and get it up and running. We are happy to report all was finished mid August and we are now watering at full capacity.

Installing the shaft for the secondary well.

The ranch employees worked for several days to drive the shaft deeper, thus increasing water available for use.