Altitude Magazine

54 local life The fights are often brief, these beautiful animals weighing 500 to 700 kg, quickly find their real nature again, it is being incredibly sweet! This one licking my hand, nearly ripping of my sleeve with her rough tongue deployed like a tentacle, this other lifting her head so I can scratch her throat! If my cat would see me! Furthermore, it is in a breathtaking landscape, another unforgettable experience, walking around in this herd with a feeling of quietude! Hard to find happier cows. Even though there are almost a hundred, Jean-Marc and all the people working here know each one of them by their name, Flocon, Savane, Safran…or Couronne, Diabolo, Candice. Each at its turn gets some caress, they are asking for it! Two shepherds accompany the herd at all time, one of their duty consist of keeping track of the fights! 65-79, means that the cow No 65 beat No 79. Some notebooks are full of it and the results are published daily on the WA group of the owners of the cows. The Alpage of Merdechon is a ‘consortage’. Which is a property utilized by a group of people. A story of ‘allodiateurs’, ‘pied de fond’, vote at the general assembly! A scene not photogenic enough for me. I leave it to specialists! But by the way, where did Jean-Roger go? While Mathias, who came up to help today, handles the tractor like if it was a little toy, Jean-Roger took off…with the cheese! Fortunately, not too far, he is at the refining cellar, a little further down. Everyday this is where he brings the cheese production of the day before. About twelve wheels that will spend the first twenty-four hours in a bath of salty water! They are then laid on wooden shelves, tilted over and washed every single day, one by one. Three months of refining, by the end of the season, the treasury counts are about 900 pieces! Alpage cheese have a distinctive flavor due to the herbs, plants and flower that make the banquet of the cows. Since the flora varies during the season and particular to each location, the production is unique and different in each alpage, and there are about eighty of them in Valais. The day is far from being over! Cooking, laundry, cleaning of the stables and the court, fixing the fences, evening milking at 16h00, and then bring the blacks back to the stable…Here, everyone has their job, however, camaraderie and mutual aid makes the spirit high and you notice it! AT 21h00 everyone is in bed! Tomorrow morning, at 04h00, Jean-Roger, Jean-Marc, and Vlad or Ilie will get up, it will still be night…