“There used to be 18 thousand goats simultaneously in Pitios” claims the 84-year old barba-Yiannis Kritoulis, a veteran stockbreeder who would climb the Oros (Mountain) pastures up and down up to four times a day in his younger days. I’m trying to turn back time and picture life in the mountains and the stockyards when they teemed with life. I can imagine all that clatter when the goats would be summoned and the throng in the water sources of Amethounda when they would be taken there to be watered.

I wonder how many animals used to graze up there… How many kilos of milk would one shepherd make? How did they make cheese? How many hampers with cheese would find their way down to the village in order to be sold to the “cheese-guys”? I’m looking for answers while discussing with those having left pastoral life behind.

“Back in the days, the stockyards had branches and shrubs, later on though, in the sixties, the Forestry Service made cutting a shrub for creating fencing illegal, so they gradually started using rocks” says Yiannis Apostolis, the amusing baker of the village, he too a descendant of an old stockbreeding family. “The little sheds, though, are older. The little sheds always existed. You couldn’t live without them”.

From Fardi Pigadi (Broad Well) up to Korakia (which roughly translates as Crow Area) and from Kavernakis up to “18”, the mountains and the highlands surrounding Pitios, the village boasting the longest stockbreeding heritage in Chios, hide many of these humble constructions. Being in a run-down state, they all gape empty, packed with goat drops after being abandoned in the early 80’s, lapsing into oblivion day by day.

The only ones that resist descending into anonymity while somewhat retaining an… adjectival reference are the stockyards we are used to calling “plakomandres”. On a slope to the east of Oros, at an altitude below one thousand meters, some tenths of meters away, the three renowned “plakomandres” (slab-made stockyards) come into view.

Lower down, there lies the “red” stockyard of Haviaros, also used by the Kritoulis family, when the two families became in-laws. Featuring a perimeter exceeding 100 meters and a sturdy shed which brings a Cretan “mitato” (a type of dry-stone shack) into mind, it was created by a great mason of that era, Kostas Haviaros. What makes it stand out is not only its size but also the pink hue which the rubble wall rocks bear, while it is probably the only stockyard in Chios with slabs covering a significant part of its floor.

A tad further up, there is the smallest and oldest of the three, the stockyard of Mithris. Next to a distinctive maple shrub cluster, on whose branches slabs used to be placed in order for the dry-mizithra cheese (ksiromouzithra) to dry, this stockyard belonged to Dimitris Kritoulis’ family (his nickname was Mithris), in an era when even shepherds didn’t use to own big herds.

Right above, there is another Kritoulis’ stockyard, also built by Haviaros. Its construction began in the early 70’s but never materialized! It is probably the most impressive of the three, featuring a discernible layout and a roomy shed, but unfortunately part of its roof is gone and it’s only a matter of time before it collapses altogether.

I meet barba-Yannis once again, in Giorgis’ coffee-shop.

– Barba-Yiannis, are you going to tell me any story about Plakomandres?
– About what? Plakomandres? There was only one Plakomandra. The one down, the big one.