Developing the Farm

I have just read the chapter "Developing the Farm" from JAN STEPEK Part 1: From Gulag to Glasgow by Martin Stepek.  This is the account of their last days as a family, before Hitler and Stalin (at that time in (un)cosy alliance) strike,  so I am going to have a pause before I plunge in to the tragedy that affected my own family too - and so many millions of others.

I wanted to note that once again, Martin's evocation of his father's childhood is bringing my own childhood back to me. He mentions that turnips were grown, but not for human consumption, for the cattle.  I think the local farmers in my Northern hometown - the ones whose land was being encroached on by swarms of us children of the post-war baby boom era - grew mangelwurzels, a kind of beet, for cattle fodder. And that takes me to a memory of when I was about 4 years old, playing out with the "big" boys, fearsome lads of 6 or 7 or so, who did not at all want me tagging along.

Following them, I ended up in a farmer's field, and we pulled roots from the ground and ate them. They were so crunchy and delicious as I remember it - though they must have - literally - been rather earthy.  Then the farmer came along and set his dogs on us. And who can blame him?

I can remember running way behind the big boys till they came to what seemed like a mountain of a wall, or fence, and they scrambled over.  Gallantly they came back and hauled me over just ahead of the dogs. I would have got bitten otherwise - and serve me right I guess, though I had no idea that I was stealing at the time.

I am supposing that what we were illicitly eating were mangelwurzels.  Would they taste so delicious now?  Hard to say, but bear in mind that we were still in the era of wartime food rationing, so children were always hungry. And everything tastes good when you are hungry.

At any rate,  I won't be testing it out in any of the local farming fields.  Those dogs would have the zimmer frame from under me before I could take the first bite!

So there are premonitions all over this otherwise happy chapter.  As war sets in, turnips may well become a luxury food, never mind cattle fodder. And there is also a mention of Jozef, one of the farmhands, who became a good friend of the children.  He was from a German family and had been in the army with the authors's granddad.  I worry for him, as I worry for them all, and I worry what will happen to the friendship, under the pressures of the imminent horror of WW2.  Will we meet him again? And under what circumstances?  He may well be pressed into the Germany Army

There is such intensive research here - it must have taken an immense amount of work.

Here, for instance, is a fascinating detail: the cows "bought from Holland proved to  be too big and heavy in the soft soil of Ukraine".  They had to replace them with smaller cows from Poland who were better suited to the terrain.  

And the story of the homing pigeons is funny.

I also note a religious point, about Sabbath observance, in that the writer observes that the family does not go to church every Sunday, and that the local priest understood that farm work must come first. The author then says: "In many ways it was the opposite of the biblical view to keep the Sabbath holy".

It wasn't for many years that I understood that the Sabbath observance is part of the Mosaic Law, and that Law is not binding on Christians.  We may keep a sabbath if we wish to. But it is not a requirement.

The photo, by Captain B of course, is of a Red Admiral on Cow Parsley (an Umbellifer) in Lobbs Wood. Cow Parsley is the nearest I can get to the pic of a cow.