Day 14 Back to Work

Today was a typical work day on the farm for us!  Russ heads out to start work around 8:00 a.m. and that is when school starts for Reid and me.  We work for about 2 hours on reading comprehension, math (yuck!), and writing.  Reid has already read 5 books since we have been here…so actual reading takes place all the time!  After our morning session of school, we also head out to work.

Today the task for the morning was to label the organic beer they make here.  Today’s batch was Rosemary beer…delicious!  The farm is called Organic Farm Silbar (which I am sure sounds better in Slovenian)…but it is a family farm that has been handed down through the generations.  It has survived wars and even outlasted communism!  The property it sits on is beautiful, nestled in the hills, above a village with a church ( you can hear the bells all the time during the day!), and between mountains.  It is picturesque for sure!

So here we are labeling beer, beer we get to drink all the time, and I am telling you that it is some of the best beer that I have ever had, in a beautiful setting.  Now labeling is a bit of a process, there are three labels that go onto the bottle, and three different labels that rotate on the front.  The front labels are sketches of old farm scenes, done by Monika’s nephew, and they are perfect, like little Slovenian time capsules on each bottle!  So we label case after case…not tough not demanding…just time consuming…as we work Monika bring us traditional Slovenian breads and some Turkish coffee.  Seriously?  Could these people be any nicer?  I almost feel guilty…we have a 2 bedroom apartment complete with a kitchen, laundry room, we have access to anything they have in their store, Reid has 4 playmates to play with, the surroundings are lovely, and they feed us?

So after the grueling task of labeling beer, we have delicious homemade mushroom soup and bread for lunch with of course,,,you guessed it…beer to drink!  After lunch, it was time for me to package grain.  They do a little bit of everything, and everything is organic.  I was scooping, weighing, and packaging whole grain flour, polenta, corn flour, oats.  My job is to package these organic grains to get ready to sell to customers.  Again, not tough work, but just takes time.

After we finished today, Gregor asked us if we would like to go to deliver some products to a customer of his.  After gathering products and loading the van off we went (at about 7:30 p.m.).   We met a man who runs an organic store in Radovljica (try saying that 10 times fast).  It was a quaint town with a beautiful old section.  The old sections of the town had a restaurant with a gingerbread museum.  So, after our deliveries, we walked around the town.  Gregor told us that he would like to take us for “a bit of cake”.  We went to a restaurant that he and Monika had their wedding lunch at.  It was very traditional Slovenian complete with polka style folk music playing in the background…I expected Hansel and Gretel to pop out at any moment!  We tried traditional Slovenian desserts (okay I didn’t order my own…but are you kidding me…I grabbed a fork so fast and “helped” Russ and Reid’s with their desserts!  What is interesting to me about Slovenian desserts is that they are not as sweet as American desserts, they use a lot of nuts, cheese, and honey….kind of a savory sweet…but very yummy!  Oh I almost forgot to mention that they did have the famous Bled cream cake too…but we wanted to try new things!!

As we drove back to the farm, I was overwhelmed thinking about Gregor and his family.  They all work so hard, and are generous and kind, just truly good people.  I feel so lucky to have the chance to spend time with them on their incredible farm, and am happy if we are able to help them in any tiny way…and that is what I feel alseep thinking about…what a nice way to end the day!