MY LIFE ON FARM

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Do you like to play Farmville? I do not. But I played this game in real life on my own small farm that I bought 8 years ago. In real life, Farmville game is much more  different then in cyber world.

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I love change, experiments in the life, and certainly love challenges.

Majority of my life I was lived in capital city of Croatia, Zagreb, that is typical Europian town: beautiful romantic old part build in Middle Age and not so beautiful modern parts around it - all together crowded, noisy, polluted and full of cars and people. (I also lived in London and Munich, now I live on Adriatic coast in city of Zadar)

8 years ago I definetely became fed up of being city girl and decided to try farmlife...and life with the full connection with nature. I bought small (and very cheap!) farm in one Croatian village (not too close to the capital city) and together with my ex boyfriend moved to new adventure with motto - let us try the way of living like old folks used to live.

BTW, I was not first member in my family who decided to abandon life in big city - my grandgrandfather also made the same, moved from city of Zagreb to the village after he was retired and was never happier in his entire life. I have this transformation in my genes...So I assumed that my experience was going to be the same . Well, I knew that it was not going to be easy life, at least not on the beginning. I also knew that there was going to be much more work then ever - but I was not afraid of that challenge...I love challenges...and yes I love the type of work when my hands get dirty.

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All my family was completely shocked with my decision and everybody tried everything to convince me that I should change my mind, but their efforts were in vain. My desire to have my own land was so powerful that at the end, everybody could only support me. Some women passionately want lover or children, I had the same passionate desire for my land and my "green" garden.

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My farm was situated in the part of the country that was not my favorite place to be: there was no mountains nearby (only small hills), no rivers, no lakes or sea - far from ideal for me. But this place was chosen because of two-three reasons - this was part of Croatia without landmines (15 years after the war, we still have to pick up very carefully place where is possible to live), it was not expensive and not too far from capital city.

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Farm is not big - around 1 acre, with 100 years old house that was literally screaming for renewal (nicely saying, the real situation was much worse - it was ruin), and all advantages which bring property for which nobody took any care for more then 30 years..well, all together was in incredible chaos. But I love advantages, remember?

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There were some difficulties that appeared when I was buying the property, so I meditated for overcoming the obstacles. Several weeks before I moved, I heard in my meditation my own voice coming from the future: "Tatiana, this will be very difficult choice for you. Much more difficult than you expect. Do you really want this experience?" My answer was passionate "Yes - I want that difficulties. " After that, all obstacles for buying the land disappeared.

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The day when I moved all my staff to my new village home, it was heavily raining... when I entered on my property, there was mud everywhere - tones of mud around the house, in the yard - so beginning was not romantic at all. From the living in more or less tidy and organized big city I came to my new village reality that had certainly very muddy shape... This mud was very symbolic for the future obstacles they were on their way to come:

• problems with well and water
• problems with ex-owners (I had to sue them because they cheated in the process of sale )
• house was in far worse condition then it looked at the beginning so it required much more work then it seemed on the beginning. Instead of year, we spent all 5 in fixing it and still did not finish all.
• friends who promised to help never appeared
• there were many problems with neighbours (f.E. I needed to fight for every tree on the borders of property, one of my neighbours wanted to cut them all. The other neighbours wanted to steal one peace of my land trying to convince me that it belongs to them, etc, etc)

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The list of challenges was very long, what I mentioned here is just very small part of the story. I will just shortly say that the quantity and quality of challenges I had there was beyond my worse expectations. But I survived. And certainly became stronger.

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I spent on my farm almost five years, living as real farmer. I did not have any problem with replacing shoes with high hills with muddy working boots...actually in muddy working boots is far more comfortable to walk then on high hills, LOL. The biggest challenge was that I needed to transform from polite city girl to strong and rough person (my neibhours were not always well-minded angels, so I needed to change and adjust in order to survive among them and in order "to protect my theritory". )

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My farm was certainly unique in the village - the only one which was without animals!

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Except family of cats I did not keep any other animals on farm. I did not need them - because I do not eat them .

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Life without animals on farm seemed like heaven despite all other working activities we had there. We had to feed only ourselves (and cats) . For the difference, other farmers needed to take care about bunch of animals with all their various needs - so they did not have days off and were never able to travel around or go on holidays... They were completely stuck. With so many living creatures, problems just wait to arise .Farmers are real slaves of the animals - as well as animals are slaves of the farmers.

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One of the most shocking scene was when I saw my 70 years old neighbour with artificial hips - for hours kneeling down in tremendous pain - while cutting down big pumpkins for feeding the pigs... Honestly she did not need to have her own pigs at all - she had a lot of money, but having the pigs, was part of her image, tradition and greed. She and her 75 years old husband were working all day without pause- just because of cattle. I learned not to feel any sorry for her whenever she was in pain or ill. How could I be compassionate when she was killing herself just because of greed?

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Farmers work so heavily only because they have animals. More then 90% of crops is used for feeding the cattle, less then 10% of crops is used for human consumption. Such big fields (for feeding the animals) is not possible to cultivate manually any more - farmers today need extraordinary amounts of pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizers to raise the crops. With such big amounts of toxins they use on soil, soil becomes too acid and poisoned, crops more vulnerable on attacks of various diseases and pests so they require even more and stronger pesticides. All these chemicals poison soil, water and air...and seriously destruct quality of soil in the long term. Without chemicals, such soil is just not alive any more.

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Living among "modern farmers" is like living nearby chemical industry - it smells the same, and has the same toxic effect...on the whole planet. And all this is just because of human greed - people "must" eat meat every day and farmers "need to" grow a lot of cattle as quickly as possible and feed them by poisoning the land - this is business, remember? When you see that with your own eyes, you just get disguised.

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Observing how farmers treat and kill the animals, was also highly shocking experience. I realized that I was living surrounded by serial killers, who would not hesitate to kill me -or each other- if the law was not forbidding killing the humans. The level of passionate aggression which they were expressing while executing the animals was beyond any comprehension and excuse. These people lost their hearts in blood and greed.

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One of my goals there was to have ecological garden. When I started with it, my experience was zero, but I had 3 great books about practical gardening so I read them even in my garden, before planting and digging, or before harvesting. The rest I learned was by observing how plants behave and by observing what other gardeners do.

I used

• biodynamic methods for healthy gardening,
• used homeopathic remedies for improving the growth and health of vegetables and fruits,
• I learned how to prepare herbal fertilizers,
• I protected my plants from insects, bugs and pests on all possible natural ways..
• .I was also singing to my plants and sending them healing energy...

...and everything worked. There is no need to use any chemical "weapon" in the garden... although natural gardening requires a lot of effort, time and full dedication. But taste of the vegetables you grow in your own garden is uncomparable with anything what we buy on markets or in supermarkets... Gardening is beautiful job.

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The other goal was - growing and selling herb Milk Thistle that is used as remedy for the liver and cleansing the blood. It is very simple for growing, and the price you get for its seeds is really excellent. First year I planted with it part of my garden, found healer who mixed it with honey and was more then ready to buy as much Milk Thistle I was able to produce...Everything worked great up till the harvesting. I put the seeds in the bags and closed them in the storage, but mice eat almost all seeds in few days, so there was not enough for sale that year. I send some seeds to my Mum, but she reported me that she twice got sick after consuming the tea . I assumed that reason was her sensitive stomach, but I was not right:

• next springtime I saw my neighbors using herbicides on their land (they told me before that they were not doing that ), and drops of this poison were falling down on my garden. My soil immediately become stinky, acid and toxic...and stayed like that many days. I also noticed later on that my vegetables were less developed when closer to their garden...due to toxins in herbicides.

That day I was honestly grateful to mice - if they did not eat Milk Thistle seeds, I would poison the people without any knowledge what was going on. I was also angry with my neighbours because they lied to me letting me to play with health of the others. I was also angry with them because they were consciously poisoning me, and there was no legal way how could I stop them. Farmers have legal "licence to kill". I felt completely helpless. I realized that when farmers use their toxins on their land nothing can escape to that poison - so there was no point in renting or buying some other peace of land around that village to plant Milk Thistle. I gave up my second goal - at least in that area.

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All the time I lived there, one part of me  knew that I was not going to be there forever - sometimes I felt as Tibetan monk creating coloured sand mandala that needs to be destroyed on the end. So I never finished everything what I planned to do there...altough I never destroyed my visions.  5 years after I started, I realized that the time came to live that village. For me it was the best school in my life - I learned so many useful and interesting things which I would never be able to learn anywhere else: gardening, building, new techniques in healing plants, animals and people. Touch with the nature gave me completely different attitude about life and I am more then grateful for every moment of that valuable experience. I was never sorry because I left my home town and replace it for village life.

Altough I had to live my land I knew, without any doubt, that everything what I had done there, I would do it again. My passion for working on land never ceased.

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New garden is in preparation

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Last 3 years I did not have my own garden and I missed that terribly. In the meantime, I moved to the beautiful Adriatic coast, where I always dreamed to be. My wish about land and garden will be definetely realized, just on another place: my boyfriend and me just started to create organic garden - on one small island in Adriatic Sea - where he inherited the land and where is no real farmers around... nobody keeps animals there and there is no toxins in use.  My wish will be fulfilled on the right place this time.  The funniest thing is, that on his property is also one beautiful old (stone) house waiting for renewal - so all experience I gained on my property will be put in good use!

Paths of the human life are really mysterious - but dreams can get true, on one way or on the other, sooner or later.

Now I feel fulfilled again - human heart can be truly happy only when it is in harmony with nature.

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