Sztuka, rolnictwo i dążenie do samowystarczalności (napisy EN, PL)
Why did people survive under communism in Poland? Because there were small farmers. They were the ones who produced illegal meat, they had the vegetables and fruits, and somehow made due. Today there are no farmers anymore, there are producers. It doesn't pay to play with small farming like me, because it takes a lot of time. I am an artist. I am a sculptor, painter and graphic artist.
I do a job that I love, that I like. As time and energy allow, I am also a farmer, which I am very happy and proud of. We are on my 7 hectare plot. We are in Opinogóra.
This is northern Mazovia between let's say Warsaw and Olsztyn. Opinogóra is a very touristic place associated with the Krasiński family. There is the Museum of Romanticism, there is a large park and I am lucky enough to live in an old forester's lodge. My parents bought it in the late 70's and those were the Depression times. There was nothing here, they did everything from scratch.
My father had to build, clear everything. My parents were self-sufficient, they were farmers. Those were such fun times when we still had lots of friends and neighbors. My parents did a great job. I was convinced that this knowledge of agriculture would be of no use to me in life, that the times would be so convenient that I would probably run off to the city somewhere and not think about it.
And what happened? God laughed at those plans. And good. For me as an artist, this place does a job, because I am in the park every day for a walk with my dog. It's a museum of Romanticism here, so this Romanticism has some influence on my work.
So I feel damn good here. I've always wanted to be an artist. As if there was no other option.
And this is a great example to show the mess. You have a tractor? - Yes, I have a tractor. Okay, so here's your studio. - Yes. Jesus. Yes, I also paint a lot of things for churches - very serious, large sacral works. Here we have the sacred and here is the profane.
My day looks different than the average person's day. Because I sleep a lot. I need to sleep. For me, sleep is the most important thing. So I'm rather a night owl and I love working at night. No one is disturbing me.
I have peace and quiet. It's a kind of meditation to figure things out by yourself, and it's more than a passion. This is my lover, art. What you surround yourself with, what you eat.
This has an impact on creativity and is also an inspiration in a way. I feed the farm with the money I have from paintings, and the farm feeds me. Tell me why self-sufficiency is an important topic for you? We have chickens, we have milk. We don't actually go into the store.
But I have a lot of free time. As an artist, I earn and finance this farm, and I also have a lot of time to develop it. Why not? If I have such great conditions, you'd have to be a fool in my place not to take advantage of it. Here we have an exemplary tomato plantation, which we did very well, because I brought soil from the peat river. Two big trailers full of soil. Because underneath it there is a layer of clay, because we are generally on a sand mound.
So that's why there was a basin made of clay, so that the water wouldn't run away. And damn, that pays off. Now tomatoes have, see, they touch the ceilings. There was so much fruit here that we are shocked. Come on, I'll show you the chicken coop. - How many hens you have? I don't know how many there are - about 30 hens.
The moment COVID appeared, I started to panic. The first thing I did was build a chicken coop. I bought 100 chickens. I just knew it was going to be dark days ahead. And I had to survive somehow.
The hen works like a grinder, it processes everything, composts, it eats weeds, it eats grass, various herbs from the garden, it eats parasites, it eats worms in the orchard. So it cleans things up, generally. And besides, you know, broth is a panacea for all diseases. I can't imagine Sunday without broth.
And every day you have eggs, and in the egg you have everything. I will never get tired of daily scrambled eggs. It also gives you that, you know, sense of security that you have a steady supply of food.
I planted Jerusalem artichoke here. A brilliant plant that does not need to be stored, because it copes well even at minus 30 degrees C. It looks like a potato, but has the advantage that you can eat it raw. And it tastes like sunflower seeds. Want to try? Are you brave enough? During the Great Famine, people survived because they cooked roots and nettles.
I also read about the fact that Jerusalem artichoke also saved people from hunger during the war, and not everyone knows what it is. I have never been an optimist about the future and this system we live in is going to slow down sooner or later. People are aware that in the countryside life will go on somehow. In the city, from one day to the next, the store shelves will be empty. Panic will set in. But in the countryside not much will change.
This is my garden. Now friends are helping us pick grapes. I can't, because the TV crew came. So I have an excuse... I hate picking grapes. Do you work in the garden every day? I don't work there at all. Volunteers do the work. You know, these are not farmer's hands.
These are the hands of a painter, not even a sculptor. The work is mainly done by volunteers. Adam finds volunteers using internet barter apps where travelers offer to work for free in exchange for room and board.
I promised myself that I would travel a lot in my life, and I have traveled a lot. I have traveled around the world and from time to time I have such urges to go somewhere. On the other hand, so much of the world comes to me that actually sitting on my ass in the kitchen I have the impression that I am traveling. People come to me, and it introduces such a traveling atmosphere to my home. That's how I meet those needs.
We are now exactly at the roundabout. This is a place of relaxation for volunteers. Here too. And here is where they work. We have a granary. A very important thing - compost - if not the most important thing. There is one greenhouse, there is the second, third, and fourth. In this one I have peppers and in the other three are tomatoes.
And we over-did it a bit this year, because last year we just didn't get tomatoes, and this year there is we just have tons of tomatoes. Tons - in the field, too. We over-did it. We don't sell them at all. We do not have such a developed infrastructure.
But will you store them? Yes, we will. You know, or the volunteers will eat them. If you have seven people for dinner, you know, the food goes fast. Nice boat. Yes, it currently serves as a water tank. And let me tell you this, these are illegal tomatoes. It turns out that tomato seeds are not allowed to be sold.
Only seed "collectors" can buy seeds. This is a bit of a sick situation. But the tomatoes are fantastic. Why has this year been so good for tomatoes? You know what, we discovered natural fruit seed sprays. There is such a large amount of strange fungi and bacteria in the air that these tomatoes get sick, so without spraying you can't grow anything. Last year they probably failed because we didn't spray at all and they got sick. And now we've discovered organic spraying, so we've always been one step ahead of the disease.
And that's why we have a plague of tomatoes. We don't know what to do with them. So you don't work here at all? Generally it's your wife and volunteers, right? Yes, I only come for consumption. Weeding, planting, harvesting.
These things wear me out. If it wasn't for the volunteers, we simply wouldn't be able to cope. One volunteer caught me with a tomato and told me "I work, you eat." That's perfect! I would like to try. Take, take.
Whichever one do you want, except the little round ones, or they'll burn you. Delicious. You know, I've already forgotten what peppers taste like in the store. I recommend forums on facebook, there you can borrow seeds. For collection purposes only.
Generally, from a distance, it looks like a disaster, but when you look closely, you see that some vegetables have survived these weeds. We're going to the goats. I have 6 goats and I suffer from "goat disease", which makes you want more and more of them.
We came back from vacation and everything was all overgrown. I thought, shit, I've got one mower, two, a third - a tractor with a mower. I said damn, I can't keep up with the mowing. We bought the goats so things won't get overgrown.
It's also very nice to have milk. This is the breed - Anglo-Nubian goats. This breed gives the purest milk. Their smells like cream, it doesn't smell like a goat.
And the goats are very friendly to people. We have really a lot of guests. We have an agro-tourist space, we do some workshops for children, so the goats are doing a kind of job. And I dream of making cheese.
I don't have enough goats at the moment, but who knows, maybe in the future there will be more. And you have this pond... Disaster. You know, when I dug this pond two years ago, I was hoping there would be water. Even in summer, there was quite a lot of water. You can't see it, but there are water tanks underground, so in the summer,
if it rained, I would a pump the water into the tanks. This container is connected to the entire network, so as soon as even a small amount of rain drops, I have about 8 cubic meters of rainwater for watering, which also gives me a great sense of comfort. This water was used to water the vegetables, but otherwise it would be misery. We see such a progressive drought. You know, little by little, it's getting worse every year. Indeed, I've noticed that our Europe is suffering desertification. Do you know other farmers in the area? You know what, I have the misfortune of being surrounded by two large farmers.
There is nothing worse. After dusk, that field glows with chemistry. I don't use any chemicals, so see how it looks.
It's a disaster. Maybe it's a shame for the average farmer. But I am allergic to things that are sprayed, sterilized - things that are on supermarket shelves. I am unable to find anything except maybe yogurt. I don't like anything from shops. Because it makes you sick? - I get these spots on my skin right away. My parents used to make deli meats and I remember eating it for years, we didn't buy meat from the store, and one day I tried some kind of average sausage somewhere.
And I immediately sensed things that there are some fillers in the sausage, some kind of flour, some groats, some strange liquids and actually there is not much meat. It's the same with any product. I consider it a bit of a blessing, because it allows me to produce my own food. I make my own alcohol, because alcohol also gives me some strange spots on my skin. So I produce everything myself.
And I have never reacted badly to it. Big farmers all around me. Desert. Very good soil actually, so all the trees were cut down. You know, when you see it, you have open lands across the horizon. And I am surrounded by bushes, trees. There is a great wealth of life here.
And all those hamsters, squirrels, mice, foxes, hares. All these are hiding in my bushes, forests, meadows. All these little animals take shelter here with me. Do you see the deer? Deer, and there's another deer. What do you do here? - You know what, I have this place for parties. Here we have a bonfire and this is a place for workshops and parties.
A company can come and chill out, a school can come, and we also spend weekends here with volunteers. A wood-fired pizza oven, but it is an agricultural device. We can attach this stove to the tractor and go to the neighbor and bake him a pizza. Pizza from such an electric oven, and wood-fired pizza, smelling of ash, wood, herbs. Incomparably better. And you live with your wife and son, 12 years old, right? Yes, I live with my best friend from college, who is my wife, and maybe that's why we haven't had a fight yet.
From this - take seeds, this is my seed pepper. It's super. It's small, but it's very good. Do you want to be in the movie Frank? We have Francis. He's a twelve-year-old who can drive a tractor, he can drive a car, He can charge the tractor battery if it doesn't want to start. He can do many, many practical things that his peers are not capable of. He can milk a goat, he can feed animals.
You have a lot of contact with nature and animals? What did the goat do with you today? She was hugging me. Cotton is a goat. She is the youngest and she loves to cuddle. I hope I don't go to jail. Franek is the youngest home brewer. He can brew his own beer.
What are we making? German wheat beer. Wheat beer? Okay. This is the brewery, right? It all starts with barley malt. It looks like this. Must be a special kind of brewing barley. I'd have to sow it myself but I don't really want to.
I make ales, I make Belgian beers. I make a stout, which is rare in the market, and I make a Baltic porter. It's two or three years old, so there is no foam. And it's strong. I was fascinated by Trappist beer and started to check if such an excellent beer could be made at home. Well, it turns out that you can do it.
I make all my beers refermented. All such corporate beers are artificially carbonated with carbon dioxide. I do it naturally. So yeast eats sugars, producing carbon dioxide. It is thanks to this that we have foam, we have carbonation in beer and such a complete taste.
Is this wine? Yes. These are wines from the fruit of this summer. Does it have to wait? Is it ready? You can say they are ready, but they are also ready to be bottled and so we will bottle them. This is another wine here? Yes, this one is blackcurrant. And it's ready. It is now ready for bottling. Recently, I had a bicycle trip from Warsaw, about 10 people. It was all of a sudden. Some friends want to show the studio to their friends and I can't imagine accepting them only with tea, So I always offer my best and everyone is happy.
Now is the grape season. Yes, we are going to make a river of wine. The grapes are Rondo and Pinot Noir. And I still have white Bianka wine and a couple of dessert ones, but I don't remember.
Oh, I also have Concord, but these are the varieties that withstand freezing. Having a vineyard at this altitude can be a disaster. We don't have enough sun, but the climate is changing so much that from year to year I have better harvests, better yields, and the grapes are getting more and more sunshine. This year I had such a large harvest that the goats ate some of it. I let the goats nibble. When did you start to be interested in making your own wine, beer, ciders? We have to go back to the difficult times of communism.
My dad had a car accident and while lying in the hospital he met a doctor who told him, sir, you should make alcohol yourself at home, not buy it, because it is actually poison on the shelves in the store, not alcohol. And that's the truth. Why do I get a hangover from alcohol from the shop? I've never had a hangover from my own alcohol.
There is no chemistry there, there is no potassium sulfate, which producers add. It is used to stabilize the alcohol, so that the alcohol does not explode in the bottle, etc. But it also destroys the liver, all cells in the body, the brain.
I don't add any chemicals. The only thing I add is yeast and I give my wine proper conditions, i.e. the right temperature, proper storage. When you enter the store, you buy goods completely sterilized from any life of bacteria, yeast, fungi.
It is made to stand on the shelf for years, because it is profitable. The intestines need these organisms to digest, and what most people now buy in pharmacies are remedies for indigestion, for excretion. They buy probiotics because the food on the shelves is empty, it's sterilized. And what's this place? This is my mini gallery.
Now I'm in before an exhibition. And you know, it's rare for me to have full walls of paintings. A bit like Picasso. No, like Chagall! Like Chagall. There are a lot of topics from my life here. Rural climates associated with freedom, love, dreams and desires.
Full of colors. And what is that? That's cider. Cider goes through a stormy fermentation - it's a very low percentage apple wine, you might say. How many apples can you eat? And now we have a great season for apples.
I don't remember such a large harvest, so it has to be stored somehow. So why not make cider? And what is that? It's for pressing cider. Here you put the ground apple and we're going to press. Okay. Are we going apple picking? We're going apple picking! I want to make two hives in the future, connect a sauna and do apitherapy.
In the season, I can drive to the pond and jump straight from the sauna to the pond. If we are looking for some intimate place in the forest, we park in the forest where we want. Is it open? Can I see? It is.
So it's the same with the brewery. They say you don't need to build a brewery to drink beer, but it turns out you do need to. I have a slightly different philosophy. I like having my own of everything. I have an agritourism farm, so a lot of guests come to us.
It's an asset - to have your own spa. Besides, it's a wood-fired sauna, so it's a completely different vibe. You can make yourself some herbal infusion, some massage. Why not take advantage of it? It's free at the moment. After 2 hours, after 3 hours of sitting here, lying down, when I get home I'm so relaxed. Everything goes away, muscles warm up, I sleep like a baby, I fall asleep in the same position and wake up in the same position.
This is where I keep the goats for now until I build them a real nursery, but I think it's pretty cozy here. Simple design, very fast. There are foxes, but everything is fenced and quite safe.
Wow, so many apples! I have a lot of apple varieties. This year they are super sweet and you can't let them go to waste. This used to be an old orchard, but all those trees have gone to hell.
We plant new ones in place of the old ones. Luxury. And what is that? Mill.
Okay, now I'm going to throw the apples in here and we'll just grind them up, right? It will be loud. Now we have this minced apple. And what is that? This is a filter bag. So how it's leaking down slowly. But we still have to make some apples. The juice is flowing all the time now.
What's next? Then you add yeast. This is the whole philosophy. There is wine yeast or special yeast for cider, and you control the temperature, you check the baling, i.e. the amount, the amount of sugar. That's a topic for another video, but it's not complicated. And what is that? There is a car jack. See how much juice.
Incredible. This is real DIY. For cider, which is on the Polish market, they will add the maximum allowable amount of pyro potassium sulfate, which is a poison for the body. It's a pity, because Poland is famous for apples.
Too bad we can't make good cider. My cider will last a maximum of one year. It never lays around that long, because there were too many people who want to drink it. It's flowing all the time. The molecular structure of the squeezed juice under the microscope looks completely different than the juice from a juicer. So this method is the best.
Generally people don't know what to do with so many apples. Nobody tries. Maybe they don't feel the need, or maybe they don't have the knowledge. But I'm sorry when I'm driving a car and see a lot of fallen apples under the trees. My heart bleeds because I would take them all and grind them up.
I'm surprised people don't do this. I think we're better than the UK when it comes to the conditions for making cider, and we don't. Almost done. We actually only buy bread and butter because we have everything. We have milk, we have eggs, we have cheese, vegetables, fruit. We aren't able to eat it all ourselves.
We pray for time to preserve this food. That's the stage we are at. How to preserve it as long as possible? You can definitely say that this is an organic farm. Certainly permaculture to some extent.
But does the nomenclature matter? For me, not at all. Honestly, I don't like to call myself a farmer. I'd prefer the word survivalist. Someone who...
Prepper? - Also no. The word prepper reminds me of the Americans building nuclear bomb shelters. If the time comes, I am a Catholic, I try to go to confession regularly and I have peace with everything. Whenever death comes, I'm prepared, I'm ready, and in fact, why should I be afraid of death? We are only here for 5 minutes. We are guests. Nothing to get too excited about. Here, during the First World War, there were trenches, and during the Second World War, there was also a front.
And maybe we'll be surprised when the front will pass here again. Do you want to live here the same way until the end? I am very happy where I live. I am very happy. Give us a like, share, comment and of course subscribe to see more videos about interesting farms in Poland and of course about interesting artists in Poland. Adam, where people can find information about your activities.
Search for my name on the internet. You will surely find me. Welcome. Thanks Adam! See you later! The pleasure is all mine.
2022-12-12 04:18
