Farmer Of Austria (1957)

[Music] my name is agar Michael agar and this is my wife our oldest son Herman is married now so is our oldest daughter Clara but there are others still with us on the farm there is Malita and Bruno and Herbert and Lily and Heidi and karlie karlie is not yet much of a farmer but then he has time it is a big family for Austria in these days we live on a farm on a slope of the Alps in southern Austria Austria is many things it is a beautiful land of lakes and mountains it is a land for vacations and tourists it has Vienna and history it has the valley of the Danube River which has made Austria a crossroad of Europe since earliest civilization it is an industrial nation of the 20th century I don't know much about that part of Austria this is what I know something that I learned from my father and that my children learned from me it is the end of summer the days are long and the work is hard and many hands are needed to bring in the harvest these are the oats that will feed our horses during the long months when our pasture will be covered with snow I hear that more and more farms in Austria have machines to cut the grain and to do the other heavy work machines are expensive my neighbors and I farm mostly with our hands and the strength of our horses we have some machines of course even if it is horse power that usually runs them without this one it would take us a week to dig our potato crop but most things we still do in the ways that our fathers did on a farm everyone must work there is the fruit to harvest there are the horses to care for Malita milks our six cows the milk brings us fifty thousand shillings a year which is about two thousand dollars the children care for the chickens which are another source of income Herbert and Heidi have a special job this time of year they take eggs and milk to sell to the people vacationing at the lake summer visitors are good for us and good for Austria many foreign tourists come and spend money here money which Austria can use to buy materials and other goods that it needs from other countries you can be sure that not everything on our farm - we sell or feed to our animals we grow most of the things that go to fill our stomachs this is a kind of dumpling that my wife is making she puts in poppy seeds and sugar and mixes them with chopped beets and cottage cheese all but the sugar comes from our farm then she wraps them in a jacket of dough house noodle we call them in English fist dumplings there is no end to what can be stuffed in them meat fruit vegetables if you have ever lived in a farm house you will know that you live in the kitchen ours is a good kitchen big as a kitchen should be soon autumn will be here the time when a person appreciates the warmth of the big wood-burning stove the corner of the kitchen is where a family does many things but most important where a person takes care of that empty feeling that he has after working all morning at the harvest another part of our living comes from the woods on our farm lumbering in Austria is strictly controlled by a government Forester who decides which trees we can cut and how many he makes sure that new trees are planted to protect our land from erosion and to preserve our valuable forests lumber from these forests is Austria's largest exporter even though much of our best timber was cut by the Nazis during the war we leave the bark here in the woods to make humors and to keep the soil rich this was almost the last time our mayor Lisa called logs through the fields from the woods her cult I remember seemed to want her to play late that summer Lisa died and as we need two horses to work the farm we had to sell the court so we could buy another grown horse I took the coal to the horse market Infeld give him we met Clara my oldest daughter who had come down with her husband from their farm in the mountains to sell a yearling I was lucky to sell the court as there seemed to be more horses than buyers I celebrated by buying a new collar and bridle it is not true that the only horsepower on our farm is live horsepower this electric motor runs a machine that chops up corn plants leaves stalks corn and all it will make good feed for the cows when winter comes electricity is not one of the things that Austria need worry about there are great hydroelectric plants in the steep valleys of the Alps falling water is power to run machines whether the power is changed into electricity or used directly to run a mill as it still is in the higher valleys each year at this time when most of our crops are in we say goodbye to Melissa there is someone else in the family who needs her more than I do and she goes to help Clara and her husband live on a farm higher up in the Alps making a living there is not easy there are many things to do before the snow falls and not enough hands to do them therefore children are still too young to do the heavy work though they help where they can in this part of Austria we wash our sheep before they are sheared so the wool will be clean and white [Music] the day that Malita arrived was a day of sorrow in the little village near the farm the pine branch and black crepe that Clara was putting over the door marked the death of a fine old friend Joseph Cutler honored and loved in Clara's home and in the village he was laid to rest beside the church in which his ancestors had knelt since the 16th century [Music] each day work stopped in mid morning while Clara marked three crosses on the bottom of the loaf bread is the gift of heaven and is marked with the crosses of the three kings Caspar Melchior and Balthazar raw smoked bacon eaten with salt gives energy to work the long hard hours up at this altitude the grain and hay mature late and often the farmers have trouble getting it off the ground and into the barn before cold weather it is time to get my own hay into the barn autumn is short and the snow comes early there needs to be a good store of wood for the long winter when the children finally go back to school we know that autumn has come this is the fork Shuler the school where children go until they are 14 years old we are proud of Austria's famous educational system and Carl pyre is the schoolmaster who makes us proud of our school Christel pyre the school masters wife teaches needlework and knitting to the girls recess is probably the same all over the world we have school days and work days but also we have holidays to them and many of the dancers wear the costume that our ancestors have worn in this region for hundreds of years [Music] and then there is another kind of holiday for this even my boys get brushed and scrubbed and clipped behind the ears do not worry I will shave give me time this Sunday after mass there was a procession to honor the patron saint of our village [Music] this is our faith and this land this is our life [Music]