17-IV-1976.: New forest
This must have been the beginning of april, because on the slides the colors look a little pale. As per Franci's theory, full colors begin on 20th. So this was definitely not the 24th, as I initially thought.
The inheritance proceedings passed, with classical consequences. Granddad's brother and their mother plotted something, and got dad's older sister into it, so at court she spoke something else, not as the heirs initially agreed among themselves. Which turned into her quarrel against the others. I don't know what they promised her for this, but it ended up by all five (she, dad, tetka, auntie Janja and granddad's wife) inheriting equal pieces, and that I never saw this older aunt again, her children even less, only Jara appeared a few decades later, when all other personae dramatis of this production were underground.
So now we have these two pieces of land, about 100km from home, and don't know what to do with it, only that we'll be taxed as if we were making money on it. And then dad found out that there's a stipulation that land on which new forest is planted will be untaxed for 20 years. uncle Staja found someone who'd have so many saplings, and it took us two weekends to plant two forests. Not much of a problem, the soil was light, just half dry, easy to dig, and we even had water on the spot. The only trouble was the smaller plot, which was a bit farther away, and behind a very thorny and tall hedge, we barely managed to get in there. Who knows when did grandpa till that plot last time.
That other plot is either on the far left hill on this picture, or the next one left, I have no idea, been there only once.
The other problem was that, yes, it's easy to dig a hole and put a sapling in it, but that needs to be done 2800 times. It took us two weekends, as far as I can remember (... 4 words...). There was only eight of us one day (when Anica and Danica were helping), and six the rest of the time, among which only three were peasants of some experience, while the rest of us were just skilled enough for an afternoon radnaakcija. The first plot we did in a day, now this second one was more steep and much larger. I don't remember whether we nighted anywhere - I have two sets of shots, first a black and white, with part of it up the hill at work and part down by the river, at the karaula (border guardhouse - though it doesn't make much sense, the border was 2km away, on Sava, why here? perhaps because of the railway).
We ate camping style, now whether we carried a barbecue or cold cuts from home, can't see on the shots. Also, the sitting by the karaula was only once, probably before we scouted the area up there, at „the old house“, as my grandgrandfather had a house there, and the well still held water, even though it was almost at the hilltop. After that we moved everything up there, would just spread a cloth on the grass and breakfast from it. For lunch we took out the little camping table and the chairs. uncle Staja even improvised a bench from the neatby younger accacias - he's a carpenter, he knows how, and always keeps a set of tools in the trabant. It was much better up there, this meadow by the karaula is by a busy street, every now and then someone comes by, says hello and takes notice of who we were, what we were doing, what eating.
At some point I discovered that we miscalculated the cigarettes, ran out. Zajač is an air spa, the air is sheer pleasure, and smoking even more so, so we reached for the pack more often. So we went for mom's Filter Jugoslavija, which is, if I can have a say, krdža**. That day, in that air, it felt like twice as expensive as the 57 we smoked then. Incredible.
By the lower edge of the field there are three krajputaš - by-the-roader, practically menhirs. These were raised to those who couldn't be buried, so here don't lie my grandgrandfather and his two brothers, who all perished between 1912 and 1915. One died in 2nd Balkan war, one on Kosovo during the retreat over Albania (as per dad's story, in the infamous village Žur, where they were fed and poisoned, then, once dead, stripped of all posessions), and the third in the blue crypt (those who lived to see the Adriatic but didn't survive to meet the allies on Corfu).
We tied the tools to the roof rack, business end in front, to cut the air. One did get the impression that the škodilak ran faster.
To reach this piece of land we had to drive to the old railway station, then follow the little river for 2km (the road follows the track of the once railway track). Along the way we pass the house of auntie Janja, and there may be others who may spot us as we pass the village center, so within an hour or two anyone relevant knows we arrived an it's inevitable that someone'd accidentally walk by (yeah, right, this is not even a street, there's only this zigzagging horsecar rut), to harvest some gossip material.
Which was fine this time, we came expecting full attention, there's grandpa's wife on several pictures, but for future visits, dad remembered a shortcut, which climbs the same hill from the other side - a bit confusing, but actually shorter. We'd leave the car near the hilltop, and had to walk some 80m through the existing accacia forest, which belonged to tetka anyway. So nobody knew when we came.
This is top of Kneza Miloša, and Takovska is going down from the other side, this is the top of Terazijski ridge. Out of half a dozen traffic fines I paid in the first fifty years of driving, two happened on this intersection.
Obviously, dad was at the wheel so I could take my time to concentrate, lean elbows on knees*, aim, take the shot, be absolutely still for a few seconds. And look, not shaken at all. And there's a similar shot through the right window, a couple gazing at a shop window.
Ver the next twenty years dad tried to sell this several times, and every time some relative would intercept the prospective customer and sell him some cockamamie story, enough for the guy to get cold feet. The likely suspects would be grandpa's wife, his surviving brother, and auntie Janja, but then there's no evidence. Danced this some 4-5 times and gave up. We still own that.
This picture is unrelated, unless I count it being on the same film as the rest of this.
Another half [of a pig] came via trade union. This time, just as it happened in 1972, dad found some majstor butcher from the slaughterhouse, and the guy came, carved it, got paid, we put everything in the freezer, won't go to waste.
----
* I know it's „my hands on my knees“, which is completely superfluous, can't do anyone else's in a car... well, okay, but that wouldn't be text for here.
** untranslatable, it's a specific word, meaning „the worst kind of tobacco around“, or „if you smoke that, that's a sign how low you fell“
Mentions: Anica Tešić, auntie Janja, Danica Tešić, Franc Bauer (Franci), Jara, majstor, radnaAkcija, škodilak, tetka Mima, trabant, uncle Staja, Zajač, in serbian