Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Pardubicky kraj

One of the more interesting, yet mysterious, artifacts at Vesely Kopec was this giant birdhouse, larger than a barrel. What's mysterious about it to me is that I can't understand what its use would have been. Maybe some farmers somewhere likely having small birds around, but I would expect that small birds wouldn't be for food. Obviously, they might have helped control insect pests, but birds themselves usually eat crops. Maybe a farmer on iPernity could clarify why a farmer would want small birds around, because as a non-farmer I'm stumped.

This masher (if that's the correct term) was to prepare preserves, if I'm not mistaken, but why make dried preserves? I'm not clear on that part. Someone who knows more about farming and/or old farm equipment could clarify this.

These are the trays in the kiln. Obviously, to avoid burning the fruit it had to be cooked slowly, so the flames (from a fire in the bottom of the kiln) were kept low, and as far as I know weren't supposed to make contact with the fruit..

While dried fruit is still popular today, before refrigeration with was more so, as it was used to hoard food for the winter. I'm not clear on all the specifics of why this was done, of course, given that the winter weather could have provided naturaly refrigeration for fruit, but before the railroads the fruit you harvested in the Fall had to last you until the next harvest, and drying works better for preserving fruit than any refrigeration short of freezing, even today. This building was where they prepared and dried fruit in a kiln.

This was my attempt at getting a cameraphone shot of the flax kiln, but lighting was a real problem. This kiln was actually loaded via a door out of frame to the right, perpendicular to the line of sight.

From the medieval period well into the 19th Century, flax was a common textile fiber, but in order to do so it had to be harvested from the flax plant, and then dried in a kiln. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax This cameraphone shot shows equipment for separating flax fibers in preparation for the kiln.

Although many Americans associate environmental conservation with modern liberalism, and sometimes hate it if they're of a conservative mindset, conservation has a much longer history elsewhere. Both the countries of medieval Europe and Japan in the same time period had extensive regulations on hunting and logging, and had gamekeepers and foresters to guard the country's natural resources. Back in the days before railroads and cars, they had to live in remote areas of the country and patrol their area on foot, and so they had cabins there. This was one of them, which makes an interesting and realistic addition to Vesely Kopec.

As you may have noticed in the previous photo, the hive shown was actually a building providing a frame for many smaller, detachable hives that can be serviced individually. This is a read view of them, as surprisingly the beekeepers preferred to service them indoors. I don't know how they liked dealing with a swarm of bees in a confined space (I've never seen this on a modern farm), but on the other hand most beekeepers I've met have no fear of their bees, with many claiming never to have been stung.

Beekeeping is widespread in Bohemia, and has been for centuries. This is less surprising when you consider that farming communities depend heavily on bees for pollination of their crops, and often bees are kept by farmers on the side (even today) to ensure an adequate supply of them. That doesn't just go for Bohemia, but America as well. However, the beekeeping display a Vesely Kopec seemed more extensive than usual. I only photographed some of what they had on display. I found this building especially interesting. Each of those boxes that you can see inserted into this building is one hive, and each can be serviced separately, with the option of removing each one and replacing it with another, if desired. It's also possible to service the hives from behind, inside the building (see the next shot). In addition to pollinating crops, obviously if you keep bees then you harvest the honey, and there are a number of other bee products that you can make from it. One of the most popular honey-based products in the Czech Republic is Medovina, or Mead in English, which is a sweet alcoholic drink popular historically with Catholic monks. In fact, some of the producers of Medovina today are still monasteries. It hasn't been so popular in America, but I've noticed it here and there on recent visits, so this may be changing with globalization.

These were some of the grindstones on display.

The gearing in the watermill was wooden, which was typical for the pre-industrial era (which is of course confusing, as watermills were some of the first mechanized industries, albeit a few centuries before steam power). The shafts operated the grindstones, if my memory serves. However, the cheese making equipment was also connected to this mechanism in a convoluted way, eventually (if I'm remembering correctly), connecting to it with a belt.

This plaque attempts to clarify the functions of the mill, but I still find it a little bit illogical to produce cheese and barley in the same place. It may have simply been practical to share a waterwheel.

You could say that this was a one-room farmhouse, except it wasn't. Rather, this room looks to have been one of several independent housing units. I was unable to get a definite confirmation of this, but this farmhouse appeared to have been built for several families. This room appears to include everything one family would need, including a rather large ceramic stove out of the frame to the right. The Catholic religious paraphenailia would have been typical for the time, as Bohemia, in spite of the Hussite movement, remained a predominantly Catholic country in the 19th Century.

This farmhouse, which doubles as a barn (it would have been built before modern health regulations), is quite large, and from the looks of it might have housed more than one family. It looks unremarkable from the outside, but I've included this photo to contextualize the next several, which are interior shots. There were actually two cows (if I counted them correctly) resident in the barn, although I don't know if they were for show, if they were pets, or if someone was really keeping them as farm animals. It tried to get some cameraphone shots of them, but the shots are too dark to post to iPernity.

This watermill is located immediately next to the farmhouse, and when it was in operation it would have produced cheese and barley (presumably barley malt).

This was another housing unit in the farmhouse, with a smaller ceramic stove.

This is the ceramic stove. I suppose putting it against the wardrobes would have had the advantage of warming up the farmers' clothes in the morning.

This is the builder plate just mentioned. Maybe you can figure out more of the history, if you know the history of stationary engines in the Czech lands.