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For those who question the value of field work, particularly those administrators who initially denied this travel authorization, here is the question: who would spend their free- and unpaid-time and personal money to study alpine farming, particularly cutting, tossing, gathering, and storing hay? Geographers who are not on vacation!

Geographers travel to understand the world. Though reading, traveling, and field research, geographers learn about environmental characteristics and cultural groups in specific regional settings to teach, research, and publish. Ultimately, all geographical understanding is based on field work, whether second-hand or first-hand -- the latter being more valuable to adequately assess the real meaning of the material and perceived worlds.

Photos top left to bottom right: reading a map; helping with haying; rowing to an historic island church; viewing alpine meadows above the tree line; discussing the finer points of making Italian coffee; getting insights from an older generation of Slovenian dairy farmer Simpson fund report: Part I Julian Alps Based on my six days of field work in the Julian Alps of Slovenia, I am working on the following themes: 1) wine region of Brda, 2) alpine dairy-hay farming, 3) early industrial town of , 4) beekeeping of Radovljica, and 5) mountain resort towns. I took 2,300 photos or 177 photos per day during my Slovenian and Venice trip. Source for the topographic maps and air photos: http://www.geopedia.si/#T105_x417154_y125658_s15_b4. No publication dates are given for the maps and air photos from this source. 1) Viticulture in the Brda region of western Slovenia next to Italy, centered on Dobrovo, is the foremost wine region in the country, famous for its light white Rebula. Grapes have been grown here since at least the 13th century. It is also famous for its cherries.

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The topographic map shows the wide spread of vineyards (green dot pattern), for which this region is famous. The large open green dots are fruit trees, particular cherries -- another regional specialty.

The air photo clears shows the high density of vineyards in the valleys with the uplands being in forests. This region was once covered with oak trees which was cut and sold to Venice, among many other places. The cleared area was then planted in vineyards.

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2) Hay structures in the Stara Fuzina-Bled region of northwestern Slovenia.

I spent six days studying small-scale alpine dairy farming in the Julian Alps, Slovenia. Some of the largest farms only have 10 milking cows and most of the valley lands in this mountainous region are used only for hay. Very little acreage is used for crops, such as corn and winter wheat. Whole families (men, women, and children) still participate in the hay harvest, from cutting, tossing, gathering, drying, and storing. Hay is stacked on single poles, in open-field hay-drying racks and hay barns, on hay-drying racks clustered near villages, or on farmstead hay-drying racks attached to barns and in cow-hay barns.

The various stages of cutting, tossing, drying, and gathering hay employ a wide range of hand-tools (scythe and natural wooden hay forks on the steepest and roughest slopes and smallest areas), hand- held machines, and small tractor equipment on the flattest land and largest farms, illustrated by the diagram.

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All hay is produced only from wild meadows with all the variety of plants, grasses, and wild flowers. Farmers here do no plant grasses for hay, such as clover and alfalfa, as they do in Wisconsin.

Many hay racks, regardless of their location in the village ecosystem, are no longer being used, rather they are used to store firewood and other things, but many hay racks are clearly still being used. Hanging hay on the racks requires hand labor: the hay must be handed-up to a person standing on the poles on which the hay is hung. Some of the dried hay is now being bailed in light green plastic bags. At higher elevations, grasses are no longer being cut and the hay racks are falling in disarray.

Two areas were examined in detail: Bled and Stara Fuzina A) Bled . South of Bled, hay-drying racks, called kozolci, reach densities of 37 per square kilometer – a most striking cultural landscape feature of the Slovenian alpine countryside. There is even an open-air museum of these racks (http://www.slovenia.si/culture/tradition/the-land-of- hayracks). For a detailed classification of the nine types of hay-drying racks, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayrack.

Hay-drying racks are primarily located near villages, either in the open fields or right next to villages. The number of racks ranges from single to several units in various configurations. Photos show single and double hay-drying racks.

The average Slovenian farm has 5.9 ha (15 acres). In contrast to most EU member states, the majority of Slovenian farms are rather small: with 84 percent of them (62,640) using less than 10 hectares (25 acres) of agricultural land and accounting for 47 percent of the cultivated land area of

Simpson Fund Report Vogeler 2015 P a g e | 5 the entire country. The number of agricultural holdings with 10 to 20 hectares (50 acres) was also remarkably small (8,350): this class accounted for 11 percent of all farms and covered 23 percent of the Slovenian agricultural land in 2010. Thus, the two smallest farm categories (under 21 hectares or 50 acres) accounted for 94 percent of all farms, using 70 percent of the cultivated land. Source: Euroastat, http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/File:Table1_Farm_Structure_key_indicators_SI_2000_2010.PNG, and Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, http://www.fao.org/3/a-ad270e/ad270e03.htm, (accessed 6/26/2015.) B) Stara Fuzina and the surrounding villages have the best preserved rustic, traditional villages.

hay barns in the fields hay barn next to farmhouse (black symbol)

The air photo shows the same area as the topographic map (above), at an elevation of 3,557 feet. Notice the many shades of green indicate different hay field sizes and shapes reflecting ownership patterns and various stages of uncut, drying, or harvested hay. Hay barns are concentrated in isolated valleys away from villages, where they reach densities of 38 to 79 per square kilometer, south and north of Bohinjska Bistrica for example. These isolated hay barns are another striking cultural landscape feature of the Slovenian alpine countryside.

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A close-up of a small area of the air photo shows seven hay barns whereas the same area (red square) on the topographic map (above) shows only three. I assume that the topographic map might be newer or less accurate then the air photo – I have no way of verifying this. Google Earth also shows seven hay barns for 2006.

3) Early industrial town of Kropa. The grey buildings on the map were used to make nails using water power to run the bellows and the hammers from the 14th to the early 20th centuries. A few factories continue to make metal screws. Hisotrically the region had lots of oak (for charcoal), iron ore, and water power from the Kroparica River to run the many forges. In its 18th-century heyday, the town had 50 blacksmith forge waterwheels. Over 130 kinds of nails were made, some of which were used to hold Venice together, and others for Swiss military winter boots. A blacksmith muesuem is now housed in one of the former wealthy forge owners.

4) Honey beeleeping in Radovljica. The Apiculture Museum is housed in the large red building (a former castle, then renovated into a palace and given a baroque fascade) on the town’s elongated square. The museum is famous for its painted frontal boards of beehives, called panjske končnice and shown below, which began to appear in the middle of 18th century. Simpson Fund Report Vogeler 2015 P a g e | 7

Templates for motifs were representations of sacral art, illustrated bible, icons, glass paintings, and graphic sheets. Today, all known motifs include over 600 various motifs. More numerous and older were the motifs with sacral content (mostly representing saints). Among the most common are Mary as the universal protector, also painted on the oldest known painted frontal board (dating back to 1758) and St. Florian. The group of secular motifs were composed of imaginary scenes (e.g. animals in human roles, scoffing at craftsmen, human faults), hunting scenes, historic themes (military scenes, historic persons) and scenes from everyday life.

Beehive painting, which was most prolific between 1820 and 1880, started to die away in the early 20th century. Painting on the frontal panels of beehives was a particularly feature of the Slovenian Alpine region and an indispensable part of Slovenian folk art. Beekeeping was important for local honey production but also for selling bees across Europe, indeed to many countries around the world.

Source: Apiculture Museum of Radovljica, http://www.muzeji- radovljica.si/4m_cebelarski/4cebelarski_uvod-en.html (accessed 6/18/2015).

5) Mountain resort towns of Bled and Bovec Bled emerge as a popular spa resort in 1855 when a Swiss medical doctor established an Institue of Natural Healing here. Soon elite tourists, such as royality and later political leaders like Tito, were attracted to the alpine sights of the lake, church island, and castle. Many villas still stand from this era. Bled is now the most visited tourist site in the country with the added attractions the Triglave National Park and Lake Bohinj. Yahoo Travel lists one of the World's 10 Most Beautiful Lakes, yet only about 550,000 over-night tourists came in 2015 to the whole country (http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/pregled-podrocja?id=66&headerbar=21, accessed 6/18/2015).

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Bovec, in contrast, has transformed itself into a modern-day, premier high-energy, action-packed nature playground: whitewater rafting, kayaking, dirt biking, hiking, and canyoning trips among high alpine peaks and the Soca River.