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Осінь
Осінь
Old Lemkos used to say that autumn is the most important time of the year.
It requires double work and sleepless nights for the householder to prepare well for
the long Carpathian winter. At the beginning of September, the land was prepared
for sowing winter crops, which had to be well-rooted before winter. Plums, pears
and apples were dried in specially made kilns. It was an occupation for young
people on long autumn evenings, and on a well-moonlit night, one could hear
singing and joking in every orchard.
The mistresses used to dry mushrooms in kilns, which were collected by
shepherds when they grazed their cattle for a day. At the same time, young pine
and beech forests were used to bring "bedding" (dry fallen leaves) for cattle,
because there was not enough straw for that. From the forests, various types of
wood were brought (beech was the best) for heating homes and cooking. The wood
was cut and chopped mostly in the moonlight because there was other work during
the day. Flax was dried and washed, which required a lot of painstaking work from
stem to thread. But the biggest and hardest work was digging potatoes because in
the Lemkiv area they grew comparatively a lot of them.
Before frosts, fodder beets, melons, onions, garlic and other vegetables that
are afraid of frost had to be harvested from the field. And the last to be picked were
the carpels and cut cabbage, which had a place of honour in the Lemkos' kitchen.
For a family of five, three 100-kilogram barrels of cabbage were picked. During
Lent, it was eaten raw with linseed oil and onions.