limousines in the willow valley

Sebastian has already lived in places as unusual as Big Brother’s House, but he really is only in Dorothy. And really happy – when he takes the little bull.

Sebastian Florek grew up in Olsztyn. He grew up in a time when he dreamed of a career on television or at least in business. And most about working abroad. Sebastian was different. Because already, before graduation, he knew that he did not want to live in London or in New York. Not even in Warsaw. Only in the countryside.

– It is the influence of the father, professor at the Olsztyn Agricultural University, today’s University. He was not such a theoretical professor as he was in books. We had animals on the plot. Already at the time of communism, the father in the garden had three pigs, mink and coward. He taught me how to deal with them. Well, and I saw how much money was from selling a pig and how much of a father’s profession.

– Sebastian probably already in childhood understood that in the country starved man will not die – his mom jokes. – He spent his grandmother’s vacation. One day she got up early to prepare breakfast and his home was gone. She went out into the yard, looked, and Sebastian stuffed things into his mouth. “What are you doing there?” She asked. Sebastian swallowed. Grandma watches and he eats snails.
He was then three years old. And even though it’s just a family anecdote, it probably has in it a grain of truth.

– Already in high school I was sure that I would live in the countryside. We talked about it on the Olsztyn-Berlin train. We traveled with currency to West Berlin – sell rubles and Czech crowns, which we bought in Olsztyn. The train went all night … We laughed that it was our cink train to own business. And when my friends told me what they would like to do career, I said that I would have a house in the countryside and 200 cattle. Laughed. That it was a joke. How is it? To live in the countryside?
But he was getting on the now well-deserved, but still brave 250, went to the girl and wandered around Warmia, looking for a place where you can put up a house.

– First we went to the Great Lakes, but it was not possible to find something. There were also houses that could still be saved. And beautiful surroundings, like those around Purdy … but it still seemed to me that not yet. Let me look for it. In the end, we came to this valley between Dorotow and Bartąg. Seemingly close to the city, but still far away, because the last kilometers rode on the sand, after the uproar, through the forest. Such a forest, which seemed to me the border between the whole world and this house in the valley.

House of Mr. Czajka

– Wierzba Valley. That’s what I called the place when I could, because it belonged to me. I was at the beginning of my studies. House and land cost ten thousand dollars. Today, it seems to be fun, then the apartment in the city center cost so much. He made half of the money carrying the currency behind the Iron Curtain. Half had to be borrowed.
borrow. – I was raised that way. My mother’s first words, which I remembered, were: “Integrity and work make people rich”. I believed in “education through work”. Maybe that’s why I managed to study? Because when colleagues from my year wanted to make careers as PGR directors, I patched holes in Dorotów and I brought there gossi chicks. Two thousand one-day-old goslings. I left, put on oats and sold to Indykpol. It was hard. From dawn to midnight with a break for lectures and exercises. But I managed.
It was enough to pay off debts.
The lonely house in the Valley belonged to the Warmia family of Czajków. But Sebastian found out much later, some spring after years, when old Czajka came to his homeland to see how things are in free Poland.

– Somewhere in the early 1970s, Warmians, aborigines, received passports and easier to go abroad if they agreed to leave their homes instead and give the land to the state treasury. Some farms found new owners, after others only old orchards remained among the fields taken over by PGRs. Mr. Czajka comes here sometimes. We wander in the woods, we watch roe deer, deer and wild boars, because here is a hunting ground closed and many animals. And I see him longing. That he probably would rather live here than in the big cities of the West …
Czajka worked 20 years in a Mercedes factory. Now, for old years, he can buy a luxury car for 25 percent of the price.
– You want, I’ll buy you that – he persuades Sebastian.
– And what a limousine here, Sebastian laughs. – Here I need a Land Rover. Well, he’s right. Mercedes can not do it when the snow is on the belt.

For the Golden Fleece

Geese was a business … But soon Poland has banned the breeding of oat geese (for the last month it is fed only with oats, thanks to which the fat from yellowish becomes colorless), the Czechs and Slovaks took over the business. He probably tried everything: first he had a sawmill. Without success. Then pigs, cattle and horses. Finally, he rebuilt the barn into agrotourism. He designed it himself. And he built it himself. The whole roof truss of a round living room with a fireplace, where you can sit out the night and see how deer approaching the windows at dawn. They like to sit the day in the willow thicket.
– I examined the quality of the soil and it turned out that it was great for growing. It grows for three-four years and then it is cut into a briquette. And I have deers and hares from all over the area, because it’s the best environment for them to raise their young. By the time he graduated, he was already a full-fledged host in the area. Well, they chose him to the Commune Council in Stawiguda.
– Then I found out that politics attracts me to the extent that I wanted … to become an MP. Then, in 2001 it was completely unrealistic. But from what do we have TV? Recruitment for the “Big Brother” took place. I read about this undertaking because in the West it was not a novelty. And I knew what the recruitment rules were, that it was about the clash of attitudes of people of different ages, with completely different experiences, education, and aspirations. I thought: “Why, how many farmers out there after the academy, geese breeders with experience in politics, even only local government?” And it turned out to me that nobody – he laughs. – That’s my plan. And this plan worked. I would not be able to afford an election campaign for the Sejm. “Big Brother” was my campaign.
Two years later, when a book about the phenomenon of “Big Brother” was being created, the authors came to Poland to write about the only case when someone entered the House to take part in real elections to the Sejm.
The left proposed to Sebastian the last place on the list. Nobody supposed that he would get to Wiejska.
I had the chance to check if I was a good MP, because it was not the media that liked me, but the voters verify it.
Fate has guided differently.

There were no corrigenda

Sebastian gets up before dawn. He must fire. Each stump is about 15 kg. You have to cut them, bring them and throw them into the hearth. Four times a day. There were no corrigenda
With this BMW he met a while earlier at the gas station. A kilometer away he noticed the car being shattered. He called an ambulance, the police, he began resuscitation.
In the evening newspaper he heard that in the accident he killed a man.
– Who knows how it’s going to end. The tracks indicated that he could avoid the head-on collision
– it’s the only time Sebastian is not smiling.
– There was no trace on my car, but it could turn out that I “brushed” it. I was not in favor of immunity. I went to the prosecutor’s office. The proceedings were slow, journalists did not leave a dry thread on me. It turned out that there is a video from CPN and you can see that we are going the same way, so I could not hit him. Nobody has made corrections, only one of the tabloids.
I came to the Valley. I got on my horse. I went to the forest. And I thought I was sick. That it was not for me. He submitted his resignation from the Deputies Club. He did not take part in the election.
– Maybe someone wanted? After all, journalists were following me, to put me on some face – he smiles again.
– I once felt two reporters. You can see that they never left Warsaw. I packed them into the Jeep and drove to the lake. I put the boys in the boat and showed me how to handle the rod. I am in this suit, straight from the office, they are straight from Warsaw. After twelve minutes one hit a four-kilo pike. It was their first time in my life …
And the article about Florek did not appear, you could see a different task than pike.

Luxury cows

In Warsaw, probably other newspapers were read in the Wierzby Valley. But now, next to the local Olsztyn newspapers, there is a heap of “Cattle Breeders”. And other agricultural newspapers. The youthful passion does not go out. Although the girl with whom he discovered the Wierzba Valley is no longer here.
– Girl … Well, she’d rather build a future in Western Europe. And in the Valley two sons were born – Maciek and Mikołaj. But then something broke between us. Well, it did not work out … so it looks like it – she smiles – that I’m still able to take it. They like sons when he brings them here. When they ride downhill together on sleds, they fight for snowball wars and talk about beavers. Beavers intrigue Nicholas. An unusual hobby for a six-year-old. Maybe he will also be a farmer?
– I have studies. And I know EU law well. And no one will tell me that farmers are better in the EU. If you want to get into all the rules, you have to sit on them so much time that you do not have to work anymore. I would not get a surcharge if I did not pay the company that deals with it professionally. And what is the farmer who has no studies to say? He was not in the Sejm? He has little land?
Today, Sebastian’s work is agritourism and limousines. He gets up before dawn to start heating. He devised the wood stove himself. If not, it would not be worth keeping the Wierzba Valley. But there are cons. You have to smoke. Each stump is about 15 kg. You have to cut them, move them and throw them into the hearth. Four times a day. Probably that’s why he’s in good shape.
And then cows. They live in Jedwabno. In the old barn after PGR. He travels from the house all over the woods. That is why it must be a land rover. No other would be able to cope in a tangle of forgotten roads.
– These cows are my real passion. Luxury cow for meat. The best beef quality in the world. They are called Limousine. It is winter now, so new calves are born all the time. I have Mr. Stefan’s help. He is a miracle worker. He probably received the most cow deliveries in all of Warmia and Mazury. And he can tame a bull.
Limousines have thick brown fur. And horns are sharp as a turn. There is no phlegm and indifference characteristic of cattle in them. They are hard and curious. And the bull is a real monster.
– He treats you, Stefan, and me like servants. I can stroke him, but not for more than a few seconds, then he shows me that he rules here.
– And I always have some treat for him, so how do you take cows out of the field, call him, get oats or carrots and then let him lead – Mr. Stefan always has something in his pocket that even bulls can not resist.
Sebastian takes the newborn on his hands. It’s like a wild buffalo. He gets to his feet after a quarter of an hour. After another trotting for mother. After four days, it is so heavy that it can not be handled.
– Do you see? – Sebastian has such a look in his eyes as a child who just got something done. For example, he ate a snail.
– Do you see? This is happiness. I was sitting in Warsaw in the Sejmowy Hotel and I asked myself: “Shit … did you want it?”. Maybe I did not have the courage to tell myself the truth. I was going to my Valley to ride on horseback, wood to chop down. Light up in the fireplace. Listen to rock music. Could I, like Mr. Czajka, leave here and be happy anywhere else?
We go through snow-covered hills to look at the Valley at sunrise. Frost creaks under the shoes. Roe deer running through a frozen pond. Somewhere in the willow bushes and they are now bearing cubs.
GRZEGORZ KAPLA