Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Modern Ukraine. Life in the Ukrainian village. My mother's garden #ukraine" video.

  1. That's a massive garden for one person. How many times a week does she have to water? My garden is about a tenth of that size and it takes a couple hours of work each day. All the marigolds really do produce a natural insecticide. Does she still cook with wood like it appears the neighbor does? A pension of $50 a month doesn't leave much left over to buy appliances like washing machines. This reminds me of the village in Slovenia that was in the same state. My late wife's relatives live there, and all of them have large gardens like this. During the Tito era, the state spread factories out to the villages so an invasion couldn't wipe out all the industry at once. The village had a chair factory that employed about 75 workers so the village was able to maintain a population of about 350. After independence in 1991, the factory no longer got subsidies like it did in the communist era. The machinery was old, and the chairs were very poorly made. The factory went out of business by 1996 and all the men had to try to find jobs in the surrounding villages. Last I looked, the population is down to about 100 and the village is slowly dying.. Most the sons and daughters of the mostly pensioner population still come out from the city to plant and tend the gardens so they can get good quality fresh vegetables. The produce sold in supermarkets is not good quality, and the kids were used to better.
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  2. Does she just use a watering can or does she pressurized water so she can use a hose? That's a huge garden to water by hand. We in the US so easily forget all the things we take for granted - running, clean water, electric power, and machinery like washers. I worked on a run of the river hydro project for nearly a month in Nepal. The 5 megawatt turbine was able to supply enough power for one bulb per house in a village of 400 that had never had electric power before. The people of the village did most of the work, and some of them, particularly the older ones, sat and stared at that one bulb for hours. This was one time I really did kiss the ground when I got back.
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  3. My grandma still had her water well in the backyard that was very similar to the one your video. Even though the water district had laid water pipes to her area and she had pressurized water in the house, she still only drank the water from the well. It tasted weird to me when I was you son's age, since I was used to chlorinated city water. Unfortunately, she passed on in 1993, and I've never been back to the old home place since it was sold shortly afterwards. I'd like another taste of that well water if it still exists to see what it tastes like now that I've got some years under my belt. The one thing I do remember was how cold that water was, even on a hot summer day. It must seem like traveling across generations when you go back to Michigan from the Ukraine.
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