We did not forget the history that the hayrack was and is still carrying in itself.
The only trace we have found was the red sign written on the horizontal beam. It lead us back in time when the hayrack was serving it’s primary function. But it wasn’t all so easy. We were mislead by »two« separate numbers that we couldn’t connect to the names below them. With a great help from mister Janez Jereb we discovered this and many more.
Inscript on the horizontal beam
The hayrack was built in 1868. When writing the first number the tradition was to add flipped and tilted letter »S«. The reason for that is unknown. Name »Tine« on the left is probably the name of a carpenter, name »Gregor« on the right is the name of the hayrack’s owner. Number »6« besides owner’s name stands for house number of the homestead in Sedej valley – Opale 6.
Graphical display of inscription process
Until 1855 the owner of the homestead Opale 6 was mister Jakob Lazar. Because of that the house name was »Pr’ Lazar«. With his wife they had 7 children but none of them inherited the homestead. This is the reason why Gregor Cigale from Mrzli vrh (house name »Bartelov«) bought the homestead. In 1868 he had built the hayrack which was one of the two biggest hayracks ever built in Žiri.
»Lazarjev or Bartelov« hayrack got it’s next owner Jakob Trček when Gregor Cigale died. It’s third owner after the nationalization process in 1947 became Žiri agricultural cooperation. The house and barn were demolished due to bad condition but the hayrack stayed until this year’s demolition.
Memories live forever with preservation. By transformation of hayrack’s discarded wood into windows they will live in another »homestead« and create new stories for generations.
Special thanks to mister Janez Jereb for gathering and interpreting all the data.
