03-08-21


Very interesting from Macedonia. The beekeeper is a very nice lady.

BUT, neither The NY Times nor the New Yorker mentioned in their reviews that there is animal abuse, which ruined it for me. Well, almost.

A huge family of quasi-Gypsies moves in next to this lady & they have a herd of dairy cows. The family is totally hapless & it was horrible watching them separate the babies from their mothers in order to get the milk. A male calf was born & left to die on the ground. Its mother had stones thrown at her to keep her away from her baby. Other mommas were tied up & were going crazy trying to get to their calves.

50 calves later died because one of the family’s numerous sons didn’t grind the corn for the calves so they had nothing to eat. By the time someone noticed, they were dropping dead.

The family has a child every year - all very grubby. Their little girl almost drowned in front of us.

And, of course, there is the requisite mishandled tiny kitten.

All this took away from the charming story of the beekeeper who practiced a very good husbandry & respected the land.

Strangely not a single one of the chiefly positive reviews on IMDb mentioned any of this.
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