WOODCUTS 3: Simple aspirations

	*Simple aspirations* In the early days of Rainbow Valley, when a committed group had been established, I came across this backlit scene with my camera. Most of the group, except me, took turns milking the cow. The cream was separated the next morning with a separator that had to be turned by hand, which someone had hunted up out of a farmer's shed before I arrived. When there was an excess of milk there was a small group processing it further. There was yogurt, soft cheese like cottage cheese and hard cheese. The whey went to the pig (and the food scraps). The hard cheese was pressed into a wheel of about 20 cms across.
	This was hardly a "wheel" of course. When I was small, living in the city of Rotterdam (Holland) there as a little cheese shop a couple of doors further from us. This shop was full of shelves with cheese wheels of 50 to 60 cms across. Old and new. Old cheese with cumin seeds I liked the best. Eggs where also sold there. They were stored in a basket on the floor. I remember there was an incident with my little brother that caused him to cry and cry. "Hij brulde moord and brand". That expression translates as: "He yelled murder and fire". When I asked my Mum much later why, she could remember. He had stepped back (he was about four) against the basket and fallen into it. And the people in the shop were all laughing. The shop lady did not even want to get paid for the broken eggs. She did not have such a good laugh in years. Eggs had only recently come off ration cards. It was the early fifties.
	Sorry about this digression. Back to simple aspirations. They were to live a simple self sufficient life on the land for most of us at that time. We had not found out what that entailed. We had enthusiasm and a feeling of rightness: life in the concrete jungle just could not be healthy. There had to be something better then that. *We did not just want to turn back the clock.* *We were going to find it by trying.* *...we hoped. At least that is how I thought.*