At peace with nature, at peace with yourself

He beautifies women in the morning, and hangs out with bees in the afternoon. There is always patience, love, and energy for plants, because the more you give, the more you will get.

In this case, the prize is healthy fruits and vegetables, grown in Vukotica near Danilovgrad.

Beautician Slavica Vukčević inherited her love for nature and agriculture from her grandparents, and she tries to pass on the tradition to her grandchildren, who are her greatest help in gardening.

She finds an escape from the speed of time in which we live in nature, however, she also tells "Vijesti" that we have neglected our Montenegrin beauty.

"I knew that I was traveling and exploring by car, because it seemed to me that as big as the hills were, there was nothing but that. But when you pass a big hill, you find a plain there and you are surprised. "Montenegro is really very beautiful, but you have to love nature in order to be able to preserve it and treat it properly," says Vukčević.

In her peaceful oasis, near Danilovgrad, she found peace and planted a garden to which she gives the same attention as, she says, she would give to a man.

"I like contact with nature, that what I'm going to eat grows as it grows. What you plant, you first give it a lot of love, and then when you take it in your hands, it is completely different than when you go to the store to buy it. That's when you know you're eating something healthy, that it's free of chemicals, that it has only what nature gave it," says Slavica.

If you take care of your plant, you will also take care of nature and the environment

According to Vukčević, man should have a different view of nature, because he has moved far away from it.

"We know little and even less know how to treat nature. "Only when something happens, like, say, a fire, everyone jumps, but it's momentary, they don't pay full attention," she says.

In order to change our attitude towards the environment, we ourselves need to be aware of its importance, but what is more important, that there is someone who will bring it closer to us and make us feel it as our own. Vukčević believes that this is the only way we can move forward and move from words to actions.

"Everyone likes to see beautiful landscapes, to enjoy the charms that only nature can provide, but when you look - few of them help her stay magical and healthy. If you take care of your plant, you will also take care of nature and the environment around you. We are all strong in our words and wishes, but when we need to put them into action, we somehow slow down," says Vukčević.

Chemicals that "feed" plants are prohibited at Slavica. He buys fertilizer from his neighbors.

"Everything is on a natural basis, when I enjoy cleanliness, why wouldn't I offer the same to the plants that have yet to grow? And with that, I also help domestic businessmen, which is always a better choice, because you know that the 'chain of good things' spreads further,'' she says.

However, when she travels to her property, she often sees litter, which she says bothers her a lot.

"People don't pay attention to it, but it's a big pollution. When the wind blows, I find many bags tangled around the aronia I grow. Believe that it happens that the plants suffocate from that bag and rot in that place".

Greater wealth is left in the countryside than found in the city

"Everyone says, 'Don't work, dig, go to the city, go to school, it will be easier to live there... But I personally think that it is more difficult to live there,'" says Vukčević and points out the hope that young people will return to the countryside.

However, he hopes that at least the middle generation will return, because "if they return, the young will also return".

In the part where she plants a garden, she says that this year a lot of gardens have been destroyed for planting, but her neighbors are a little older than her generation, and there are no young ones.

"Everyone thinks it's easy to come to the city and live there, but they don't know that they left more wealth in the countryside than they found in the city," she points out.

He sees the fault in this attitude of young people towards the village in the parents and the constant emphasis that children go to the city in the hope that they will find "their lucky star" there.

"If you think about it - you work in the summer, but less than you will work in a company. You'll work in the morning, if it's really hot, you'll get up earlier and work for a couple of hours, then you'll rest until around 17 p.m. and then you'll do a little work again in the evening. You are not working full-time in the garden, as you would be at work. When you take the whole year, you work for about 5-6 months in the countryside, because you have nothing to do in the winter", explains Slavica.

If she was "something in the state", she would do everything to make the conditions in the village better so, in her opinion, the young people would return to him. However, as she herself says, she also lived in the city and went to her grandmother's in the countryside, and it was always easier and more beautiful for her in the countryside.

"I think that a little is still given and invested in the village. People would certainly stay in the countryside, if only a little more was invested. My uncle has lived in the countryside near Podgorica all his life. Today, he works half a day, rests half a day, so he can get ready and walk to the city and enjoy himself just like the young people who live there - I don't see why he would come to the city to live," she says.

From work to the garden

He is at work until 14 pm and immediately after that he gets into his car and goes to his garden. Weekends are always reserved for Daljam, a place near Danilovgrad where he lives and goes to work in the mountains. Her day is short, so an extra hour would always do.

"I never get bored and it's not tiring. Yesterday I worked around the bees all day and in the evening I was so tired that I couldn't move, but this morning I would go to them again. Overnight the pain goes away".

Thanks to her love for the garden, every job is easier for her, and she also says that it relaxes her mentally.

"Yes, I get tired, but it's a healthy tiredness. Touching the earth, I can't explain it to you, some special energy..."

That everything blooms in the garden is evidenced by the cabbage that once grew to eight kilograms, one beet last year weighed 1,2 kilograms, a 200-gram carrot that had three fingers, and the total amount of potatoes was around 700 kilograms.

Everything that sprouts is found later in the kitchen. Homemade juices, jams, honey, vegetables and fruits are a mandatory part of Vukčević's cuisine.

"I don't have enough time to plant a bigger garden and distribute it, but there is enough for us. The most important thing is that your loved ones and you yourself eat healthy. And how healthier than my personal contribution to it?", she asked herself with a smile.

We can always create ourselves, we don't have to buy everything

In addition to working in the garden, Slavica has many hobbies, because she is a "very curious person" by nature.

"I like to try everything, to see how something looks, how a person can create it himself, so that he doesn't have to go and buy everything. I make brooches, picture frames, but for my soul... I knit a little sweaters, I make my own honey".

However, she always had a garden, sometimes with flowers, and sometimes a small agricultural one.

"When we moved from Stara Varoši, the lady who took care of her property, and now mine, planted hydrangeas, lilacs, daffodils, tulips... I was much younger then and I thought 'Oh, these peasant flowers', because my grandmother had it in the village. Then I took it all out and planted modern flowers. However, none of that worked. Spend a lot of money on seasonal flowers, which last for a month or two, and may fail or wither. For two or three years I struggled with those modern flowers and then I pulled them all out and put back those peasant flowers", she recalls with a smile.

Her favorite flowers are tulips and lilies, but she dedicates herself to every other as if she were the only one in the garden. This makes the garden experience its full glory, adds Vukčević.

She stopped counting the bee stings, but her love for them still doesn't wane

She felt her love for bees already at the age of 10, when she sat for hours in front of the beehive and watched the bees flying in with their legs full of orange color. Then she found out that it was actually pollen, and her grandfather, who is from Gornji Martinići, where 40 of her beehives are today, helped her better understand the process of making honey.

As life moved on, she suppressed it and suddenly started keeping bees again 10 years ago. In the beginning, there were 4 to 5 hives, and now she already works with 40 of them, and she says that until now everything was under her direction.

"There were some subsidies now, but there also needs to be some kind of connection. Last year we received some 50 kilograms of sugar during the corona, which is a drop in the bucket. Rajko Đurišić helped me a lot with beekeeping, I bought my first bees from him, and when I need something, I call him for his opinion," says Vukčević.

A person learns best when he works alone and takes care of something, because as soon as someone else comes to work and help you, that's not it, she believes.

"You have to do everything yourself, both about the plant and about everything. When I didn't know what to plant on the mountain, I also bought what can and cannot be planted there. Then I saw that special types of fruits and vegetables must be planted there, because not everything can succeed. A person must learn, observe and absorb throughout his life".

When asked if he prefers to work with the garden or the bees, without any hesitation the bees took precedence.

"I wouldn't be able to share, but if I have to, then bees are my priority. I just love them. I had a lot of bites, but I don't have any problems from them."

He also explains that bees can't stand smells, alcohol, cigarettes and sweat, and that when you come to them you have to be neat and clean. They are calm if we are also calm, do not hurry and do not beat around them and if we love them. However, she has been bitten 20-30 times, but she has no problem with that. Love for something overcomes all the problems that come along the way.