Črešnjevec is an interesting village near Semič and offers a tour of the open-air museum. A special feature of the village is the Agrarian Village Community, which connects the villagers in their activities. The tourist pulse of Črešnjevec lives on the Škof-Šrajf Homestead, where, among other things, there is also an open-air museum.
The Škof family have several very interesting devices stored under the hayrack, which were once used for processing grain. Although the oldest of them is about a hundred years old, they all still work flawlessly. Some of them are still used by the Škof family today.
Working with threshers was primarily a task for the men. The simple devices were hand-operated, and when working with grain, of course, there was a lot of smoke and dust.
Grain-processing plants are made of wood and iron. In the past, they were not taken to a service centre for repair, but were repaired by the owner himself or by the person who knew the operation of the machine best.
In the open-air museum, we also see the technological development of the devices. The first threshing tool was a simple flail, working with it was very exhausting and slow. A hand thresher with a large wheel was more advanced. Even more powerful is the lever-driven capstan or threshing machine, driven by a draft animal.
The most interesting among the exhibited machines is the large threshing machine. It performs threshing, separating and cleaning at the same time. It’s powered by an aran diesel engine. It is turned on using a smouldering plug made of wood mushroom. Then we manually turn the wheel with an iron handle that makes a spark so the aran starts working. It is connected it to the threshing machine with straps and thus started. The loud cracking and smoke are proven to impress technology fans of all ages! Such threshing devices used to be rare and expensive, usually several villages had a single one.
You can also see winnowing machine for separating grain from chaff and a TRIER device for grain sorting.
The open-air museum is a great choice for a technical day, and the village of Črešnjevec hides even more cultural and historical features. Explore them!
