Wartime Farm - Episode 8 - World War II

Good morning, we will conclude our series on World Ward War I and World War II for November with the last episode of Wartime Farm.  Truth, Peter, and Alex conclude their time on the Wartime Farm by bringing in the wheat harvest.  The wheat harvest is the climax of the year.  The Nazis were fighting back, putting imports in danger again.  Towards the end of the war, the fields were exhausted so the farmers needed to put some fertility back in the land.  A new food crisis is looming and can the farmers survive it?

The wheat is looking healthy.  Alex and Peter are relieved.  The flax crop has failed due to the wet summer.  Alex examines the wheat kernels and they are still wet.  There are still a few weeks left before the wheat harvest.  The boys will use a combined harvester to harvest the wheat.  After five years of bountiful harvests, the wheat harvest was falling.  So our farmers are going to spread manure on the land.  Ruth drives the manure spreader to put the manure on the land.

Although it was needed, the amount of manure was falling.  On top of that, after the animal slaughter before the war, farmers questioned the wisdom of killing so many animals.  Animals were providing manure for the farmers.  Manure was used to put the heart back in the land.  The government realized that record food production could not be sustained through another year of the war.

Spring of 1945, the Russians broke through in Berlin.  On May 7, the war ended.  Ruth, Peter, and Alex want to throw a celebration to remember the end of the war.  They talk about how the people would have felt about the end of the war.  It was sheer relief for the people at the time.  So Alex suggests that they bring in people who remember the end of the war.

The end of the war against Germany meant that blackout precautions were done.  Peter removes the blackout curtains and tape from the windows.  Rationing continued, so any party celebrations needed to be carefully planned.  Ruth examines a recipe and creates baked potato pudding.  She even comes up with a recipe for mock orange juice.  Ruth is hopeful that people will like the baked potato pudding.

While the wheat harvest is waiting and Alex wants to restore fertility to another part of the farm.  He wants to use the cows to do it.  So Alex installs an electric fence.  The government recommended farmers install electric fences.  The electric fence was economical and could easily be put up.  Alex uses an electric battery to power his fence.  When the fence is up they turn the cows out to the field.

The V-E Day celebrations begin on the farm.  Ruth offers her baked potato pie for the guests.  Alex puts on the radio so the party can listen to the radio announcement.  Ruth, Peter, and Alex talk with the people who remember V-E Day.  There were celebrations in the street of the country.  There were fireworks.  There was dancing in the street.  The end was not in sight for Britons with relatives fighting in the Far East.  Ruth talks with the daughter of one of these men.  She had no idea what happened to her father and she did not find out that her father had died until 1946.

After V-E Day a new food crisis began.  Will the team be able to bring in a successful wheat harvest to combat that food crisis?  To find out what that was, continue to watch the episode.

This would be an excellent episode to show in a history classroom.  It shows how the team celebrated the end of the war.