About us

More is known about the ancestors than Bartol / Jernej Mulej. 8/18/1821 His first wife, with whom he had five children, died. He remarried and had ten children with his second wife. So a total of fifteen. Fate was cruel, as he drowned in Lake Bled on October 9, 1887. Oral sources report that he resented the wrong people. He was not found until six weeks later when he swam to the surface. He was also the last to know the secret of double floors in our wooden chests. The secret was revealed by my father Janez Mulej on January 2, 1981. During the New Year holidays, he cleaned wooden chests that were once used for dowry and storing various useful things, and before the secrets were revealed, we had grain stored in them. At that time, while cleaning a small drawer of the chest, located in the upper left corner, he discovered that this drawer had an unusually thick bottom. Soon, on the underside, invisible to the eye, he discovered a wooden tab that prevented the opening of the double bottom. When he pressed this tab, the double bottom opened easily and, to his great surprise, he saw in it a crumpled newsprint wrapped and nicely sorted Austro-Hungarian silver coins. In all, there were 62 silver coins made between 1661 and 1765.

The years on the silver coins prove that the money was collected by several generations of ancestors who lived under different Austro-Hungarian rulers. Dad proudly saved his find and is now on display to our guests. The research vein did not give him peace, so he inspected the other wooden chests and in one of them he really discovered that he had the same double bottom as the one in which he found the money. He couldn't imagine finding anything in it, but that's exactly what happened. In the double bottom he found in an old tax receipt written in German Gothic, a wrapped Short Catechism in Slovene from 1838 and a Kolera booklet from 1831 with instructions on how ordinary people can protect themselves and their people from this terrible disease.

The finds are amazing and we protect them as the greatest sanctuary for our successors. We really only show them to people who show a special interest. The next owner of our farm was Jožef Mulej, born on February 8, 1859. He trained to be a stonecutter and was not just a farmer. He had to be especially industrious as he left us many of his products. Two stone tables were installed by my father in 1980 after the renovation of our house in the village in front of the entrance, where they serve their purpose. He also made a huge number of boundary stones, which still mark the borders of our forests today. Namely, he lived in the period of land deprivation, when Empress Maria Theresa distributed the land to farmers on the basis of the size of the barn that each farmer had. Unfortunately, our barn at that time was not among the largest in Selo and we got only 10 ha of land. I can proudly say, however, that our ancestors were already honest and hard-working people, for my great-grandfather, in spite of setting boundary stones, did not work dishonestly in his favor. It is also interesting that Jožef carved his initials on the border stones in the woods. From then on, most male offspring had names on J, so the initials of the successor matched JM as indicated on the stones.

My grandfather, Janez Mulej, born on September 3, 1893, was the next owner on our farm. He went through many hardships in his life. He spent a full seven years in the military. He first fought in the First World War in Galicia and on the Isonzo Front. He was also awarded several times there. He received two medals for bravery, a small silver medal for merit and a large silver medal for bravery. The latter was a real rarity among Slovenian soldiers and he showed it with special pride. After the First World War, he was only at home for a short time, when he had to defend Slovenian Carinthia with the Master's fighters. After this ordeal without a real outcome for Slovenia, he had to serve in the Yugoslav army on a regular basis. Seven years of military service was really too much. He therefore wanted to preserve such experiences in every way possible, and because of his experience in the Second World War, he wanted to navigate through the whirlwind of war as neutral. The farm suffered as it gave food to both sides. He was a respected villager with his wisdom and prudence. Before the Second World War, he built a new barn, the skeleton and roof of which still serve its purpose today, and he also thoroughly renovated the house. When he left the farm to his son, my father Janez, born on September 13, 1932, he proudly said that he was leaving him a well-kept farm without burdens, in which he would not have to invest much. This was true for those times around 1960, but at that time a rapid technological development was still beginning, which did not bypass even socialist agriculture. My father was one of the most advanced farmers, inspired by the competition in Germany and Austria, which was not a deal for many in the leaden socialist times. The first imported a lawn mower, a tractor, introduced a lattice floor into the barn and a dryer on the barn. This has led to constant investment and construction. In 1979, he built an old house in the village for two floors and thus gained space so that we could start engaging in rural tourism. This became the next turning point in the development of the farm.
When my wife Damjana and I took over the farm in 1996, we had to decide how to proceed.

After careful consideration, it became clear to us that the farm has no real development opportunities in a very spatially limited place in the village. Technology, scale, and everything that goes with it must be different from a hundred years ago as productivity progresses and increases. Because of this, we moved the farm out of the village in 1999, in 2004 we built a house for our family and for tourism on a new location, and now we have good chances to be successful in the future in both the agricultural and tourism industries.