“The chestnut tree” anecdote

“The main harvest was chestnuts. People stopped doing it because it was no longer profitable... We sold them, and with the little pieces we fattened up the lambs and also the pigs. We ate chestnuts till spring: at four in the afternoon with our bread instead of chocolate, and in the evening we had a bowl of boiled chestnuts. In August, the leaf has more flavour, we made bundles to feed the goats and sheep. We dried them, we put them up in sheaves like wheat, then we brought them in. For animal litter, we gathered chestnut leaves.”