I leaned forward and shone a flashlight inside… and at that very moment I stepped back in shock. The beam pulled old wooden beams out of the darkness and a narrow staircase leading deep underground.

The air coming from inside was cold and damp, and strange white crystals glimmered on the walls.

At first I did not even understand what I was looking at. But when I carefully stepped closer and ran my hand over the bricks, everything became clear: the surface was covered with a layer of salt. That was exactly what my calves had been licking.

Later I called specialists. When they went down and examined everything, one of them simply shook his head and said that something like this happens once in a lifetime.

Several calves stubbornly licked the same spot on the old brick wall of the barn every day։ At first the farmer thought the animals simply lacked minerals, but when he looked behind it — he turned pale!

It turned out that my barn stands directly above the forgotten entrance to an old salt mine which, according to them, is more than two hundred years old.

The damp air from the underground tunnels slowly pushed pure mineral salt through the porous bricks of the wall.

And then I realized a strange thing: my calves had sensed something that I, despite living here for many years, had never even noticed. Sometimes it is animals that first discover the secrets that the earth has hidden for centuries.