mutant cucumber

I was going to write this earlier but with the amount of painting that’s been going on and the very high temperatures coupled with the computer playing up has slowed me down even more than usual. This has even resulted in us not getting pictures of the latest batch of WHOOFers although with luck a friend has some and if we can get our computers and various leads and connections to talk to each other we will put them on later. Just the same thanks to Tam, Lorna and Sam without whom I probably would have still been painting on Christmas day. Apart from the amount that needed to be done the local valyog walls (a type of mud brick) proved uncooperative when it came to being painted. The problem was the old oil paint stencils which kept bleeding through the coats of new paint on top and making it look like Sh*t. We had asked advice from a local painter and decorator and he suggested putting wall sealer on. We did this in the first room and it actually seemed to make matters worse. I would have had him do the job for me but he was too expensive. After about three coats on the various rooms things were looking decidedly grim. At this point I changed paint brands and this seems to have done the trick, be it after a total of five coats. My friend Lois who is visiting from Australia and who is a veteran of house renovations gave sound advice throughout including “just bloody get on with it”.
Now, for the kitchen(s), because there is going to be a separate scullery kitchen as well as the main one. I’m going to recycle the water from the main kitchen and use it to flush one of the new loos when there’re in. It will be nice to start doing a bit more work towards sustainability rather than just doing bog standard building work. I’m waiting for the weekend before tackling the growing amount of weeds as its supposed to cool down then, the thermometer on the front veranda has shown +400C for two days running. (Alan)
And I feel guilty about not picking the sorrels, spinach, oregano, and those tons of peas, but one just cannot in this heat. I managed an hour of sweet-corn weeding this morning from 6: 30 and it was like working out in a gym, got totally soaked with sweat, but managed to escape before –all- the flies and mosquitoes woke up…
One can see some advantage in those weed-killers other people use… So far though we seem to have surprisingly minimal insect-damage to the crops.
The clover needs to be chopped, too. But Sam helped us to make some hey from
grass chopped in the lane. (Eva)

It has been really good fun watching all my friends and WOOFERS work their respective butts off while I have been playing the ‘guest’ although I am going home to my own renovation completion in Australia in a few weeks time.
Neither Alan or Eva mentioned Eva’s brilliant use of their own local produce in keeping up the health and strength of the all the help. Seeing kilos of fresh salad and freshly picked and shelled peas transformed into marvellous meals and soups disappear down hungry young throats has been a real treat and has had appreciative mention in the guest book. The puppies have grown heaps since I have been here with Gus starting to look like a mini Doberman while Bonzo continues to be an ankle biter aspiring to be top dog. This status can change daily. What Bonzo lacks in size he makes up for in (possibly misguided) courage hurling insult after insult across the road at a neighbours dog at odd intervals during the night. Should he continue to keep this up he may not live to grow much bigger. Guess i had better go and shell a few more kilos of peas. (Lois)
picture wouldn't show again dammit, it's a giant white cucumber

stork

our village has no stork. You walk to most proper Hungarian village and you have a stork nest at a prominent place - in Palkonya it's the church tower. But ours had none - so far! This evening a stork landed on our house! But no nest yet.
We have to look up the know-how how to get a stork nest on your property...
Otherwise we and wwoofers went black cherry picking and village friend Magdi helped to make our first jam. Well, she did most of it, I only helped stoning. Lovely! In one hour we picked cca 10kg, and our share is about 8 jars - plus the wwoofers (Tam and Lorna) are getting 1 each, will make a lovely breakfast addition to their future camping and wwoofing adventures. But we hope they'll stay on a bit more - as they are big help indeed. We expect the next one to arrive this weekend, and guess what - he's a painter and decorator! Forgot to mention, that mud-brick walls behave differently than other walls...
Beside being self-sufficient in milk, now we have tons of radish, lettuce (lollarosa, too) spinach and sorrel now in the freezer, rocket, and something called garden zsazsa, dill still to be cut and soon we have to deal with a frightening amount of peas. I probably mentioned all this, but you forgot and desperately need to know...
Managed to get the pictures on the previouss post!! Look it up.

thermal bath, wine, some agriculture...

We were busy! With guests an’all – some of them keen to help with weeding.
No more wwoofers – we had quite a few inquiries but then not even a polite “sorry we are going somewhere else”… Still, we are self-sufficient in milk, our Clary is producing more than a litre per day. We have lettuces, tons of radishes (the local “icicle” type), loads of spinach, rocket, sorrel, something called garden salsa
(quite spicy taste, don’t know what it is used for but froze some anyways)
and the field looks good, though always too many horrid weeds.
The wrongly named Lucky, the chicken that was hurt by an overzealous Bonzo, after a few weeks of careful nursing and looking better, suddenly was found one morning feet up. Well, there you go. I succumbed to a cold that we think arrived with a dear old Australian friend, and Alan decided to forgo his attending several social events in the UK and to stay to look after me and farm. He was all packed up to go, prezzies and everything… Managed to re-arrange and re-paid for train/air tickets…
The neighbouring house that stood empty for years was bought by the local people who sold theirs also in the village rather well, with our help, to an English couple. There is noisy activity now, to renovate it but it is good that it will be lived in and attended to. The weather was awful for a week, with tons of rain, but our field is on a hill and drains well. The only thing that looks a bit sad is the sweet corn. We’ll see… It’s still a bit chilly but clear and sunny now. The peas are ready to pick in a few days – we have to turn into a processing plant to freeze all that, maybe a bit overdone on the pea-front, about 20 times as much as we grown in England and we had quite a lot of them there… The football world cup starts tomorrow and more guests are arriving, who said life was uneventful in a sleepy little backwater of a village?

Ok so Eva has shamed me into writing something. Matt and Chelsea left and they were a great help and should be in Romania? by now. If your reading this; Vic managed to retrieve the bucket and the cable from the well using ancient Yorkshire know how honed over centuries of dangling bent pins into moorside streams, becks and brooks. They found a house they want to buy near Pecs.
I’m just about to start painting inside the next door house and the floors kitchen (s) should follow shortly afterwards. I’ve no idea what I mean by shortly as it took me all afternoon to drag out two storage heaters yesterday.
We’ve had Melody and Lois visiting which is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. Szonya was here as well which is so nice. It’s a symptom of the modern world when your kids are spread around different countries, it makes it much harder to nip around for a cup of tea. Until Szonya moved back to London none of use where even on the same continent. Eva, Szonya, Melody and me had a trip to the thermal baths at Harkány about 15 minuets drive away from us. It also has massage etc and if your into that sort of thing, is well worth a visit. Especially good is sitting outside in the 36 Centigrade pool while its raining. Look it up at http://www.harkanyfurdo.hu . We also had, along with Lois, our by now becoming traditional trip to the wine cellars of Villány. I still can’t get used to how cheap and good the local wine is. Having said that I would love one day to make my own if only to justify my thirty meter deep wine cellar.
Well I’m off to clean next door, you never know I might finish it eventually.

Alan

the picture shows rainbow seen from house 1 and the other shows Vic with the tackle
that got us our chain and our bucket back from a deep well...