Bleak week – but could have been much much worse…

Prompted by the kindly comment from Iowa – we have bad news and good news –
Carolyn decided to rent a car and do a week of touring around the countryside, she planned to visit Sopron, lake Balaton… well, she had the most horrific car crash
on the afternoon of her first day. All her newly made friends here, in Kiskassa,
with us were shocked and terribly upset. Anyhow, she was airlifted by helicopter
to the university hospital in Pecs, was operated on… on the first day we were told, her chance of survival was only 40%... well, the good news is, that she is now breathing
on her own, and talks to her sister Jeane, who arrived. She also recognised me and talked to me, though I couldn’t understand across all that high-tec equipment… she is still in intensive care, and probably terribly uncomfortable, but – and we keep our fingers crossed – there is more and more improvement and hope for decent recovery.
So now you know… our worst week here… Alan had a painful viral infection –
probably the stress about Carolyn worked its way into his insides… anyway,
the sun is out after three days of real and metaphorical gloom, Carolyn is hopefully on the mend, Alan is back to normal – even done the dishes without prompting (oops – that’s not normal…) still no goat-kids – but we re-calculated – no chance till mid-april really… the rescued hens are doing fine, enjoying themselves so much that forgot to lay eggs… (we have one/day) well, adjusting to a world with sunshine and dark nights takes time… (Eva) p.s. Alan is thinking to buy a very environmentally unfriendly thing like a Toyota land cruiser – we are frightened of little cars now…
besides those are very cheap second hand – nobody wants them, because of the
large petrol consumption – but we’d only use the thing at most once a week –
we need it big to carry animal food/building materials, and we can go on untarmacked roads to Boly to the shops when we need to and that is only cca 5 miles. Well, we’ll see… pp.s. greatings to freerangereggs.blogspot.com wow - Southern Australia!!

the flexible atheist

(this is Alan:) In our village most people produce their own fruit and veg. and to a slightly lesser extent their own meat; poultry and pork. The local shop sells people’s surplus fruit and veg. and the market in the nearby town has a good range of local produce for sale though not necessarily organic. Sounds good doesn't it?
However, there has been an influx of western supermarkets in the last few years, Tesco, Spar etc. and these have become fashionable among the slightly better off people so that there appears to be a trend towards buying stuff shipped from the four corners of the world. The standard of food found in these supermarkets is probably better than for instance in the UK. but still there is that worrying trend towards pre-packaged cheap crap aimed at the poorer consumer.
As far as buying things out of season is concerned, I'm pretty much in favour of not doing it. As an example, most of the flowers sold in the UK. come from Kenya. A country with food shortages, they are displacing poor farmers from their land. The workers, often in poly tunnels, are exposed to chemicals without any health protection measures and are poorly paid. Things are often justified by saying phrases such as if we didn't buy this or that, things would be even worse, don't believe it! for huge numbers of people in the world things can't really get any worse.
I just got some ex-battery chickens. I've never seen such sad looking creatures. They arrived half bald, weak on their legs and afraid of natural light. I've only had them a week and you can already see a vast improvement, they even make happy chicken noises. Its easy for me to say you should only eat free range eggs but if that is all you can get or afford I suppose it makes things more difficult, but if people could see the state these chickens are kept in then perhaps the would refuse eggs produced under these conditions.

(and this is me:)
We had a leaflet from our village mayor asking us to make up numbers in our church, (for yesterday afternoon)
as we were to be televised, as part of the initiative to save the badly structurally unsound building,
and the usual 5-10 worshippers wouldn't have impressed the media...
so yes, I've been in church! I wanted to look in the inside for ages, having been built in 1790, I've heard
about it's pretty colours and pictures.
Besides, what village is worth it's name without it's church? Especially when it is one picturesquely
snuggling on a gentle hill giving a pleasant view.
The turn-out was very good indeed, we could even discretely avoid the mass-bit...

and the picture is from last years harvest-fest cart, late (film) development...

trying newer google blog - again...

about third time, hopefully lucky.
- if it does it, me with Hanna at sis' bday
and gorgeous hot choc in Pécs Elefánt cafe.
more next time, especially if this x%$ thing works.
(Éva)