Ecofarmer

re-settled in Hungary from Rochdale, Lancs, England, and into a little village, doing a bit of greenish farming hoping for a quiet life... but stuff just happens...

Sunday, June 24, 2007

moanish



I have an invalid on my hand,
Alan's allergy resurfaced with vengence after being
kept - just - at bay with the tablets recommended by
the allergy clinic in January. My hypothesis is, that it
was –just- in control - and him foolishly going out in
abnormal heat - 35C+ - was too much. We couldn't get
the allergy doctor and they made appointment only to
3rd of july, so we try to force him on them tomorrow
morning - she said she wanted to see the
symptoms... his face is not swollen now, but red and
his skin is peeling, his arms are now one continuous
red made up from individual spots. It's not as maddeningly
itching per moment as it was the last few days.
He is of course morose, depressed and
impossible, he is the worst patient on earth; one minute
it’s the end of farming, the universe and everything, in the other he insists to go up the field in 30C.
But luckily we have Molly, who is, again, a
wonderful wwoofer, seems to be enthusiastic and good
about all jobs and seem to really enjoy weeding... and she's
fun, as Melody would say. She joined the
bellydancing class.
At least the tempareture is down - well, still 30C, but
it's not as humid, so it feels even pleasant after last
week's heat. We had tons of storms with rain, which is good
- I mean the rain.
We have loads of the white paprikas, but so far only
two tomatoes bothered to turn red (all in the
pollytunnel of course. See picture) Outside there is lettuce and
marrows and spring onions, and of course the sorrel,
but I have still so much of that in the freezer, that I
just couldn't be bothered...
well, off to feed animals - Alan better not risk the heat/light
he can play Spike... also on picture you can see Molly with
the firtree she made prettier after the goats eaten the needles
of – who’d thought they like that when there is lucious grass to eat... and the brand new fire-space for Friday’s bogracs gulyas.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

part 2



while the jam is cooking, into the night...

Festival of east - Egerág




Lovely day out, even if the Orient was only represented by
a Krishna food stall (apple somosa!! And a thing called halava, which was not halva, but semolina-plum-coconut hot pudding, nice) a Cypriot turkish folk dance group
snd Chinese, Japanese and Russian teas.
The children’s folk dance competition was great, the kids and the costumes were a pleasure to watch. We’ve eaten from the pig shown, and pancakes and ice cream, local wines.
New wwoofer Molly from Canada had a nice first day here. But tomorrow – hard working day and the forecast is for extreme heat wave.
I’m having a second go at the process of registering the old Toyota – all this being green and not having car means relying on other people which is not fair on them. Anyways, it will be a difficult procedure, at the moment I got a date for the official testing, but the insurance people swear that they cannot insure a car with foreign number plate, but we cannot take the car for the test without insurance… my countrymen just –love- a difficult life…
blog will be two parts as there are five pictures to send, one is Alan with cherries - to be stoned.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

cucumber watch


sorry, couldn't get the same weird thing as last year's, it -was- a mutant. But, you have to admit this is not bad really, even if it misses the size and the curviness.
Also, the paprikas is the greenhouse are doing mighty fine. The billygoat, who is for the chop, found out how to get out through the electric fence, so he's nearer to his maker then planned - a few more weeks to goat curry yet, as Jozsi, our chosen butcher says we could do with a bit more fattening. Busy black-cherry jam making - collected a bucketful at Joli neni's in the morning, stoning took 3 hours, than gone to pleasant porkolt-bogracs party to Gita's, and coming back found Jani bacsi on our doorstep with yet another bucket of picked black cherries, so we are sort of obliged to get them preserved, too, so Alan is stoning in the kitchen with Jimmy (Hendrix).

Friday, June 08, 2007

of currants and mystery fruit



Well, harvested a good handful of gooseberries, red currants and black cherries, enough to make a crumble, very nice, most gone before remembered to make picture.
As for the white fruit – guess what it is, I expect your comments! (It’s not ours, it was a present brought to us from Kozarmisleny by Szalai Jozsi.) Alan has left for Budapest for a weekend of high culture, such as The Incas in the Museum of fine Arts, and an evening of Wagner’s beginning of the Ring stuff in the shiny concert hall at the Danube.
Meanwhile Clary and her billy-kid (the smart ones) decided to ignore the electric fence – which probably is shorting out or something – and gone to the area with the current bushes, but I was on the job and spotted them before much damage.
I don’t bother Alan with this – let him have his day off…
Yesterday was blackcherry-stoning day – well, afternoon, Magdi did all the picking herself – about 20 kilos we did together in less than four hours – not bad.
I picked all the peas today – a pitiful exercise taking less than 30 minutes as to compared to last year’s plenty jungle like thing – the drought and Alan taking advise and planting more loosely – did the damage. Well, we live to learn. The beans look good… The ground seems still cracked and dry, even after this couple of weeks, when we had some rain nearly every day, including a few decent downpours.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

pea-stands etc





Winter’s marvellous pea-stands – pity they don’t look anything like last year’s
Due to the dry winter and spring – maybe they’ll pick up now that we had a bit of rain. And just pictures of the yard… with Cattoo for Lois.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

a bit of bad news: a dead pot-belly

well, so there is death in farming… alas, another of our potbellies bit the dust and is now an ex-pig… The vet was called cca 2 weeks ago, as the tails were not curling and the pot-bellies were heard coughing, which Alan new meant worms. The mangalica had no such problem, always sporting immaculately curling tail, and is now a really serious sized entity. Anyway, the tail-wearing and the cough did not improve in the case of the smaller male, and turned into really difficult breathing yesterday. I couldn’t reach the said vet, the phone was off the hook said the telephone people. The other vet couldn’t come. I left a massage, that they should look – now after the fatality to make sure the others are ok. Though besides the not-normal tail hanging they do look and behave normal. But then, so did today’s unlucky now deeply buried piggie, that looked rather cute and fat even when dead. I’ll let you know if we ever see the vet, and what he says. We vaguely considered asking Jozsi to chop it (that was before it was dead) but then remembered, that the vet said, that for 6 weeks after the injections they cannot be eaten. But my theory is, that not all the medicine got into the pig, as the injection method was a bit haphazard to say the least.
Also, we had to get our grain from the local farmers’ co-op, for quite a lot of money, had to shovel it into sacks ourselves. Few people seem to be selling grain now. Let’s hope our corn and sunflower production will be upto the task. Silver lining: one less pig to feed… Hm – I considered to make a picture of the dead pig, but I thought, maybe it would be considered of poor taste and not of faithful documentation…
ps 2 days later the vet turned up - he reckond it was a case of bad genes and lung-infection, against which he proceeded to inject the survivers. And to take money of us. Well, let's hope this time better results...

Kiskassa leasure and keep-fit





Just the pictures of our cool wwoofers on the Kiskassa playgrounds and
a glimpse at the belly-dance class (in the village Play-house), which is bravely proceeding to its second month, I’m being the only representative of the mature type…