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...

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

After all that excitement…




… no more guests, except our returner wwoofer Molly, who is getting ready for her big trip to Russia by working as hard as ever and cutting my hair again, as last time she did a great job. We are fed up with the hot weather, which is still decidedly mediterran… we did have a bit of a storm and rain – allegedly we have a couple of days of cool coming– it might goes down to – gasp – 25C…
So here goes pictures of the nearly ready stables. We are still not sure how to finish the floor, we want to keep the nice brick look. Also, our mangalica is BIG.
and if it works - pictures of the larder.

Friday, August 24, 2007

on line again ... for the time being...

new (to us) PC had the usual initial hiccups... maybe it will work now...
especially as in a month we're supposed to have broadband arriving
in Kiskassa. Camera still needs re-installing, so no new pictures.
So what happened in the last couple of weeks?
We had more backpackers, all nice and fairly tidy.
But no bookings for 3 days now - maybe this was all for the season...

The billygoat was becoming an annoying bully, so we ate it...
well, most of it is in the freezer - sorry, hope our vegetarian readers will forgive us... It was a bit traumatic, but we call ourselves a farm afterall!
One hen also expired, without us having a chance to eat it, I think it was the broody one, probably didn't get to the food and water - though I have to say
it didn't look particularily thin. No other hen deaths so far, so it wasn't birdflu... Pigs look big, and we wonder if the potbellies can grow more.
Conserved loads of tomatoes for savory paste (a la Ashley) and soup.
Tomorrow is Ujpetre's "village-day" with exhibition, and culture programs, if heat permits (it was 36C yoday) we'll go over, we might meet Molly on her way here - our first re-visiting wwoofer!! I look forward to seeing her with her tales of wwoofing in Russia and Poland and she'll cut my hair! Did a much better job than Csilla, the village hair-dresser,but keep quiet about this!

Sunday, August 12, 2007

oooops

our pc is kaputt, (hopefully just the fan and not the harddrive or we lost all of your addresses! Won`t know until next week if a repairchap locates us eventually.
Meanwhile I am in a Budapest Internet cafe (minus coffee) the hostelworld bookings are coming in nicely (touch wood) and guests so far all booked extra days, so they must have been happy... no pictures today - all pictures are (??) on the pc...
ps. the stable is now floored and painted - we have an extra nearly livable - and rather large - room... hm, I wish I could send you pictures...

Monday, August 06, 2007

Niche found!!



Yes, we are a backpackers' hostel! As soon as we registered with hostelworld.com –
very ably done by Alan and yes, it was his idea, ok? Next day we had “confirmed booking” for the 10th of 7 French people. We were just planning how to fix the place for Friday (this was on Saturday) when bookings came for next day, I mean, for yesterday, from an Italian couple and from 3 English girls – who, to our amazement, duly arrived! With their backpacks. And a puppy. How they travel with a 2 months old, I have no idea, but so far I can see immaculately kept common areas…
we actually make money! Wow, it can’t last.
pictures show Cattoo relaxing with work, and another Kiskassa vista from Bill's & Doris's at their bogracs do. AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDITH!!!

Friday, August 03, 2007

Update 1



So on the same day as I left for my trip to Transylvania, Alan happily invited 21 Belgian scout guys to camp at our place. The cellar was knee deep in beer-crates, the next day was Belgian freedom day or whatever is called… they stayed from Friday to Tuesday, helped to scrape the walls of the stables – a project I forgot to mention –
and harvested the sunflowers from Bill’s field – see their picture with Alan, nice kids.
Meanwhile the draught continued – with extreme temperatures (40C+) so even the weeds stopped growing. (there –is- a silver lining!)
I had a fantastic time, Transylvania is much bigger than I envisaged (bigger than Hungary, especially upwards) but we managed to see some of the cities, 4 of the “havas”s (tall mountain ranges “snowy” is the literal translation) and two lakes one of which we went into (Medve – hot salty lake, felt like the dead sea, but silkier and lush green hill surroundings, and Gyilkos – which means “killer”, a fantastic giant fir tree valley filled by water due to some earth movement – you could see the tops of said trees – swimming not recommended) anyways, great trip with the usual lots of giggles, eating and drinking and running around looking at things. Arrived back a bit exhausted, even though I was one of the 5 travellers who was excused from driving or navigating…
Alan made a fab job here, so a clean and tidy home waited for me.
Seth and Holly did a lot of good work, again, hope their bicycle tour continues well.
Still, not everything shrivelled up without a gain, we have a good crop of onions, more sweetcorn than it looked, beans to be collected, beetroot and carrots – some, if nothing like last year – but it means less work! Oh, and tons of tomatoes and paprikas
In the polytunnel which contains also a lot of angry wasps, as I was stung 3 times already, I am a bit anxious to get in there… as Alan was only bitten once, he insisted
going in yesterday, so far no allergic consequences, maybe these new tablets are stronger, we also collected some hay from next door yesterday.
Oh, the stable. It had a nice bricked floor up to the the concrete feeding trays, under which it was just soil, so the past 2 lots of wwoofers helped to brick/concrete the rest, that finished, the walls were attended to. It’s a large, high, cool room, Alan wants a summer cool living room sort of thing there that will also do for extra guests in the season. Pictures in bits.