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...

Monday, June 30, 2008

birthday and farewell to Lois





Yes, I am older still, never mind. Me sis and Janos and Juci
paid a surprise b-day visit, I was really chuffed. Sorry, I look
really bad on all the pictures, so no show. We had nice lunch,
stroll around, shop, and watched the free Kalaka-Sebo-Szelkialto
concert in front of the Dom in Pecs. On Sunday, Jutka's were off
as soon as properly awake - they cannot ever stay for a full 24 hours...
Anyways, the food for the little soire turned out ok, I had to make something interesting for Hungarians, as english students Dodi, Timi and their lovely Cassandra came over
(menu: prawn salad made more with crabsticks, but really minishrimps, the only such stuff available here, overpriced, never mind, then a curry, which was tricky, as I forgot to get the curry paste from the English deli (yes, there is such a remarkable establishment in Pecs) but Alan found some coriander in the depth of some weed, and somehow it did turn out like a mild but nice curry, even the colour was right, and than we had rhubarb crumble with custard). The evening was not that hot, we could sit outside, but then the football final started, it was a good match, and the better ones won, which is satisfying.
and now ( mondey evening) is lois's last, she's off tomorrow and we are sad, I think we all had a good time, even with the sneezes, itches and train-troubles...
we'll miss her. Meanwhile our bicycling wwoofers seem to have lost, started 2 hours ago from Pecs and not here yet...
pictures show Lois with cat and new garden furniture, a little girl eating langos at the Kalaka concert, the catedral square where we sat. And the baby storks in Kiskassa.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

back home, hectic to catch up, heat and sail





Split was wonderful, food and hostel good, trainjourney dreadful,
nothing like the oriental-express type comforts we expected foolishly, never mind.
I would like to post all the holiday pics, but managed to control myself and just put in one particularily well composed (in my opinion) shot.
All was well back home - with minor hiccups I prefer not to go into...
Tomatoes got ready to pick,
Anna let us have the full-time use of her small tractor with trailer, as well as her - wait for it - milking machine!! So the cooperation that is taking us just a bit un-green in bits, is indeed worth it - I know, sold our soul to the devil system...
It is very hot, we are so lucky that Alan decided to move the veg garden down, making it waterable. Weeds are on the move, got up at 5 yesterday to hoe sweetcorns, that was the only time with decent temperatures to do any work outside in my opinion. By 7 I was drenched in sweat and mud, but me 1, weeds 0, until the next match...
Got first sweetcorn and yellow melon from Anna - not bio, but not supermarket stuff either, very nice...
Alan started to do the solar fruit-drier, I better see if I can find some black-cherries to pick. Went to Pecs sunday big market with Lois, she got me a beatiful set of dishes made in Bohemia, and I got 2 hokkedlis (simple but well made stools, such useful thing, wanted some for ages.)
Oh, and Alan found a sail in the grinding room. We yet to investigate how that ended up here... Alan put it up as an awning, came handy in this heat, the cats love it. Also a picture of what we got from the seeds Carole gave to Alan, very picturesque, probably should have been eaten at an earlier stage. No comment on the marrowplant...

Saturday, June 14, 2008

pre hols busy busy



yes, we are off to Croatia with Lois the day after tomorrow!
So Alan is weeding and haymaking furiously, even I did a bit of sweet-corn hoing
this morning. We had lots of rain and hot weather, so things are growing like mad.
We had hoards of nice hostel-guests; the smoking room had it its first occupants, a lovely couple from Holland, John and Ester, and they loved it! They re-arranged the room and managed to fit the beds in the "alcove" where they were meant to be. Got the more mange-tout, kohlrabi, peas, marrows frozen and eaten, days pass in a haze of speed...
I got the picture of the storks building their nest from the person who does the photos for the village monthly news-letter, from early May, when the pair just started the construction - and now,
there are three little ones, not visible...

Monday, June 09, 2008

harcsapaprikás - Pécsdevecser






Dodi and Timi, my beginner students and Alan's Dark Dog companions
asked us over for harcsa (=catfish) paprikas from fish Dodi caught
in one of the local fishing lakes. This was on saturday lunchtime -
I had no time to blog... anyways, it was a most pleasant afternoon, the meal was superb, cooked in the traditional couldron (=bogrács); Alan and Lois are not freshwater fish fans, but they both agreed, that it was very very tasty, and even more enjoyable sitting under a giant walnut tree on our hosts' large front lawn, with nice views.
It turned out, that Timi is an artist - she painted their interior with what seems to be aboriginal motifs. Dodi is a drummer, but has/had interesting hobbies, such as sledge-driving his huskies, ofwhich he kept/trained 11 at a time... It turns out
that Hungary has about a dozen such people, and they race... Dodi made a summer model with wheels, and got around in that fashion, e.g. arriving to the training of his football team - he also plays football - with his dog-drawn carriege...
wow, what about this, after the didgeridoo maker we find such other hm, interesting excentricity... even though he stopped doing it, but showed the picture of the glorious past... Other than that, still very busy, still no wwoofers, but hostelguests expected for today and most of this week, funny how they arrive in clusters... oh, and the hens are now in the front lawn, Alan made a decent little
mobile coop for them, they are very happy to be proper free range.
Anna's pigs broke out for freedom tonight, Alan only noticed this because he went
to the workshop looking for his glasses (his preoccupation most of the time) and
noticed the 20 pigs happily foraging - luckily only in the back-run of the goats, and not in the vegetable garden. Dogs did not make any noise - the useless beasts. Anyway, with Jozsi, Anna's husband, it wasn't very difficult to herd them back; another excitement to cheer our evening... which is spent nowdays watching the football, ofcourse. I put on the Pecsdevecser pictures,
the chicken-coop hasn't been captured yet, also I have good stork stuff for next time, e-mailed to me by the village newsletter people, they made it when the nest was still in the making.

Friday, June 06, 2008

of cheesecloth and mange tout etc


yes, after two and a half months my English students took me for
a giant shop (as an exchange for one lesson) for heavy items such as sugar ( black cherry jam season is rapidly
approaching) flour, fruitjuices, toilet rolls (that's the cumbersome territory)
etc, etc, and got to the agro-animal shop where I managed to get a cheese-forming thingy - plastic cup in holes in it (but that at least wasn't more expensive than a plastic cup with holes in it should be); but the cheesecloth... better to be good for 3800HUF!
I made a picture of Lois and Alan pea-shelling - doing a large bucketful a day
for this week, but it was out of focus due to the frurtration wibes in the room...
But you can see the result of cherry (not black) preserving work - first time ever,
still to be tasted. To my surprise, frozen cherries are rather nice.
Internet was down for 18hours or so, new internet efforts via Pannon dismal failure so far - their modem did not work, have to be taken back to their shop in Pecs - sometimes next week. humph.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

cherry season etc





very busy last week with sms and hostel guests from oz/Tasmania,
all left Alan friday morning to normalize things; I went to Budapest for the weekend and collected Lois without mishap. We are offered hay, peaplants, pea-shells and cherries continuously; so we went cherry picking with Lois today up to Anita's and Tibi's garden. The experimental cherry-compote/conserve is in the making this very moment. Pictures show Lois with cherries and rose; the weird giant mushroom we grown on a grow-pack, and one of our hard cheeses.