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, April 26, 2009

into the swing of things






we have lettuce and sorrel - the first produce of the year besides those 4 cranberries... and we tasted the cider!! Lots of grimy sedements, even after filtering, but smells and tastes nice!! Alan says, a few more weeks wait, and we'll have cca 50liters of cider!
We have hostelguest Danny here from cider-country (Cornwall) and we got his positive opinion, too!

We got our new batch of factory rescue hens, they seem to be in better shape than the last lot and we haven't lost any so far.

Worse news: stork tragedy. The village is devastated, the female stork
managed somehow to execute herself on a high voltage wire on the way to Belvardgyula. The male consequently left the nest.
Also we noticed that the swallows were very few this year, and found an article in Nepszabadsag confirming, that so far very few returned to Hungary, probably due to draught in Africa, but appearently we might have yet another late-arriving wave.

It's Sunday afternoon, and Alan is, as now customary, in Ujpetre,
at the Dark Dog, with Pali, Danny and my taciturn student, Zoltan.
Have I mentioned, that I started to teach Tahar, the algerian guest-worker Hungarian, he seems quite good and eager.

Hostel-business picked up a bit again; the Polish people were nice, had some Hungarian hunters then Danny who's staying extra days, and I am here lonesome, expecting two oz girls at the moment. Hope for such steady trickle, and the September canal adventure will be paid for soon!

Oh, and Wednesday we did at last make it into the Aranykacsa in Pecs, and it was not that expensive, and the food and the service was well above expectation, excellent! Their menu was only 670HUF.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

still spring






just a few pictures; we had the third Festival of Light - the art exhibition in the village. Some nice ceramics, similar set as before, maybe a bit smaller. The closing program included Ujpetre youth band and the Kiskassa belly dancers. And very nice gulyas, with fresh bread.
We found some cranberries on our re-planted bush - bit weird this time of the year. I made a picture of all four of them...
The siberian berry bush looks nice, too, hope the berries will be
a bit better this year, they were nothing like the catalogue picture last year...
Liza is leaving tomorrow, we'll miss her, she's fun and was great help, thank you!

Friday, April 17, 2009

my dad


he died peacefully on the 7th of April, with the usual smile.
Had a small family funeral on the 14th. My mum is coping well, the lovely, warm, bright spring days helped along everybody.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

cider making






Spring is here at last, beautiful, and the male stork arrived days ago repairing the nicely lifted nest (thanks to the local bird protection league). As I have no picture, I put some on about the cider venture; Pali (Dark Dog) got the apples, Alan supplied the press and bought the containers. The cutting up went swimmingly, I thought it would be difficult. The pressing itself took ages, Alan thinks he has to make a more specialised press, maybe an old wine-press was meant to deal with grapes and not with apples, however well chopped. Anyhow, we do have about 50l of applejuice fermenting hopefully the right way...

My dad is very weak, had a kidney infection that was treated fast at home, but the sudden fever made him even weaker. I am going up to Budapest to see him again in a couple of days, planning to be back for Easter, when there'll be a Festival of Light again in Kiskassa.

There was big turn-out for the voluntary work today to clean up the road, Alan and liza took part, too, I had a couple of good excuse to stay home, an English lesson, and waiting for Turkish hostel guests - not yet here at 17pm. We had tons others however, Mustafa and co stayed, their house got finished on time and he was given his resident status, the officials approved. It felt as we did it...
but everyone was happy, including the locals who made a bit of money doing a very quick and good job.
We had a family of 8 from Utah, very nice people, just for one night, they wrote very nice things into the comments book.
Alan and Liza agreed, that they were mormons - we were too shy to ask - they drank no tea, coffee or alcohol, and had 4 kids... but they did drink hot chocolate...
The pictures were made by Liza, who is very good at it, we have some excellent cat and pig portraits, maybe next time...