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, November 29, 2009

prodigal dog




well, he found a way to escape, and we still can't figure out how. He didn't show up since yesterday until this afternoon. I was walking with Alan on his way to the Ujpetre for the Sunday afternoon Hungarian lesson (pub, as it happens, called, Dark Dog). Bonzo was walking the other way, and from his neck hung a wire - it was a snare, said Alan, who knows about these things. The little pain wasn't hurt - could have been dead. He is chained again - we just cannot figure what to do with it. At least he left (our) hens alone this time. They were allowed to go free on all the garden.
They are still laying very nicely, bigger and bigger eggs.

I've been to Budapest for a few days, the main object of the visit this time wasn't just to spend time with my mum, but to widen my narrow classical music horizon; we went to see the piano-concert of a modern Italian composer, Fernando Mencherini. The venue was the beautiful Italian Institute of Culture. Well, some of the music was enjoyable, some of it interesting, and some of it - well, was enjoyable when stopped... so it was better than I expected!
I had a nice walk around Nagymező street, it was such a perfect autumn afternoon on that day. There are a lot of interesting looking cafes/restaurants one after the other in that area.

Mustafa, our resident Algerian businessman and gentleman gave me a lift home on Friday, he told me the story of their misfortune with one particular administrator at the immigration office; it seems to me a clear case either of racism or willful obstruction in the hope of a bribe. Mustafa is losing a lot of money, as he can't freely travel at the moment, waiting for this permit for about 8 weeks now.

We managed to put on all the winter curtains and fillers in the double windows. Besides the tv-tower painters, we also had an English guy, Richard, late-booker for 4 days, a pleasant surprise for this time of the year.

It's Zoltan's exam next Friday - keep your fingers crossed (in a skeptical way); I think we'll have a chance...

Oh, yes; and on Monday I turned up to the village council meeting - I was the only one from the democratically minded population there, besides the elected representatives. It was useful to know what is going on. There will be a village referendum about speed limits for heavy agricultural machinery (they are shaking these old mud-brick houses to bits, not designed for such traffic) and about the sewage options - I tell you about all that another time, it is too traumatic for one go...

pictures show dark dog Bonzo feeling guilty (maybe) after his last escapade; Alan's trailer now fixed, tried and working, with the expert help of Zoltán; and a november view with church and free chickens.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

trailer blues




The little trailer doesn't fit the little tractor, which wouldn't start, so basically it is the usual scene... Alan promised to report on these technicalities as well on the progress or otherwise with his new wind-generator experiment, see picture. And the roof: he cut the cherry and apple-tree branches that were taking our roof down from Nora's side, and fixed the relevant damaged tiles, and done this all single-handedly, today.

I think I forgot to show Bonzo with the haircut, as he posed so nicely, here he is, though not close enough. He is a free dog in the last few days, Alan put chicken wire in the front - and he can only escape if we don't close the gate fast enough, the little pain. I am worried about the pussycats being hassled away, but they waited for me patiently outside this morning, sitting near Bonzo, but during the day they didn't show up much.

Oh, the phone got fixed Tuesday afternoon, now I wait with abated breath if we get any compensation for it being broken quite a bit longer than t-com's 72 hours limit.

The new fence is working, goats are happy, still no sign of friskiness.

We have extra bonus surprise guests, the workmen who talked to me weeks ago about staying here when they paint one of the village communication towers (there are two and a half of them). They didn't show up, as the weather was awful thereafter, but they suddenly turned up yesterday, and they didn't mind that the house was cold and dirty, as we were not expecting anybody. By this morning it was quite pleasant, I did the cleaning, too.

I had a fight this afternoon with our goji-berry bush, it became a bit aggressive and jungleish, with very few (9) fruits to show for it. So I attacked back trying to clear the side where the wonderful raspberries were, but I lost, the thing's too complicated for me. Alan says I used the wrong implement. I regroup and try again tomorrow, I hope more berries, they supposed to cure everything if you'd belive their slightly loopy literature.
The weather is really beautiful, a bit too beautiful - short sleeves - past mid-November? I hope we don't get that weird non-winter which was followed with the draught a couple of years ago.
Thank you for reading this far , see telling me you are interested and that you follow the blog, made me a bit long-winded... but I am nice to you and keep my polemics and arguments for the old skeptic list, of which I am a proud member since - 1994!!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

still no phone...





... but there are darts, the board is up, and Alan is practising.
In the bedroom mind you, and no wall-protection, so it is just for the pro players... maybe we should get a cheap carpet to put behind the board when we venture next to the Pecs sunday market.

Zoltan took Alan to Palkonya to look at and to buy a neat trailer to work with the mini tractor that is really a cultivator, but it might do for collecting the hay. It was bought and Alan had a chance to drive the pickup on the muddy non-tarmac roads between Kiskassa and Palkonya, one of the few occasions when he's driven a left hand drive vehicle, and first time a 4 wheel drive. He was too terrified to enjoy it if you believe him.

Other than that there's not much to report, the last lot of beetroot is waiting to be pickled, now that we managed to free
a few bottles. Opened a sliced cucumber experiment, and it is not bad at all, if I may say so.

Too much telly yesterday, the Hungarian talent show, with wonderfully as well as awfully weird stuff, such as a male soprano, basket ball twiddlers, but some good dancing troops, too. Then the movie Bandits with Bruce Willis, Billy something Thornton and Kate Blanchet for a light but a bit over long diversion.
The long winterish nights are closing in, it is dark by 5 and still darkish at 7am. Cca 6 weeks till xmas, that is when the nights'll start to be shorter again.
Getting round putting draught excluder improvisations between the windows. It goes a bit slowly, as I am in a lazier than usual mood, and all the window seals should be cleaned before so endowed...

Thursday, November 12, 2009

update on disasters

well, I'll get a "discretionary refund" from those good hearted jet2.com people for a bagatelle £40. Still, could be worse. The "changing the booking" option wouldn't let me put the leaving date after the return date, so that was also out of the question.
Anyways, we are booked now for the period 11th - 18th of Feb to go to Milnrow/Manchester - I haven't seen Dad & Murial and Carol and co not to mention all the other people from over there since last November!

We haven't got a landline phone for over 10days now - it seems the t-com people are not interested - or are they frightened? - to leave their comfy base in Pecs. I rang, been in the office, shouted, jumped up and down, threatened - all to no avail, because - they are continuously working on it, you see. In Pecs. The cable is broken in Kiskassa. Which is obvious to me, but not to the experts. And of course since it has been broken, we had more need to use the phone than normal, I spent a fortune on mobile calls.
I can't express here sufficiently how irate I am...

and those goats... Miska is not even that smelly any more, which surely means that he is not interested. But he seems to have learned about fences, and is much less nervous. Maybe too calm now... Alan joined all sorts of goat-fancier forums, some reckons that goats prefer doing it at night. Lets hope they are right, because nothing is happening during the day for sure.

Anna's ducks have gone - good riddance, they made the place a mess, and the goats were forever after their feed, which might had the detrimental effect of not being interested in breeding... the vet, who knows nothing about goat-teeth ventured this theory, so we should not take it too seriously. Relationship to Anna is a bit tender, but we have the position of moral wobbliness, unusual determination and tons of her pickles, salamis, hams and pigs still in our premises.

New set of electric fence arrived, Alan is busy installing it on a larger area for even freer and hopefully less inhibited goats. They are very fat, by the way, should make pictures.

The mushrooms gone mostly to fairly dry, thin bits - maybe not enough moisture in the sacks. There is a nice portion of good ones,
but not a lot, we expected two more flushes of growth. Still, we didn't do too bad, for an experimental run.

Alan heroically re-started his Hungarian lessons, so when he is not exercising his guitar or listening to weird radio-programmes from the 50s or playing pub/darts/quiz on the computer or doing soduku etc in the evenings, he is learning with the moans of "why nobody told me not to say it like that" to which the answer is: they understood you, so stop complaining...

Sunday, November 08, 2009

bonfire


Yes, done it, it wasn't chilly and wet enough to be the real thing, but it was dark and fairly damp. The parkin came out quite well considering the lack of the main ingredients, and there was mulligatawny soup (!) also with secret substituents, (the speller doesn't believe there is such a word, but there should be). And lots of jacket potatoes, roast pumpkin, etc. I tried to do pumpkin seeds and chestnuts on the top of the little fireplace, but I think they were overdone, gone too hard to eat.
Alan made mulled cider - it was tons more enjoyable than the original, though not as nice than the one Zoltan brought, which I managed to drink nearly single throatedly.

Anyways, the party finished by 9, we must have tired everybody out with the excitement (there were sparklers, too!) and they left quite early, by 9. All my present students were in attendance.

The H1N1 haven't seem to have done any damage, I feel my arm bruised a bit, that's all.

I messed up big time this afternoon; I wanted to book our flights to Manchester for February. I went through the on-line rigmarole once - and when at the last stage they declared that the flight for that price was no longer available. The price that they gave me click on. They sent me back to step one.
I was so angry, that I haven't noticed, that I went back to their original destination default - so I ended up booking the flight starting from Manchester, and not Budapest, and I was mighty pleased for awhile as it was about £50 cheaper this way.
Until I noticed the f.up. Then panic and panic, as I knew they won't allow cancellations or the change of destination. The phone is still out of order (main line, so that I can use the callcard for cheap calls) so I rushed down to Csilla's to call the call centre. A calm girl with a difficult chinese-american accent devulged the email address where I could ask for a discretionary refund so that after 5 days I'll be able to re-do the all bloody thing, damn. And after returning from Csilla's I realised, that I didn't really have to change destinations, only the dates... however - I'll leave it now, I let the admin people do their worst, I don't want to confuse them and myself any more than we already are.

So I had a big eating session (jacket potatoes with sweet corns, dressing, beetroots, hard boiled eggs, followed by loads of roast pumpkin...) to make me feel better, and I am damn well better...
I even remembered to lock up the geese and the chucks (Alan is in the pub, being Sunday, last I'd heard he was playing table-tennis with Zoltan.)

And I only make these blog-sessions long and grammatically difficult, so that the students could practice...

Thursday, November 05, 2009

H1N1 jabbed






... Decidedly nasty English weather out there, with lots of cold wetness. Still managed to pick 3 raspberries - surely the last - and some figs.
So back from the city - and I've been to the pictures, in fact it was a group turn-out - all the girls plus one en mass. It was Julie & Julia with Meryl Streep - I seem to have enjoyed it most - none of the others were very keen, they thought it was too long and the Child character was overplayed. But I read that she was supposed to be this noisy and affected. Anyway, we squeezed in a nice drink and a little chat afterwards.

I was hunting in Budapest pharmacies for the flu jab pack - info said you have to buy it and take it to your GP to get it done.
After not getting any in the advertised venues, I called our Kiskassa GP, he said - just come to the surgery on Thursday -
which we did - no probs, jabbed stereo, in one arm the traditional flu stuff, in the other the new stuff. It didn't hurt, and so far we don't feel any adverse effects...

While I was away Alan ably provided meals for a last minute guest, a published author in China, Iuming Chen who lives in the US. (Some sort of self-help books how to be as successful as USians for ambitious Chinese - so now you know how this Chinese takeover in global economy happened... this book, obviously)

The workmen, who were booked in for this week, haven't turned up, I suppose the weather wasn't up to painting communication towers.

I include a few more corners of our place, including a revolutionary design for our new wardrobe - in the double door we don't use, hopefully providing extra insulation...

I know it is Bonfire Night! It will be duly celebrated this year the day after tomorrow, with some friends coming over. I experimented with parkin this afternoon - considering the lack of treacle and ginger, it wasn't too bad. Luckily I have loads of Mixed Spice left. I'll make more of it on similar lines tomorrow.

I read a book borrowed from my dad ages ago, a Malamud in Hungarian (The Tenants)- and it has the author's signature in the front, wow.
I wasn't keen on it, as such, I don't like novels about the agony of writing novels, though probably this is the topic most familiar to novel writers...