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 25, 2010

we've survived Thatcher after all...






Yes, Fidesz got the 2/3 majority, Orbán and the head of state Solymos (a Fidesz man) both looked a bit shaken... Well, unfortunately there'll be a lot of disappointed Hungarians... The MSzP has barely 10 more MPs than the fascists, who have 47 MPs (fortyseven).
As only 57% turned out to vote, that Fidesz majority is not as huge as it looks. And spring is here, life is beautiful...

Anyway, back to goats. Alan had the usual fence-problems, little goats jump through the electric fence and then anxious mothers bash through whatever... Well, let's hope the more enforced setup will work better. When the fence works, goats are not much work. But when it doesn't... I went up with them for a couple of hours on Nora's grass - keeping them off the fruit trees can be a challenge. I made pictures...

Washing machine broke down - my fault, I put it on the 90C cycle for the milk filtering cloths, and that was too unusual - some bits burnt out... Anyway, with the gentlemanly help of Pali we have a new washing machine - if by any miracle the old gets fixed, it can be installed in "our" place. which would make washing a bit less adventurous (which in this case - good) and as I chose the cheapest washer, I also picked up a basic microwave oven for the guests. Pali took me to see Kata's school in Pecs - it was about the nicest school I've ever seen, even though it is enormous. It seemed that the kids didn't want to go home...

Bookings are coming in a bit more steadily now and the weather has been decent for a few days.

Martin was 30 yesterday, it was belly-dancing festival and village dance day, and we had a ticket for the Pecs National Theatre for Leányvásár (Victor Jacobi operetta) and expected four guests from Slovenia. As I had more opera/operetta experience I volunteered to stay home, Erika went with Alan, even though she's seen this performance once already - but it was good enough for that. Alan was very enthusiastic about it, had a good time. The dance and the whole show was all highly enjoyable he said.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

never mind...






Fidesz was duly voted in and they'll probably get their 2/3 majority
to be able to change the constitution and stuff like that, but the fascists will vote with them anyway. "My" LMP will get to parliamant - remarkably for a 1 year old party, they voted into the house with just short of 8% if I remember correctly, however, from their actions so far (rather then the rhetoric) they'll vote with Fidesz, too...
However, my bolshy letter was published without editing in Népszabadság, which cheered me up more than it should...
(included in Hungarian)

The weather was horrid, wet and cold, we are a bit worried about our sowed seeds. The sweet corn and the red lettuces and some tomato are showing in the greenhouse however.

We had the bogrács do on thursday, basically a thanks for Ann-Valery and Annais, who've just left this morning and were lovely in every possible way. There was trifle, made out of tinned strawberry rather than the usual tangerine, and it was a success. As was Dodi's venison pörkölt which was enforced with beef, and accompanied by a big potful of nokkedli produced by Timi. There were 15 of us, which is quite a decent party, everyone had a good time, of course! It was spitting, but not a cold night.

Next day, on Friday evening, the girls took me to the Pécsiest Cafe in Pécs, where there was a gig by an international set-up headed by a chap from the Tom Waites band, who's name escapes me. It was very enjoyable blues/funk stuff - except for the slow numbers I didn't care for. Girls were very tired due to being worked hard by some heartless wwoofers-host, so we didn't stay long. Alan stayed home, looks like being a heartless wwoofers-host is also very tiring...
We have a lovely couple hostelguests spanish-czech-slovak-hungarian mix, and they decided to call their workplace and stay an extra day, on top of the 2 they booked, as they are enjoying here... they braved goat-milking as well as my food so far.
I made the first 2 batches of cheese less salty than usual, as expected it being consumed before letting it mature. It was received as positively as I remember from the previous cheese-making season.
I'll take some with me to Budapest for my usual few days visit tomorrow. Alan will probably feel very lonely after such lively company, and he'll have to manage the goats, milking and cheese making on his own. Phonecalls would cheer him up, hint, hint...
Pictures show the inevitable cold comfort cats, and the bogrács party.

here is my published letter:

Heller Ágnes azt írja (ápr 3 Hétvége) hogy "Nálunk csak a liberális demokrácia ...új",
pedig ez csak nálunk új. Mindenhol máshol az a neve, hogy kapitalizmus.
Ha egy párt magát szocialistának hívja, akkor ne csodálkozzon amikor
neoliberalis gazdaságpolitikájáért jobbról-balról utálják, hiába tűzdeli
pánikszerű következetlen adakozással.
A fasizmus törvényszerű mindenhol, ahol a demokratikus baloldal kipusztul.
A szocializmus úgy lett definiálva, mint a demokrácia eddigi legmagasabb foka.
Na ez az, ami globálisan új lenne.
Minden más a kipróbált régi piac rendszer, ahol jobb esetben is csak a beszéd
szabad, a többi magántulajdonon alapuló káosz.
Ahogy a régi szakállas mondta: szocializmus vagy barbarizmus.
Igencsak nyilvánvaló melyik fázisba menetel az emberiség, amely nem elég értelmes
ahhoz, hogy tanuljon a múltból.


Durant Éva, Kiskassa

Sunday, April 11, 2010

outings



The oz hostelguest stayed an extra day, 4 altogether, and we had a nice couple from Slovenia. Hm, times are hard, if guests are detailed on the blog - but, lets stay positive, this is still pre-season, and quite cold.
We had a decent spring day on Thursday, when we went with the wwoofers and Vic and Maggie to Gyűrűfű, the "eco-village". We did the requisite walk around in the surrounding wooded countryside, very pleasant. The village was about 6 houses, built in the place of the old village that became empty in the 1960s. It was interesting to (not) see how the mud-brick houses totally disappeared into nature in 40-odd years.
The newly built modern mud-brick houses were designed in the old style - maybe a bit too much swiss, had grey water filtering and outside dry compost toilet, a few solar panels and nicely built "kemence" (local form of hand-built fireplace/oven structure that can heat the whole house).

By the way, our dry compost toilet is ready, that is, the paint is drying. And the master says, that more functional that that one in the eco-village, as ours has a proper ventilation system.

Otherwise, besides the further progress of sowing and cheesemaking, there is nothing new to report... oh, there are elections today, it seems that the biggest vote goes to:.... those who won't be voting locally at least, loads of people I met in the village said re-phrased: "Why should I care which one of them is stealing my money". Which has a lot of wisdom, but it'll make the fascists' statistics look even worse than it probably will be.
I went with the LMP ("Can be different politics") as it was a bit greener and a bit more antifascist than the others...

More goat-kid pictures - made by Anais - you cannot have enough, can you? By the way, they can jump down the hill, climb up to Nora's roof, so are into all the usual antics...

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter Sunday




yes, we had the usual egg-search this morning, 90 nicely coloured easter eggs were hidden for the grand total of 3 toddlers! The front loan was shorter this time by the geese enclosure, but there was still enough place to hide eggs. It is a bit sad that the number of the kids were so much down - there are at least 3 more eligible youngsters, their families must have been visiting elsewhere... The busy wwoofer girls helped at the communal egg-painting yesterday afternoon as well as baking beautiful French cakes for all the other people accompanying the egg-searchers. Mici and one of the other goat kids (affectionately called Pörkölt by Alan) were duly produced and stroked by all who were not too shy.

Picture shows Nora's grand-daughters stroking Mici.

On another one you can see wwoofers in a relaxing moment...
this is all part of the book I should be writing: "How To Make French Women Fat"... the girls reckon I am succeeding...

And the one that looks like a painting was made when we went for a walk with Alan just at sunset the other day.

I just thought interesting to mention how our kids are spending their long weekend - Szonya is staying in a yurt in Wales, and Martin is watching the Shuttle launch in Houston... opposite parts of human history...

The first cheese is in the hanging stage. We had a couple of milking mishaps; the bucket being kicked and the little goats opening the latch to their mothers... but everybody is getting into the routine now.

Our first hostel guest to book into the Old Stables arrived - an oz traveller lady from Sydney - and we got her to stay in the end room for the same price - it is too cold at the moment to sleep in the stables. (was 4C the last few days at night, though gone over 20C during the day).
She's staying for 3 days, she's walking Bonzo as we speak. She's having the €3 dinner with us tonight, wwoofers should be back by then, they are discovering Villány and Siklós this afternoon.
We'll have tomato soup, Anna's rolled pork steak stuffed with spicy sausage, mash potatoes and mixed pickles. There are shop cakes, French cakes and mákos-diós noodles for those who can manage...
It seems that I didn't talk about food for ages...