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, May 31, 2010

ark, anyone? + amazing Urán város

yes are having this wwoofer-less and guest-less lull (till next Friday) with lots of rain. At least until today it was quite warm with long sunny spells in between downpours. But it was raining heavy all last night, still doing it now, and it is much cooler (15C).
Lucky that some hay was collected, bodza (elderberry) flowers picked, with Pali, some of the (badly rain damaged) cherries picked. I thought very busy birds cut into the cherries, but it turns out that after a lot of rain sudden growth of the fruit makes the skin break. Damn. Still tastes nice but if not eaten straight away, they rot in hours. managed to find about 4 jarful of healthy fruit to bottle. never mind.
We now have the sacred bodza syrup recipe, and it includes melted sugar (caramel) which was a first for me. It' become one solid dark brown lump that I thought would never dissolve after being chucked into the big 100l barrel where the bodza flowers are soaking, giving out marvellous aroma. But it did, in a few hours even without stirring.
Sold a boy-goat and it seems we'll have buyers for the rest, except for the beige one Alan decided to keep.
We harvested the leeks Alan was looking forward to eat with chicken and bacon for about a year. Frozen some and done a 4 days portion of soup/stew - I am not all that impressed, but Alan is enjoying it... last lot today...
Also premièred a new pudding "máglyarakás" that turned out just fab, if I may say so... Alexander and Mustapha/Tahar had some, too, and there were no complaints from the first (well, he is on the quiet side, especially as we cannot communicate due to lack of shared language) and there was praise from the latter.

I should tell you about our last Wednesday's alternative theatre experience it was just amazing. It was "Uran-town Walk" starting from a very pleasant bar in the middle of this concrete jungle,
originally built for 15K miners.
Adventurous pairs like us were released every ten minutes with detailed routplans printed in Hungarian as well as often a bit confusing English, down to the last bush and the colour of the houses we had to pass. En route we visited 4 of the flats in these blocks of flats 4 floors high on average. Surprising amount of greenery and playgrounds, but even more car parking areas. Some interesting statues, fountains and friezes
in various phases of dilapidation. We had a young enthusiastic actor introductory guiding in the role of a 60s architect alternatively enthusing and disparaging about the building program of that time.
In the flats we had a tragi-comedy of young couple trying to swap their tiny space to a bigger one in the old stalinist times; and old full-sized puppet-old-man a la muppets commenting grumbly on tv-clips showing old Hungarian children cartoons and the lateness of the Pécs building programs; a creepy sensory experiment and a peep in the life of a youth local community radio station. Excellent. It was all too hectic to make pictures...

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

dry compost loo - as promised



... very soon indeed, hope the explanatory figure makes it all clear!
meanwhile it is a perfect day here, hot with a breeze, one just sits under the awning with or without reading matter, while the other one is breaking his back upon the hill cutting hay... but one is not feeling guilty, one is recuperating and will pick cherries and cut grass around the grapes later on, honest... and I did wash 12 sets of bedding! And cooked new potatoes with parsley and pork steaks for lunch, and made lots of tea...

Monday, May 24, 2010

flush




We had our record number so far last night - Melitta's crowd of 9, 2 Finnish guys and the permanent resident, 12 guests! We have no wwoofer at the moment until the 4th of June. Now that everyone'd gone except Alexander, it will be rather quiet for 4/5 days if I remember correctly, which is unlikely - I even forgot that Zoltán was supposed to come in the morning today - being Whitsun bank holiday - rather than in the evening.

But breakfasting so many was - challenging, as nobody sat outside to the proudly presented garden furniture, and it was - it still is a beautiful day. Everyone seem to adore all varieties of our goat products from the fresh milk to the cheeses.

The bogrács venison pörkölt do went off quite nicely, the atmosphere and the food was good, on Saturday night. Dodi had worn the official chef apron, giving a very professional aura...

My sister was here earlier in the week and insisted taking me to the doc, so I am now on antibiotics and improving steadily, which I hope I would have done anyway eventually - in spite of the wonder palm-leave extract tablets Pali made me take.
and my new teeth all work done - all mine, I've got the receipt to prove it - are an improvement.

And I got a good story from Martin - when they were walking home from the Shop with Sharon (Gainesville, Florida) a car slowed down and stopped next to them, and when Martin went there thinking they want direction, they pushed a $5 into his hand. It took some time to work out - they thought they were homeless, as they were walking...

The early cherries from Nora's are more or less ready to pick - the birdies tasted them so must be good, that is the job for the next few days - but I think they won't be nice enough to bottle or freeze - only to eat a lot. We'll see.

Pictures show tipsy Finnish guys after their visit to Palkonya open wine cellars day; drinking water for recovery, and Alan's dry compost toilet, which is ready to be used - and has been indeed used on this busy weekend, so there were three toilets altogether - Alan will explain how it works, allegedly soon, watch this place.

Friday, May 14, 2010

siberian berries



yes, didn't take long to harvest them... less than last time but slightly bigger fruits and they do have a, ahem, familar shape, or is it my lively imagination? They taste fairly nice, on the tart side.
The goji berry bush is trying to take over the raspberries, I have to fight them back. They had no berries on whatsoever last year, but they seem to be an aggressive plant - probably a weed in Tibet...
We have tons of lettuces, Alan of course planted them "in waves" but they insisted on growing in the same time. We have the beautiful reddish-lilac coloured with the wavy leaves that you just cut the leaves and they grow back. The green variety of this is my favourite. We also have rocketsalad (or rucola) it's really grown on me. Otherwise this year is a bit patchy, the sweet corn is not showing, but peas and beans are good.
We had 3 French people last night, they also joined us for the salad evening meal, and I received 4 kisses from each of them, I think they had a good time even though we had a bit of a problem communicating them being from the older generation when English teaching was not that favoured in France... But we were not exactly fluent in French either... Also we had full room in the Old Stables first time, we had 5 students, Erasmus exchange youngsters from the University of Veszprem, who decided to have a look round before heading back in a couple of weeks to their various homeplaces (Poland, Greece, Bosnia). Well, they loved it!! They were sitting outside merrily till late night, and said this morning, that they were very comfortable.
I am still coughing, I went down to see the local doc, but managed to just miss him at the Thursday surgery. I don't want antibiotics, unless my lungs' effected, but then I should have fever and poor appetite, and no such symptoms...
I am reading the Stieg Larsson Swedish crime stories "Millenium" and though fairly entertaining, I don't think they are outstanding, never mind.
I pushed discretely a couple of our Richard Dawkins books into easy reach of Alexander, got no reaction, but I don't think he reads much in English. I had to re-allocate bed for him as the stables were booked, he'll move back next week. He hasn't paid yet, he says he'll have money in June, and everyone think we are a bit mad, but I do think he won't do a runner... he can't really with all his stuff...
We had a pleasant meal on Wednesday in another new place "Crystal" but weren't well organised and forgot to get half the things we meant to in Pecs. Well, we did remember some...
Alan whitewashed the fruit tree trunks in Nora's garden and Gazsi insisted to mix in some anti-fungus stuff. This seems to be a Hungarian ceremonial thing. We couldn't find any useful properties for this procedure, the relevant websites say, this is a defence against the sun! I wasn't aware that trees could get sunburnt.
Got a proper letter fro Carolyn, and her life is totally back to normal, which is such a relief. She just had a holiday in Italy, and talked about Pecs in Sienna!

Sunday, May 09, 2010

resident author and sore throat and more restaurant write-ups




yes, we have Alexander, who means to finish his book right here, paying hostel rates for ages and ages. As we have problem communicating - he's German with little English and an ambition to learn Hungarian, we haven't a right lot of ideas about the book, but it must be revelatory as if we understood well, it is about evolution and god, not necessarily in that order. He seems to be not using any research - he finished a whole chapter yesterday - all by hand, but he is expecting his computer delivered any day now. (I'll ring up our broadband people about wire-less access)
he seems to be happy in the Old Stable.
My sore throat got worse. I was supposed to have a surprise date with a skeptic list visitor from Boulder, USA, arranged to meet him in front of the theatre, (I was looking forward to this body emerging from cyberspace) but I felt so rotten, that I had to cancel. He knows it is not a chicken-out. It was a wise decision as he travelled with a baby relative, glad I didn't pass on the nasty virus or whatever I have. I haven't had a cold since we are here as far as I can remember, must have been the running in and out of the cool house into the hot outside.
Alan is still in a near workaholic state, weeding well into the evening.
The UK election was much more entertaining than the Hungarian, not to mention that the fascists got a lovelt thrashing, not like here. Though, if they had proportional representation, like here, there'd be a few of them in their parliament, too - and if in Hungary we didn't they would have no MPs here, as individually none of them was elected. So whatever the voting system, it is not the fault of fascist being elected, it is the fault of the main parties who too keen to jump on the bandwagon of immigrants/roma bashing, legitimising the topic and the "blame-culture"...
(and there was chaos and queues, just like here...
but in Hungary they let everyone vote eventually...)
anyway, enough of that, but if you agree, let me know...
Alan is off to watch Újpetre football team getting beaten (and often also beaten up, these local matches tend to include scenes from a P.Howard novel... Alexander is writing his book and listening to old LPs on the old recordplayer in the verandah of the other house; lovely hostelguests - a Czech and a Polish girl who are talking to each other in French - as they've just attended a French Literature conference in Pécs, are visiting a Hungarian professor, there is peace and quiet, only broken by my nasty cough...
more of Alan's restaurant critique corner:
Rundo

Citrom Utca 16
on the corner opposite the post office.

While you're about it, nip into the post office and have a look at the little postal exhibition towards the front of the beautiful building the roof is richly decorated with Zsolnai tiles.
The Rundo has always been fine for set meals and from the look of what was on offer I would have had the schnitzel type deal that was on offer, however they had just run out, as we arrived well passed the lunchtime rush . I had the mutton stew and it was chewy. Éva was happy with the beans set meal, a bit cold though.
The place itself is a bit Spartan for my tastes on the inside. However, the urinals have little goal posts with a hanging ball you can aim at. A good reason to drink more beer.

Rating 5, and probably worth a second chance.

Corso

Kirly Utca 14 Next to the theater, a lovely chocolate box of a building. You can sit in the square out front and enjoy the folk dancing , which you can join in, on Wednesdays evenings in the summer. All good reasons, not that you need one, for not going into the Corso.

It gets a mention in a good food guide, I can't remember which one but the fact that its got one should have been a warning. My pint turned into a glass. Eva's white wine and soda was bubble less and warm. These delights served by a couple of look alike Zombie Android waiters. The food though tasty enough listed alarmingly towards bloody nouvelle cuisine and I hate leaving a restaurant still feeling hungry. Not cheap. Don't go!

Rating 2, I would have given it a one but there is a big window you can see the kitchen through. Tends towards pan European cuisine.

Fiaker

Felsőmalom utca 7.

Sometimes good in the past but tends towards dishes that involve cheese. Things with cheese in them mostly aren't really Hungarian, this includes Hungarian cheese.
Pleasant enough cellar restaurant.

Rating 6

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Stark stork story




seems ages since I blogged, but my motto is: only do it if you feel like it; and one can only be in the mood if one is not busy or tired, and I've seemed to be in one of these positions lately, with sore throat an'all... weather is very close and humid the last few days, which doesn't help.
we're sure not to have storks again this year, we had a late male staying for a few days waiting for a female to find him, but alas, no luck. Never mind, maybe next year. Also there are very few swallows we chased off some sparrows from their nest.
We had a fright, Gus was not around this morning, and Alan just spotted him as we had a last looking out for him before leaving to go to Pecs for our usual Wednesday off. He was galavanting on the top of the path with the loose dogs of the village, and seemed not too keen coming home. He must have sneaked out in the dark last night when Alan went to turn off the sprinkler.
Milking and cheese making now is becoming quite a routine, hens are laying nicely, Alan is doing a good job weeding and planting. (and he assembled the new pullied cloth drier, yippie)
After the usual suspense (will -anything- grow this year?) things are coming up (I mean besides weeds). The lola rosso lettuce in the greenhouse is nearly ready for cuttings. There are beautiful big pumpkin plants coming out absolutely everywhere where, we have to treat them as weeds.
We found a lovely couple of people in Pecs mending, lending and selling bicycles in a leasurely fashion in one of the ancient
shady courtyards of the main walking street. They will let our guests rent their bikes, they'd even deliver them to Kiskassa for a dinner! For about €10/day for a bicycle, it is a good deal.
velosophie.kulturlab.org
Zoltan is having his exam next Monday - he's in a bit of a self-confidence crisis, lets hope it'll pass in time...
We'll watch the British election on BBC24 tomorrow - more trepidation...
Pictures show May-trees, street-scene from last week,(Pécs had a dance fetival) and the view from the spot where I sit reading and daydreaming when I should be doing something useful.