life goes on - busy busy...

we had the rare pleasure of having son Martin here, my sister brought us down to Kiskassa a few hours after the family meal we had after the funeral. It all went as smoothly as these things do, a bit of my sister's piece about our mum was read out and we talked about her...
We all needed to get ourselves together. So we were back to collecting yellow plums and jam-making, tomato preserving, kohlrabi freezing... Simon, the English hostel-guest was promoted to wwoofer status for a few days to look after things while we were away, which he did, and while he did he gained some valuable experience about continental bed-making... because meanwhile we had more guests, the flow just dried up now a bit now.
Martin left today, so we are a bit down, as well as a couple of german-iranian guys who were on their way to Istambul on a big Yamaha, and did a bit of wwoofing on the way, they needed a couple of days as all their gear was very wet. We are having a cooler week ot two, with lots of rain. We wanted it, but now it's enough...

Thank you very much for all the kind words of condolences, very much appreciated.

I forgot to mention, that we now milk one goat and nearly have enough milk off her if no extra amounts are needed. Such as today for a large portion of custard made to go with the poppyseed/black-cherry self-created, bread-pudding type of thing loosely based on what they call here "guba".
The picture was sent to us by Maggie, one of the lovely guests we had here from Singapore-cum-Germany, you can see them, Jutka, my sister, Martin and us, and I have a shockingly awful posture...

sad blog avatar or "the spatial awareness of organic production"

I was sitting on the train going to Budapest, a day earlier than planned, as my mum's condition turned to the worse, when my sister phoned me to say that she'd died.

As to avoid dealing with that, I wrote the blog I'd failed to write last weekend;
a replacement blog...

So last Wednesday, Harry, the Taiwanese wwoofer materialised. Well, sort of, as he turned out to be a very frail and thin specimen of 20 going on to 12.
We took him on as we had a special request from a Hungarian wwoof-host who, for some undisclosed reason cancelled his stay there. Apparently his trip to Hungary was sponsored by his university and all travel arrangement had been already made.
So he badly needed a place... as we understood the story. He said his major was history and he did also sociology, so the educational aims of this sponsorship seem to be a tad difficult to fathom.
Anyway, after two days of lacklustre help with collecting hay, processing beetroot and clearing paths, Harry declared, that this was not what he expected. And when I asked what he expected, the curious answer was the phrase in the blog-title.
All through his not quite 3 days stay he had hardly eaten anything and he didn't seem fit enough to work, I suspect sadly,a health problem with this youngster . To our mutual relief he departed on early Saturday morning requesting a lift from Timi. He told us he'll look for a flight going back home. So another enigma to colour our organic production... other Chinese wwoofers and guests so far seemed to have liked my food, and enjoyed or at least were intrigued with the work...

Meanwhile we had a nice cluster of hostel guests, on Monday morning we breakfasted a lovely family of five from France, a Japanese dancer lad who lives in new York, and who stayed longer than his booking, a Polish couple on their way to Bosnia and Croatia, and Simon, the English would-be-wwoofer.

Well, I am typing in all this in the evening, in my mum's eerily quiet place, with treasure Julika (who looked after our mum so well) tearfully resting in her room, and with my sister sent home to do the same. Tomorrow more arrangements to be made, the usual upheaval when there is a death in the family even when sadly anticipated – my mum would have turned ninety in November, if she'd just made it... still, she had a full life, which was mostly happy, after the survival of being imprisoned as an illegal anti-fascist, taken to Bergen-Belsen... working for the soviet led international youth movement where she picked up a good working knowledge of French and English; being kicked out of job and party as someone not to be trusted when her parents emigrated to Israel; picking herself up while working as a private maker of ladies specialist undergarments (her original trade) being rehabilitated and working until retirement for the office that dealt with Hungarian artists'' contracts and travel and work -documentation when they were working abroad, and the same for foreign artists when working here, meeting and getting to know and love a lot of very famous people... And then, of course, she helped looking after the grandchildren... She enjoyed reading, TV, and of course all that frustrating politics, keeping her humour, when hardly anything else left...

pictures show flowers, me with mum and dad about 4 years ago at the stop of the 59 tram in Budapest, an up-to-date view from my favourite spot in the front yard in Kiskassa; the feeble wwoofer, and Gus on the mat – he has the privilege when being frightened of a storm.

heatwave not in Rochdale

Hi dear M&B from Rochdale, hostages to fortune somewhere near Barcs - we cannot e-mail you as the comment does not give your address. Look up our website (www.ecohun.com) for our e-mail address, or just come and see us!

As for the horrid bug, it it a mole cricket, but all related information refers to ones upsetting golf courses, and lawns, not rugged potato patches... they advise us to catch them young - it is a tad too late for that. If indeed they are the culprits.

It is incredibly hot, it has been upto 38C, but "only" 35C today... the last village community volunteer building(!!) works happened on one of these potboiling days last saturday; getting ready the yard and fields at the culture house for our Kiskassa Festival of Light in August (12th, 13th and 14th)
Alan was down there at 7:40 in the morning, managing keeping up with the hard physical labour till mid-afternoon. There were big concreting jobs - nobody thought of getting a concrete mixer. We had to lend ours - nobody was aware we had one, so all work would have been halted without us...
Well, good to feel important as my work in the kitchen and round the culture house was a bit leisurely as to compared to the rest, though doing anything was an effort in the heat.
Mancika supervised with the help of a few more from the pensioners a very tasty bab-gulyas, with Anita's chocolate kalács for afters. Vine and beer were available to the thirsty and, hmmm, very health and safety conscious workers... I still don't quite understand how Armin managed not to fall into that well...

So how come all village life is continuing as per usual? Well, yes, the mayor is staying on, there was a big collection of signatures (more than 150!) asking him to, until he can.
The petition was presented at yesterday's official council meeting which was attended by about 50 villagers - our usual meetings unfortunately do not attract such crowds...
anyway, the mayor presented the situation and offered his resignation, but was persuaded to stay on... his appeal could take years and he might have better luck with it...

We received our wwoofer today, he is Harry from Taiwan, who won a scholarship from his university to immerse in some exotic foreign culture... his family would have preferred him sampling life in the USA, but he had insisted on bottling beetroot in Kiskassa (this was his first job here today on his first day), He has never seen a village before - or used a tool or any such non-city-stuff, anyway, we resolved that he'll go home strong and a bit less thin... tomorrow he is shifting hay with Alan in the heat - if he survives, he'll definitely be a fitter person...

I have been on The Bicycle! To my amazement I managed to do it, if a bit wobbly(ly?). I'll do more practice before I venture to the shop - or to Újpetre...

Pictures show the 2 little goats - Pici now reached the size the other one was at birth;
and some glimpses from the communal works

we got a silver medal!

well, one of our Portuguese guests did, as it turned out, our long awaited group consists of participants in the Pécs orienteering world championship. This is the first ever Portuguese medal in this event!!
We survived 3 days now in these large numbers, the atmosphere is very good.
I actually used our dry compost toilet... but there are no big queues or problems as such.
Alan reckons Hungarians aren't after all the world's noisiest people...

As we were so busy getting ready for guests, picking and processing apricots and greenbeans and marrows and looking after guests once they arrived,I had no chance to familiarise with the Kindle or with the Bicycle, but it is so nice thinking about them... tomorrow, definitely, now things are getting a bit calmer...

about the mayor fiasco ; the village knows less - except for the rumours which are this time tamer than the truth... our mayor was convicted to go to prison for 5 years for corruption. He told us at an emergency council meeting, that his company won a very (very!) lucrative contract from the customs authorities. (this is his version and I actually believe some of it) the competitor who lost brought the lawsuit and apparently had the better connection to the judge... so now that the new ex-mayor (he resigned to avoid embroiling the village in scandal(!) we are left with loads of cash his new scheme (manoeuvre with local taxes making companies to register here) making the life of a newly elected mayor rather easy. I wanted new elections for representatives, too, as 2 out of 4 do bugger all, and this would have been a better ploy to avoid that scandal, but alas, the deputy mayor who's going to be the caretaker mayor for a good few month until the mayor elections, wouldn't do it (he's worried he won't be elected again... he is on the thick side, but he is good organising events, maybe if he is elected he'll let people like the old ex-mayor think for him.

our potatoes were destroyed by some sort of weird bug, at least 2 inches long and half an inch wide, looks like something out of a science fiction... if any of you know what it is, and which eco-warrior super-hero can help it back to it's own dimension, we'll be grateful. Other pictures show Drew from last week with some pálinka, Éva relaxing in favourite corner in the usual company,and our Potuguese medalist.