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 30, 2011

lois's pics






mostly alphabetically from the farm, such as sheepshearing and the new animal stock, our trip to Zsolnay exhibition visit, gulyas cooking etc. What I can't fit here goes to the next (or previous) post.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

all well

sorry, we had a very busy time - first of all I spent more time than usual in Budapest being with my mum in hospital. She's the same and was taken home a few days ago, my sister organised specialist homecare, the necessary appliances etc, it is not easy, and as the same relaxants are not available as the one used in the hospital, mum is restless she cannot sleep.

The hay, cherries, strawberries are ok, we didn't have too much rain, in fact we could do with some more. It is a pleasure to look at (and to eat) all the lettuces, spinach, and peas are ready to pick anytime now.

We also got Lois - and we had the usual adventures and very good time with her, had nice walks and meals in Pécs, went to see a good band yesterday (A Köztársaság Band) fantastic violin and cimbalom players, good singing, I've never seen this venue so full.

Tomorrow we'll look at a Zsolnay exhibition, and see how the new "Culture Quarter" is doing, it all supposed to be completed by the autumn.

I keep forgetting to charge the cameras - I waited with the blogging keep wanting to put pictures on - well, next time...

Oh, yes, we had some guests! 6 malaysian pensioners! Same age as us, 5 ladies, friends since high school, travelling together. They
arrived with a big lump of beef, they wanted to learn how to make the real Hungarian gulyas, so I had to scrub up the old bogrács, and in 20 minutes we managed to get it organised! The ladies chopped onions, vegetables - I added a bit of goat-meat from the freezer - it turned out to be very good, if I may say so, it was a very pleasant if busy evening.

Sunday, May 08, 2011

back

and I meant to make pictures of the village's beautiful new stone-circled
flowerbeds, the re-painted play-ground features, the newly concreted ball-game ground, but by the time I got round to it the weather turned horrid;
Yesterday it was beautiful, we turned the tonnes of hay Alan cut - but alas, it is all getting wet today, after a forecast for two weeks of dry weather. It is cold as well, so I am a bit worried about the cherries and the strawberries that were expected to ripen in a few weeks. I am pleased I managed to trim the sorrel and collect a good load, for two portions, one for the freezer and one to be eaten straight away.
There are no bookings - it seems that everybody want to WWOOf - we have two/three applications per day for that - but nobody wants to be hostel-guests; we have about 3 single nights booked besides the Big Portuguese Event from the 30th of June for 9 days. (15 people! It should get the solar shower and the dry composting toilet a good try!)
Also we'll have some concreting and wallrendering work to be done that was not planned, hopefully gets done before Lois gets here.
(Isn't it great that we have no guests...)

my mum is in the same condition with the same ups and downs, so we have to figure out how to care for her before they pronounce her stable enough to leave with no more medical options.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

rainy day

my mum is back in hospital, this time with all the dreaded indignities -
after the 2nd stroke in 2 weeks - all the right hand side gone, but the left
is still vigorous. She is a fighter survivor as I must have mentioned her history before, but at this point
that is good thing as well as bad...
yesterday it was despair as she was in pain, today is peace and
twinkly eyes again.

meanwhile Alan is keeping the fort, down at the farm, the communal village-work day was a success for the second try, I'll have to see the new mini-football, the flowers, the tidiness when I am able to get back home.