lovely springdays cont.

So kidlings are doing a lot of work and enjoying the sunshine, and of course we treasure their time here. We didn't go out much due to that work, but managed a bit of Villány - very quiet yet on a Thursday night, had to try the only open venue - the posh Gere pince restaurant, very good food. We also discovered the Kodály centre in Pécs, seen an Afrikan singing group of six, fairly entertaining if a bit repetative. But the concert hall is really impressive - more so inside. Tonight the plan is Siklós - the baths and the railway eatery. The ducklings and chicks are going fast as you can see below. Everything is just fine for the moment - oh, and new wwoofer Jolie arrived all the way from New York, and she's done tons on her first day. She said it was the hardest workday of her life... well, she can have a rest and enjoy this gorgeous lazy Sunday... the cake portrait has the flodni extravaganza Szonya brought from Budapest and the London hot cross buns, all gone ages ago...

4th day of spring

tentative flowering - but most trees are still bare. But we had a few gorgeous days, so who am I to complain. We got our little chicks and ducklings growing by the minute, though they look a bit tatty on the photo for some reason. We had the village poetry day, little kids were very good, and I wasn't bad either, (I recited József Attila's Thomas Mann's Greeting, I hope I managed to smuggle in a bit of anti-fascist education) got my special praise from the jury and a book of poetry specially meant for me... Wwoofer Bogdan made it to his next place, again by hitch-hike, to Croatia. Alan has been very busy, managed to plow the upper field, but something fallen off again the little tractor, so he's waiting for some welding before doing down here, but you could read in the papers - because of this slow spring, farmers have to do two months' work in one... and we are getting about 2 liters milk per day, cheese/kőrözött making is getting into a stride. Szonya and Drew arrived today for a working week, we try to provide the peace and quiet they need as much as possible, but when they are not working on that book and research papers, they do a bit of wwoofing, they already planted a few stuff we bought on the big Pécs market to give us some even earlier salad stuff, though I am proud to say, we have lettuces under Alan's special manure-heated glass covered beds. You can see Bogdan spreading muck, the lame duckling we thought could have grown a very fat duck as it wasn't running a lot, but sadly after 4 day effort on both our parts it died; my new mat, cattoo and some other, as I am now seem to be able to put on more than 5 photos, I can't remember them all... oh, the goose eggs now are in the incubator with more chicken eggs, keep your fingers crossed for little goslings.

depressingly non-spring

but was worse this morning, rain and wind stopped and it was cca 10C this afternoon, so we took out the crowd (3 big one little goat and 2 big one little sheep) and they were ever so happy, even Elmintrude had some silly running about. The buds are there on the cherry trees ready to burst, and we collected a handful of our own medvehagyma. The sorrel doesn't look so well, tiny leaves with brown edges. Well, we'll see. Still couldn't plant anything except the onions (still hunted by stupid pigeons that just pull them out for fun) it was really dismal all week. Alan put up loads of his rustic shelves, and we have a proper wood box in the kitchen as well as lots of coat/hat space. Little ducks and chicks are doing their best to come out of their eggs as we speak in the incubator at Erzsi's. We have 11 goose eggs now, but at this point the female goose seems to have lost interest, so we might put the eggs with the next lot to be incubated. Which reminds me, the Easter egg-collection started ok - there was a lull in the rain - but as soon as most eggs were found by the youngsters and their eager helpers - it really came down bad, so goatkid and lamb-stroking was forgotten after the cake and the elderberryflower tea and palinka (for parents!). Bogdan, the first wwoofer of the year is leaving on Monday for a Croatian wwoofer placement, he was a big help and didn't complain (much) about all the rather heavy/dirty jobs he ended up doing (well). I haven't been feeling like making photos - I will when the sun comes out, if indeed it ever will...