It’s impossible to believe I’ve already been back on the farm now nearly a week. By the way, the two Gosias are, in fact, one in the same. This is a fantastically unlikely coincidence and I love it.
In addition to Gosia from Poland, there’s Sam the kiwi, Phillipa from Wales, Yakoba from Belgium who got in on Saturday, Maria and Jorge from Spain who just arrived today in a camper van with their two dogs, and Cameron the lumberjack from Canada (who just recently competed in a beard competition, btw, and arrived here in a flannel and trucker cap, so you know his lumberjack chops – like my puns – are legit) who also arrived today. All told, there’s 10 adults plus the two kids here right now, so it’s quite the circus! It takes nearly all morning just to make lunch.
The weather has been wet and dreary since I got back. In fact, it’s been raining practically non-stop since I left, which has depressed the growth of my lovely little mizunas and bok chois – they’re just tiny little seedlings still! Most of my working hours the last few days have been spent indoors helping out with making lunch and other household chores. I made my first fire in the wood-burning stove yesterday! It was fun – it caught on right away and was beautiful. It turned out to be a bit of beginner’s luck as my fire this morning didn’t go quite as easily, but I still managed to make it happen.
I also made my first ever batch of nut butter today – walnut butter:
This is a big week on the farm because both the kids have birthdays this week. Carey’s birthday was yesterday and it was my job to decorate the cake:
I also got to take part in some homemade apple cider-making.
The weekend was spent taking in some modern Hungarian culture (e.g. pubbing), foraging, and flea-marketing. Friday evening, after we finished making the cider, the other volunteers and I followed the train tracks to the next town over for a change of scenery at one of their kocsma-s (i.e. dive bars). We were clearly an unexpected distraction to the locals and the owner called his 20-something son, Mario, to the bar to speak English to us. I asked him how often they have foreigners in the bar and he said “never.” We drank and played pool and Foosball until about 2am – they kept the bar open extra late just for us – before heading home along the train tracks again.
I went for a run for the first time in months on Saturday. I woke up and just felt like going. The weather was perfect for it – cool with a break in the rain. After a much needed nap, it was time for some foraging. We all packed into the mini-van (the kids sat on our laps in the back and one of us had to sit in the “trunk”) and headed a few minutes down the road to some open and derelict land where you can forage for pears, grapes, and walnuts, mostly. We climbed up the hill to discover an amazing view overlooking two valleys – one on either side – and got to enjoy a beautiful sunset while we were up there. Saturday night was preordained as bonfire night. Gosia made traditional Polish mulled beer (yep – hot beer with fruit in it; it was tastier than it sounds), Sam made these amazing Earl Grey tea-infused vodka cocktails with a rosemary syrup, and I got to introduce everybody to s’mores. Can you believe they don’t know what s’mores are over here?! The only marshmallows we managed to find were sugar-covered candy ones with a berry flavoring and we had to use butter biscuits instead of graham crackers (they were a good alternative), but they went over like gang busters. We’re planning on doing it with the kids for their b-day party on Saturday.
Sunday morning, a few of us hopped over to the nearby town for some flea market shopping. It was quite the adventure. My host kept pointing out all these old tools and appliances that were being sold on the cheap because people still use them here, but which would go for hundreds of British pounds back in England as retro design accessories. There was a never-ending stream of fascinating things to look at. Things that struck me as particularly interesting: old cameras, old weight measure sets (like for weighing food and such), stenciled paint rollers, old carved leather purses, and this contraption:
In the afternoon, we hit the forest for some mushroom foraging. We found loads and loads of different kinds of mushrooms. We didn’t know whether they were safe or not, but we collected a bunch just to bring back for identification purposes and to find out whether they were edible. Perhaps the most interesting fungus we found was the witch’s egg:
That’s about it, folks. That’s been my life since I got back to the farm. It’s fun having so many people around – so much energy and variety. It’s supposed to be dry and even sunny for the remainder of the week, so we’ll see what fun new adventures the next few days bring.
TL;DR: Lots of different personalities and activity on the farm; enjoying being back.
