Stop turning the damn world ...

Gosh the last two days (including today) have been busy as I had this mad dash of inspiration and wanted to wrap up all the *you didn't finish them up in time so you can leave them till the new year* projects or at least get them off to a good start. But it was worth it :) The only thing I missed/forgot is to trim the tree LOL

But - all the walls in my sewing room are now white washed, the beams are a glistening dark brown and the dark awful looking doors to the built-in closet are now white and show off the wallpaper I put on two of the three doors to perfection. I was not too sure if my colour palette of grey, white and dusty pink would work, but it does. It looks fabulous and I'm so keen on putting up the rest of the shelves as well as the frames and my old Baroque mirror (which still needs fixing).

The whole house has been cleaned, dusted and cared for from top to bottom, even though I still need to wash the upstairs windows and I think I'm seeing the proverbial light at the end of a very deep, dark, and self-confessed tunnel. YAY!

Yesterday His Hubbiness ™ got a pre-birthday present (how very Sheldonesque) in form of a fleece sweater, then today, he got some camera gadgets and a board game. He also got a pre-Christmassy pressie today LOLbut I needed to move some stuff out of the way and instead of wrapping up some I gave it to him instead which he is now wearing with pride so everyone is happy. Just don't tell the Christkind or Santa LOL

I wish you all a Merry Christmas - eat, drink and be happy :)


4/5 of our idiot children :D

Advent ... the time for breathing

Even though I try to move slowly and somewhat gracefully (HA!) through this hectic part of the year, it is a good thing that our afternoons and evenings are returning to cozy nights at home instead of either entertaining or being entertained by new-found friends. While I love that we have now started to weave all the intricate knots of friendship, at this time of the year it is essential to stay home and just breathe. And pause ... and wonder ... and soaking up all the holiday goodness.

All the moments that make me happy
- hunting for little holiday gifts on Christmas Markets.
- it's Christmas time!!!!!
- walks in the woods with the dogs.
- did I mention it's Christmas Time?????!!!!!!! :D

Sunsets and other stuff

Our internet connection is working so I need to use this to the fullest LOL

November has been an amazing month, lots of sun shine, lots of mellow golden days and cold clear star-lit nights. And the sunsets ... and sunrises ... gosh it was all so amazing. I just love November, heck I just love autumn and winter. While most folks get winter depression I seem to get winter passion :) I love to sit and relax in the garden surrounded by my dogs and watch the passing of light, the one hour between day and night when everything turns blue and then the sky is ablaze (well, on a clear day). And this particularly soothing golden light through the autumn foliage .. I love it!!!

While I write this the Eastern horizon is very gently turning from black to these amazing touches of magenta and I hope I can catch another wonderful sunrise on camera later on.

Anyway, life has been fabulous, even though it is strenuous and busy and most of the time I only remember which day it is when the garbage folks come (we have three days a week where all sorts of garbage is picked up ... Wednesdays is for bio/green garbage; Thursdays for either plastic/metal or paper and Fridays is for all the rest that doesn't fit the first two and you know what? Our trash can is tiny ... yes, TINY! It is bucket sized, well a big bucket, but still .. bucket sized. It is really amazing how much plastic and metal, but especially plastic stuff we are buying with our food. Plastic packages for sausages, meats, even vegetables and fruits. What happened to the good old newspaper or brown paper wraps?
As we are changing our way of living and especially eating, I have started to take empty tupperware with me when I go grocery shopping. First the supermarkets were a bit put off but as we are buying less and less there (during summer we got all of our fruits and vegetables from the garden and we've never eaten so healthily nor so fresh in all our lives) and go to the extra length to buy ecologically sustainable and free range dairy products and meats now. Yes, it is costlier, but then again we do not eat so much meat anymore anyway, so it doesn't affect our purses too much.
Luckily we have a couple of bio/eco farms around here so I can phone them up, ask what they have some particular offers that week and then I go there with my tupperware. And the butcher can portion all off already so you just need to label your boxes and chuck them into the freezer for further use. It's wonderful.
A couple of women here are already thinking of buying a pig or two next year and feed it for a year before having them slaughtered.I guess we have all seen the River Cottage DVDs one too many times LOL But the RC team would be proud of us. I have already asked the farmer down the road and he would offer us stabling free of charge for half a pig (no matter how many pigs we will eventually get). Another woman has re-activated her goat herd with a male goat and we have been experimenting with making goat's cheese already. Could be that we will have a couple of mini-goat's in the new year as well ... we will see.

Our dogs are striving and are still as cheeky as ever. Our two foster dogs are slowly but gradually, especially Sammy, learning to enjoy their new lives and I'm particularly proud of Lir who gave the impression to never learn how to walk on a leash, as he was so afraid of the harness and the leash itself. But he has now mastered like he had never done anything else in his life. We even can now walk through the village without me having to drag a 30 kg dog along. He even walks without a leash now when we are on the fields and the woods.

It is still very painful and frustrating to watch any progress with Sammy. At least she now walks within two feet of us and doesn't take flight immediately. Still ... she doesn't like to be touched, doesn't like any kind of harness or collar but there is progress. She now knows she is called Sammy or Sam Sam by us. If I call her she slowly approaches and waits what I have in store for her. We feed her by hand and she slowly, very slowly allows us to treat her like one of our dogs. But I don't see her moving into her forever family just yet. She will need at least another year if progress continues to be as it is up till now.

And the rest of the pack are all happy and healthy and fully demand our attention :)

Chandini looking like a miniature bobtail :)

An update ... sort of :)

... sort off ... somehow ...

Life has been hectic and stressful around here ... we have been busy harvesting and making ready for winter. Living in a little village seems to be the epitome of peace and quiet while in reality it is far from it. There are private parties, community parties, community bazaars, more parties and bake offs and what not. I haven't been so busy in all my life LOL
Autumn has been wonderful, lots of blue skies, sunny days and November even holds the record of first November in 100 years with less than a cup of rain falling. A tea cup mind you.
Anyway, while we had some splendid weather, we had also a lot of festivals and fetes and merriment was all around. And now we have December already and the first advent has passed and gone and the second Advent Sunday is just around the corner and I still have just one wreaths and one garland of Christmas decorations out. I need more time ... like 48 hours in just one day lol. I hope to get the rest of the Christmas decorations done by tomorrow and then I can start appreciating and enjoying this time of year IF ... yeah if our internet connection gets its act together and WORK for a change.

So to the birthday kids and all the others I have missed ... Happy belated birthday and Happy belated Turkey Day :) I hope life will get back to normal after the holidays :)

Golden October

Nothing is better than standing in the garden, all around you is a crisp frosty day with a brilliant blue sky and you are eating raspberries warmed from the sun fresh from a shrub.

Passages and set backs

Yesterday one of the original chickens we bought with the house last year died during the night. When we brought the chickens in for the night, they were alright but during the night one of them (one of the black ones) was eggbound (in German Legenot where birds want to lay an egg and push and push but as they are too old to still produce an egg they push out their cloaca :s It's messy, enough said).
She is now at rest with the rest of our pets on our little cemetary.
Sammy is shier than ever. We needed to give her some medicine and she was so afraid and angsty that now she is actually crying when we come near her. *sigh* I don't know what to do .. we need to give her the medicine as she still has open patches on her back. And she still needs a good claw clip but that is out of the question so far, she doesn't want to get touched .. let alone being captured and held. I doubt she will ever be a normal family dog. which is really sad. So now we are back to square one and I have to find a way where I can touch her without her taking flight.
Lir on the other hand is getting more and more comfortable with us every day. He is a big clown with a boyish attitude and you can actually feel that he loves his home and us. It will be so heart breaking when he finds his forever home. But then again ... so far only two ppl were interested in him but when they heard he was only using three legs, they didn't want him anymore. Jeesh, he is not disabled. His right hind leg is just shorter, but he uses it for getting up and down the stairs and all.
With the days now getting much colder, we are still trying to find our indoors pace compared to our outdoor pace of the summer. While the door to our court yard and garden was open 24/7 now it is closed as we try to keep the warmth in and the cold outside.
All have adjusted so far though it gets increasingly more difficult to persuade Careto and the two little girls to go outside LOL They are sooo typically Southern dogs, as soon as it gets cold, they rather stay indoors in the warmth. Lir on the other hand with his big fur loves to lie in the courtyard (while my Southern terrors sit on the coconut mats in front of the door and look as if they are dying of frost bite LOL

Plans and projects

Life has slowed down, most vegetable beds are bare now and ready for winter but my aubergines are still striving. This is the second time we experience harvest season now here in our little abode and I have to say it is even more fun than last year. We still have lots and lots of apples but with giving away a lot of them this year (opening up our garden for the public) we haven't had the sinking feeling of drowning in apples. We made apple juice (which has already been drunk!!!) and baked and cooked and it all has been fun.

However, I still have the feeling as if I'm mere dabbling in the way of homesteading. Probably because when I read blogs whose owners have been harvesting like mad and conserving full time this season I feel so incompetent. LOL IOh well, next year .. next year with the fence now sturdily in place and no way that the marauding chickens can eat up my budding cucumbers and courgettes etc. we will have a smashing good time. Over the winter I want to fix the greenhouse as well. Ever since Careto has ripped it apart I need to sew it again and hopefully it will be fixed easily.

I also want to do some sewing and crafting again ... there is a new quilt in the works as well as a crafting project for the bedroom (which still isn't painted btw) and I need to put up the finishing touches in the sewing room. *sigh* So much to do and so little time but with this coming winter hopefully being a cold long one again with lots of snow I hope to fin the time to finish up all my projects :)

The last of the summer wine ...

Though we had a not so nice summer, the end of September/beginning of October was warm and sunny ... everyone flocked to the garden ... and I mean everyone :)











The vegetable garden is now better secured than Fort Knox

My aubergines

Giving Thanks

The following entry was supposed to be posted on September 1st ... so much has been happening I hadn't have the time to sit in front of the computer :s
Is it already a year since we moved into our little paradise in the country?
In the past 12 months I have made memories and experiences that have been both exhilarating and annoying, truly wonderful and deeply hurtful. But we persevere. We all do and with each little life that comes and goes, we strive on.
This slowness, this de-accelaration, it works for us. Especially for me as I have never been happier than on our little smallhold here.
September ... a year from now I wonder what will have happe4ned. Will I be busy doing all the things that I had already scheduled for this year and didn't get around doing because of the continued attack of the vicious chickens? Will my garden strive and be full of plentiful harvest or will it wither like it did this year because of the chickens?
The past year has offered many great experiences. We have become richer and wiser, but also a bit more lonely (in the winter) and much more secluded. Friends come and go, my great grandfather used to say, good friends stay. Well, I haven't had any good friends, or so it seems. During winter most of my so-called friends turned away because of little petty schemes from someone I had never thought would be so ruthless. But where doors close, windows open and since spring, as with the first blossoms on our apple trees, friendship has sprung and abounded. This village and it villagers are not so strange, so utterly different anymore. I know a lot of ppl now, and friendship slowly blossoming.
Over the past few weeks, ever since our anniversary of the move from D to B occurred, I've been thinking about all the things I've been and should have been grateful about. The garden ... our delicious potatoes even though they are quite small, the courgettes and tomatoes fresh from the garden. Did you know that lettuce freshly picked and eaten is actually SWEET????
Nothing to compare with the lettuce you get from the supermarket. The vitamins turn bitter once lettuce is picked. The wonder of eating freshly picked strawberries and tomatoes still warm from the sun is something I wish a lot more ppl can experience. Of course, it's more work. You need to find the time to tend, to grow, to weed.

Harvesting

Got the potatoes out and they not only look delicious (i got some purple ones) but they also taste wonderful :) Also our first courgettes and tomatoes are coming (after having to fence them in or our chickens would have massacred more of our plants) and those yellow tomatoes are so, so sweet. It is amazing to see what can come from such a small kernel of seed, while you tend it, groom it, then put it into another bigger soil, only to see it bloom. And our stuff tastes yummy :)

New additions at Apple Blossom House

First off, after Poppy, His Hubbiness™ had to persuade me to take in another foster dog. When I saw the pics of Cososhka (now Samara) I agreed to take her in as she is a panic dog and needs special attention which we can give her (Chandini was also a panic dog with almost the same behavioural pattern).

So on Saturday, Cososhka (now Samara) came to live with us. However, on her transport there was also Lir (yep, like the Celtic seagod), a big guard dog mix which was picked up by a family with little children at our place. All good and done ... so I thought. On Tuesday, the woman wanted to have Lir gone as he didn't fit their lifestyle at all. He didn't like getting into the car, he didn't like the children being around his basket etc. etc. That dog had no time to 'arrive' first but was chucked into the car and handed around to various ppl, including grand parents, neighbours and what not and on top of it, when he was in his basket, where he is supposed to have his peace and quiet, two rugrats were continuously bugging him.
So His Hubbiness™ picked him up and took him in ... resulting in us having 5 (yep FIVE) dogs atm.
'sigh'

But Lir is a dear and follows us everywhere because here he has his peace and quiet and he can choose whether or not being part of our rambocuous gang. Samara stayed under the stairs for the first two days, but yesterday she started to sit on the sofa and upstairs on the dog mattress with Chandini and Lulu. She is still very shy and tries to get me to not touch her, but she doesn't snap anymore which is a plus (and grateful to my fingers).

So here are Samara and Lir.





The best part is .. neither Lir nor Samara have any hunting instinct. Lir wants to herd rather than hunt and Samara is still too scared of her own shadow to try to do anything. So once again, the animals live in peace with each other.

Morning greeting

This is how I am greeted every morning ...





And here I filmed while His Hubbiness™ fed them ... Careto is such a cool dog especially as he is a HUNTING breed.

LOHAS anyone?

Ever since we have moved our life has both been spinning out of pace as well as slowing down extremely. Sharing time with each other, sharing experiences has become as important as having a minute or two to oneself.

Our chicks are busy with producing eggs we cannot by all possible means eat all, so I share them with friends I have made here in the village. It's a good feeling to share something that is organic, healthy and brings fun to ppl. OMG! You got green eggs!!! is an often heard outburst among our neighbours who get eggs. We even shared our cherries with a family down the road. Next thing up will be the apples that are growing their red cheeked splendour on heavy twigs in our garden.

I have been working on a special brochure for the village country fair and while doing so, I have found quite some nice ppl that quickly become part of our lives. I hope that with sharing experiences in life and eggs (lol) we will become an ever tightly knit community of ppl here who work towards a better life in this village.

All of us are in their thirties to late forties and it seems that somehow we all reach for the same goal - it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I didn't have in a long time.

Nurse Careto, come to ER please :)

One of our Beijing ducks is sick (she was running a fever) and has its sick bay in our living room with daily outings into our walled yard.






Ducky is getting better ... no high temperature today.

It's cherry time

photo taken by me at noon today

I think I'll give those cherries another day or two of summer sunshine and then they will turn into delicious tarts and cakes. They are absolutely sweet and delicious and nothing beats the taste of a still warm from sunshine cherry.
Still considering buying one of those juicers but then again that juice won't last the winter ... is there a thing like cherry syrup? Have to hunt down the internets for something like it.

WOAH! HOLY! CRAZY! BATMAN!

We had the most amazing (and scary) light show and weather conditions just now. It is still grumbling in the distance and life continues as it was, but not five minutes ago, we had armageddon and doomsday rolled into one.
We had a wonderful orange tinted sunset when those pesky grey-black clouds rolled in, almost like Sauron advancing with his black forces onto the White City. First it only rained slightly while lightning bolts and thunder ws right on top of us and then ... and then the hail started coming in .. WOAH MOMMA!!!! It's white out there, everything is covered in hail drops and it crunches under my boots.
But everyone is safe and sound - while a little bit scared (Chandini) - or excited (yours trully and Lulu).

You know you are in desperate need of rain ...

when all radio stations played rain related music all day long while rain was peltering down on the dried out earth. Imagine driving around in the car, singing "Singing in the rain" at the top of your lungs and having the windows down and feeling the rain drops on your skin while coming back from shopping. It was fun, it was wonderful ... it was about time.
We had rain and temperatures dropped from 31°C yesterday to a mere 16°C today. But what a relief it has been. Mother Nature took a huge breath that could almost be heard and now the trees and bushes and grass as well as the crops in the fields are greener and healthier than yesterday. Our ducks went crazy and the white Peking ducks were gallivanting in the pouring rain, flapping their wing, opening their beaks and just being happy. Happy especially about all the little wormy things suddenly vacating their holes in the dirt and chicks and ducks had a feast on those pesky snails.

A week ago we got some new additions for our chicks and ducks ... four white chicks and five Peking ducks (the Donald Duck variety). The ducks are hilarious and now I know why Donald and Daisy walk like they do and are so adorable ;-)

Hello Blue eye (photo by His Hubbiness™)

We are already in high summer

Between watering the garden and watering the flowerbed in the yard AND watering my vegetables, I never seem to have enough time to get online :s Jeesh ... this May has gotten away from me in more than one thing. It has been exceptionally hot and nature has been working over time ... It is the end of May and we are already harvesting strawberries, raspberry and lettuce. My tomatoes are coming like mad as well as my courgettes. The wheat on the fields already turns golden and we are in desperate need of rain.

Today, beyond our garden gate.

Poppy moved out last night

Yesterday, Poppy moved in with her new forever family. I cried when the ppl took her to drive back home. Oh boy, this little gentle creature really was one of those candidates that might stuck forever in a foster home. Charming little girl. But she has a big dog sister now, two kids who adore her and ducks, chicken, cats and horses to play with. And the ppl will take her everywhere.







Have a wonderful life, Poppy :D

We had a wonderful sunny Easter time

And our princely boy had a smashing time ... as had the rest of our pack.



Baby girl


Our little Poppy has found a forever home, she will move out in May


Our Lu

Still alive

with so much work in the garden .. and the house, I forgot to tell you that we have ...

a new foster dog ...
Poppy, Dachshound/Chihuahua mix, 4 years old, was found abandoned in an apartment by a landowner after the former tenant had moved out ... a week after the day of the move.
Despite that she is a healthy, happy little girl - very gentle and wonderful. A real sweetheart. With just one big problem. She cannot stay alone without a human present. We are training her, but this is the only training she outright refuses ... she is very intelligent, can all commands (down, sit, stay, roll over, high five etc.) yet she won't stay alone, which is no surprise considering her former ordeal I guess.

Right of this moment ...

... the ducks have discovered the plastic vessel I put into the ground for them to swim in




... we all enjoy the rare sun rays


... while the smoke of the power plants rise into a brilliant blue sky


It looks really nice and warm but that is not true. It is 8°C, however, the wind is so cold it feels like minus grades :s

First glimpse of spring

Since yesterday the sun is coming out and smiles down from a blue-blue sky. After house chores which turned into a bit of spring cleaning, I took the pups outside, sitting in the COLD but enjoying the sunshine.

A good coffee, elevenses and a good book, what more can one need?!



SUUUUUNSHINE!!


Even the pups enjoying the warmer weather


Hmmmm...