|
Hi everyone,
From a very hot Siminoc, the temperature outside on the patio, at one o'clock is 98F (37C). I have relocated to Sian's room where the temperature is cooler, I have her windows open and there is a cooling breeze, her room is at the front of the building and the sun is at the back now. But this isn't the hottest it has been this week, on with the diary and you will see ....
Monday and as always it was a busy start to the week with the school run to be organised in the middle of the day. While I was collecting the greens for the animals, Lew boiled the eggs and found the tins of pate and the spready cheese, that was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday organised. I had 'planned' to spend the whole week at home weeding and planting and making new vegetable seed beds. Mondays are not good days for me, I am always tired after putting the diary to bed and things always seem to take twice as long. John finishes getting the land ready for the grass.
Tuesday and with rain forecast for tomorrow we decided to go ahead and plant the grass seed. The grass seed is mixed with the clover and lucerne. This is then mixed with sand so that we can see were the seed has dropped. Lew and John go to plant the grass it takes them most of the morning, now all we can do is wait for the rain. I spend the day washing, it has built up a bit with the water being off last week, but not too bad I am finished by the middle of the afternoon. Then I remember we are nearly out of the main pig food, John and I head for the feed merchants. On our way back we are stopped by the police, they are checking emissions and steering. The car fails on both - I don't understand we passed an MOT (or the equivalent here) in February. The car is to be taken off the road until the work is done and the documents are taken away. But, they also take John's licence because he was driving the car. He can't drive until they give it back to him maybe in a month. I can't reason with the police, they don't speak English. It was under discussion that he go up north to help William with the collection of caravans but ...
It seems there is nothing I can do ...
We drive home.
Of course this will make no difference to us with John, instead of jumping in the drivers side he will jump in the passenger side until he gets his licence back, but of course John is very upset. He settles down and he and Lew go through the list of things to be done to the car. It is decided the car will go to Franny for the repair, we can trust him to put the new car parts on the machine not change them for others and keep the new. John and I are to go to Constanta tomorrow to collect the new parts. We get the papers for the car back when the work is done and it has passed another test, Lew hopes he can get John's licence back at the same time, there is no date on the piece of paper taking John's licence away. A very subdued John goes home.
Wednesday and it is off to Constanta on the bus, not an easy journey, three buses to get to the main parts dealer. Then we stop for a drink, it is 26C (78F) in town. Then we locate the red bulb Lew has been looking for, to put in with the chickens and the bit for John's bike. He was going to get one 'bit' but Lew said he had to get two because they should go on as a pair. It was fun getting back on the bus with all the car parts, at a total cost of 5,500,000 lei (£110). We have bought: piston rings, gaskets, part of an exhaust, suspension arms and track rod ends. We jump off the bus and I pop into the local shop for coffee (not decaf but will have to do today). I pick up two beers as well, one for John and one for Lew and I to make shandys. John drinks his walking back to the caravan, usually he can't drink during the week because he is driving the next day and they are very hot on drinking and driving here, so he enjoys his beer. The car and the 'bits' go off down to Franny, he and John will work evenings to fix the car. Guys, a few weeks ago I promised you some mechanical pictures to compensate for the baby ones, here they are, not quite the way I wanted but that's life.
Thursday and I have the whole day to work on the land, but with so many jobs to do I don't know where to begin. I need some green food so I start to clear the next room of the animal building of weeds so that John is clear to fill with land when he is ready, then on to clearing a path through to where I have put the tomatoes, a good clear path will help. I actually have a tree lined path, I found three walnut seedlings while I was clearing the weeds. From there I just carried on pulling food for the pigs. They had been eating all day so I didn't think they will be very interested in their dinner but I was wrong, they ate it with gusto. The pink rose bud has opened to be the first to flower, the yellow one is still a tight bud and the red isn't showing any colour yet.
Friday and before I had finished feeding John had arrived with the promised tomato and pepper plants. He likes planting peppers so he was going to do those, my job plant the 80 odd tomato plants his mum had sent up. We had coffee, I know it is decaffeinated, but I need two cups (no mugs) before I start 'working'. I have one before I feed and water and then one after everyone is fed and watered, John has usually arrived by then and we can work out who is doing what and when. Coffee finished John starts his pepper planting while I collect the first greens of the day for the animals, you wouldn't think the pigs had just been fed the way they tuck into their greens or shredded wheat (feed straw). Then on with the tomatoes, the new weed has to be taken off and then planting begins, I plant another two rows of tomatoes and put the small ones in a space I have in the seed bed, coddle them on a bit and if I loose any that have been planted out I will have replacements to plant. The forecast is rain ... Yes! I wish! No sign of rain in a clear blue sky, but suddenly there it is, John had just finished his pepper planting so he ran for the caravan, I didn't think it was going to last so I carried on, the drops of rain were big and cold, and I was getting very wet so I left everything and headed inside. By the time I had dried off and changed my t-shirt, the rain had stopped and the sun was out as hot as ever. I went back to my planting and you would not have thought it had rained at all the ground was dry. It is time consuming and we have to stop in the middle of the day, it is too hot to work. The phrase, 'mad dogs and Englishmen' often comes to mind on days like this, I can feel the sun tingling my skin through my t-shirt and my arms are already going brown. I have swapped my old woolly hat for an old sunhat, my old joggers for old shorts and discarded the jumper, t-shirts I seem to wear all year round. John usually has a kip in the chair lunchtime, it is too hot to do anything else. Then it is back to work, John plants some main crop peas while I finish planting the tomatoes. If you remember I planted 80 tomato plants last week and another 80 this week, that makes a total of 160, a lot of plants you think. Well ... tomato plants do not usually bear the large amount of fruit/vegetable that English ones do, (I am not joining the debate on whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable), I am hoping for 1 - 1 1/2 kilograms per plant, approximately 200 -250 Kgs. Some of course will be eaten before they reach the house and some will go fresh to the families, (they will need to have enough for bottling some of their own, they have a tomato, pepper and onion mixture which they bottle in coke bottles for the winter, don't look at the top of the bottle when it is brought out to use). But the rest will be bottled (put into jars) or frozen. I estimate with home use, families, school soups and an added responsibility (which has not yet been decided, but has to be catered for) I will need the equivalent of 10 jars of tomatoes a week from October through till the end of March beginning of April depending on the weather next year. That is 240 jars of tomatoes not including those that get given away on the odd occasion. Then there is the green tomato chutney to be made, I ran out at Christmas this year because it was so popular that I will need to make at least four times the amount I usually make. Now you see the question is have I put in enough tomato plants? Planting finished John called it a day and went home to feed his pigs. Now if you remember we planted the grass seed on Tuesday hoping for the rain that they forecast for us on Wednesday, well still not enough rain to start the seed, so I decide to water the grass seed. Now here, my grass patch is of postage stamp size a mere 40 metres square, bigger than some gardens in the UK. AND it is situated at the far end of the width of the plot underneath the fruit trees. The hose at the moment won't reach that far, Lew trails it out as far as it will go, but it is slightly uphill, so the water pressure is low. I fill my watering can and start the process. Lew says, 'They are forecasting rain' but to me it doesn't look like rain. I have done about half a dozen runs with the can when the thunder and lightening start. But, it still doesn't feel like rain. John came up to tell Lew about the progress on the car and goes to collect his watering can to help. We listen to the thunder and watch the lightening dance across the sky, someone might be getting rain but we weren't. We had to stop when it got to dark to see what we were doing. We all sat in the garden with a coffee watching the lightening dance across the horizon, the rain was going round us. Lew wasn't very happy with me, he had been holding dinner up and it was another late dinner, half past nine. The water went off just before we went to bed.
Saturday morning and still no rain and no water. John was to spend the day helping Franny with the car. After I had finished with the animals, while I was having a coffee, the water came back on. I went back to my watering my grass that took me through lunchtime. I crawled back to the caravan needing a drink, I looked at the thermometer 104F 40C, one glass of squash didn't hit the sides as they say, the second I took outside to sip slowly sitting in the chair under the umbrella. The caravan is like an oven during the day, coolest place Sian's room and if the door has been left open you will find the dogs under the bed, all except Harry he doesn't fit. Being Saturday I was going to stop for the afternoon, I sat in the yard intending to stay there for the rest of the afternoon, but an empty seed bed was calling me. I planted main crop carrots, spring onions, lettuce, mixed salad leaves and nasturtiums. I moved the hose so that I could water the roses and no water, no kink in the pipe ... was it just pressure. No, tap checked - the water was off again, and I was hoping to have a shower. I should water the tomato plants but the forecast said 90% chance of rain, and I was all watered out from this morning, I didn't water. It was our wedding anniversary today, but with no car we couldn't go out for dinner. Lew decided to cook something special - he is a good cook. It was smelling delicious, then there were words from the kitchen I cannot repeat, and he walked out with a coffee in his hand, 'Dinner will be a bit late and not what I intended' he said. Our new cooker has not been exactly what I had hoped it would be, and now Lew thinks the thermostat is not working properly, dinner is burnt. But what we had was very tasty if an hour and a half later.
Sunday and it was hot when we woke, no sign of that rain we were supposed to have last night, I am losing faith with that weather forecast, when we first had it, it was accurate to within the hour. If the hourly forecast said rain at three o'clock, then before it reached four o'clock we would have rain. They forecast rain for us all evening and most of the night, but, not one spot. The water was still off and the dogs were getting under my feet as I started to carry water to the different animals. I'm afraid I lost my temper when Harry nearly sent me flying, trying to get to the pig water before me. Harry as you might remember is a German Shepherd dog and as he has no sheep to herd he thinks it is his job to make sure all the pigs are up together when I am doing something for them. So, he has to be there before me and he barks at them trying to round them up. The trouble is they take no notice and the only thing he succeeds in doing is winding me up, today I shut him in the building. The rest of the crew, who of course like to join Harry in any barking that has to be done, know that if I have got cross enough to shut Harry away then they better steer clear. They found themselves a shady spot laid down and went to sleep. I let Harry out when I had finished feeding and watering, he had been sulking in Sian's room. Because I don't go on the land on Sunday but the pigs still want their weeds, I weeded round the roses, the smell was beautiful. My second cup of coffee took about an hour to drink, I was sitting under the umbrella, taking my own advice to William, I didn't have 'music' type music to listen to but the chattering of the birds. They were flying overhead, collecting bits of straw from the yard to take to the nest they are building in the roof, drinking from the water containers around the yard, stealing food from the animal feeders, or eating and drinking the food put out for them on their own table. I was just sitting there with my feet up on the large stone keeping the umbrella in place, enjoying the quiet of the day. Lew came out with his coffee, it must be getting hot he has his shorts on. A hornet flies past, I am a bit wary of stingers, I had a bad bee sting when I was younger, but Lew says, 'Just take an antihistamine and rub on the bite cream - if it doesn't clear, then see the Doc'. Oh! Well! He also says, 'They don't very often sting'. The water dribbled back on about twelve o'clock and we refilled the caravan container and I refilled the pigs mud bath, Spot, the first mum, ambled out of their house and demanded the first bath. She moved the mud about with her nose making a large hole and promptly lay down in it taking up the whole mud bath. Nothing was moving her till she had cooled off. Speedy and Dush came over and stood underneath the hose drinking from the spray and letting the water trickle over the backs. When Spot had finished all the youngsters dived in and I had some very muddy pigs. No point trying to refill the tank, lift the hose high enough to get it into the tank and the water stops, the pressure is very low. I hope it picks up by this evening or I will have to water by hand, carrying the water from the yard up to the tomatoes, peas and peppers. Not so far to get water to the potatoes onions or salad crops, but far enough when you are carrying a watering can full of water. Lew still disheartened over yesterdays dinner, is on dinner duty again today. I am writing the diary this afternoon because I think I will be busy till late this evening and very late Sunday nights putting the diary to bed is having its toll on Mondays, I feel washed out before the week starts. The water has gone off again! At four o'clock I go to take a couple of photographs that I want for this weeks diary. The crops are looking good, the maize is already showing about two inches tall, the oats are looking lovely and green, the wheat is up to my waist and we have lovely big ears on the stalks. By the time I get back Lew has dinner ready, we are eating early tonight, before I feed and water. Back to the diary all jobs finished and it is nine o'clock. The water didn't come back on, so it was water by hand and no shower at the end of a very hot day.
What's been happening in the village this week? Well I am afraid the topic of conversation this week is John losing his licence and speculation on how long it will be before the police give it back. The ladies have been working the land, the maize that was planted before mine is now ready to be weeded, the tractor does the middle of the line, the edges have to be done by hand by an army of ladies you can hire from the village. They are paid 200,000 lei (£4.00) for the day, they start at seven in the morning and finish at five in the evening, they are given juice for elevenses and afternoon break and fed lunch; bread, eggs, cheese and things usually washed down with a glass of beer, (just the one). The vines are greening up well and I have been looking for the first sign of grapes, nothing yet.
Well I think that's all the news from Siminoc this week ...
So I'll say cheerio for now ...
|
|
