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Hi everyone,
La Multi Ani or Happy New Year to all our readers from Jacquie, Lew, Sian and all connected with Growing Care U.K.
It is a good thing that we celebrated New Year this week or the diary would be very boring ...
Monday and Lew checks the weather forecast early, they are still saying snow for Wednesday, so we decide that we must reinforce the weather protection we have because of the piglets, they must be kept warm. Lew puts plastic sheet over all the animal houses and then we put straw bales on top of that, the straw bales will help keep the plastic in place and the insulation. It took several journeys up to the stack to bring down enough bales. The electric fan heater is working well keeping the pig sty at an even temperature, not the 21C(70F) that the books recommend, but warm. The piglets are wandering around the sty so they must be warm enough. I also brought straw down for the house and the run. Well, we have done everything we can and it has taken all day. Good thing that there is still pork left; it's cold pork, chips and pickles - pickled eggs, onions, beetroot, red cabbage and gerkins, for dinner tonight, I have just realised even that is all home produced. John was having dinner with us tonight and he found pickled eggs a bit strange but he liked them. The one thing that was missing was chutney, I hadn't made any this year, I had plenty but have given so many jars away I have run out. I have been trying to find an old beetroot chutney recipe that I have used but no luck, I think it was in one of my old 'Home and Freezer' magazines. It began raining.
Tuesday, it rained, and the forecast changed from snow to rain; rain for the next three days!!! So far the ground is soaking up the water, but after three days of rain we will know it.
Wednesday, it rained and I started slipping around the yard. I began organising my thoughts for the Review, sorting out the photographs needed to cover January to April when we didn't have the digital camera. These needed to be photographed on the digital camera. Don't you think our Webmaster has done a fantastic job on the photographs, can you tell which was taken on the ordinary camera and which is taken on the digital. I knew the ones I wanted from the past digi ones. I was all set to write the review on Thursday, I wouldn't be able to do much else if the rain kept up.
Thursday, it rained and after feeding I got the computer out and started writing. Lew wanted to start sorting the photographs out so I made some coffee. He got the first disk out, the machine said it was empty, it was supposed to have about 100 photographs on it!!! He tried the back-up ... nothing. He tried about seven discs ... nothing. He told the computer to stop playing him up and tried to get in another way ... then another ... then another ... nothing. Sian said we ought to see if there were images on the discs and brought out the portable DVD she had borrowed from Glyn her friend in England. She put the discs in and there were the pictures, they were there. She went back to the computer tried one thing then another, then something else ... then she went on the net and screamed for help ... then she started texting friends who are good with computers. We had plenty of suggestions but nothing worked. We went to bed.
Friday, it drizzled and after feeding it was back to the computer. But whatever we tried ... nothing. Sian tried something that's come in via the net. Nothing worked. She tried to contact a friend here, Gabby, but he was out of range with his mobile. We had a great many interruptions to the day, well it was New Years Eve. This is a Traditional Celebration Day in Romania. Children arrive and recite the traditional poems, shake bells and ribbons, for good luck in the New Year you have to pay them. They don't expect much and we gave them 500 lei (2p) each. Then the main revellers arrived, the young men with their horse and plough which is dressed with a Christmas tree. The young men are very good at cracking their whips and making them sound like fire crackers. To have a good year and a good harvest you have to pay them, we paid them 10,000 lei (20p) and they left in high spirits. On the news we hear that in line with joining the EU the money will change in the middle of the year. The money is to lose the last three zeros, so 10,000 lei will become 10 lei. I am not sure whether they will be printing new money, most of the money we are using is only two or three years old, the plastic coated notes seem to last well. It was only last January that they brought out the new one million note, 1,000,000 lei, there aren't many about, they don't come out of the cash machines. Six o'clock we tracked Gabby down. He was getting ready for the New Years Eve Party, but he agreed to try the disc for us. It worked, no problem. The photographs were all there. It was our computer that was the problem. Gabby agreed to copy the pictures I wanted onto floppy discs for us. Sian rushed up to the caravan, we sat and went through the discs and chose the ones I needed. Then we went back to Gabby and he saved the day by copying what I wanted. Back I go and start writing the Review, I had planned to have this written so that Lew and I could relax and enjoy the New Year but things didn't go to plan, Lew and I even missed twelve o'clock, so we celebrated the English New Year instead. Sian went off to the New Year's Eve party, her and her friends managed to celebrated both the Romanian New Year and the English New Year. It is the only time that there are fireworks in Romania and there was a good display in the village. Of course there were the bangers that we have been plagued with for the past few days, perhaps they will have used them all now. Sian had bought some sparklers but she said they weren't as good as English ones.
Saturday and the village is quiet this morning, all the young people are still sleeping. The weather is better but the yard, oh dear, that is looking bad. The pig run looks like a swamp and the chicken run is nearly as bad. The yard is about an inch deep in mud. The only thing to do is bring down more straw, but we have some straw round the stack that is from broken bales and that will do. I spend most of the day bringing down straw to cover the mud. The mum pig, it is Spot, grunts away talking to her little ones, some of the time they sleep but other times when I have popped my head round the door they have been nosing the ground, playing with each other or climbing on mum. One of them had a strand of straw in his mouth. I think the best is when I catch them feeding, I could stand and watch them for longer than I have time. Sian takes the dogs for a walk this afternoon they have been shut in for the last few days. Latty comes back covered in mud so while Lew is cooking dinner I give her a shower, she enjoyed herself. It will take several days before the mud starts drying and it will take several days to clean up the awning after 48 muddy paws have gone in and out for the past few days.
Sunday and the weather is dry again, after feeding and watering everyone and checking on the piglets; I take the dogs for a well earned long walk. They race around like kids just let out from school. Then we had a quiet day.
What's been happening in the village this week? Well not much - people have been recovering from Christmas and getting ready for the New Year, as they do all over the world. Some were lucky enough to have the whole week off work, others only had Saturday, Sunday and Monday for Christmas, then yesterday, today and tomorrow for the New Year. Others finished their contracts the week before Christmas and will be out of work until their employer re-employs them in February, because he does not pay their stamp they don't receive any money from the government. But work is hard to come by, so you take work on the terms the boss lays out, no holidays, no sick pay, no retainer, no overtime pay although you work from eight in the morning till nine at night. It's work with some money at the end of the month.
Well I think that's all the news from Siminoc this week ...
So I'll say cheerio for now ...
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