It’s been a while since I’ve written anthing here … that is mostly due to me slowing down a bit … my breathing told me I reached a point of over-doing … so much so that I couldn’t ignore it anymore and decided to slow down and due less. I’m still doing quite a lot but I am leaving aside anything that doesn’t feel highly important … and that included writing.

Still much has been happening … and I am still not inclined to do a recollection … however I do want to make a note of this day.

We are already well into our winter-food-preservation efforts. Yesterday we went to purchase from Ildi & Levente tomatoes for making tomato-sauce (some of which we use for making other preservatives – namely Zakuska – and most of which we keep as is). We purchased “second-rate” tomatoes that are not “presentable” enough to be sold to customers … they were not visually pleasing and over-ripe and some of them were stained on the bottom due to a calcium deficiency due to lack of water) … perfect for tomato sauce.

This morning we set out to  make the sauce. This is our second time doing this so we already have some kind of routine. The freshly squeezed tomato sauce was absolutely delicious … very sweet … and because the tomatoes were very ripe … they were loaded with juices … so we realized we were going to get much more sauce out of every kilogram of tomatoes. We quickly realized that the pots we had would not be sufficient … so we borrowed their large iron pot. When I went to pick it up, Ildi greeted me with another carton+ of tomatoes she wanted us to have (she was uncomfortable selling us the lower-grade tomatoes, had just collected these tomatoes and had no time to process them) … so now we had even more tomato sauce heading our way.

The pot worked amazingly well on the rocket-stove. At one point we realized we could use some help if we wanted to get this done today so we asked Maria (our neighbor) if she can spare us some time. She gladly came to help and sped things up. We wanted to make ~25 liters of tomato sauce. About two hours after Maria joined us we were looking at a 69 liter pot that was almost filled. This was my first time this close to a 69 liter pot … and seeing it full … is well … a site to see 🙂

We ended up bottling 45 liters and the rest (~10 liters) we gave to Maria. It was a long day – 12 hours of physical work. The weather was a blessing. It was cloudy which meant we could work through the whole day (our work space gets direct sun for 3 or 4 hours during the middle of the day – making it uncomfortable to work in when its hot out). It even started to drizzle … so we asked the clouds to wait a little longer … and the drizzling stopped. At the end of the day the clouds parted and let in beautiful golden end-of-the-day light.

Our flock had a wonderful time feeding on the leftovers … they love to help on such days 🙂 This time of year is probably their favorite 🙂 The color of their poop changes according to what we are making … on a day like today … it gets reddish 🙂 Much of the “waste” is still sitting outside … tomorrow our flock will have another go at it and the rest will go to Maria’s pig.

We are very tired and very content. This is a kind of day that leaves us immersed in a feeling of simple and powefful abundance – a blessed existence.