Asides

Started the day with a walk to Ildi & Levente go give them stuff for Andreea. The day before yesterday I was invited to a cherry picking … so yesterday I made my first Vishinitsa (Romanian Tsuika with cherry syrup) … came out very nice. So I sent some to Andreea together with a jar of the leftover cherry-mush – also yummy!

Then I did another coat of paint on the pieces of wood that can now be constructed into the bases for the 6 new solar dehydrators.

Potential rain tomorrow … so I headed out to collect the hay I cut into a pile (keeping for winter, when we use it as bedding for the flock). Since I don’t have a horse & carriage nor a carriage to hook up the car it was either do a lot of walking with hay stuck on the fork … or … I tried to use the wheel-barrow to create larger piles. I think it looked ridiculous but it worked. I managed to load and esily transport in a single wheel-barrow 4 or 5 times the amount I would have been able to carry by fork. A nice pile is standing next to the barn … proud … its my first … cut, turned, collected and piled on my own. I even brushed the sides so that the rain would wash off (though I will probably cover it with a tarp too). It’s already starting to look less impressive as it settles into place.

Took a break, ate, snoozed a bit … then didn’t really feel like working more. So I did some kitchen-cleaning, did my on-the-mat Yoga practice and …

… went outside to check the beehives. Good news is that the pre-emptive split we did about a month ago (there were signs of potential swarming … lots of males and queen cells) looks to have taken well – plenty of activity, brood, construction and honey collection – though still a small family. I hope they are able to get strong enough and collect enough honey to make it through winter. However I have a feeling that the original hive also swarmed. I saw two swarms .. one was just around the time ours should have … so it may have … and the other just today. I couldn’t spot the queen (but I can rarely do that), the hive is still very active, plenty of honey but I also did not see sign of brood. I did see two queen-cells … so … looks like swarming (the colony split and many left with the queen and honey stores to form a new colony) may have happened.

The flock is set for the night, dogs are fed, all the wood from the finishing stand has been brought inside, dinner is cooking … and I am calling it a day.

Today started grey and wet … a nice fall rain … light and long 🙂 I did not feel like going out at all … and so I didn’t … unti I felt like going out and so I went out … and the weather cleared and the sun came out and even some blue skies later in the day 🙂

I started in the workshop … I buit a platform on wheels … which is actually a part of the second rocket stove project. Before I can buid the new rocket stove I first have to move out the old metal stove which is very heavy (takes an effort for three strong guys to lift). So my idea is to leg by leg lift it onto the platform and then roll out it out … so that is done.

I then went on to chop some more firewood … filled and stored another wheel-barrow … and then went out to clean up and mulch another of the raised beds. I was happy to find yet another small batch of small tomatoes … perfect for the solar dehydrator … shoud we get a decent day of sun 🙂

And another day gone by:)

I am sitting happily warm after firing up the rocket stove for the first time this season. The past few nights have been cold here and I’ve had to do an imitation of Andreea (layers of clothes and a blanket) … well no more. I modified the rocket a bit and we have not applied finishing yet. I was worried that without the finishing some unwelcome gasses would be released into the room. So I fired it up today in the middle of the day when the house was still open and there was natural ventillation … and all is good … and I am warm … which is VERY good 🙂

Over the past few days I’ve watched as neighbors coppiced some very old willows. I have to admit I was a bit jealous because (a) of the amount of easy to cut down wood they took away and (b) because we hope that in the next few years to acquire that land and we kind of already view it as ours … and so … you get it 🙂

Anyways they left lots of willow cuttings … some quite large … and with their permission I took some of those cuttings and today planted a few on our property … a small boulevard 🙂 I gave it priority because the weather forecast includes rain in the coming days … and I wanted them to benefit from the rain. I still hope to go back and collect all of the cuttings left on the ground. That wood is negligent if you have a regular wood stove, but if you have a rocket stove (as we do) it’s great burning material.

I’ve also started work on the second rocket stove … the one that will hopefully heat our living room this winter (last year we spent most of the winter in one room). Yesterday I cut open the barrel and burned off the paint and the remains of whatever was in the barrel. Today I sanded it clean and it is ready to go. This rocket is going to a bit more complicated as it will include said radiating barrel and an additional “firebrick barrel” as a heat-battery that will also have a baking stove in it. I am also considering installing a water heating coil inside the rocket (though we will hook it up the water boiler only next year … long story).

I cut  to cut more firewood everyday and we have quite a good winter-store ready to go.

Now dinner and a movie in a warm bedroom 🙂

I am finding space again to do some short daily updates … that signifies a good thing for me 🙂

Andreea is still away attending to another home-birth in Bucharest. There are signs that birth is nearing … so hopefully she’ll be home again in a few days (before heading out to another birth … and then another).

Today I finished assembly and finishing of our new winter door. It’s an outer door in addition to the existing door. Currently in its place we have a light summer-door – which is a framed net to keep flying things out during the summer. The new winter door is essentially a wooden box (though with a few neat, for me, tricks) which houses a 5cm thick layer of insulation. Maybe this year out kitchen won’t kitchen/hall won’t freeze like it did last year.

I’ve almost finished insulating the water pipes inside the house. It has turned to be a mean project. I had to take apart quite a bit (almost everything) to get the insulation on properly. This seemed to lead to a leak from the main water supply into the house (the whole thing was already fragile from freezing last winter) from both the main connection and from the flow-splitter attached to it. I’ve assembled a replacement assembly for this … now waiting for someone to be here with me so that I can disconnect the old assembly and put in the new one without pushing the water supply hose outside.

A couple weeks ago I finished insulation the grey-water line existing the house. Today I built an ad-hoc cover (from scrap wood) to our “hole-in-the-ground” grey water treatment facility. Next it will be covered by straw-bales and plastic to keep the rain off … so hopefully that doesn’t freeze either.

There is still some insulation work to do on the concrete man-hole boxes (one with the pump next to the well, the other where there the supply is splite to numerous destinations).  A guy was supposed to come here today to help me do that (in exchange for some work I let him do in my workshop) …. he didn’t show up 🙁 Except for a few small touches that should keep us with running water through the freezing winter … I hope!

In the coming days I hope to resume the last big project for this year … the second rocket stove for our day-room (last year we spent almost the entire winter in the bedroom). I have almost all the materials … but I need to get back into the “rocket zone” to do this properly.

And all the time cutting more wood … some of it for this winter, some of it for future winters (unlike typical Romanians we prefer to feed our rocket stoves with dry wood).

Also collected another batch of dried apples from our solar driers … great stuff … if the sun comes out tomorrow I hope to get another batch in 🙂

Flock is fed and watered, dog are fed … I am hungry … so off to whip something up for dinner and take a load off.

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.

It’s been a long day and it’s also been a while since I’ve written a daily update … and so here goes 🙂 Some days are, like this one, really long and don’t leave much space or energy to write … other days are long and restful/sleepy and also don’t leave much space or energy to write 🙂

Yes, we’ve finally found some long overdue rest … the rest we were looking forward to but couldn’t find during winter has arrived in these long and hot summer days. Mornings and evenings are good time for working outside … the rest of the days is either indoors or in the workshop.

Most mornings I spend in a new foundation practice … chopping wood. We purchased 12 cubic meters of hardwood … it’s a lot … as is cutting it up. It can’t be put off too long because (a) we want the wood to dry well and (b) as weeks go by it does dry and harden up and become that much more difficult to cut. Cutting involves three jobs: chainsaw slicing, axe chopping and piling for storage. I’ve gotten much better at using and sharpening the chainsaw. For every session of chainsaw cutting I am left with 2 or 3 sessions of chopping and storing. I am also getting more creative in my chopping approach … I have different approaches depending on the size and shape of wood. I am not yet cutting the pieces to their final shape … long and relatively thin pieces suitable for rocket stoves … but stopping at thin enough slices which in the future I can slice into thinner strips as needed. The reason is that the current task is quite challenging and the additional slicing would make it even longer.

After a break we drove to a nearby forest andcame back with a car full of sacks filled with leaves. They are intended as mulch for the raised beds … which are suffering from lack of water (due to them having been built in late spring, not enough proper mulch available when we built them and hot days with no rain).

We came back and I went to the workshop. I completed preparing all the pieces for our bed headboard. It isn’t too complicated a project but it has some firsts. It includes fairly long boards and curves. Tomorrow (if weather permits) I can get started with finishing.

Then I joined Andreea and we went to the raised beds. We did some more weeding and mulching … using a combination of sheeps-wool and the leaves we brought from the forest. They weren’t enough for all the beds … but the part we did looks great. We wet it a bit (since our well is running low too) … and let’s hope for the best. We focused on the peppers which were looking the saddest.

We’ve showered – it was relatively easy to heat the boiler since it still had hot water from yesterday. The chickens and ducks are settled in for the night … going to feed the dogs. Andreea just handed me a slice of freshly baked bread … they are getting better every time 🙂 Soon dinner … and … good night 🙂

So despite soap making plans, today was a day of butchering. We had been planning for some time to get rid of excess male presence and energy in the flock (both amongst the chickens and the muscovite ducks). Today we finally went ahead and did it. We also slaughtered one hen that was showing signs of illness … we had been monitoring her for a few days and she wasn’t getting any better … so to we culled her (as food for the dogs). Then we went ahead and butchered one of our two roosters … I thought he would be harder to catch (he was very aggressive) but it turned out he is more bark then bite. Then we went on to slaughter two of the male Muscovites. I did the killing and Andreea did the cleaning and hacking.

The ducks were much harder to handle then the chickens. They are really strong and strike out with their short feet like crazy. They also took much longer then the chickens to die. The first one managed to get free from Andreea’s grip … splashing the bowl of blood mostly on Andreea and a bit on me. Andreea looked like a character out of a Rambo movie. We got a much better hold of the second one (Andreea his body and I his head) and managed to create a much calmer experience for everyone. The duck feathers were also much more difficult to remove … at one point Andreea gave up and skinned them … removing skin and feather leftovers together.

We cooked a chicken soup for the dogs with the hen-parts. We cooked an amazing chicken soup for ourselves. Despite my vegetarianism I make it a point to taste from the meat of every animal I participate in butchering. However the Muscovite meat that we baked in the oven was a rare treat and I had a decent helping of meat … my first in a long time (at least 12 years).

It was interesting to feel killing in my gut … not as an emotional or physical sensation … I was completely at peace doing the killing. It was an experience of energy …  of taking a life.

All of the water heating and cooking took place on the outside twin-rocket stove we re-assembled this morning. Summer is here. It was great fun being outside almost all day and feeding the rocket stove as work was coming along.

In the early afternoon hours two tractors appeared and finally laid the 2nd layer of gravel (on top of the first layer of larger stones that we put in last year) on the last 200m+ of road that lead to our property.

Sabine and Ina have been with us for the past few days …  in the background of the day Ina baked a fantastic bread. So we just came in from a late night snack of fresh bread and jams while watching a fantastic thunderstorm (my first one … so up close and personal).

We’ve got six chicks already hatched from the first batch … though the hen is still sitting on a few more eggs … we’ll see if more hatch tomorrow. Two more chickens still sitting, a fourth brooder (also from neighbors) was added today and two mother ducks are still cooking their eggs 🙂

And … just in time … we’ve got the electric netting up and running.  As I write these words, most of the chickens are spending the night in the new mobile shelter that is protected within electric netting. They are agitated with the change … but we hope will settle into it quickly. We don’t have the net tester (it was left behind at the store and is making its way to us by mail) however we know for certain that it works because: (a) there are clicking sounds where there is contact between the conducting wire and some weeds; (b) the chickens have tried to find a way out and jumped away agitated from the fence; (c) the dogs both tried to find a way in and cried out in desperation and then disappeared for quite some time … terribly offended and well … shocked (dogs and other predators feel it more then the chickens because the chickens are apparently thick skinned – especiall their feet which touch the ground and close the  electric circuit). More on chicken systems in upcoming posts 🙂 For now … this approach feels like another right piece in the overall puzzle we are trying to put together here at Bhudeva 🙂

The sun came out today and we happily joined it. We spent the first part of the day completing (I think) transplating plants into the raised beds. The raised beds are now packes full of lush life. The transplants looked sad today but hopefully will recuperate in the coming days. Winds and thunder are back … so hopefully fresh rains will arrive to. Next year we plan to do much less trasplanting and go with much more direct seeding.

Also we were excited to discover phenomenal (I don’t use that word often or lightly) improvement of soil on the raised beds … more on that in a separate post 🙂

The day before yesterday we finally went and purchased the equipment for the electric netting which will enable us to let the chickens free range but in a limited area. The combination of netting and a mobile shelter will enable us to move the chickens to different locations. So today I built an improvised mobile box to shelter the netting energizer from winds and rain. It is all hooked up and ready to go. We moved the shelter to our first test location and if weather permits tomorrow we will put up the net for the first time and let the chickens get on with a new more purpose filled life 🙂

We let the brooding chickens out today and found that one of the eggs was cracked and a tiny chick is chirping from inside. We couldn’t tell yet if it hatched because … well … there’s a chicken sitting on it again 🙂 And … is seems that another chicken has gone broody. We’ve placed her on temporary eggs and if we find her still broody tomorrow we’ll place under her a fresh batch of eggs. That would make 4 chickens and 2 ducks. So much new life 🙂

Also … over recent days the information system for Cutia Taranului has gone into fully operational mode … though new features are added almost every day. We’ve recently added more vegetable boxes from Cluj and some really special boxes of bread and other baked goods for Cluj … with a similar box soon to be available in Bucharest too. It is slow-going, very demanding … but growing beautifully … kind of like new plants … slowly at first as they divert most of the energy into their roots … then some green appears to further support the roots … then they just take off … we are so looking forward to seeing both our plants and Cutia Taranului take off 🙂