We are back for two weeks now and I am getting used to gardening again. It was so great to get out into the world and leave all responsibilities behind. The cows, the farm the community, all taken care of by others. I highly recommend a month break and travel for the soul. Thank you all workers for helping to make this happen!
our travels:
We started with a week in Hamburg to see family and friends and it was a week long party, non stop and we saw all brother and sister aunt, cousins and nephews and nieces. We drove to the Baltic Sea to see my childhood farm and the farmer that got me into cows and farming and we swam in the sea and smelled the seaweed and collected sea glass
We took buses for transportation and I got to enjoy the seeing the countryside with lots of grain fields. Barley for beer and wheat for bread. On to Prague with its beautiful buildings full of ornaments. The underground was two stories down with a line going underneath another line. The elevators were so steep that it turned my stomach to go up and down and I was happy to find out there were trams going above ground. We went to a jazz concert two stories down in a cave like room. I think they don't want to built higher than the original buildings and so they built down, down.
We had enough of cities, sleeping in hostels were we had to get up by 8am and that for teenager and us on vacation. So we rented an apartment in Rovjen, Croatia a small tourist town on the Adriatic Sea. It was the soccer Euro cup and we watched games on large TVs outside the restaurants or ice cream parlors. We learned a new concept of "beach" as the coast line is full or rocks and cliffs. It is called a beach if you can sit down on a large rock or if they filled in the rock line with cement and tile on top to make it somewhat level. We got to the beach on a windy day and Croatia was playing the soccer game so all Croatians were watching the game. There were tall waves crashing onto the "beach" and it seemed a bit crazy to climb the ladders into the water. But we thought that is what they do here and dared to get in, worried we would be smashed into the rocks. Once we were in it was o.k. and we managed to get out again. The next day it was calm and no waves, so we were a bit crazy before.
Rovinj had beautiful marble like cobble stone pedestrian alleys full of tourists and mopeds steering through them. Lots of little gift shops and restaurants and gelato/ice cream stands every 50' with mountains of delicious gelato. At the farmers market they had lots of olive oil with truffles, a specialty and we bought dried fruit and cheese for our upcoming hike in the Austrian Mountains. Seba split for a few days to see a friend in Marseilles and Steve, Kira and I took a bus and trains to the mountains. We hiked straight up to 7000' for two days and Kira did not like hiking away from the internet. Since we had a month of luggage with us , our packs were much heavier than needed for the hike from hut to hut where we got a bed and food. The third day we hiked along the peaks with amazing view of Italy on one side and Austria on the other. The path got narrower and the climbs fewer, but steeper and we had to cross snow fields and it was down down if we had slipped. We were out of our comfort zone and had 1.5hrs to go to the next hut when hikers came the other way warning us of the snow fields and that they were going down to the village ending their hike. We had gone 3.5 hrs and did not want to go back. We did not have 4hrs in us to go down and decided to go on. What a trip. When we reached the peak I was done (Kira was done the day before) and we still had to go back down 1000' to the hut. That hut was so remote that they had to fly in supplies. We enjoyed a two minute shower for 3 Euros and the fresh home made bread and dinner. We were exhausted and climbed down the next day to a cute village and rested for three days and met up with Seba. The whole village was haying on steep hills for the cows that were sent up the mountains for the summer except for 7 the were kept in the village to feed the village. We go fresh milk, yogurt and cake from the farmers where we stayed. I was way to tired to help haying.
We spent three more days on the Croatian coast before we had to go home. I was happy to be back in my own bed that was hugging me and in the gardens. All was in good order and I am still some what relaxed not on edge.
So this next weekend is GARLIC FEST where you can hear more stories or see some pictures if you like. I hope you will come out for a short while and help to get the garlic harvest of 13,000 garlic in and peeled. It's a party not to be missed.
The gardens are looking good. We do lots of watering and weeding. Zucchinis are coming in strong, cucumbers soon to come. Here are some garlic scape recipes attached.
Peace,
Dulli