Making Time

It has been a ridiculously long time since I have posted. I am sad not to have found more time for it, but that is also an indication of how busy the summers have become. It is now very definitely in the past, with autumn in full throttle, the trees on fire with colour and the animals on heat.

We now have a beautiful ram to join our five timid sheep. He has settled in very well, quietly raising his magnificent horns to observe his domain.

The goats are next in line, but the compatible billies are all out on loan, so patience is the order of the day.

Another quirky addition to our motley crew are seven Indian Running ducks! We acquired ten back in August as a swap for vegetables with a local Swabian restaurant. Three then made their way to our persistent mentor Merziowsky in exchange for two fat 'wart ducks'! They are a curious pair but apparently ideal for a Christmas roast!

Our hens have stopped laying for now but our colourful harvest makes up for rationing eggs. We have been inundated with huge courgettes and I have discovered that they make just as good Bread & Butter Pickles as the cucumbers did last year. Harissa has been another abundant preserve and both have sold well. We have to rely on selling preserves to get our cashflow higher over the coming months. Throughout the summer and early autumn a handful of veg boxes have kept some Görlitz families very satisfied and our coffers lined, if only a little.

The new kitchen is now tangibly close, with the double glass doors fitted at last, just in time for the onset of cold. The floor tiles are set to arrive this week, ordered from Poland and an attractive compromise for not being able to afford the ancient-looking hand-crafted terracotta slabs so beloved by restorers and people of the South.

Electricity and water cables have also been laid between the two dwellings, the mammoth digger job courtesy of a visiting friend. Electric cables now run throughout the little house – a job carried out willingly by the boyfriend of one of my English students in lieu of future private lessons. So all that remains is a willing workforce to plaster the place and fit it with the necessities of life to enable guests to stay in style. Any experienced and hard-working volunteers... you know where to come!

All eyes on impending winter, and the sincere hope that it won't be quite as long as last year...

Let the dreaming continue (whilst we 'dig' for all we're worth)!