Strimmer

Used the strimmer to day to finish off the side lawn.

At the shop I noticed they were selling some potting compost or "viragföld". only £2.30 for 20 liters so not bad. Used it to plant some radishes and beetroots. The ones I tried in the garden never even germinated so I'll see if its the seed or whether the garden needs seeing to.

Soup

Today I used some of the stock tomake up a soup. A bit of a "nail soup" mish mash. I fried some onions till they started to go brown, this was so caramelisation would add a stronger flavour. Put some potatoes and parsnip in and used a tin of corn beef for the meat. Simmer fro about an hour then added some sweetcorn and simmer for another 5 mins. It was pretty tasty.

Stock

Finished the chicken stock off today.

You're supposed to simmer it for about 4 hours but at ten O'clock last night that wasn't going to happen. So. supposing that the 2 hours simmering had pretty much sterilised the contents and the pan I put then in the fridge and cranked it on full blast Not straight away, otherwise I'd be cleaning broken glass and stock out of the fridge at midnight. Not good.

I fished the more bulky stuff out with a slotted spoon and strained the rest though muslin cloth. I then reduced it by 2/3rds and filled some ice cube bags with it and froze them. Some of the bags burst so I think it might be worth investing in some ice cube racks instead. Enough for 2 or 3 litres.

Threw the bones away. No this is where having pigs would be useful as I'd simply shred the carcasses and give them to the pigs. At the moment, all I can do isjust throw them away. Seems a waste.

Monday

Start of a new week.

I was in the shop 6:10 for my bread and milk.

Had breakfast and did some gardening.

I mixed up another batch of Roundup and gave the Knotweed another going over. Seems to be working. You have pale sickly looking Knotweed plants surrounded by total botanic devastation, like a miniature Skaros. I'm now able to get at plant further towards the centre of the clump and give them a taste of Liquid Doom! Muhahahaha.. Where was I? Ah, yes gardening.

I did about an hour with the strimmer on the side lawn so as to compare with Scything. Took about the same time but look different.

Went to Körmend to get a backpack. I thought Tescos would be likely but couldn't find anything there. Got some Guinness though, so not a total loss!

I remembered I need some stuff for my chicken stock so I stopped off at the co-op on the old square and got some bits and pieces.

Made myself a chili and made a start on the chicken stock.

Stout again

Sampled some of the stout and it was incredibly sweet. I'll take another reading to check but its undrinkable at the moment.

Stout

Today I was trying to go to Szentgotthard but as it was time to check on the state of my beer I dropped the hydrometer in the fermenter. Spot on 1000 so time to rack it off. Filled the barrel and one bottle which I give to one of the locals on Friday.

I heard that Keith Floyd died yesterday so I bought a bottle of red wine to commemorate him

Cider

Today I sampled the cider.

It was drinkable but not one of the best I've tasted. It was extremely Tannic, to the extent it was very hard to tell if it was sweet or dry. Next year I think I'll ferment the juices separately and then blend them together. I'll need more airlocks and demijons.

Not sure how strong it was but I had a filthy headache in the morning.

Kalium

Went to the shop early and got 2 loaves of bread to last the weekend. i always seem to run out Sunday. While I was there discovered some "Kalium diszulfit". Now Kalium is the Latin name which is used to give the chemical symbol for Potassium (K). So this was in fact Potassium DiSuplhite, which is an acceptable substitute for Camden tablets. Here, home brewing isn't a hobby for the slightly odd but something virtually every household indulges in.

Won't be using it so much this year, as the fruit season is well nigh finished but will be using next year when I hop to be producing a lot more Cider... or vinegar... or chucking dirty water away.

I've also found a supplier of apple trees which, while a bit more expensive than the local ones, has the advantage of being able to pick the characteristics of the fruit I want and in this case I'd like more sour ones. I'll order some for October and plant 3 near the ones I have.

Next year I also hope to have a beehive and bees to help with the pollination.

Scytyhed 2 more rows before getting ready for my weekly trip to Kormend. I've now roughly hacked out a box shape which I hope to clear this weekend. I also gave the Knotweed another squirt for luck.


As with all the best English blogs in Halogy, heres my scythe.

Was very tempted in Kormend to get a bottle of Port but decided to get a bottle of wine instead!

My 1st Cider Batch

My 1st Cider Batch
Originally uploaded by A John Walters

The bottles and demijons were delivered today. By the same chap. He seemed to be wondering what I was up to but Ihad no idea what he said!

The bottles looked either secondhand or have been stored in and old shed for a while as they were covered in dust. So I washed them all out and then sterelised the demijons.

Once I'd rinsed them out I racked off the cider. Since I was using a siphon I caught a mouthful of the stiff and its seems prety drinkable now! Defintely not apple juice now.

Cleaned out the fermatation vessal (posh word for a large bucket) and put my stout kit to work. I'll be able to mix my own poor mans black velvet in a few weeks!

Parcels

Today had a bit of a minor panic. I'm having 2 deliveries; one of shiny new gardening toys and another of beer-making stuff. Trouble is I've barely enough to cover them both so I need to get some money. Hopefully the Posta van will turn up and i can get my money before the parcels.

As it happened, the van turned up as I was getting money from the bloke in the Posta van. (same guy who gave steve the run around 'cos he couldn't be arsed to work the machine. Anyway, i had 2 cards, 1 chipped and one without so I'd argue the toss if he said they both didn't work)

The guy delivering must have been the same one last time as he clocked me getting money and came straight over. didn't bother going to the door. So I gave him the money I'd just got!

Reminds me of the rhyme
That money talks. I'll not deny, I heard it once: It said, "Good-bye."

I got some secateurs to prune the trees, a spray bottle to wash my beans and more roundup for the Japanese knotweed.

I put the Roundup to immediate use and filled my pressure spary with the soltion and gave the patch a good sraying with it. You can easily make out where the watering can went last time as it appears as 2 semi-circular bites into the patch. Using the spray I managed to cover the complete plot using half the amount of weedkiller. Should have got one when I ordered the 1st lot. More importantly IO was able to spray the underside of the leaves which, apparenlty, is more effective for Knotweed.

Oh, seeing how I got the wrong version of Vista I thought I'd get Windows 7 instead of the Ultimate version of Vista. 2GB though!

Cancelled

Today is cancelled.

Later in the afternoon Ifound I could still connect to the internet via safe mode so I logged on to get a copy of Windows so I could renistall. Jeex that was painful. Tok forever and when I got the CD ISO images I found I couldn't burn them to CD. (For the non technical, an ISO image is a digital picture of a CD.) I did find that I could extractthem so thats what I did. A painful amount of fiddling and then I was off installing Windows.

It was only then I thought it would have been a good idea to save all my settings as the new windows was going to format my disk. Too late unfortunately.

Got a nice shiny new Windows Vista but a differfent version of the one I had before. Not sure if I can install all my Dev stuff.

Crash

I managed to scythe a couple of strip around the graden. Basically clearing the nettles from the neighbours boundaried and then marked out a square. As long at its cool this week I should be able to finish it all off by the weekend.

Flipping PC crashed to buggery. I can load Safe mode but normal mode hangs before getting to the logon screen. Have to sort that out tomorrow.

This weekend its the festival of Bucsu. Not entirely sure of the spelling nor the maeaning but lots of people who have left the village come back and theres a big do in the local pub.

I got talked at by one of the local characters and no matter how many "Nem értem" I said, he still carried on talking. No idea what he was on about.

I managed to about 10:30 before I realised that I had too much and went home. (Might have been later!)

Wine

Treated myself to a bottle of wine last night so a late start today. Boiling in the morning so more indoors stuff. Amazing how much work the house can generate to be honest.

Gave the shower a birthday with the vinegar and water mixture in a spray. Works very well indeed and breaks down quite quickly.

Missed the best part of the day, as I noticed it had cooled down rapidly in the afternoon. According to the forecast should have a repeat of this tomorrow.

Just remembered that this is now the start of my 3rd month in Halogy.

Gloves

Today I was having breakfast by half past six and of course it peed down by twenty five to seven! Well I was going to Körmend anyway today.

One surprise was the post lady bringing me a parcel from Amazon. Last time I looked it was due for delivery for the 8th!

After navigating through the conversation where I had to sign, where I had to use block capitals, I opened up my new tool. A sprayer for weed-killer. I'd come to the conclusion that sloshing expensive weed-killer about using a watering can is probably not the best way of applying it and, after not finding any Hungarian sites that sold them, I used Amazon UK. (Needless to say, I found a Hungarian site the day after!)

Went to Körmend. Luckily there was a break in the rain, light drizzle instead of stair rods.

I was quite pleased with my attempt at Hungarian in the one shop. I only used my dictionary outside to look up "gloves". Inside the shop it was pretty much automatic. The shop assistant would say something and I'd reply without thinking of the English phrase 1st then translating. Admittedly I only got the gist of what she was saying and my phrasing could have been better but I got what I wanted without pointing.

Got home just before the Thunder storm broke.

Aphids

Well, i think I know what the problem with the Beans are now. What looks like greenfly and their black cousins. Not having any massed divisions of Ladybirds to sic on them I had a quick browse on google. I've sprayed them with a mild soap solution but apparently this needs to be repeated weekly. If that doesnt work, at least I'll have the cleanest beans in the village.

Scraped up all the dry grass from the from so it looks neat from a distance. The haystack is still the same size even though I put a large heap of new material in it.

As well as the usual cat doings on my plot I found a dead pigeon crawling with maggots and flies. I hastily buried it before adding my breakfast to the garden.

Its homecoming day on Saturday in the village so I'd best go to Körmend and get some supplies in.

Oh, also saw a dragonfly buzzing about the plot. Like a sort of insectile helicopter, hovering , reversing etc

Mornings or Lack of

I've always been a slow starter in the morning but over here that means I miss the best part of the day for doing the garden. So missed it again today.

On the other hand the Ironing Mountain has disappeared along with the Dish Alps. The dirty laundry twmp shrunk a bit too.

I made the apple crumble and had to test it, twice! Seeing how the apples are fairly sweet I didn't use sugar, as you would with cooking apples. I've now stocked the freezer with desserts for later on.

I've ordered some self sealing bottles. While they look old fashioned their a godsend if you make your own beverages. This particular batch will be for the cider I'm brewing :)

Apples

Missed the early cool part so caught up on some of the indoors jobs I've left.

Loaded up my bucket with apples. Theres only a few left now so I'll probably check them when I go past and eat them on the move. I'll be trying my hand at apple crumble as I can freeze that.