Sunsets and other stuff
Dec. 3rd, 2011 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottishlassOur internet connection is working so I need to use this to the fullest LOL
November has been an amazing month, lots of sun shine, lots of mellow golden days and cold clear star-lit nights. And the sunsets ... and sunrises ... gosh it was all so amazing. I just love November, heck I just love autumn and winter. While most folks get winter depression I seem to get winter passion :) I love to sit and relax in the garden surrounded by my dogs and watch the passing of light, the one hour between day and night when everything turns blue and then the sky is ablaze (well, on a clear day). And this particularly soothing golden light through the autumn foliage .. I love it!!!
While I write this the Eastern horizon is very gently turning from black to these amazing touches of magenta and I hope I can catch another wonderful sunrise on camera later on.
Anyway, life has been fabulous, even though it is strenuous and busy and most of the time I only remember which day it is when the garbage folks come (we have three days a week where all sorts of garbage is picked up ... Wednesdays is for bio/green garbage; Thursdays for either plastic/metal or paper and Fridays is for all the rest that doesn't fit the first two and you know what? Our trash can is tiny ... yes, TINY! It is bucket sized, well a big bucket, but still .. bucket sized. It is really amazing how much plastic and metal, but especially plastic stuff we are buying with our food. Plastic packages for sausages, meats, even vegetables and fruits. What happened to the good old newspaper or brown paper wraps?
As we are changing our way of living and especially eating, I have started to take empty tupperware with me when I go grocery shopping. First the supermarkets were a bit put off but as we are buying less and less there (during summer we got all of our fruits and vegetables from the garden and we've never eaten so healthily nor so fresh in all our lives) and go to the extra length to buy ecologically sustainable and free range dairy products and meats now. Yes, it is costlier, but then again we do not eat so much meat anymore anyway, so it doesn't affect our purses too much.
Luckily we have a couple of bio/eco farms around here so I can phone them up, ask what they have some particular offers that week and then I go there with my tupperware. And the butcher can portion all off already so you just need to label your boxes and chuck them into the freezer for further use. It's wonderful.
A couple of women here are already thinking of buying a pig or two next year and feed it for a year before having them slaughtered.I guess we have all seen the River Cottage DVDs one too many times LOL But the RC team would be proud of us. I have already asked the farmer down the road and he would offer us stabling free of charge for half a pig (no matter how many pigs we will eventually get). Another woman has re-activated her goat herd with a male goat and we have been experimenting with making goat's cheese already. Could be that we will have a couple of mini-goat's in the new year as well ... we will see.
Our dogs are striving and are still as cheeky as ever. Our two foster dogs are slowly but gradually, especially Sammy, learning to enjoy their new lives and I'm particularly proud of Lir who gave the impression to never learn how to walk on a leash, as he was so afraid of the harness and the leash itself. But he has now mastered like he had never done anything else in his life. We even can now walk through the village without me having to drag a 30 kg dog along. He even walks without a leash now when we are on the fields and the woods.
It is still very painful and frustrating to watch any progress with Sammy. At least she now walks within two feet of us and doesn't take flight immediately. Still ... she doesn't like to be touched, doesn't like any kind of harness or collar but there is progress. She now knows she is called Sammy or Sam Sam by us. If I call her she slowly approaches and waits what I have in store for her. We feed her by hand and she slowly, very slowly allows us to treat her like one of our dogs. But I don't see her moving into her forever family just yet. She will need at least another year if progress continues to be as it is up till now.
And the rest of the pack are all happy and healthy and fully demand our attention :)
Chandini looking like a miniature bobtail :)
November has been an amazing month, lots of sun shine, lots of mellow golden days and cold clear star-lit nights. And the sunsets ... and sunrises ... gosh it was all so amazing. I just love November, heck I just love autumn and winter. While most folks get winter depression I seem to get winter passion :) I love to sit and relax in the garden surrounded by my dogs and watch the passing of light, the one hour between day and night when everything turns blue and then the sky is ablaze (well, on a clear day). And this particularly soothing golden light through the autumn foliage .. I love it!!!
While I write this the Eastern horizon is very gently turning from black to these amazing touches of magenta and I hope I can catch another wonderful sunrise on camera later on.
Anyway, life has been fabulous, even though it is strenuous and busy and most of the time I only remember which day it is when the garbage folks come (we have three days a week where all sorts of garbage is picked up ... Wednesdays is for bio/green garbage; Thursdays for either plastic/metal or paper and Fridays is for all the rest that doesn't fit the first two and you know what? Our trash can is tiny ... yes, TINY! It is bucket sized, well a big bucket, but still .. bucket sized. It is really amazing how much plastic and metal, but especially plastic stuff we are buying with our food. Plastic packages for sausages, meats, even vegetables and fruits. What happened to the good old newspaper or brown paper wraps?
As we are changing our way of living and especially eating, I have started to take empty tupperware with me when I go grocery shopping. First the supermarkets were a bit put off but as we are buying less and less there (during summer we got all of our fruits and vegetables from the garden and we've never eaten so healthily nor so fresh in all our lives) and go to the extra length to buy ecologically sustainable and free range dairy products and meats now. Yes, it is costlier, but then again we do not eat so much meat anymore anyway, so it doesn't affect our purses too much.
Luckily we have a couple of bio/eco farms around here so I can phone them up, ask what they have some particular offers that week and then I go there with my tupperware. And the butcher can portion all off already so you just need to label your boxes and chuck them into the freezer for further use. It's wonderful.
A couple of women here are already thinking of buying a pig or two next year and feed it for a year before having them slaughtered.I guess we have all seen the River Cottage DVDs one too many times LOL But the RC team would be proud of us. I have already asked the farmer down the road and he would offer us stabling free of charge for half a pig (no matter how many pigs we will eventually get). Another woman has re-activated her goat herd with a male goat and we have been experimenting with making goat's cheese already. Could be that we will have a couple of mini-goat's in the new year as well ... we will see.
Our dogs are striving and are still as cheeky as ever. Our two foster dogs are slowly but gradually, especially Sammy, learning to enjoy their new lives and I'm particularly proud of Lir who gave the impression to never learn how to walk on a leash, as he was so afraid of the harness and the leash itself. But he has now mastered like he had never done anything else in his life. We even can now walk through the village without me having to drag a 30 kg dog along. He even walks without a leash now when we are on the fields and the woods.
It is still very painful and frustrating to watch any progress with Sammy. At least she now walks within two feet of us and doesn't take flight immediately. Still ... she doesn't like to be touched, doesn't like any kind of harness or collar but there is progress. She now knows she is called Sammy or Sam Sam by us. If I call her she slowly approaches and waits what I have in store for her. We feed her by hand and she slowly, very slowly allows us to treat her like one of our dogs. But I don't see her moving into her forever family just yet. She will need at least another year if progress continues to be as it is up till now.
And the rest of the pack are all happy and healthy and fully demand our attention :)
Chandini looking like a miniature bobtail :)
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-03 01:59 pm (UTC)oohhh how I wish I lived in a four-season country :D but having experienced it in Japan I come to love autumn and winter too. Would love to know how it feels in Spring though :D and as for summer, it's summer all day here in my place, so yeah XD
I've always loved your photos Una, they are so beautifully taken and your place is really really nice, and the dogs, so adorably cute ^^
no subject
Date: 2011-12-03 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-03 05:03 pm (UTC)Glad to hear things are going so well and that you're continuing to love life in your village! Did you make any jams from your summer fruit? Anything stocked away for the winter?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-03 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 06:38 am (UTC)Those pictures are beautiful! You live in a lovely place! And your dogs.... Cute, cute, cute!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 11:50 am (UTC)I don't think I could live in a country with just one season be it summer, autumn or winter for a long time. So many things are connected with the seasons over here and the passing of a year that something would be missing if I lived somewhere else. On the other hand, when it is really cold and snow piles up for weeks and weeks on end, I sometimes wish I could just escape to a summery country to be warm again and see some lush greens :)
Autumns and winters can be pretty grey over here. The longer they are, the more the landscape seems to loose colour and most of the time the skies are grey (from whitish grey to steel grey) and the grounds are a muddy brown-grey. So any hint of light green in the beginning of spring is such an ease for the eyes :)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 12:24 pm (UTC)In January I will start to grow the first plantlings again in the greenhouse.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 01:46 pm (UTC)Sustainability starts by avoiding waste ... in water, garbage, electricity etc. You can even start your own herbs or even tomato plants and stuff in little earthen containers on your doorstep or on window sills depending where your living space is. A first it seems daunting but it is such a wonderful satisfaction to pick a strawberry from a hanging basket still warm from the sun and oh so sweet. I think the twins would dig that. And if you have a yard but don't want to turn over some of your lawn, use big terracotta pots on the deck or terrace. Most vegetables smell great when they bloom and when you add certain herbs (lemongrass, verbena or scented geranium) they even keep certain insects away. And your twins will learn how things grow and see how the vegetables and fruits progress over the year. There are evne now pear and apple trees that you can grow in pots, they are miniature trees and still have a lot of fruits.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 01:57 pm (UTC)But any little or big step someone makes is better than not doing anything at all. About 1/3 of bought food is thrown away every year in the Western world because it is not eaten. Not because it is rotted or off, but because we bought too much or it is just not what we want.
Mannheim? Unfortunately that is a bit far away from my neck of the woods. It's down in the South of Germany while we live near the Dutch border in the North-West. But if you ever come to the Cologne/Duesseldorf area, I'm game :)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 02:03 pm (UTC)Yeah these days fandom has taken a back seat while my life revolves around our little farm :) But as soon as we have fully established a working rhythm here, I hope to get back into all my fandoms again :)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-04 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:36 am (UTC)