The Dinnero-Supper

I have eaten delicious dinnero-supper. Saying truth, it was the same dish as in the morning, as I was busy outside all day and didn’t have time and didn’t care to cook the soup I have planned for today dinner.

The evening dish was even better than in the morning: chopped eggs with spring onion and Polish wonderful mayonnaise “Dekoracyjny” made by Winiary. If you are ever to Poland – try this one. You will like it for sure. It’s great with all kinds of sandwiches and salads.

I added to the salad also some oil with garlic in it, pepper and salt of course. Ah, and some parsley which grows at one of my numerous pots. Ah, and I have added also my favourite green olives! I adore olives :)

The eggs after bathing all day in the delicious mayonnaise with spices and veggies tasted even better. I have eaten them with two slices of home baked bread. But tomorrow for sure I need to cook the cabbage soup. I need to eat at least one warm meal a day. I have already prepared for it boiled water with meat taste. I was boiling in it smoked pork meat, so the water is already full of taste and ready to add cabbage to it.

Tomorrow is Monday, so maybe paper day? And I need to sow the seeds in the plastic containers at home! The highest time! Some seeds have already roots. They need soil immediately!

It’s 9.22 p.m. Time to bed! I am so sleepy... My body after all day outside wants to sleep! I have some letters to write, but... will not do it today! No way. I want to sleep! I am sleepy and a little tired, but this is very healthy tiredness. My lungs were all day ventilating lots of fresh, clean air and the all day move outside did me good as well. I even don’t remember now about the morning pain... ;)

When you live at a farm

When you live at a farm time goes by very fast. Day is always too short. You never look at your watch. You work until its getting dark and you can hardly see anything. Busy with things you forget about eating, so you eat late, when the day is off.

Right now is 7 p.m. I haven’t eaten lunch neither dinner. But I am not very hungry. Well, I have eaten good breakfast at 10 a.m. :) I feel a bit tired more than hungry. I was busy all day using the opportunity, that didn’t rain. I just wanted to do what I have planned to do before the rain. Now is still sunny and I have some more tasks to do outside. I would like to finish them. And probably I will do it.

When I have here some summer helpers – I have to make sure to feed them 3 times a day at the same or nearly the same hours. And to try to cook everyday something different. To try new recipes. As long as I am alone, I don’t have such obligation. But soon, probably in June it will change. So I am happy to use my freedom in May :D

Well, I don’t mind cooking. I do like to cook for people. But I would like to have normal, comfortable and beautiful kitchen. I don’t know when I will be able to renovate it. Maybe one day a volunteer with some real building skills will arrive and will help me with it... Right now I just try not to see how it looks like. Just when I look at it, I imagine that it looks like I have planned... It helps :) But for some strangers the look of the kitchen may be a shock... :)

Well, anyway, until the end of May I will be busy with seedlings at home. I need some space for them. The kitchen is the only place where I can keep them in big number, because this is a big room.

I repaired the fence today and made it stronger. The horses are not very happy about it, because they like the other pasture which is now not accessible to them. It’s time to switch on electricity in order to discourage them against another breaking into the forbidden pasture. The forbidden pasture is too close to the pasture where is the young stallion. It’s too risky to let the adult stallion to get there, because he tries fiercely to get the young stallion to bite him and expel him from my land. The big stallion is widely jealous about the mares and even able to kill the young stallion, so they have to be separated.

The bigger distance between them – the more safe for the young stallion. But I need to build here more solid fence made from wooden parts, not only from wires and plastic sticks. It took me a lot of time to bring back the scared little stallion from the nearby forest and fields where he used to run away terrified by the adult stallion who was chasing him with great hate.

What’s more, I am afraid about his health and life, so even more I need to keep him away from the adult one.

The adult one knows what I think about his aggressive actions. When he was looking at the young one with hatred – I called him using his name and warned him not to do any actions against the young one. He understood! I could see it. He was standing at a path when I called him by his name. He turned his head into my direction and saw me warning him with my finger and serious, irritated and aloud timbre of my voice. I could see and feel that he understood my intention. He stopped looking fiercely at the young horse and continued his walk to the another pasture. But I need to watch him all the time and make sure he cannot get to the young one.

I have switched on the electricity in the wire fence. Then I have taken back home some plastic containers with soil from back garden in order to sow some seeds inside.

Hens are still grazing outside, but when they will go to the hen pan – I will shut them exactly to make sure, that my doggy will not get inside to eat out new eggs...

It’s nearly 8 p.m. I think I will make dinnero-supper :D

The additional good effect of today’s activities is – I feel good now :D The pain dissapeared! I don’t know even when... That’s great :)

I can see goats through the window. They play in the gold sunshine of sunset in front of my house... I adore my rural life. I adore the Nature, the animals, all the elements, vast spaces around. They make me feel good. They heal me. They are so true and beautiful... I couldn’t live again in a city. No way! :) It would be too boring too me, too limiting and not so meaningful like my present life... :)

The micro steps

When I am alone – it means most time which I live here – and are not feeling well, or just are overtired, overworked etc. I try to continue working just making small tasks. Even really tiny tasks. But doing them take me to my goals closer. I sense that. Even each tiny step towards my goals, towards my dreams – takes me closer to them. Each done task makes me feel better. I am proud of myself that I have managed to do so much in the end. I wouldn’t be where I am if not these thousands of tiny steps... :)

Sometimes doing whatever is hard to start. Then, the best are micro steps – meaning micro tasks. The tasks easy to do. In situations when I don’t feel like doing anything – I just choose such tiny tasks. And, preferably I do only what I would like to do. Beginning with favourite tasks is good for the start. Later I can continue doing some less preferred tasks. The most important is to break through and start doing whatever...

So today I fixed broken wires, took the young stallion to the fresh spot in the meadow to let him graze there, checked hens and eggs, discovered that one of my dogs eats eggs (!), so now the doggy is closed until the night when hens will go to sleep and I shut the hen pan well :D

Soon rain, so I should go out and to do something outside before will be raining. I love doing things outside. I just have to be outside everyday in order to feel well. I am open spaces human being :) I do love fresh air, wind, the Sun, rain, snow – and all these natural smells and sounds around.

Specially in spring time the Nature is full of wonderful sounds and smells. I just love them :) I also love to move a lot. I cannot sit in a house all day in front of computer. If I do it sometimes – I don’t feel well then. I remember the city times, when I used to live in a city and work on computer all days and nights. Sometimes I wasn’t sleeping and eating for 3 days – just working on my projects and exploring the Internet. After that I felt like a zombie. Once I was so exhausted that I fall down from stairs because couldn’t control my body anymore.

Then, I had noticed, that I should limit the virtual life and focus more on real life. Living in a countryside is very real :) Coming here did me good. Good for my mental and physical health. Sitting in front of computer for all day is not natural behaviour for living mobile creature like a human. I just need to move a lot. So often I do kilometres walking across my farm lands here and there doing something.

Of course I try to save my energy and if I can do a couple of tasks during one walk – I do them. I don’t waste my time on walking to the edge of my land only to correct a wire. When I am coming back – I collect branches or stones for example. When you work alone at your farm, you should be well organised and save your time and energy, using them better in more thoughtful way.

Fighting the pain

I am not well today, but the weather is okay, so I got out and took care of broken fence and young stallion, checked hens and eggs and sow some traditional apple trees.

Then I returned home to rest a while, drink my favourite Lipton tea and to choose and diminish some pics for the blog. My another computer works okay at least by now, so I hope I will not have any more troubles with it. It was fairly cheap – only 200 złoty per the second hand Dell with monitor, keyboard, mouse. It has only 20 GB memory, but it’s enough for me by now. Enough for typing letters, preparing pictures.

I don’t have the Internet access at home now, but it’s possible to check emails in the local library which is 2km away from the farm., so it’s not so bad. Besides maybe better that I don’t have the Internet access at home. Recently it has eaten one day from last week. It was the day, when I installed software at this new old computer and started to download and check emails. There were over 2000 of them. So I spent all day segregating them and making order with them and reading some. Next day it turned out, that my internet access was limited due to lack of payment :D Well, I just don’t have money to pay that, so what can I do? I think I can survive without internet 2 weeks, but... I was just about to do a project which requires the Internet access... hmm...

But the project is so complicated and not friendly to a farmer at all, so I am considering resigning from that. I will think about it. Maybe I should resign. I don’t want to take another loan not being sure, that I will be able to pay it back. And I am not sure if I will be able to pay it back. Taking loans means constant obligation even for years. I don’t want to be stressed by that. I think I prefer to live modestly and not invest in the farm such huge money for so big percent. Each loan is risky. If I take it, I could loose my farm one day. So better forget about it and just realise my plans by small steps. Step by step.

When I feel not well, I need to rest a lot moving in pain in bed because I never take pain killers. The pain killers are artificial pills which destroy your organism. I prefer not to take them. I prefer not to put into my body anything what is artificial and not natural :) I am a total naturalist. No cigarettes, no drugs, no alcohol. Okay, from time to time really really rarely some good wine, liqueur or beer. On a special occasion :) But I can easily survive without it :)

Taking pain killers this is cowardly cheating. Pain is for feeling it with full power. Each pain has its reason and delivers a message that something wrong happens with your body. Apart from that each body should have chance to fight with pain in its own natural way. It makes it stronger. More proof to pain. So, I prefer to feel pain that cheat myself :)

During painful days I try to do whatever. So, always if I am able to get up – I do it and go to do something outside. While working – I forget about the pain and also the move makes me feel better. In extreme situations when I really cannot bear the pain and cannot normally work for too long – I make special herbal tea from my herbs which helps to fight the pain.

The visual tips for hitchhikers

While hichthiking to my farm you should take Gołdap direction and turn left in Stożne village. Between Olecko and Gołdap is big traffic, but between Stożne and Sokółki very little, so be prepared for 8km walk from Stożne to Sokółki and then 2km to my Rancho... :)

When you get to Sokółki, you need to turn left and continue your walk towards Czukty village... You will pass the village library, then schools, stadium and then continue your walk along gravel road to Czukty village...

This is the bus stop in Sokółki village. When you get off the bus, you need to go south - there will be road sign "Czukty" pointing where to go.

The Internet in Sokółki village

The civilisation reached Sokółki village and we have here very modern public internet cafe, even more modern than Olecko town has :)))

Spring Walk

Ufff... May is definately much warmer than April was, but I won't dare to sow anything outside until after 15 of May :) Some seedlings grow inside the house, in pots and plastic containers waiting for the warmer time to replant them outside. Days are warm enough, sometimes even hot, but nights sometimes are too chilly, or even frosty which is fatal thing for young seedlings.

Actually I was too anxious to take outside some seedlings and most of them died because of the morning frost! I had no idea, that while during the day is plus 30 C, at the morning can be minus 4 C. Now I have learned not to be too fast in taking seedlings outside... The seedlings which survived I have taken inside and wait until the risk of morning frost dissapear completely.

Yesterday I hitchhiked to the local town to pay loan. It was pleasant to walk while everything around is so nice smelling and flourishing...

Next to the Olecko Lake there is very cute walking path, good enough also for biking... I need to go around the lake one day! The lake is quite big and I am curious what is at the other lake bank...

Spring 2012

Finally has arrived Miss Spring! She is very late and cold this year... ;)
But, never mind - I sow vegetable seeds inside the house changing my home into huge greenhouse... :)))
Some seedlings appeared already. Also strawberries! They are really really tiny seedlings and I hope that they will surivive and will change into wonderful, healthy plants.

Outside the weather is getting slightly warmer with each day, although nights are still cold, even freezing.

But Sun smiles to me every day! My animals are really happy to see it.
The storks arrived from Africa for the spring and summer. They will be with us till late summer.

Hens generously are giving eggs, so I am happy to eat fresh eggs every day.

I consider continuing writing my blog here, because I am a sort of bored of writing my blog in Polish :))) It's too easy :))) I have been writting my Polish blog for the last 5 years - its enough.

Since today I will be writing it in English... more difficult to me, but also good language practice...

Well, I will sometimes write some posts at the Polish blog as well since there I have a lot of readers and I shouldn't leave them like that... :))) It wouldn't be polite :) It could be even a cruel thing to leave them like that :)))
Many people start their each day with reading my blog... So it seems that they need me there... :)

Camping at the Rancho

If you would like to experience the Nature fully - I would recommend you sleeping in a tent. Then you hear all natural voices of the place - bird songs, farming and wild animal voices... You can smell the green grass and meadow flowers...

At my land there is lots of places for tents, there are also places where you can put up the fire. I can lend you my hungarian pot for cooking over the fire outside or you can build a primitive wood oven from briks, stones and clay... I have got here lots of dry branches suitable for starting the fire...

Happy Woman's Day to all women!

Happy Woman's Day to all women and especially to the singles :)

Holiday at RANCHO ROMANTICA DE RED ECOFARM

Learn gardening, horse and farm animals breeding.
Spend your holiday with a real farmer :)

Romantica Ecovillage

I have 11 hectares certified eco farm in the most beautiful part of Poland – in the region called The Green Lungs of Poland – for its pure nature and clean air. The region geographical name is The Hilly Masuria – for its hilly landscape full of small clean fish lakes and charming ponds rich in frogs.

My farm consist of 5 ha pastures where graze my wonderful, colourful horses and white friendly milk goats and my rancho consists of 5 another hectares of young orchard where I have planted 2500 fruit trees – apple trees, pear trees, plumb trees, cherry trees. I keep also some hens for eggs.

I  have here also around 1 hectare of forest and several ponds and charming streams.

I live in a 300m2 big house which I partially renovated. In the house there are right now 2 bedrooms and two bathrooms, 2 kitchens, huge basement in which I plan to build sauna and Turkish bath. At the top of the  house there is huge spacey attic which I want change into a comfortably apartment. Downstairs there is the third room with bathroom which needs to be finished.

Apart from that, I have two big stables. One of them I want to redesign into a hostel for travellers and couch surfers.

I am also considering building new house – just for rent.

In this spring I am going to grow vegetables in the big garden – in order to be sure, that I will have enough food for volunteers, couch surfers and other travellers.

I don’t have a tractor and my horses are not trained yet to work in field, so this spring I will have to hire a tractor and find a trainer who would train my horses (or at least the big and strong like a dragon stallion) and make them work in the garden and forest.

My property guard two brave dogs. My grain and food guard one little but very special cat :) The cat is little, but her character is big ;))) Telling truth – all my animals  have visible characters :) Each of them!

Besides I plan to breed here geese – for eggs and for meat. Apart from geese – I want to buy new cows (the old ones I have eaten) – in order to breed them for milk and their female calves for cows and male calves – for meat or for sell.

My aim is to be independent from the economical system as much as possible and be self-sufficient as much as possible... :)

As a Nature Lover I worship simple life close to the Mother Nature. I love Earth, Sun, wind, frost and each of 4 climatic seasons. Each of them is special and has its role in the Nature life.
So I love winter which makes all world white and so clean, which kills bad insects and lets plants to rest. I do love springtime – when wild life awakes and starts to sing from happiness making me inspired, I love hot summer time – when Nature is so rich in greenness around full of happy animals grazing in the warmth of the Sun, I appreciate autumn when we collect fruits and vegetables...

I am experienced farmer and would like to share my knowledge, projects and amazing paradise with other Nature Lovers.

I am also considering establishing a new ecovillage – so some of you could stay here for a long period of time. I have already a name for it – it would be Romantica Ecovillage :)

I believe that place make not only scenic landscape, but also people, so I would like to invite at my farm positive people full of good energy and emotions...

So if you feel like taking part in my projects or just want to rest from noisy and fast city life
come and join me :) I would be very happy to host here every good person :)  

Love and Life,
Isabelle

Paradise Park Project Poland

Hello Nature Lovers!

I have just started clearing my little forest of about 1 ha in the North Eastern part of Poland where I would like to create a kind of beautiful and useful paradise park with flowers, nuts, berries, mushrooms - all these goods for people wanting to spend here their vacation at my Ranch during spring, summer or in the autumn.

The landscape around is amazing and the nature really pure and abundant in wild animals, especially wild birds. You can easily see here wild animals like boars, roes, foxes, hares, hawks and many many rare wild birds.

If someone would like to join me helping in anyway, from now or later in the spring/summer months, I would be really happy... as I am really looking for people who would like to participate, hopefully also in a long-term way.

Any kind of contribution would be appreciated, as the ideas are many and the place offers lots of possibilities: first of all clearing and making spacey and beautiful Paradise Park full of berries and other goods, then in spring sowing vegetables in a big organic garden, in summer some garden work and renovating the farm house and other farm buildings, organising interesting workshops and trips... and what else we can imagine! Maybe permanent ecovillage??? :)))

At the moment I live here in a farm house, where I can host CouchSurfers or volunteers and provide food for them.

I hope to hear from someone soon! Especially from creative and interesting people :)

Love and life,
Isabelle

You may contact me via FB, CS or directly via Skype: CreativeIndianka, email: RanchoRomanticaDeRed@yahoo.com or mobile phone: 0048607507811

Fencing

Today I rebuild the electric fence for my horses. Its not heavy job, but it takes some time. In order to do it well, you have to know characters of my horses very well - but I know them very well, so I know how to build the fence in order to prevent them from escaping from it.

For example for the stallion one wire can be enough, but for mares - no. Mares are very smart and can sneak under singular wire, so I usually construct for them electric fence consisting of two wires.

Before I fininish the construction I always make sure, that wire is well connected together, so when I let electricity run along wire - the whole fence will be under electricity. It is also important, that the wire isn't touched by grass or doesn't lay on ground. When grass or ground touches the electric wire - the electricity in wire is weakend and may be not enough powerfull to stop horses from escape.

When my horses have enough green grass in their meadow - they don't try to escape.
But when one of mares has her period - she is eagger to escape to the stallion and electric wire can be not enough to stop her. In such situation its better to take her to stable and shut down or take her to the meadow where fence is stronger - made of wood. The same about stallion - when he senses, that one of the mares has her period - he gets crazy. He can be even dangerous then and even attack somebody who wants to stop him from escaping. Be aware not to go to the stallion, while a mare has her period. He can kick you or bite you or even knock you over and kill.

LIST OF TASKS TO DO

I have decided to publish the list of tasks to do at my farm. The list is long, as here are lots of tasks to do.
These are my works here. I work at my farm 9 years, most years on my own without any help. Since one year I am inviting volunteers who would like to spend their time at my beautiful farm for free and help me here in my numerous tasks.

The tasks to do can vary depending on the season of the year, wheather and other factors. The list consists of tasks available during all year. In order to learn which tasks are need to be done right now - you may ask me.

So  here we go:

• renovating my house and farm buildings (plastering, laying stones, bricks, putting tiles, putting glass blocks, making conrete floors, some electrics, some hydraulics, repairing roofs, correcting roof tiles)
• cutting wood 
• collecting wood
• fencing
• collecting branches
• clearing banks of my river
• clearing my forest
• making hay
• gardening
• planting trees
• cleaning stables
• painting stables
• feeding hens
• milking goats
• training horses
• cooking
• washing dishes
• cleaning kitchen
• washing clothes
•  planting home plants
• farm paper work
• collecting stones
• cleaning yard 
• building or rebuilding electric fence
• collecting seeds
• doing shopping
• taking pictures
• making websites
• making jam
• making cheese
•  fertilising fruit trees
• fertilising garden
• planting flowers outside
• planting fruit bushes

So you can see - the list is very long, but still not complete. It's a lot of work for just one person, but most things I can do on my own without any help - just it takes more time, when you work on your own without any help. For sure I need some help with renovation of my house and farm buildings and with training horses and also with cutting wood, or rather with sharpening the chain saw.

I know, that most volunteers don't have the skills I need here the most, so I am also eager to accept help of these ones, who just want to help me in my simple farming tasks which don't require any skills but just good will. I usually explain every single task to each volunteer, so you won't be lost here :) You can learn a lot here.

Presently I am focusing on fencing and collecting wood for the winter. I will be happy to find a volunteer who knows how to sharpen a chain saw. But I can also accept other volunteers - I can find you many other tasks here, so you won't be bored for sure :)))

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A trip to Szwałk

Today wwoofer Victor went for a trip to visit the Szwałk lake and more villages around. I have given him some proviant for the trip. Soon he leaves to his city. Before he leaves, I want to make at least a part of the planned fence, because the two persons are needed for the task. The drill is heavy and needs two people to handle with it.

The most poles are ready. I have painted many of them today. Tommorrow they will be dry and ready for use.
I will have very colourful fence :))) Red and green and mahony... Made of wood from my forest and banks of my little river...

past post

Minęło lato

W sierpniu był Wiktor i Francuzi, potem Witek wyjechał na kilka dni i we wrześniu znowu wrócił. Ciągnie tutaj już trzeci miesiąc. Francuzi byli 9 dni. Po nich przyjechała Krakowianka. Zakochała się w Witku i wyjechała. W tym samym dniu wpadł Szczepan. Po paru dniach dostał robotę w Warszawie i wyjechał. Ma wrócić zimą na narty, bo tu górek sporo więc jest po czym jeździć...

Tymczasem skończyło się lato. Już jesień. Robi się coraz chłodniej. Witek na poddaszu stajni śpi w śpiworze i pod grubą kołdrą. Niebawem i on wyjedzie.

Time for wine

Indianka and Victor have been working very hard last month. Indianka decided – its time to celebrate the time and good fruitfull hard work… She made the grill. They were talking and drinking and eating white sausage with onion and freshly baked bread…

Victor is planning to go to Dublin in September… He wants to stay in the local gurudwara. He is a fun of fun religions…Obviously he is searching his place in the world… Who searches - he finds… Good luck, Victor!…it was unusual experience to get to know you and have opportunity to talk to you and listen to your ideas and beliefs… Thanks for your help at my farm! God bless you…