Farewell Party #1

On the girl's last day of school her class threw her a going-away party after lunch. The anticipation of this day had been building for weeks. She made sure to put in her best hair flowers.

It started with her seated in the center of the room with her classmates surrounding her, singing songs to her and the teacher selected students to recite their favorite poetry.  This is her best friend taking her turn.

She was thrilled to be the center of attention.

The teacher helped her distribute first one kind, then another kind of cake baked by Grandma and her best friend.

 One table containing some of her class friends. Cute kids!

A goodbye hug and kiss for the teacher, who is accustomed to balancing acts. She was fond of her teacher.

 At her usual lunch table.  Sometime early in the spring she started saying she was going to marry the boy with the glasses. She said they talked about it, and he agreed he loved her.

 
Back at home, she spent a long, quiet time looking through the pile of pictures that her classmates drew for her. She could identify each student by their symbol - an avatar chosen for them by the teacher at the start of the year.

Our girl, the butterfly of the preschool Butterfly Group.  Another school year passes - and a wonderful one it was.

The Chicks are Born!

This is hot off the presses...the first of the baby chickens have hatched!  After three long weeks of waiting, the borrowed hen** sitting on a collection of 24 eggs from a friend's assorted chickens have finally broken their way out of their shells!

This morning there were two...and one working on its shell...and by the end of the day, nine more!

Here we are entering the nursery where the hen is kept in isolation with straw in her own crate.

Grandma removes the hen and sifts through the egg pile to count the shells and chicks.

The chicks are removed from their birthplace once they have dried out, and brought here to be with their fellows in the warm crate.

A lucky girl and boy get to hold the chicks, for a brief moment.

And Grandma closes the crib back up to keep them warm. See you tomorrow!

**For the curious - Grandma had to borrow a hen to do this job, because evidently not all hens are well suited to the task of sitting on eggs!  Some are better than others, and out of Grandma's dozen or so chickens, none as so good as this one.  This hen is only a year and a half old, but has a very good track record of sitting on eggs until they hatch!  She has been sitting in her isolation crate, almost entirely motionless as far as I can tell, for the entire 3 weeks it takes to hatch the little ones.  Grandma keeps her full with feed and water in easy reach so she wants for nothing.

The eggs are from various chickens because the more the merrier - hens are not particular about whose eggs they are sitting on!  Starting with more eggs means more chicks!  And it gives the owner a variety of new chickens.

Sunday in Kállósemjén

Sunday is traditionally held as a day of rest here in the village, although not everyone necessarily honors this.  But a day of resting and eating grandma's huge Sunday lunches is ok with us.

Today we started with some relaxing in the sun, a survey of family animals

and humans

where the boy and girl dressed in their aprons and were serving the customers, which really turned into writing down prices and presenting each customer with two separate bills, one for each waiter.  Grandma was charged for the food she cooked. She took it well.

So continuing the survey with some of the plant life

we finally resolved to go for a family bike ride across the village and into the forest on the north side.

Just past the primary school is a farm road heading out into the fields, and from there we can enter the natural area for a pleasant family ride through the forest.

Our usual stop here is an area with a few folksy houses and a collection of animals. Here we are happily arriving, after some time in the hot sun and pushing our bikes through deep sand, and under some crackling, buzzing hi-voltage lines.

This guy first brought us here after his school class came here with their bikes on a field trip.  Pretty cool, a school field trip on bikes!  Here he is with survival kit.

Walking through the area is very peaceful, just the chirping of birds and some other animal noise.

Some of the folksy houses - this one features a pile of scrap apples fermenting in the sun - the girl observed that it "smells like beer" -

We like to climb up this tower to see how far we can see

 and just past there are these lovely/frightening wild pigs

We made our way back home and prepared for the highly anticipated rainstorm after weeks of drought.  It didn't rain much, but we did get some nice pictures out of it. These are looking out of the back of grandma's property, across her cornfield.

and on the other side

Grandma was not thrilled by the amount of rain, and now there is a hail warning. None of it bodes well for the crops.  Our fingers are crossed.

Day trip to Tiszadob

Tiszadob (TEES-a-dob) is a castle which was owned by the Andrassy family of fame in Hungarian political history, one of them, Count Gyula Andrassy having served as prime minister in the 1870s.

The grounds are luxurious in expanse and vegetation

and at one time contained only a wooden hunting lodge, later replaced by this slightly larger model

the entrance shown here with Grandma

and the formal gardens, still in the works of restoration.

True to great castle tours are some relics hidden around the estate, some in plain sight and others more sequestered

with a lovely scenic walk off the back to a small lake, easily visible from the castle

One interesting feature is the socialist-era school built on the property because the castle was not in serviceable condition at the time. 

The large seating area here shows a dual purpose with the movie screen painted on the wall.  A popular past-time during that era was showing films for the community - perhaps this was used back in the day as well, but it looks recently painted.

We had to satisfy ourselves with and outdoor tour since apparently indoor tours are schedule by appointment only. Here the girl has reached the edge of her composure and is appeased momentarily with use of the camera.

And so we left with a sense of peace and space, having met with no other visitors during our entire tour.