Prisank / Prisojnik

So, finally after three years after Ž's promise to go up with me I was standing on top of Prisojnik, also called Prisank (2547 m), alone. This is one of those two mountains on my list that I still wanted to climb. "My" mountain: Still 2 hours and 15 minutes to go? It took me 4 hours to the top because we missed the easy path. Somewhere here we were looking away when passing the crossroad: It happens. Sometimes we find more beautiful paths, sometimes we turn back before reaching the top. Ž felt dizzy and his knee started to hurt, so he waited for me on 3/4 of the path. He knew that I wouldn't turn back. Not this time. I had done that two times already.He worried about me all three hours while I was gone because he saw that the path was dangerous, although easy. Ease your grip and you are several hundred meters below, and certainly not alive anymore. One part of the path goes from the bottom left corner to the top right corner on this picture:You can hardly imagine how my heart hurt at the top when I saw him with my binoculars sitting in a sheltered spot waiting for me. I thought we would be standing on this mountain together. He is a tiny spot in this picture: And me on Prisojnik. Actually - my backpack: Rare flowers on my way back: And a Pagan girl in rock when we were again back below: Oh, how I felt sorry for him when he walked in front of me back to the car! But I know that I couldn't have persuaded him to carry on walking from that spot where he stopped. He chose it so.

I am not sure if I will be able to climb another mountain this year. Well, one can never tell. But at least I am happy that Prisank is ticked on my list. Very happy indeed. Also because it was one of the scariest mountains to climb in my whole life.

Vintage

This weekend many people spent in vineyards because it is vintage time! I was:

- spending time among ripe grapes too, helping colleagues and Ž's family to harvest sweet sweet grape berries.

- meeting lots of people and hearing the local news. Gossip here and there. I know that they talk about me too when I am not around but I got used to it.

- a little bit sad because I know that grapes will turn into wine, and this wine will cause lots of sorrow and suffering for many families in my country. I live in a country of drunkards but I am lucky that nobody in my family ever liked to drink any kind of alcohol.

- picking chestnuts (just two handfuls), and had them for supper last night.

- taking a trip to a lake where I watched the birds. With autumn came the fog too.

- wishing that I could be in the mountains. But a promise is a promise.

I hope that you had a good start into your autumn (or spring) too.

Honey for vegetarians

I am not a vegetarian or vegan and at the moment I don't plan to be. At the same time I am not a fan of meat and I rarely eat it. But I admit that I could hardly live without diary products. I know many people who are vegetarians or vegans but they have never thoroughly researched what kind of food is actually good for them. I am also surprised that some of them still eat products which consist of (animal) gelatin and fruit yogurts which are colored by crimson.At the beekeeping course we watched a movie on extracting honey from the beehives in Hawaii which is later sold to customers in Los Angeles. We were astonished at the mass murdering of honey bees by those people (I don't think they can be called beekeepers). This is not how extracting honey is done in Slovenia. Slovenian beekeepers respect bees. Bees die like people (Slovenian: umrejo), not like animals (Slovenian: poginejo).

Well, my conclusion after watching that movie was that Hawaiian honey is not appropriate for vegetarians (vegans don't eat honey anyway) because juices of all those crashed bees that were killed at extracting honey could also be found in it. It is wise, if you are vegetarian and if you eat honey, that you know how bees make honey and especially who is a beekeeper of those bees (and most of all what he/she is doing during a year with his/her bees). Otherwise you just might eat some animal remains with your honey as well. Or should I add that bees eat other bees (which are still undeveloped in the cells) as well? :)

P.s.: Yesterday those beehives on a picture above were full of dead bees. They were robbed by other bees. At least 100.000 bees died. A sad day for a beekeeper.

Bird stamps

I often wonder why I exist in this world at all. What is a real meaning of my existence? Since I don't/can't have any children of my own this is even harder to know and understand. From time to time I get a proof that my existence in this world is not quite in vain. On Friday four Slovenian bird stamps will be issued. They wouldn't be if I didn't exist. But at the same time I ask myself - would be there really any difference if they weren't issued at all?

Farewell summer

I am very grateful that we were granted some more hot summer days in September. It was unusually hot for this time of year. Now these days are over; yesterday we had the last day of summer - that real, hot summer. I enjoyed myself a lot during my favorite season of a year.

This is how it was around my home yesterday in the afternoon:Farewell summer. Snow fell in the mountains and if it doesn't melt, I will be up there again next year, not sooner. But this is how it is here where I live. Autumn won't bring peace and rest, there's still so much growing in my garden. Vegetables will have to be stored and conserved, house cleaned before the cold finally embraces the land. And then, there will be time to create again. In the warmth of my home.

Beehives

There's only about 2 million people living in Slovenia, and I can say that we are a bit special people. Despite living in our own independent country for only 20 years we managed to survive centuries speaking our own language (with many dialects), having our own alphabet with 25 letters and written books. We can be proud of many talented people, from sportsmen to scientists. Maybe this smallness makes us who we are. It seems as if we want to conquer the world. We are small, so we have to learn and share and show our knowledge, otherwise others will just step on us and we will be gone.It is also so with the beekeeping. More than 200 years ago lived a man, Anton Janša, who was supposedly a pioneer of a modern beekeeping. He was a good painter, so he painted pictures on the beehives. More than 2/3 of his knowledge is used in today's beekeeping in Slovenia. As people wanted to keep bees also through winter months and not destroy them (it was a common practice to destroy bees after "stealing" honey from them), beehives had to be changed. A man named Anton Žnideršič "invented" a beehive which is (still) used by about 90 % of Slovenian beekeepers (called AŽ beehive):Foreign people who come to our country admire those beehives (placed in bee houses), especially if they are painted like in the old times. Not many are, though. On a picture you can see how they look like placed in a bee house/apiary. This one is actually made to show to tourists, but in one of my posts you can see how a common one looks like.

I've been reading lots of books on beekeeping lately and it seems that modern beekeeping will force Slovenian beekeepers to start using Langstroth hives (in Slovenia called LR beehives) or similar ones. I thought of having those too, although my dad uses AŽ ones. But, as I wrote before, time will show if beekeeping is for me at all. My mom is allergic to bee stings (she can die of only one), hopefully I am more like my dad. :)

P.s.: On the first picture above are the hives for bumblebees. I liked those because Alpine flowers are painted on them.

Veliki vrh vs. Ledinski vrh

This week I was standing on top of two (well, actually three) peaks. On Sunday I was on Veliki vrh (2110 m) with Ž. It was a nice trek up the mountain. When we came on top of it we were both surprised. The view was astonishing and the plain/meadow up there was very beautiful. It was a pleasant stay up there. If I was alone I would spend much more time wandering around but Ž was tired from the previous day and wanted to go home to rest. Hm. I also wanted to visit a little chapel and an old mountain hut, so my wish was granted. I am sure that my granddad visited those places many times. It was a beautiful day.

On Tuesday I went alone to the top of Ledinski vrh (2108 m). I woke up early but today I know that it would be better if I waited until 10 o'clock and started my trek then. I didn't like the rotten smell in a valley and there was dampness hanging in the air. The path was steep, not an easy one with wire ropes and wedges around every corner. I would like to know who wrote on a sign at the beginning of this path that it was an easy one. It is certainly not appropriate for dizzy people. Later I reached a hut which was closed. It was cold and clouds began to gather on top of the highest mountains. Not a good sign. A few minutes from the hut I came across the remnants of an ex-glacier. Climatic changes (caused by human) melted most of it. People used to ski there during summer months. Today mostly rocks can be seen there. And chamois. And remnants of the bullets with which hunters killed chamois. It was such vastness up there! Such loneliness! I reached the top and went down again to search for a sheltered spot to eat my lunch. In an early afternoon clouds started to disperse and wind calmed down. I found an old path (obviously these days used by hunters only) and followed it. And rested. I wondered at the solitude and beauty around me.
So, if I had to choose between these two treks, I would choose the first one. I could describe the first one as "joy" and the second one as "solitude". And for sure I prefer joy to solitude. :)

Beekeeping

This summer lots of things connected with the bees happened to me. I took that as a sign and enrolled in a beekeeping course. It started this Monday and it will end by the end of this month. I like our lecturer, he is not just a beekeeper but also a person who takes care of the nature around him. I browsed a few beekeeping forums, and as far as I could read most of the beekeepers are thinking only of themselves and their profit. A pity. I thought of having my own bees just for learning something new and having some honey for myself (my dad is a beekeeper, so I don't think my family would need my honey) and friends, and certainly not for making any profit of this. Well, I will see how my life unfolds until spring when a new beekeeping season starts. The course is carried out in a beekeeping center, and next to it stands an old castle. Unfortunately it was burnt down by the partisans in WW2, and the owners were not allowed to rebuild it after the war. I also found a lovely sun clock on the wall of a church near by. There are so many treasures hidden around my country, and I am glad that I notice them at all. And yes, a blueberry strudel from the bakery in a village nearby is delicious! I think I will eat another piece of it when I am around there the next time.

Running

I wasn't planning to run this Saturday but eventually I did. At least I wasn't the last crossing the finish line. It was hot and I wished so much that some wind would blow from somewhere. The winner was 30 years younger - this fact was some consolation for me in a certain way but I am fully aware that sooner or later I will have to do something about my health and good condition. I am not sorry that I took part in this race, also because I wished to encourage other women from Ž's village to take part in this run next year. I hope they will.

Oh, September!

These days I keep noticing these pink flowers on the meadows. They are the heralds of an autumn. I am glad that days are still warm and sunny although that day, marked "Autumn 9:04" is approaching fast. I spent yesterday afternoon in my garden and kitchen, cooking and baking. There are so many vegetables that are ripe at the moment that we can't eat them all. When my hand gets a little bit better I will start conserving some of those. I have already stored some of the pumpkins, now red beets, parsley, mangold, eggplants and paprika are waiting to be frozen or canned. I can't say that I like this work but I enjoyed yesterday in stripping the tarragon leaves off the stems. It was such a peaceful day.

May your day be a peaceful one too.

Jumping

Sometimes it is not very clever to jump over overgrown ditches when it's dark because you can miss the other side of a ditch. I did exactly that last week and twisted a little finger on my left hand. I put a bandage around my hand because I found out that the hand would never heal without it - I use the little finger too often. Also when typing. Pressing Shift and Ctrl buttons with it very often... I hope it heals soon, I need my whole hand for house- and garden work. For playing a guitar. For sewing. For reading. And for climbing the mountains too.