Mountains keep calling me

I made plans last year on top of which mountains I want to stand this year, but achieving this seems to be far from easy. Either I work either the weather is bad, the other day I injured my foot, several days it was too hot. Besides I am not as fit as I planned to be. Dreaming a lot but achieving too little. Though, most of all I am really tired of the work I did during winter and spring. Days and days of study are taking their toll now, as all I want to do is rest just a little bit longer.

But, when I am finally up there, I am extremely happy. :) So, why wait, right?

Wild strawberries

On one of our trips this summer we discovered fields of wild strawberries.

Those meadows lay off the beaten track but so close to the top of one of the most visited mountains (hills?) that is located close to the place where my great grandmom was born. Ž suggested that we come again. So we did. My dad joined us.

We picked around seven litres of strawberries in about three hours, had a delicious snack in between, eaten lots of strawberries while being bent over the ground and thought about coming again next year.

Now most of those strawberries are frozen and will be eaten during the winter time when all fruits in the shops will be imported from Spain or Italy or some other far away country.

Yum!

Summer days

People are complaining about the heat while I keep enjoying in each and every day of this hot summer.

Visiting the nearby hills

Being a guide to the Belgian tourists on the Mura river

Helping my dad at extracting honey

Gathering herbs (these ones are from my garden)

Experimenting in my kitchen

44. As usual these on the picture were my birthday present.

I did some hiking for birthday.

Wonderful days indeed.

Start anew

Okay. So things aren't as great as you'd like, and in fact, life feels like a big mess right now. Not to worry - simply bless your mess and start over.
~ Sonia Choquette

Life goes on. My lack of posts is mostly because all batteries for my camera were mysteriously always empty, my computer is so filled up that I hardly work on it, besides not much has happened in the meantime anyway. Our garden has given us the first vegetables and we have become like rabbits trying to eat all salad before it starts to bloom. It is also an ice cream time and I keep wearing summer dresses whenever it is warm enough. Oh, how much I like this time of year!

It is time for an ice cream. Yes!

Most peas will go into the fridge for winter. We can't eat that much of it at once.

It is my last day at work on Friday, after that I will be on vacation. At first thought this is not bad but I would much prefer enjoying these free days with knowledge that new job is waiting for me at the end of July. Though, I have accepted the fact that losing my job is in some way good. After all it was time to start over. I just hope I won't be hopping from one job to another for years because this is way too much tiresome. At least for me.

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.

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.

Food

Summer days are rushing by too quickly, and I feel that I need some rest from work. I also call this kind of laziness lack of ideas, or maybe I am just not talking enough to other people to share the thoughts. I know I should be making plans for the colder months of the year or even for the next spring but I just can't force my brain to think so far ahead. It is interesting that I have quite many ideas what to do and make at home, but I just don't find enough time for everything that's on my mind. Because, it it too tempting to go outside and enjoy another sunny and beautiful day.

This is what I eat these days as a salad - red beets and carrots, both grated and seasoned with pumpkin oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, spices and blossoms. Yum!

Summertime

I know, I haven't been around for quite some time. I took a week off, and I have to say that it was a pleasant one. :) It started with helping my colleague to cover the roof of his weekend house. Ž and I had a special apartment, sleeping up in a hayrack. :)After a day of hard work we took a bath in a natural warm pool nearby. I enjoyed myself a lot, it felt more like a holiday than real work.

I spent the first day of summer in the mountains. The season has started, at least for me. My favorite time of a year is finally here! :) In the evening I visited an observatory located on one of the Ljubljana's hills. I had a chance to observe Saturn, galaxy and star mist with a professional telescope. I have realized that I know much more about the sky than an average Slovenian citizen. This probably comes from watching the stars every clear evening when I was a little girl. :)

I visited my grandmom this past week, too. She's been lonely and has become rather melancholic since she's alone. Most of the time we chatted, but in between I gathered some herbs for winter teas. These days chamomile smells nicely in my home. And in the garden waited so many raspberries for me that I couldn't eat them at once. Yum! Oh, summertime, what a joy you bring! Enjoy yours!

Autumn on a doorstep

It got cold, it started to rain. Leaves are getting their fall colors. I will miss summer. I spent a couple of days at the seaside the other day, and I can say that they were the saddest days this summer. Swallows keep gathering on the wires before they leave on their long journey south. The other day we ringed 111 of them. And in the next weeks we will be trying to find the wolves that live in my country. I probably won't have much sleep due to this and I admit that I am a bit scared of driving all alone through the most secluded woods in the country at night. Though, I am looking forward to the "wolves nights" very much. Another story to be told when I am old. :)

Karma for today: If you have too much to do, take a nap.

These August days

Today for lunch I went to the nearest park, and watched the trees on a nearby hill. I didn't have a camera with me, otherwise I would show you how leaves have started to change their colors. Each tree had a color of its own. Autumn is approaching, although there is still a full month before we say goodbye to the Summer on calendar. It is time for this:They look good but (usually) I don't eat them. This weekend we had a chance to spot this one:Smooth snake (Coronella austriaca). As harmless and small as it was, people saw danger in it at once. Ž and I hardly persuaded people that it was not poisonous. They wanted to kill it. Interesting, how people think. Or they don't think at all.

It is also time for this:Listening to the stories, this time from Shetland and Orkney Islands. I don't wonder that people were happier in the old days. When you listen to the stories, there's no space for worries in our brains anymore. And I slept my sweetest dreams!

For those, speaking Slovenian, here are a few words by Peter Florjančič, famous Slovenian inventor:

I am sure that almost all of you have come upon one of his inventions - slide holders. He was born in the same year as my granddad, but he had much happier life. A lucky man indeed... And he knows it!

Karma for today: Change with the seasons.

First days of August

Not much is happening right now in my life. August has always been one of the happiest months in a year for me, and hopefully this year it will also be so. Our garden is giving us lots of vegetables every day, but I am a lazy cook and I stick to the classical and simple food. I baked chocolate cookies yesterday in the afternoon, for a colleague of mine who is always very kind to share his crop of figs with me. I have received lots of peaches, apples and raspberries. There's so much of everything that it is impossible to consume all that food at once. I made peach jam the other day. I will have to bake something with apples, otherwise they will rot. The eggplant season has started and I will have to give away paprikas...

A week or so ago Ž gave me this green kayak as a birthday present. We tried it on a nearby creek. I can hardly wait to try it on a river nearby. It is too heavy for me to lift it alone, so I will have to buy a cart on wheels. I named it Zelenc, the Green One.
And yes, mountains will have to wait this year. :)

Karma for today: Wherever you are, whatever you encounter is meant to provide you with exactly what you need right now. (Though I often wonder, why some events have to happen, when we suffer so much.)

My summer

I know, I've been "quiet" for some time. It is not really a happy summer, but in between there are also nice days. Below is my summer so far in pictures. I just wonder who switched off the heat today? :)