Down on the farm in Jeloboc

 

Well it's been a quiet week here in Jeloboc.  Not much to report except the everyday miracles of life.  As you can see we have mother nature's own natural beverage flowing through our valley.  BTW that's the meaning of the name Jeloboc, a place for animals to come and drink.  Cows of course are big time here in the village.  As you can see my host brother Sergiu is guiding them home in the evening from their day up in the pastures.  Back at the home, we have my bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom.  If you see a wondering calf, that's becuase it was just born a few weeks ago and is still trying to find its way around.  The balcony is definitely not a place for cows.  The valley is an ever present land mark in Jeloboc.  You can see my house at the end of the street.  And here's brother and sister sitting together at the bus stop.  That's Sergiu and Lilliana.  The other side of the Raut River is the neighboring town of Pohorceni.  Potatoes are an important part of the Moldovan diet.  And here's the farm trailer that does a variety of tasks pulled by a jeep type vehicle.  Of course there's the farm dogs.  Pica is the family favorite, she's the short hair tan dog.  The other dog is really the neighbor's but he lives here all the time because he's in love with Pica.  The importance of the horse and wagon cannot be dismissed in our village.  People transport a great deal of items daily by these enviornmental friendly conveyances.  Of course living on the farm does require a bit of fork lifting from time to time, if not every day at supper.  The ducks (ratșa) of course are free range, aren't they cute.  And here are my hosts, the Leca's, Iulea and Ilea.  Did you know that most Moldovan wine (acasă) homemade, is served from recycled  liter size bottles of water?  Enjoying a glass with the family is customary with many meals.  Hey here's my favorite relative, Marius, playing his own unique style of banana grams with me.  And this week we went to neighboring Susleni to celebrate hram.  Hram is the day a village celebrates it's special patron saint and everyone in that village has family over for a big meal to celebrate.  It's a little like Thanksgiving.  Ilea's brother Andre lives in Susleni, so we went to his house for their Hram.  Here's a picture of Ilea and Andre and one of their nephews.  Well that's about the end of another perfect day in Moldova where all the women are strong, and all the men are brave, and all the children are a little above average.

Heard it on the Grape Vine

 

Yesterday was a grape harvest day for the host family of  Peace Corps Volunteer, Robyn.  She lives in a small village named Floritoaia Vechi and that's near the city of Ungheni.  If you check your Moldovan map, you see that Ungheni is on the western boarder with Romania.  The Prut River makes a boarder there as well as all along the western edge of Moldova.  The river makes an angle turn there and in Romanian, angle is unghe, so thus Ungehni.  Robyn met PCV Michael and me at the bus station and we took a walking tour of Ungheni.  What a beautiful central park they have with fountain, sculptures, and exercise equipment!  I love this sculpture of a traditional folk style couple.  We even found Thomas the train engine there.  But off we went to Robyn's home town and you can see what a great view she has of the valley.  She says that see can see Romania from her back door!   

Here's a picture of a small wine vat in the back yard.  We picked a few grapes from the house garden and mashed them up in here.  This will make a batch of house wine.  But our real work was waiting for us in a hector size vineyard full of "poame" (grapes).  You can see the big cistern we were filling there.  We were harvesting "negru si alba poame" or dark and light grapes.  Here's Robyn with a bucket full of alba poame, and Michael getting down on the dark grapes.  Robyn shows the technique of the two handed pick.  And I show you how you can test the grape quality.  Well after 3 or 4 hours of picking, it was time for a lunch break.  There's a storage building in the field where our hosts have laid out some good food to share with all the crew.  And then just another 4 hours and we all end up in the final row together.  The end of a perfectly grape day.  Or as we all agreed "foarte greu", loosely translated 'that was a lot of work'.

Squealed like a stuck pig

 

A very unusual day here on the farm.  At least unusual for this city boy.  Early in the morning about an hour before the sun came up, I heard an ear shattering squeal.  Now I know first hand what they mean when they say "squealed like a stuck pig".   One of the large pigs had met his maturation point. 

Of course it seemed just like any other day to the chickens and ducks in the yard.  I didn't take any pictures today.  But where you see the duck in the 4th picture above I saw one large dead pig.  I went about my usual morning routine taking it all in stride.  While washing up I heard the sound of what seamed like a rocket engine.  This is unusual since one scarcely ever hears an air plane in these parts.

As I was retuning to my house, I saw the source of the noise.  They were using a propane torch to burn off all the rough hair and hide of the pig.  As I was enjoying my hot cereal for breakfast, the farmer continued now washing all the burnt outer skin with a stiff brush.  You can guess what came next.  As I was leaving for work, my co-worker Sergiu was excited about tasting some fresh pig ear skin.  Hmmm.  One small bite was enough for me.  Well you can guess what we had for lunch and supper today.  It's called porc friptura, or in otherwords fried (more like roasted) pork.  It was something like Thanksgiving meal at home where you want to try every part of the Turkey.  We had a good selection of every part of the pig.  So it was just another day on the farm.  The cows went out to pasture.  But four went out and five came back.  Today one of the cows had a calf out in the pasture.  So one squeal leads to the next.  I hope you had a great day too.