Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella

As I am a 13 weeker, I can bring out a frozen joint or 2 with me on the plane - most holidays I bring out a leg of lamb and a decent joint of beef, at Xmas sometimes a turkey (though I'm not a big fan & nobody else seems to be in our family. That Xmas tradition could easily disappear - starting in 5 weeks' time lol). The rellies love the lamb & beef I serve up.

Another thing I haven't figured out yet: there are loads of goats around us, kept for milk/ cheese. Yet can I find any goat/ kid meat for sale? Can I bloggery. I'd really like to cook a few goat meat stews as I have enjoyed them abroad. Or kid souvlaki. Anybody have any luck sourcing goat meat?

jetsam1

I would like goat milk as it is good for the kids but I really don`t like goats! When we first moved over we were living with the in laws and they had goats. Evil things they were. I looked into their eyes and it was as staring into pools of darkness.....................

Good quality beef is quite rare. More rare however is being allowed to cook it appropriately. I.E. rare......

As an aside, is it usually much of an issue getting an abbatoir to kill say 2 pigs? Done the "Pig Feast" before a few times but not sure about finding a local butcher to help out down here. Just whether they will laugh me out of their office......

I was thinking a little further and while we are still in very early days the fact I can be an Ostermelo and actually have my own business doing something productive even if it is not going to make me rich is a plus point. Everyone loves honey and it is a good medium of exchange!

After Christmas building 7 raised beds at our new house and repairing the animal houses so hopefully the cost of living will take a big nose dive, the eldest is almost at an age where she can start helping properly with the garden and feeding the chickens at least.

I am looking forward to being rent free and never having to think (hopefully unless I do find myself forced on a plane back to the UK, but hope that will be highly unlikely) about mortgages and suchlike ever.

Peter_in_Hungary

Our local slaughter house will 'do' pigs for people and they will scald and gut them so the customer gets back a clean pig cut in half ready for further processing. Otherwise ask around the village as there is usually someone who will help with a pig kill for a fee or for part of the pig.

We have found that deep beds are better than raised beds because they don't dry out so easily and the soil stays cooler in the summer.

We have had to wire our chicken house all around and 50cm into the ground to deter the foxes and martins and wire over the top to keep out the birds of pray. So our poultry compound is 9m x9m totally enclosed with wire mesh. Luckily the wire came from some redundant game fencing and the posts from our forest so the cost was just time.

jetsam1

We have a lot of concrete building blocks left over from the cowboy builder so am planning to use them. They are the larger foundation blocks and so will give a good depth of soil hopefully if I do two blocks deep. I am still furious about that. To the point I want to sell the Tanya and walk away completely from it and not have to drive past his in laws every day. My wife wants to keep it as apparently we have put too much in already, I am angry enough to burn down the house that`s there and rip everything up and sell it as scrap. I won`t though, but I don`t think I will ever get over it.

Oh we will fortify the chickens........

Peter_in_Hungary

Doubtless the concrete blocks will make good raised beds, but my point is that IMO you will be better off with the beds double dug into the ground with the surface of the bed just above ground level, this way when its 35 deg. and there has been no rain for 6 weeks or so the soil in the beds won't be quite as hot or drained as they would be if the beds were above ground level.

And you could always sell the blocks - if you have no other use for them.

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella

Yep I wouldn't do raised beds in Hungary (unless your land is a bit swampy/ marshy, I suppose).

But no dig principle is sound. I'm thinking of some tomato beds exactly like that, ie isolated from the surrounding area just like raised beds, maybe with some solid divider like a railway sleeper - but mostly sunk into the ground for the moisture. say - 20cm proud of the ground. I could get in a few cubic metres of topsoil (termofold) dead cheap (done it a couple of times before & it really helps fertility) to top up/ mix in. A patch of our land used to be a vineyard, we got rid of nearly everything when we put the 3 telek together but I insisted on keeping these 3 short rows of metal posts (oszlop) for my tomato & pea/ sugar snap pea growing days in retirement. Purely for ripe cherry tomatoes & peas/ sugar snap peas & maybe some interesting varieties not otherwise easily obtainable. Can't beat them fresh/ ripe from your own land.

scrubbedexpat142

Just been reminded - the sound of church bells.

Jack_Russells4ever

Speaking of railroad sleepers, the property I bought has about 2 dozen concrete sleepers that someone that previously owned my place left here. If someone wanted them and could move them I would be willing to let them go for free. I reckon they weigh 3-400 kg each. I have no way to load them for someone but I thought I would throw it out here since the topic came up. They are near Kaposvar.

Pilis Nemzeti Park Fella

On one of our vineyard plots somewhere near Velence To we had loads of concrete grapevine posts (ie you use them to support the wires that the grapevines grow up). Must have been several hundred as it's a big old plot. We decided to destroy the lot and so got the JCB/ diggers in, they managed to stack *most* of the concrete posts intact. Scratching our heads what to do with them, rather expensive to get carted away but could just have stayed there stacked in the corner, I suppose. Turned the plot over to alfalfa which a local farmer is dead pleased to get for free.

Anyway, to my surprise a neighbour asked if he could get all the concrete posts - did me a great favour! - and has used them to put a good secure fence around his own plot plus re-used some of them for grapevines. Good deal all round. He was so pleased that before we got the alfalfa going, he strimmed our plot for free to keep the parlag fu & other weeds at bay.

Jack_Russells4ever

Good to keep stuff out of landfills when it can be recycled. I wish there was a place online here in Hungary to advertise free items such as your post and my railroad sleepers here without having to pay. Much good material gets sent to the landfill or burned because no one knows about rehoming it.

Szentgal

W e could start a topic like " Stuff to give away for free" .. and give it a go, before we throw it out

Jack_Russells4ever

Okay, I will start a thread and we will see how it goes, Maybe the Mods will sticky it for us. Hopefully, they will leave it here on the Hungarian Page.

Susan Delgado

honestly i prefer UK weather. After 3 years in Scotland, Hungarian summer/winter is a bit too much for me

Susan Delgado

well, it's kind of turning into one, esp around Vaci street and some more of the hip areas of the city

FenTiger

this is why I'm heading to Hungary once our house is sold.