Every year on the homestead brings new experiences and lessons, and 2023 and 2024 were no different. Here are the highlights from the last two years.
Once again, I hosted Workaway volunteers, who brought life and extra hands to the homestead.
Tünde, a native Hungarian, visited multiple times and helped out a lot over the last two years. She wanted to get an idea of what life on the Great Plains of Hungary would be like, as she plans to live a similar lifestyle.
Morgan and George, two young lads from the UK, stayed over the summer of 2023 to get a taste of country-life. They brought a lot of energy and were able to tackle some tough projects, including sanding the old paint off the workshop shed.
They particularly enjoyed the more manly tasks such as learning to chop wood.
Being able to relax and cool down in the jacuzzi was a necessity, due to temperatures reaching 40 Celsius plus on some days.
Towards the end of their stay, the unthinkable happened. A large part of the willow tree behind the sauna broke and fell, landing directly on “The Rocket”, the volunteer car I bought the year before.
Not only that, but it landed right where the guys had been working the day before! In fact, we were standing right underneath the tree the day before. I was showing them that the willow was dying and the large mushrooms that were growing on it to clean up the dying wood. Talk about a close call!
This may seem like a disaster, but it was actually the best-case scenario. Nobody was injured. And The Rocket, a cheap car, broke the fall of the tree, preventing the tree from taking out the sauna and outdoor workshop, with just minimal superficial damage to these structures luckily.
We removed part of the branches so that we could move the rocket.
Later on, I had a professional come to remove the main parts of the willow. They recommended removing the second willow directly behind the sauna, as it was dying too and would likely fall too.
After hearing that, I couldn’t sauna in peace, knowing that a tree might fall and crush me, or keep me trapped in a blazing box of hell. So, we had that willow removed in 2024.
What really impressed me was the contractor, whose whole family took part in the job, including his elderly wife. Clearly illustrating the strong work ethic and family bonds of the Hungarian people.
We also said farewell to The Rocket and sent it to the scrapyard in the sky. RIP.
What you don’t see in the photo below, is that this was this young guy’s first day on the job using his dad’s truck. While pulling the car up onto the trailer, it slipped off the edge, hanging to the side, and he couldn’t get it back up.
He was barely able to squeeze through my gates getting out, but tore off one of my newly painted fence panels due to the overhanging car. I could have made a big deal about it, but I could tell he was about to deal with a shitstorm when his dad saw him dragging a car hanging halfway off his trailer. So I let it slide. I knew he had bigger problems to deal with. Probably for the rest of his life.
In April of 2023, Ripley joined the family. She was a stray but friendly cat with a lot of character. She just appeared at a friend’s homestead nearby one day and needed a home, so I was happy to adopt her.
She’s made herself at home and has been a pleasure ever since. She still hasn’t learnt that the raised beds aren’t giant litter boxes though.
In 2022, we removed the summer kitchen building. Since then, I’ve been using that area to build a kitchen garden – a place close to the house to grow all the annual vegetables and herbs.
I wanted this space to be a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing area, where you can also relax and enjoy the scents and insects buzzing back and forth. The plan is to have four L-shaped high beds, a trellis and a pergola with a seating area.
This area is currently halfway complete.
I began with the trellis, which was a mammoth project for me, as I’m new to carpentry. It was a giant, heavy structure, which was a challenge for one person, with a steep learning curve. Luckily Tünde was there to help me get it up.
This project was also a giant pain in the ass. The wood needed to be planed, then sanded, then cut to size, then put together, then put up with concrete footers, then wood-stained. And of course, as these things go, I didn’t like the original color of wood stain used, so I had to resand the trellis and restain it, which is currently only half done.
A learnt a lot from that project, which made the other projects go much more smoothly. This experience will come in handy in future, as the exterior of the homestead needs tons of work.
And so my passion for woodworking and carpentry was ignited and this led to other DIY projects over 2024.
I used old palette wood to make compost bins.
I repainted the tired front gates.
I painted the workshop and built another trellis for the side of it, to grow vines and flowers up.
Tünde added some decorative wood cookies to the hot tub’s wall.
Finally, I managed to complete three of the four L-shaped high beds for the kitchen garden.
The high beds were filled using the “hügelkultur” method, a gardening technique that involves creating a raised bed from a mound of decaying wood and other organic materials. I used material from around the homestead, then just topped with compost and soil.
Here are some other highlights from the homestead over the last two years.
Spring
Garden
Despite growing pains, the garden continues to expand with diversity. I’m particularly happy about the figs, asparagus and strawberries, which grow like weeds now.
This year I found some disgusting brain-like things growing in some of the corn. Turns out it was a delicacy. “Huitlacoche”, also known as corn smut, is a prized delicacy in Central America and Mexico that’s made from a fungus that grows on corn. I’m not at that point where I’m willing to eat it yet though.
Some eerie full moon winter shots of the Homestead from the beginning of 2023, the calm before the storm.
2025 onward promises to bring some interesting and big changes to the homestead, as we integrate permaculture principles into our homesteading, which will radically change the gardens.
While some changes are required to boost fertility, productivity and diversity in food and plant species, we slowly move closer to building an oasis abundant with food, wildlife, beauty and leisure.
