30-VI-2012.
Lena got a nine (10 is max) from the Ćelić lady, on history of arts. She's the widow of the famous painter we had, and is also famous as The Obstacle - people would fail the year once or twice until they'd pass her exam, allegedly she gave a free pass the seventh time - but you had four exam terms a year. And our girl cleaned up the year in june, with a nine comma something average. I did help a bit, there were few chapters from some book she needed, that were the scans of the fourth photocopy, printed in cursive cyrillic. She was quite fluent in cyrillic when she was a kid, but after eleven years the habit faded, and now she was back at it... except the cursive is a bit daunting. Whoever decided on the shape of cursive type (probably some typesetters in Vienna) some 180 years ago, did us a disservice - there are several characters which are somewhat counterintuitive. So she emailed me these scans, I read them, using the nokla as the dictaphone, converted that into mrz format and sent her back. I guess she went over the text while listening to my reading, which helped both her cyrillic skills and the knowledge for the exam.
We got so much garlic in Čankovo this year, it's overkill. On one shot I can count some fifty heads laid out to dry... eventually we'll have three crates. And we get by a year with perhaps a dozen heads altogether.
On 20th there was a long meeting of DC-99, where I explained a technique to get the macros done without any extra gear, by just turning the lens backwards and holding it with your fingers. On 26th met with Miško and another guy, who was to be our webmaster for the site. Okay, as long as it's not me doing it... So I financed the initial investment - registration fee, that is - with some 6000 RSD, had a beer with the guys, and we tried out my new Gelios 50a soviet lens, that I got second hand through an ad, for 2000, plus another 2000 for the adapter ring and once more 2000 for the distancing rings - all for M42, so I'd have a choice of lenses. It turned out to be a bit tricky, because with these lenses the optical viewfinder lies by some small percentage, so the focus is always a bit behind where you thought it should be. But the lens is strong, it's 2,0, and on the other hand it's got heavy color aberations on the edges. So it'll have some purpose, in time. So we sat on the korzo, had a beer, shot around. Met Grne again, had another couple of shots with him.
Today our neigbor (next to Faik on the right) had a wedding - his daughter - so the street was full of cars. Along the way, we bought the švorceniger. It got the name the same day. Seeing me with all those straps she said I looked like a terminator, and that was it. I took to carrying a small towel in my shorts pocket, Ender style, but it didn't hold. I simply don't have the time to wipe off my sweat, and when I do, the towel gets soaked in no time and is now making my shorts wet. Over the years I'll change the strategy.
Getting used to the new machine was easy. I quickly removed the shield, which is fine to use on a flat surface, but with our system of ditches it just wouldn't work. Then I removed the swinging string head and replaced it with the triple blade, because it's not just grass that I need to cut, it's accacia saplings, and larger weeds where the stem may be a thumb thick. So I need a motorized scythe, not a tool to manicure a lawn. And this, now, is it.
Dad was at Teja's at the time, so the next day we (Lena too) went to bring him home. Sat with her, and Jaca and her kids. The boys are pracically adult, tall and good. We sat in the yard, under an apricot, had coffee and cakes, just the way it should be. The younger son accompanied me to the cemetery, where I put some flowers on the grave of Deska. They put a really nice monument there, for both her and her father.
Took dad home, ate some of apricots off his two trees. He'll be making brandy this year, we won't. Nothing bore enough fruit to deserve the effort.
Mentions: Čankovo, DC-99, Desanka (Deska), Ender Aquila (Ender), Faik Rizvani, Grne, Jasmina Sentović (Jaca), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), korzo, Miško Lenđel, nokla, švorceniger, Vesela Senić (Teja), in serbian