27-IV-2023.
(... 74 words...)
In the afternoon went to Čankovo again, third day in the row*. Planting tobacco is less than half done, and then tomatoes and peppers are waiting... That is, she plants, I mow. The grass is knee high where I didn't mow already, and half that where I did.
The trouble with the third švorceniger is that it has a better and stronger engine and thus weighs so much more (so what, I've built up meanwhile), which should not be a problem, the weight sits on shoulders... though, I couldn't get its strap right, no matter what I tried it just hurt to wear, I was doing something wrong. But at least it has good handlebar. The T2 didn't have a good one, the throttle was on its main axle so you practically held it in right hand. But I kept its strap, because the old one was worn out and the new one was too complicated, I wasn't able to set it right. This T2's strap, however, clasps horizontally at the shirt pocket height, which makes the whole weight press on my chest. Not too good when you don't breathe easily. So I decided to try the old strap again, but it was dirty - it hung for three years on the ladder. So I dipped it in the rainwater barrel, let it soak for a few hours, and hung it again. Dry now and... the clasp which I improvised with wire was quite rusty but it actually worked, and yes, it clasps below waist. Perfect. Aaah the difference. And then I understood that it's still the shield that's the worst obstacle.
The shield is mostly used for string operation, to protect the clothes from biomass and pebbles jumping off the business end, and it has a bit of a blade on the left edge, so when you extend the string, it cuts off the excess. Except I never use the string, it can't cut the weeds, accacia or cherry saplings or tall cable grass. So I use a disco saw. It may be still good when you're mowing a lawn, which is flat. We got all sorts of places, flat we don't. So I took it off, just I took it off the previous two. Started getting good hands - I mowed the rainditch on the street, half the yard, and started going through the orchard. It's just as easy as it's supposed to be, and I didn't get breathless every few minutes. Beautiful.
The rainditch I didn't mow all the way - left the last few meters, on the side to the thieving neighbors (got more proof - made a shot of more of our watering equipment over the fence), where they have pressed down the grass, left a bicycle, some junk. If you use it, you maintain it.
On the way back, made a break to take a shot of this yellow sea, which we keep seeing for days. It's the oil rape, which was traditionally used for two things - to extract oil for railway lanterns, and to feed the leftovers to cattle. Nowadays it's rebranded as canola and the oil is suddenly edible. Okay... at least it looks nice. It's the croatian Matijević corporation, on the soil which used to belong to the (formerly state) farm and then had to be sold for legal reasons.
Felt no good and tired in the evening, so went to sleep even before 23. She stayed sitting by me, the little table with gugolj is by my side of the bed. There she sits, reads, listens, watches what she finds. I coughed at times in my sleep, so she looked up a good cough tea recipe, and the best one had left three whole bays... um, had three whole bay leaves... um, let's call it laurel, I never saw what does a bay leave to anyone even partially, let alone whole. So, thre laurel leaves plus some other stuff. She made it, brought it up, and I dutifully drank it while it was hot - I've discovered lately that I can swallow hot, smoothly. It smacked of the Mediterrain** - sure, laurel. I drank it up and slept again.
Not for long. When it got me up, I had to sit to be able to cough properly. This is tea for cough, not against it. I coughed like I never did before, with full lungs, which I didn't know start from somewhere around my kidneys, where I also found some muscles engaged in the overal exercise of giving the best cough performance in my lifetime. I felt it was scraping the bottom of the barrel, looking for more šlajm to expell, and not finding any didn't stop it. All this muscle work pressed my bladder, so I went down and peed and coughed. Then just coughed. Then went back up to bed and coughed some more. She said the whole performance lasted at least half an hour. When I was done with it (or the other way around), I slept like a pigeon's suckling.
On twonnthird we decided to skip the field work for a day, will resume on monday. Later in the afternoon Boba rang, they're going for a walk, may go our way if we're willing to have them. Fine - and they did come within the hour. Milena looks even better, don't know how she manages that. And she did finish that course, as best in class and got a free one - for see sharp and dot net. She attended a couple of lessons and gave up, seeing what kind of bullshit that is. There I inserted Marinko and his recent confession: „...and what hurts even more, that is, sincere to be (I wrote to you once):, you gave me good advice and that was the first time I didn't listen to you (can only blame myself): when I asked what to learn to replace fox, and you told me python was it. that I will never forget. and I didn't see beyond my nose as then the current were java and C#, I decided upon C# just because of V.V., for you connected me to her and she did switch to C# (the thing one asks one gets, there you go. I mean to say that even with that, I mean C#, you heped me, by pointing me to someone who really knows C#)“. Instead, she leans on web design, and already made a website, no content, just form and trying out tricks, and I was seriously impressed - in some places the overlapping shapes scroll over each other in real threedee manner, at four speeds. Wow, much wow. He, on the other hand, has no current project at work. Being idle and paid, but a friend of his got his sleeve and pulled him to help with some other project where they need a tester. Need? Never had one, so he found loads of stuff, just ringing. And got paid too.
They are in an apartment, in that building across the brewery. Ah, I know the place, I said, and explained it as „you know where you changed underpants... to Raja... when you bought wrong size and went to change for larger, we parked there“. And they're aware that paying the rent keeps you off the street but nothing more, and leaves you nothing. So they decided to do something with the old house, it's his, and the best way is to tear it down and build one on the same sized foundation, so no construction licence etc, dozen things go easier. The electricity got complicated, but still remains feasible. And madam mother found a place to rent i the same street, 3-4 houses to Mariška's side.
And then this quarter flu got to her. Same phases - cough, skull lid hurts while coughing, sleeps a lot (less than I even now, but more than usual), consumes paper towels. One day of some joint pain and some muscles, one night sweating, one day drippy nose, but then no fever, no sore throat. Mine has mostly passed by then, just wakes me up in the morning to cough out any soul, slime, kidneys, ball bearings it can scrape of the bottom of the kettle and then I'm mostly done for the day. Kids ones were even lighter - Linda was done in a day, Sanda in two, Violet had nose running one day, Raja had nothing, Nina too. To differ from us oldsters, the twins did run a fever, not much, nothing horrible.
On monday the 24th there was rain. The weather didn't get much better the next 2-3 days, so we gave up on the garden until further. Tuesday was just lousy, chilly, with single digit temperature in the morning, hitting hot 13 in the day. In the evening we, despite everything, decided to pretend health, had a shower (couple of days beyond schedule), and dedicated ourselves to ourselves a bit. Not much drink, though, she didn't feel like, doesn't go without smell. And we did what we didn't do for years - she went to sleep around 22, and I woke her up after 1. And miraculously we did feel better.
On wednesday grocery was due. Haven't been to Neša the butcher for month and a half, and the lady there asked about the girls right away. In Lidl, we met Adža again, said he delivered our greetings to Sleš, and now delivers the likewise response back. We got to stop meeting like this. First I don't see him for some thirty years, then for another thirteen, and now it's two weeks in the row.
A news at Lidl: the transparent plastic barriers around the cash registers are gone, easier to breathe. Corona is officially over. The cashier also asked abotu the twins.
After some message exchange on their forum, the shooter in the phone can make its own jpegs properly. Last two months, with beta26 phosh kernel, it made them two notches green and two ef stops too bright, which I handled in RawTherapee - from the dng. Now even the dng is balanced properly. There was some option in beta21 which wasn't passed down for subsequent builds, and so it shat. Got a patched kernel, installed, bingo.
And again a small news from an unlikely source... the postman brought another writ from Obrenovac, on the matter of state owing us some money. Belgrade filed a complaint, and now it's been refused, they got to pay. That's no news, it's that auntie Janja has a new surname. Look at that, that's why they didn't invite us to the annual memorial service, or maybe they didn't even hold one. Who knows how long was this going on and was now just made official. The old guy was no good at all last we saw him in 2013, no teeth no voice, kept on on bacon alone, „eh when I was still alive...“ and wasn't leaving the house. She could do whatever she wanted, for years.
On twentyninth we went to garden again. I mowed a lot, possibly more than ever, really got into swing. The quinces are in blossom. There'll be some cherries, some cherries, some apricots... perhaps enough for brandy, perhaps not. But plums, there'll be a lot. We got nicely tired. Joda beeped as soon as we got out of town (and I found a new shortcut to get there, avoiding the tight spot around the community center), needs čorba. As it makes no sense to have a separate light for it, what with the fuel level diagram taking so much of the screen space, it blinks and sometimes beeps, about once each 10km. When I later wrote the expense into the sheet, I saw I didn't pour čorba since december. Time flies.
Linda pulled a nice trick (I think mayday evening). She wanted to eat tost with butter, but Nina was in the middle of a match. She's playing Overwatch for a few years now, mostly with the same team, which has became stable, they know each other, even know each other's familial circumstances, as it goes when people do something together online for so long. And Linda somehow gets Nina's blututh mike/earphone, hooks it to her shirt, and announces „tell my mom to make me toast with butter“. And they did, and she did.
On 3rd, in Čankovo, she finished planting the tobacco. We had to remove the foil off it, because it was windy, and the wind would lift the foil and it would flatten the plant beneath it when it settled down. I was seriously panting by the time we finished that, but not being short of breath, just needing more time to breathe up. The tomatoes she finished before, part of it at home. I took the crummy round shovel and carried some five wheelbarrows of new soil that gathered around the grass in the cracks in the concrete. The concrete is not one great slab, it was poured between the wooden slats, which weren't removed, but then gradually rotted away and made room for soil. And the soil here is rich, so grass will grow from any crack, and more biomass will gather around it and make more soil. Five carts and I haven't finished more than a quarter of it.
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* once you start looking, you can't unsee - these weeks I'm finding odd definite or indefinite articles which don't make much sense, being purely habitual, so at times I use the opposite article, just for kicks, giving the other article a benefit of a doubt.
** if you think I meant „Meditterranean“, you're wrong - I didn't mean the sea, I meant the whole area. And I don't like to use words which are obvious adjectives [obvious to me, when they come from latin or other languages, mostly unchanged or shaped as other similar adjectives], at least not in english, where there's no implied noun. What if someone asks me „mediterranean what? sea?“, what then?
Mentions: auntie Janja, Čankovo, čorba, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), fox, gugolj, Joda, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Marinko Protić, Mika Zelenić (Sleš), Milena Požarić, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Stanimir Hadžić (Adža), švorceniger, Violet, in serbian