Elyssium

My enforced prolongation of stay in Romania is throwing up all sorts of wonderful things.

Not least is the fact that rather than 120 odd goats we now appear to have more than 150.

At this time of year they are out in the fields in groups of 10/15, being looked after by young boys, who might be described as Peter's descendants ( That's Peter as in Heidi). Quite how I own all these goats is completely beyond me. The good thing is that it is creating employment where there was none before and the cries of horror at the size of the herd have diminished as more and more people are taking care of them. I think there are now 14 in total, with the boys on about GBP2 per day, with the seniors on about GBP6. It is of course 7 days a week, so there are opportunities to rotate work as needed.In the winter they are all indoors, so far fewer people are needed to look after them.

The first of the Billys went off to market and fetched about GBP300 each, so it's all woking out quite well though my fingers are firmly crossed. At last count we should be selling about 40 so we are firmly on course for a small profit this year

Goats, of course, eat their way through everything, so we have had a policy of getting them onto the worst land that needs cleaning up. Once the goats have chomped their way across, planting or reseeding is a doddle.Yesterday was spent all day in the fields, and a serious suntan is now in place. The butterflies and lizards were also stirring, and Transylvania is back to it's magical best.

I have a new camera which is simply wonderful - I have lots of really good pictures of my feet or the sky, but not many of anything else. Naturally, I don't have the instruction manual with me, nor would I read it if I did - it's a man thing. Fortunately, Alin is always on hand, and spent the whole evening early last week working out how it worked. At least I can now take a picture, look at it and erase it too.

Out here, sometimes amazing things happen for no apparent reason.

Alin was approached a few weeks ago by a man who couldn't pay his gas bill, begging to sell us a piece of land.

It wasn't where we wanted it.

It wasn't near anything else we owned.

It wasn't that easy to access.

It hadn't been worked for some years.

There were title problems, inheritage problems ( as Alin calls them) and even a problem with his ID.

Elena, the Capo of the local food Mafia in Nemsa, asked us very politely if we would please buy it, as she owed the man a favour. Reluctantly, Alin agreed to buy it, after his usual " Mr. King, what you tink?" elicited a shrug of my shoulders down the telephone.

One of the magical things here are the picnics people have. Barbecue is almost a religion. The Mayor has a good spot, set in the trees, but without much outlook. I've been looking for a spot where I could have my barbecue. Two or three areas have come up, but all of them just lacked a little something.

So yesterday we went to look at the land Alin had reluctantly bought, and slaved over to get the paperwork in order.

To say I was charmed would be to put it too mildly.

The land sits above Nemsa, looking straight down the valley and across the village, nestling in a kind of hollow below a wooded hillock.

We both just stood there gazing about.

" Mr. King, I'm thinking this will be your picnic spot."

Goat Stew.

I've been very busy the last couple of days out here, and very boring it has been as well.

Hours spent with lawyers and accountants are just about bearable, but with officials who require upwards of 40 or 50 signatures and stamps is enough to make me want to shoot myself. Fortunately, it does eventually end, and one can emerge blinking into the sunshine again.

The Mayor is well. The house he is building for his son and daughter-in-law is progressing well, even if he has some odd ideas. He has decided it should have CCTV cameras. As everyone has told us,"For what he wants this? To watch his chickens pecking?" The house is in the grounds of his own house, which is immediately beside the police, so it is extremely unlikely anyone would attempt anything.

The centre of Sighisoara is no longer a mess - the cobbles have all been put back, although with true Official determination some of them have had to be dug up again. They had very carefully sunk some uplighters into strategic locations - the only problem being no one had laid any electric cables...

The new seasons cabbage is not here yet. This means that one does not order cabbage salad as it is a bit white and tough. Of course, foreigners and people from Bucharest are steered to order it, as they, of course, know no better.

But the overwhelming question of the day, on everyone's lips, is what are we going to do with the goats? You may recall last autumn we had about 60 - I say "about" as my calculation was less than the goatherd's, which, in turn,was less than there actually was.

Having been mated in November, we now have a string of baby goats emerging, which, in theory, will take us to about 120.

This is such an enormous number that people actually can't conceive of how we are going to deal with them. As Baldrick would say, I have a cunning plan...

It looks as if we will have about 25 or 30 male goats from the new crop, so these will be sold far and wide - we will only sell in our area if anyone wants one. Some may even find their way back to Switzerland to help their gene pool.

On 23rd May, a large delegation is coming from LeManoir near Caen in France to mark 25 years of association with Mosna. There is to be a feast for the whole (top echelon) population of the three villages and the French - about 300 people in total.

By my reckoning, this will use up about 30 kids. Of course, the Mayor has a budget for this, but Mosna City Hall also has a derelict orchard I want, so we have arranged a small swap. He will buy the goats from me and I will buy the orchard from him. More precisely, Mosna will give me the orchard and I will pay the Mayor....

But hey - that's the goat problem solved . For this year at least..

Elysian Interlude

I've had a friend out here for the last few days. As ever, he has been bowled over by the place ( to be fair the weather has been superb and Transylvania is showing herself at her very best).
He has tagged along with everything we have been doing but we have curtailed the days so that we have not started before 9 and lunch has been by 6 each day with free time from 8. I'm sure he thinks this is too long for comfort but is only about 70% of what we normally do.
He likens the culture to that of Ireland in the 50's and early 60's, or Portugal until more recently, with a very agrarian rural economy. In the villages the number of cars is minimal, and the locals produce all they need to live.
Of course, he has had to drink the tuica ( which he quite liked) and eat some things which at home he would never consider, but even these he was quite taken with. We tramped some fields to show him things and his superior brain produced some good thoughts which we will mull over and possibly incorporate into what we are doing.
We had paparnash every night - the sweet cheese doughnuts with jam and sour cream that are so tasty. As we ate in a different place every night, we had four different manufactures, and the decision was handed down that the best are now at the Binderbubi.
The highlight of the visit was our "lunch" at the Pension Liana in Nemsa ( Elena's) when we had kid stew. I had been told it was going to be a special surprise but I had no idea I would be providing the ingredients....
Incidentally, there is now a flight from Stansted to Sibiu, which is only just over an hour from Sighisoara. This is operated by Blue Air, and is thoroughly to be recommended. Not only do you get to choose your seat, at the moment you don't even have to pay for luggage.
And they have a frequent flyer discount programme too...
PS
Apparently, despite eating one goat , we still have 62. The only conclusion I can come to is that it is something to do with people paying us rent late, but I am assured that everyone is up to date and we are not, nor have we been , owed any goats.
Perhaps they are just coming in to get out of the sun....

Very clever goats

Meanwhile, back in Romania, they have a Presidential election this coming Sunday.
If it was down to the number of posters, Mircea Geoana would win by a mile. But Alin assures me the present incumbent ( Basescu) will be the winner.
" You see, Mr. King, it's like this. If you are Coca Cola, you don't doing much advertising. But if you are Sighisoara Cola, then you must doing much advertising just to get little business."
I'm not 100% sure his argument is valid, but all the other candidates names end in "escu" .There are cases of mothers forcing their daughters into marriages with men just because their name ended in "escu". For some reason you are regarded as an important person. In fact, I was recently introduced as "Learescu" just to make the point...
The weather here is beautiful and warm - 17C today and the most brilliant blue sky. There is the odd wisp of smoke as the gloaming sets in, rising straight up, which is very picturesque.
This is the time of year when the ploughing has to be done so we spent most of today checking that the people doing it were in the right places. It's surprising how often our next door neighbours get their fields ploughed for free...
We went to the Mayor for a cup of coffee and ended up having special sausages made from goat and pig. I was slightly suspicious so we went to check on our goats to make sure it was only the sheep that the teethy wolves were eating. It looks as though the teethy wolves have been adding goats rather than subtracting them, as instead of 58 we now have 62 ( as far as I can calculate the absolute absolute maximum should be 56 and that's stretching it a bit), and all, I am assured, are pregnant. I find this a little hard to believe as it's only now that the billys are let lose on them, but we shall see, as Alin would say. We needed to build an additional shelter to house the new lot of kids, and this has been a major undertaking, with advice from everyone in the village as to exactly where it should be built.Also which way round. And how big, long, wide, high and of what. And what the party should be like when it is finished.
Whilst all this was going on the goat man , Dan and his two helpers had been quietly working away, and I was astonished to see a whole new building within 50 feet of the old one when I arrived there today.
I asked how much it had cost.
" Nothing," said Dan. Being Romania, this had not surprised me as much as it ought to have done.
It transpired the uprights and roof trusses had been donated by the forest man, in exchange for a goat and a pig. The roof was old metal sheets salvaged from cutting up a redundant water tank. The sides had been built using reclaimed block and bricks from various building sites round about. And of course the cement, sand nails etc. had simply appeared..
Now bearing in mind we don't actually have any pigs ( we ate ours this time last year), and it would mean we should only have 55 goats, and however you care to look at it most of the stuff was - how shall I put this delicately - stolen - I was a bit worried about the whole thing.
Dan assured me it was fine. Everyone who "donated" had been compensated. How? He had given them baby goats...and some sheep.
So my goat man steals sheep from my shepherd.
And the goats appear to have some form of alien reproduction as when we counted up the number of people who had been compensated, I reckon the most I should have is 48......
PS
You may be wondering about the pig as officially we don't have any. I'm reliably informed it had wandered into the goat pen and was then passed on to a third party...

Profound contemplation

Take a look at this...
Middle Ms. Lear is in London and saw this.
I think she is implying that this is what I do in Romania.
I shall, in any event HAVE to go to see it....

Romanian Goats

Those of you who follow me in Romania may be wondering how the goats are doing.
Very roughly, we now have so many goats and so many due to produce babies that they are taking over the village.
What happened in the past was that people bred goats, sold some, ate some and then bred some more. No one has ever NOT got rid of any and kept breeding.
You might find it extraordinary but we spent a couple of hours discussing this particular problem, which is a problem not only for the people ( yes we now have 3) looking after them, but for the very terrain they inhabit.
Suffice to say we agreed to keep the maximum number at 100 and to sell ( or eat) whatever number more we had. We will also have to buy some more land to keep feeding them - fortunately this won't be a problem.
On the subject of crops, trefoil would appear to yield 4 cuts a year and each hectare is worth about £500. This will feed about 8 goats for the full year - so input = about £60pa.
Cost of looking after them is about £30 pa ( total costs divided by total numbers) so lets just say the all-in cost is £100 pa.
There is, of course, the by-product - the dung which gets spread everywhere, but ignoring that, we would expect to sell each goat for about £300. This may sound a lot, but these are special goats - and it's only for the Billies.
So lets just say the 100 goats produce 100 babies, and 50% are boys. Our total costs will be £10,000 and our income £15,000 - with an extra 50 female goats thrown in to replace any that die.
Or start a new herd somewhere...

The Birthday Present

I've been in Romania for a couple of days so far and have been putting in long days to match the daylight hours.
Everyone starts work here at 7 or 7:30, so I do too. Whereas they tend to finish about 5, Alin and I keep going and make use of the light to check out the land.
It's roasting here - as high as 37C yesterday - but the crops are all growing like mad and the prices appear to be holding up. Sweet corn, which was planted on the basis that we would get RON 0.50 per ear, is selling in the markets for RON1.40, and even the under size and misshapes are making more than we expected. We might actually break even this year, which is a year earlier than we expected, especially if the goats do their stuff. In that context, we have enough so that it doesn't matter whether they produce billies or nannies - we would simply keep the nannies if they produce less than 50% females, and make more money from the sale of billies. If, on the other hand, more females are produced, we will sell some of them, which will mean that the amount we collect is down somewhat ( boys are worth more than girls - no comment).
A lot of the time has been spent with lawyers sorting out problems that have cropped up when the topographer has done his job. Over the years dividing lines between owners have become "smudged" and from our point of view we need then to be exact. In some instances we find we have more land on the ground than we have technically bought, or less. As none of the land has been registered, we are bearing the costs of doing so, but also having to make sure it is exact.Resolving the problems takes time, but ultimately helps not only us but the local people. This is because if for example one side of their land has been exactly registered, the eventual cost to them of registering drops by 50%. Admittedly it helps us too if we buy from our neighbours.
The Mayor was delighted to see me. Since my last visit he hasn't had a drink. It's not doctor's orders ( though it should be) just every now and again he stops. The people in City Hall don't like it as he makes them all stop too. Overall, though, the level of health of his people is bettered.
So it was with a whoop of glee that he drew off some of his excellent pink wine that I particularly enjoy. All his tuica and wine is in the cellar that every good Transylvanian has under his house - keeping cool and at a steady temperature. It might come as no surprise to you to learn that his cellar was originally the pub for the village...
We sat in the shade of his fruit trees, smelling the new mown hay, and listening to the odd plum drop off a tree. These are gathered up and turned into this year's tuica. A few glasses in and the front gate banged. It was the bread delivery - made three times a week for the whole village. The smell and feel of the newly baked bread is more intoxicating than the wine. When eaten with tomatoes, onions, gherkins and a paste that is a bit like salsa, it's very much a meal fit for a King ( no pun intended).
The day before had been Tina, the Mayor's wife's, birthday. Tina is the lady who is keeping BAT's in business. I've no idea how many cigarettes she smokes a day, but I have never seen her without a cigarette in her hand. This includes meal times, and her cooking is enhanced by all the ash that goes into it.
I congratulated her.
"Well,"she said,"As it was not a special birthday, Eugen only gave me a small present. We were shopping a few days ago, and I had left my purse behind. I borrowed RON200 off him ( about GBP42)"
"Ah yes," said the Mayor."Not such a small gift."
"Yeah right,"said Tina. "When we were in bed last night I asked you what you had got me for a present."
"Indeed " said the Mayor ," And I told you you didn't need to pay me back...."

Goats with attitude

I've just noticed that there is a TV programme called The Mentalist. I wonder if this is about Guido's favourite, the Prime Mentalist?
But I digress.
Today was all about my goats.
You may recall that I had thought the flock was not growing as it should, and in fact last year our six nannies produced 6 billys, with the result that we just had to sell the billys.
What I hadn't really appreciated was that the goat man, Dani, had then used the cash to buy 8 nannies = 14 Kinglear goats.
What I also hadn't appreciated was that the rent for land we let out was due on 1st May. For some reason I thought it was paid at the end of October.
Anyway, we got another 27 goats and 17 sheep. I've given up trying to keep track of the sheep because the teethy wolves need feeding and the City Hall does as well...
You may think this means I have 41 goats.
And you would be completely wrong because the original 14 have all had nannies this time, so the flock is now 56 strong.
You will have noticed this is wrong somewhere by 1. No, I don't understand it either..
The problem is that this winter we will have to provide food for this flock ( for about 5 months in total) and we have let all the land we own. You will rapidly realise I know nothing about farming, but it appears that noone around Mosna does either.There is, of course, also the EU subvention payments but that is a horse of a different colour as they say in the Wizard of Oz.
So roughly speaking we need 20 hectares more of land which will have to have the grass cut and stockpiled.
Elena, the lady who owns the pension in Nemsa said we were not to worry about this, as it would be easy to obtain pasture land - much cheaper than agricultural land - and truth to tell we picked up about 2.5 has. today for the equivalent of GBP 150 per acre. She immediately put the word out, and confidently expected that by tomorrow evening we would be roughly covered. Certainly one very drunk Nemsa resident offered us a tenth of an acre for two bottles of beer, but we declined and told him to see us tomorrow. Who knows? He might sell for only one bottle tomorrow...
We checked the areas we had been offered on foot, and concluded the deals.
In Ceaucesu's time May 1st was Labour Day and an official holiday. It is no longer one, but everyone takes it anyway, so everything is shut. Unofficially, it is the start of the barbeque season and curls of smoke are dotted all over the landscape.
The Mayor has put the visiting Government Accountants to stay in Elena's pension. Elena is quite pleased with this as the main accountant and she had hit it off famously when last they had been here, and she appeared today hair done, new clothes and looking rather like an oversize Russian doll. I asked Alin how on earth the accountant could possibly fancy her and he confided in me that when I saw the accountant I would understand the mutual attraction.
The day ended with another lady coming to sell her land ( about 1.5 acres) as she needed the money to square her old age pension. I simply don't understand how this works, but I suspect she had one final payment to make before she was 60 on Thursday next week.
We offered her the going rate ( in this case about Eur 225) - and were told she needed Eur 400.
Impasse! We can't pay more because then everyone will want more - and those that have already sold will want more too. Unfair on us I know, but pretty much what the banks are doing to their customers at the moment ( You have an agreement at 1.5% over base? We need more,you will have to pay 3% over base. Why? Because if you don't we will pull the loan...)
Elena came up with the solution.
"Well, " she said," We need to get the grass cut on the new lands. If you agree to do this one time, Mr. King will give you the extra money."
This may sound a bit unkind to a 60 year old, but in fact hay cutting is RON60 per ha. i.e. about Eur 15 , and she has two sons with wives, two daughters with husbands, and two tractors between them.
Quick as a flash, the lady asked if she could have the contract for subsequent cuts.
So now my 58 goats will have food this winter.
And no, I still don't know how there's one more either.
Er, actually two....