06-IX-2020.

On 28th I got majstor Mile to go to Klincaid to fix the part of the wall that's half fallen down. The fence just wasn't enough. The wall there was part of the kotarka (pigpen below, corn drying chamber with slat walls above, roof on top), but the couple who owned it 2011-2015 tore it down to use the beams as fuel. These are traditionally oak or beech, really hard wood which also burns clean. The guy who was there 2016-18 was a drunken bum who, in his youth, always had some woman at home to take care of his food, clothes, house and bed, then went to work somewhere, and now tried to repeat the women part and bought it from this couple. He stole, or at least tipped the real thieves, about what we have - so the old romanian all-iron axe, which had perfect balance, was gone in august-september 2016. He broke into the compressor room, where we kept the still and barrels and under the barrels the remainder of the old rakija we bought with the house. We found that the still was still in place, and that he didn't rummage under the mess to find the rakija and left it at that. Much later we found that he also stole the soil drill and the welder (the electrodes, extension cable, and the EM mask stayed, he didn't recognize them as valuable).

This year, we started finding footprints on the foil, including children's. Half of the sweet cherries were missing, with allegedly the starlings to blame, but the starlings pick the top branches, can't fly into the thick on the bottom. Then we discovered some tomatoes were missing, then the watering pail, the broom, the LED lightbulb from the still room, the spray-pistol and its plug from the garden hose, the good plastic broom, about 40-50 kg of pumpkin (obvious by the number of trod-on stalks in the patch on our side, and the path in the 2m high weeds on theirs), three fangla (mason's ladle for mortar, which we use for many things), the small gardener's shovel, and even the stupid plastic ashtrays from the terrace.

We also found one of our hardwood crates (which nobody here has, we got them in 1915 when dad bought apples to make rakija) near the wall, to be used as stepladder, and a 30l pot (not ours), on our side of the low part of the wall. We moved it to the center of the yard; next time it was back in place. I poured used machine oil over it, so if someone slipped, too bad.

The wall was finished in the day. I didn't have enough cash on me at the moment - made two rounds through the house before leaving, making sure I forgot nothing (new driving glasses, cigarettes, eos70...) and forgot to take cash. So I paid for the material (sand, cement mix) and promised the 5000 rsd asap.

Next day made more rakija. Since the gas bottle was nearly empty, I went to replace it (at Knez's they said they don't refill bottles anymore, new regulation), and also ordered some barbecue - the joint is right across the street. About 2kg of ćevapčići and kebab with some of their somun bread was the lunch for us. Now that even Raja started eating meat (after years of eating only chips, macn'cheese, some cake and ramen), our lunches begin to look like family lunches.

On 30th, our last shot at Peskara. Which was the idea half the town got at the same time - the temperature was around 36C, it was strangling hot, and I had to drive all the way through (with one guy almost at road rage stage, "do you have a problem?!" - "nothing, just waiting for you to pass", to which he dismissed me as harmless), then unloaded them all, then drove back to find a parking slot. Found it on the opposite end, some 300m back. Of course, by the time I left the van and came to the beach, there were six vacant slots nearby. Well, my talent for finding off-peak time is also on vacation.

I didn't even wade deeper than thigh high, don't like to have sand in my pants and to drive in wet pants, so I just did my duties - keep watch on the kids, go get a langoš, help them with the icecream. I did try to lie back and catch the last bit of tan, for whole five minutes, after which Sanda wanted to do the same, and did it about fifteen times. The concept of just lying down didn't reach her, she just went through the motions, took the pose, even shielded her eyes (with kveki, which is the twins' name for shades), then stood up, went, came back, did it again.

On 31st we had a little emergency - clogged toilet. One of the girls has dumped the plastic holder for the freshener, and it didn't go far (as it did last time), it stopped at the bottom of the porcelain, and then it clogged it completely. We unscrewed everything, took it out to the yard (tried with a brian (Auger, qv) first, but it couldn't get past the upper curve, it was designed with a corner). I put on the yellow rubber gloves, dumped the paper and shit onto the pile (where we already have the year's production of chicken shit and rakija leftovers), and then spent almost an hour screwing it back. Because the idiot who mounted it ten years ago screwed the front left one under an angle, almost 10 degrees outward, and the front right screw was too deep, so the bolt couldn't even catch. I screwed the back pair on and off three times, but got it all operational before lunch. We had

beans, beans the musical fruit
the more you eat, the better you toot
the more you toot, the better you feel
we should have beans for every meal.

The chili sauce is, finally, a local one, by Aroma of Futog (near Novi, though they are the cabbage capital around here). I posted this photo and the rhyme (which I found in "The rape of the APE" book back in 1977) on burundi. It took me several tries over the last couple of months to remember how to nicely draw the violin key.

In the afternoon we took the girls on bicycles again, and they picked Springfield again. It was the usual run around, I had a Nektar beer (from Banja Luka, who'd a thunk I'd go for a bosnian beer), she had a cold nes (i.e. instant coffee), which the twins slurped away - everything as usual, even Vesna was there, afternoon shift this time.

On 1st, I distilled a mishmash, which we named "papazjanija" (a legendary dish which nobody ate but everyone knows the word, it means "everything shoved together, without any care of what goes with what"), because it had some peaches, some grape, some plums, a few apples and even a few pears. We'll open it for doček. The paprikaš we had for lunch didn't get eaten for dinner as leftovers, the hens got it. Raja wanted a pizza, so we ordered them (the family size Roma with flapover for grownups, the medium Margarita for kids).

On 2nd, we went to Klincaid and found that the wall holds well, the mortar has dried and set, but the trodden part in the middle of the pumpkin patch is now twice as large, and there's the trail through the weeds on the other side of the fence. There were no pumpkins in that part, not even those of which I took pictures last time. Also the tomatoes I didn't pick on friday, because they were not even half ripe, were gone. Oh, well. We picked all the pumpkins and put them into the former distillery.

On 5th, the annual meeting of IV₄, same place as two years ago. Žuca and I had a plan to go by bike, but then her first neighbor would have to go downtown to meet the others, and it would be dark and cold when we come back, and she doesn't have a proper light, she puts her phone into the front basket, props it with her purse. So they agreed for me to wait until Bajlo picks me up, and then we pick the two of them along the way.

It was all the same, all the same. Fun, though, just having all day to sip the rakija (our tutifruti bottle was almost empty in the end - and whatever loza someone else brought was less than half missing), chat with the folks, have fun. Ksenija is probably still immobile, but we saw her on someone's phone. Present, in the order of appearance on the photos: Staša, Milica, Jozda, Prle, Gavra (partially as a cook, made some taco/burrito and burek for breakfast), Borče, Čarga with wife, Jasmina, and only for the last hour, Pasa (in some incredible outfit, cross between flysuit and shalwar). And it was neither cold nor dark in the end, because we split at 17:30, allegedly so that the couple who live there in that hunters' lodge would have their time off. Well they were paid and they wouldn't mind if they had to cleanup in the morning instead, but these hunters' places (just like the one where we were in 2016) are part of the place where Gavra works, so who knows what kind of arrangement this was.

By sunday afternoon I already made and distributed the photos (put them on Dropbox and emailed the link to the chosen few, who'd distribute it further).

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Mentions: 19-VI-2022., burek, burundi, ćevapčići, doček, eos70, Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), IV₄, Jasmina Vlajin, Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Klincaid, Ksenija, loza, majstor Mile, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milica Zubatović, Nenad Bajlo (Bajlo), Novi Sad, Prle Tanin, rakija, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), Spasenija Višnjić (Pasa), Springfield, Stanoje Serdarević (Staša), tutifruti, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), Vesna, Živana Armatović (Žuca), in serbian

6-IX-2020 - 16-VII-2026