Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories

What was the deal on certain Saturday morning?

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Kolęda?

Sorry, this is an English speaking thread. :):)

Annual priest visit?

Yes, our local priest paid a Christmas time visit. We gave him 100 PLN. :):)

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Did he blessed your home?

Of course, not only the house but also the field, garden, cows, pigs, cats and us. That`s what he came for.

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Hahaha!


More fool you.....

It isn`t nice of you to ridicule Polish customs. It shows you are an incorrigible azhole if you do. :):):)

Nope, we would be fools if we had given 500 or 1000 PLN. But 100 PLN is just fine. Offered once a year is peanut expense, in fact. Those priests have to make a living somehow.

PS. Christmas visit by a parish priest is a long standing tradition in Poland. Priests come and do some small talk about Christian issues. Then they bless the family and its property.

Getting less and less popular in cities, still an important event in the countryside.

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It's a pity, because it is a good tradition.

LOL took you so long to find that out??I found out in cpl mths he started blabbering here and cloned him lol he was all foaming claiming someone stole his password

This freaking free forum also gives you copyrights for screen names as look alike names are banned.

This end of March is quite warm and sunny for this time of the year. Each day I plough, sow, plant. Does the family give a hand?? Of course not. They claim they would never meddle into sb else`s hobby. :):):)

....and we have snow.🌨

Recently experienced this while staying in Lubin, I think the "charge" was 100 zl also :)

I was surprised by it and found it a little odd I mean why do they assume your Christian. But on the other hand if you ignore the "religion" aspect its quite a nice tradition, and probably helps with the feeling of community, if nothing else older people would welcome the company I expect, maybe the hens might lay a bit better also :).

Certainly growing up in Ireland a visit from the priest was not unusual. Although I never understood why the local priest was treated as some kind of VIP, and I still don't get it...but its a lot less common now in Ireland.

Fewer people pay it than they'd like. Some simply say no. In the old days (and maybe very rarely niow) some people paid it because they didn't want their neighbours to think they were secretly Jewish.

In the worst parishes they read out how much each fmily paid to shame the poorer ones.

Where we are on the edge of Warsaw, they deliver little slips of paper with a number to call if you want them to come. A few do, but most don't.


You used to get that in northern English villages when the CofE priest comes; it was seen as an honour if they call. Probably still is.

You have an overactive fantasy.

That's quite something, but I can sort of believe it.


Yeah I think there was some kind of advance "warning" not sure you could opt out suppose you could just not open the door.

The UK is so anonymous now, people can and do disappear/die at home with no-one checking on them etc. I'm not sure how keen I am on the local priest checking in as they please, but at least its some kind of community.

I guess its a fine line between community looking out for each other etc and plain nosiness.

It's a really fine line. Villages everywhere are a bit like that, and Poland, being something like 40% rural in terms of population (and a lot in towns only a generation away from the village) is more like that than most places in Europe.

Add to that an ageing population with plenty of curtain-twitchers and that just multiplies it.


Less than most people (from the UK anyway) would think. It's one of the least community-minded places in Europe sadly. Once you make a friend, they're good friend, however otherwise people are less sociable with neighbours certainly than I was used to.

I am thinking that you must have some knowledge of Poland by making that post.
In Poland, I lean more to the nosey side, but if you befriend the locals that can change.

Nobody assumes anything. :):) The altar boys go ahead of the priest and ask residents if they want to receive the annual blessing.


Of course. I am generally against the corrupted black mafia but our local priest is a decent man who takes much more care of our lost souls than his profits. He drives an ancient car and whenever an impoverished farmer comes for a loan, the priest is ready to help.

Traditions are good coz they keep nations together.


Coz priests are earthly representatives and envoys of Jesus. Simple. Ha!

It's not an unreasonable assumption. It's a bit like Ireland in the 1980s - a 'Catholic' country. Almost everybody is baptised and brought up as a Catholic in Poland and they've never had the equivalent of our beloved Father Ted so they still show a bit of outward respect for the collar :))

We have our beloved Father Tad Rydzyk.

We have Father Ted and you have Father Tad!

Just to keep things on topic, here is a pic of our little orchard in the true Polish countryside :)

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Little but beautiful and big enough to chill out and unwind in the bosom of nature, as we say in Polish.

Due to rainy weather, all new veg I planted or sowed are doing well.
There is one failure, though. I experimented with potatoes over the winter - I planted them in late September and early October. About 100 holes. Only 4 are producing young vines now . I wonder why. Two options - I planted them too early - some started growing soon after planting in autumn. Second option - the winter was too severe. But I did cover them with the black agrofabric!!!

Amasing are the laws of nature which Mother Goddess regulates as She wishes. I am not annoyed or disappointed coz this is life. And apart from winter potatoes, I also planted spring ones in nearly 300 holes. Ha!

I recommend this site to any amateur potato growers. Very informative!

gardendesign.com/vegetables/potatoes.html

E.g, this is the thing I have learned only there and nobody else explains why you SHOULD cut potato tubers into pieces. Amasing!

Cut large tubers into pieces. I cut mine so that each segment has two or three "eyes" (the little bumps from which sprouts emerge, as shown in the photo). The reason for cutting the potatoes is because the many eyes on a large potato will create a crowded, multi-stemmed plant, with each stem competing for food and moisture, and in the end, bearing only small potatoes.

Back to work...... ):):)

PS. Yesterday I sowed the last batch of spring season supply - red beets. I need a lot of them for my fave fermented juice which rejuvenates the best of all remedies. :):):)

You should eat the beets as well for added goodness, what is your fermenting technique?

Mr Atch makes huge vats of fermented beetroot juice. He adds koperek and mountains of garlic to it. It's quite nice actually and I'm not a fan of fermented stuff at all. The juice made from young beets is quite different in taste to the more mature stuff, quite refreshing. I find that the older stuff, as it carries on fermenting, eventually becomes so bitter that it's unpleasant and I have to dilute it a bit with water. Mr Atch drinks it because it seems to prevent him from having a recurrence of kidney stones.

What is the weed No 1 on my weed removal list?? I always try to plug it out first even if I completely lack time.

Hint - it is popular food in Poland.