Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories

Yes, there must be some slugs because I sometimes see nibbled strawberries but they must be vampire slugs which come out at night only because I have never seen any.

I am constantly bothered by memories. :)


No, I am not. As I said before, I am not pressed to have excellent crops as our subsistence doesn`t depend on them. I bought that farm as an investment but also fun. So, when sth fails, I adopt a relaxed attitude because that is nature and some things can`t be avoided. I only observe and marvel at how wonderfully complicated those natural laws are. E.g, a few days ago I noticed a dark spot in the back part of the field - when I approached, it turned out to be a carcass of a bird of prey, much larger than the one I found during my first visits to the place. Why did it die? Old age, disease, another predator or a human? I have no idea. There were no legs with talons (I usually cut them off for our home gallery) or head, only wings and the body.

Well that's good as there isn't much point stressing about the unavoidable, but I think i'd be pretty p!ssed if I lost all my crops due to weather etc, even if I wasn't financially dependent on the harvest. Easy to see how why farmers could end up bankrupt. In the UK, there is a high suicide rate amongst farmers :(


You have displays of legs with talons in your home? Pics please, that is quite strange..........

Yes, we collect various curious natural stuff which we find anywhere, including the farm, also buy at fairs or animal exhibitions. I have just checked - the legs with talons of the bird from 2013 are already in one of glass displays but I didn`t take a picture of them yet.

No, I am not taking you for a ride in any of the posts here. Owning a farm is a serious matter after all.

Older pics - the gallery is still in the boys` room

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You have cloven hooves! I hope the rest of the animals had a natural death!! Are those teeth next to the hooves?
That looks like quite a big moth in the case under the butterfly.
Quite a selection you have there!
When I was in Romania, I found shops selling bats in display cases and paperweights.Tarantulas too. Not sth I fancied bringing home to be honest.

Those wild boar hooves used to be Slavic amulets - the carriers supposed they would be equally strong and fearless. :) Yes, shark teeth plus a cow horn, wild boar tusks, horse jaw, bone knife and bone whistle.

As for farm items in the collection, apart from taloned legs, there are skeletons of various rodents we found in the field and giant insects, e.g. hornets.

Do you know this animal which I found dead in the field? There used to be many a few years ago, we caught them in a trap and released after some time. But I didn`t see them last year. I hope they managed to avoid their main enemies - village cats.

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@pawian
looks like a hamster...

It looks a bit like a Vole or field mouse.

Sorry, Chemikiem, but Coop is better at wild animals. It is a European hamster, much larger than its home pet cousin. Also faster and more dangerous - its bite can be really nasty. Only the oldest and most experienced feline warriors are able to fight it successfully. There was one summer when we caught hamsters 8 times. All of them were released, of course. I got so relaxed about them that I didn`t do anything when they invaded the fenced area next to the house - they were funny neuighbours and didn`t fear us at all. Urban visitors couldn`t believe their eyes when they saw we also " kept" hamsters apart from our standard mini zoo. :):)

Pity they disappeared, I hope temporarily, but I heard that farmers kill them as pests which damage crops.

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To be honest, and don't laugh, I didn't realise that Poland had wild hamsters, even though I did think it looked like one, so I went for Voles instead.


Haha! They are so cute! I would have kept them all :):)
Was Prisoner 007 released or did something more sinister happen to him/her? ;)

It is not a problem, most of my urban acquintances have no idea either and think I am joking.


It was lucky. A famous director was passing by and seeing the hamster`s incredible stunts (they can jump 1 metre high), he took it to the film. He said that Alvin and his squirrels were losers in comparison.

They are getting more rare Parian, they are mostly confined to the south of Poland. I saw them at our farm too but not for 3 or 4 years now

Today I went to the farm but did inside chores only due to heavy rain which lasted for a few hours - for the first time this year I saw puddles of water which didn`t soak into the ground. Good but it has also a few disadvantages:

- more rain in spring means more mosquitoes in summer.

- too much rain makes the ground soft. A heavy car like mine can easily damage the drive - the grass is pressed into wet clayish soil and stays there. .

- the lawn grows greener and quicker, yes, but it entails more frequent mowing. The same applies to weeds in the field and around the fence. I need to spend 2 hours mowing the area within the fence and additional time for the field, depending how much I want to mow.

First crops this year (I don`t count spring onion and dill which are old) - a lot of red radishes and a few honey berries. Yummy. The rest of fruit and veg are doing well but will be delayed due to cloudy days in May.

Today I didn`t even try to drive onto the yard. The ground is so soft I could easily leave traces if I pressed my foot too hard. I parked in front of the gate.

Do you remember point 3?


I saw a new job is waiting for me. The wet ground collapsed in a few places where the water pipes had been put in 2016. Apart from bringing a few (dozen? )wheelchair loads of earth, I will also have to replant some bushes. . Nice. Thank you, Mother Nature.:):)

... meanwhile here, in Lithuania, we watering plants everyday with watering can, so I guess you're lucky :)

Lucky? Yes. :) I don`t mind that collapsed ground, that is life. But when I mentioned the disadvantages of a rainy weather, I forgot to say one more point: rain means no sun so fruit don`t have a chance to grow big and sweet. Also some veg from hot climate zones, e,.g, tomatoes, pepper, aubergine, etc.

But rain means mushrooms in the forest ) Do you have forests around? Or just fields?

Little forested areas scattered here and there but without mushrooms. Instead, mushrooms grow in our garden under the pines, even noble ones, but they appear in autumn. Can you recognise this variety?

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Chipmunks even ;)


Some type of Boletus?

A large maslak - I only eat them if I can't find anything nicer !

Aah, yes, I never know who is who in that business. :) Sorry, not boletus but edible.


Yes, that is why I am still waiting for better species....this mushroom vaccine works slowly.... :)

Prawdziwek?

Nope, this one - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suillus_bovinus

noble, but much less valuable than prawdziwek

That water installation was a nightmare. The front yard and house interior were a complete mess. But when there`s a will, there`s a way too. Humans are able to cope with all adversities.

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Weeding takes a lot of time. When I can afford some more time at last, I stand in the middle of the property and don`t know where to start because there is so much area to clean. When I finish after a few weeks, I need to repeat the cycle because new weeds have managed to spring up.

now, look at the pics and imagine this particular spot multiplied by 200. But I still treat it as good exercise for body and mind.

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Today I spent a few hours you know where. I have good and bad news for me. Good is that the kiwi vines which I planted in 2016 have eventually bloomed. I am curious if they will produce any fruit - a female plant needs to be pollinated from a male one - fortunately, I have two males.

Bad is that at 6 pm hordes of mosquitoes appeared and made me put on trousers and shirt. OMG, they were still so small but I imagine what is going to happen during vacations. Shyt!

Oops, it seems it is going to be the worst vacation ever. On Saturday I was working there too and those bastards attacked in full sunshine at noon and later. I had never seen it before, they had always waited till evening hours when the sun was getting low on the horizon.

Fek! I don`t care about myself but my family won`t be happy. I can`t imagine them going out to play or work in the garden.

We have screens on windows but in previous stays a few mosquitoes always managed to get inside during the day and I hunted them down all over the house before going to sleep. But now it will be like an invasion. Those electric mosquito repellent fumigators are out of question, they give off that DEET agent which is hazardous to humans too. I have started checking out those killer lamps but they won`t be so useful either because there is always dim light on in a few places in the house at night so the lamps won`t be so attractive to insects.

K..... mać!

Pawian
Where did they come from? You have a pond near? I thought you're living among fields... Btw, would you please tell about your neighbors? Do you suffer from neighbors dogs barking at night? I do a little :)

Yes, we are located among fields, like an island. There is a little pond a few hundred meters away, I suppose some mosquitoes hatch there but most of this year`s invaders were born in puddles of water after long heavy rains in May, I already wrote about it.

As for neighbours, they are very OK, I can see they are hard working people, very decent ones, religious and family oriented. I don`t mind that most of them voted PiS :):) I could see it passing through the village, most fences exhibited PiS` banners and posters and only a few of the democratic opposition.

Two of these neighbours saved my ass several times, e..g, when my car battery failed or I locked the car with the keys inside in the evening so they drove a dozen kilometres to a nearby town where they picked up my wife who came with spare keys. Also, once I got stuck in the muddy ditch after water pipe installation so they pulled me out with a tractor.

And they don`t drink vodka - when I wanted to pay them for those services, they were really annoyed because they believe that helping people should be for free. My way of thinking, exactly. So I offered to buy them some alcohol, but they insisted on beer, saying that vodka was out of question.

Yes, they work hard and don`t drink too much - no wonder they are quite wealthy. Each family possesses a few cars, tractors, combine harvesters, houses are well maintained, fences are sophisticated. Those rural guys have always counted on themselves, achieved a good standard of living and can be role models to benefit lovers.

As for dogs, we talked about it in the beginning. No, I don`t mind their barking at night, on the contrary, it is like wonderful music to me, it lullabies me to sleep because I feel like a little boy again who spent a few years of his life in the countryside during summers. Besides, due to distance to other houses, they don`t sound so noisy after all.

I was really lucky to find that sale offer a few years ago.

Pawian, if it's not too personal - where exactly do you live? :)

He will never tell you as he is a wanted man dead or alive.


Have you ever noticed that those two go hand in hand to be successful ?
You sound like a very blessed person Pawian to live where you do in the Polish countryside with people you have common interests with.
I grew up in a similar setting in the U.S.
Problem now is that a lot of very rich atheist snobs have seen what we have here and they want it too even though we stand for everything they stand against. lol

They have bought up homes here for twice their value (raising property taxes) making it unaffordable for many old timers to live here anymore.
Not only that but with them comes their drinking, drugs, immorality, godless thinking, pompous air that has ruined what we use to have here.
Be careful not to let that happen ( you can't stop what Political Correctness calls progress) as it will ruin not only the true Polish countryside but true Polish ethics of old Polish culture.