Spider

It had to build its web where I hang my swimsuit!  But it seems happy, eating its very own fly.

The house is full of spiders that benefit from evening insects brought in by the light. Then they eat them and send their empty skins down in little parcels and I have to tidy them up!

New Beetle Babies

Saturday morning excitement! : ) My Zophobas morio beetles have been busy and when I dug through the substrate in their tank, I discovered many many new larvae that hatched there from the eggs laid by individuals that I raised from the larvae. Some were tiny, some were huge and some were absolutely massive! It is even more exciting, because these larvae will play an important role in my future biology class. Year 6 (ages 11-12) biology curriculum containes invertebrates and we are going to have a little beetle farm in an IKEA box with these superstars : )

The larvae molt and grow bigger and bigger, until they eventually curl up and form a pupa, from which an adult individual emerges. The beetles are pale white when they come out and get darker over the next few days, until they are black.

If you are not scared to see my new larvae in movement, here is a little video that I uploaded on YouTube just a few minutes ago.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohUAfIGrhfw

Happy Birthday !!!

Big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" for my birthday man!!

I will not be there, but I hope the birthday parcel (no matter how late it arrives) will bring a lot of joy.

Love and hugs!! x

Elderflower Goodness

It's been some time since I went foraging for elderflower. I did write about the trip, but I didn't write about what I did with the flowers.

There is a lot of things that can be done with flowers and berries of elder tree. My first goal was to make fried flowers. Dipping the flowers in ordinary pancake mixture was great fun. Also having something so unusual and with stems on my plate was quite enjoyable. : )
The idea of eating flowers is somehow romantic, however, it was one of those meals that keep coming back, so even the following evening my burps tasted of elderflower (which is not so romantic). But as a little dessert it was fine :)

The other thing I wanted to learn how to do was elderflower juice or syrup or lemonade. My Hungarian Grandmother kept making this when she was younger and I remember I loved it very much. I roughly followed the recipe by foodlover.cz - basically some water, flowers in it, lots of sugar, some lemon juice and citric acid. It came out as a jug of something between lemonade and syrup and it was delicious. It lasted in the fridge for over a week.

I do not know where I'll be next year, but if I can find some elder, I will make these delicious things again.

African Weekend

Last weekend was the third African weekend at the Botanical garden in Troja, Prague. After finally having a lot of time to myself, I spent both of the days there, in the outdoor exhibits of the garden, sipping karkadé, eating hot dogs and looking at plants and other things that were going on. The topic of this weekend was "Helping and Crafting". A lot of charities presented original African jewellery, coffee and other handmade goods to help raise the standard of living for people in Africa, fight against child labour, and make people aware of what is going on in these countries. Thre were drumming and dancing workshops going on, discussions and signings of Africa-themed books and watching films about Africa were taking place as well.

"African Summer" in the botanical garden will last until September and each weekend is dedicated to something else. The main exhibition of the summer are statues from the Tengenenge village. Each of them is for sale. Visitors can book them and will get them after the exhibition is over.

Statues made by Tengenenge village residents

Botanical garden in Troja is great in one thing - often when you come there, you will find out that more things are going on at the same time. There may be something in the greenhouse, something outdoors and remains of some older exhibitions will be left in the garden... this time there was also a finishing exhibition of Pelargonium plants, exhibition of plant photographs of the Cape phytogeographical area, exhibition of winning photographs from "FotoFata" photography competition and some remains of the spring "Wicker in the garden" exhibition, such as benches and sitting areas and these lovely plant supports.

Plant supports made of wicker

Windowsill Gardening 2013 - Peas and Salads

I am going to be Alys Fowler of windowsil gardeners! Some months ago, after an excessively exhausting English lesson that I gave, I took the money for a little trip to BauHaus and exchanged it for some pots and soil to keep compay to my lonely seeds at home.

I cleared out some ivy that is growing on the house and recently started shading my room too much and even growing in through the open window (greenvasion, I call it) – it was bit of an ivy massacre, but the space gain was well worth it.

Peas used to be my favourite plant to grow and eat as a kid. In these pictures, the peas looks amazing, there were lots of flowers and even pods started forming. However...  now it will rest in peace in compost. All my plants got some nasty disease, which looks like a fungus - white powder of spores falling down from the surface of the plant and even the pods and flowers started falling down. So no peas this year.

Another packet of seeds that I bought was "speedy salads". They really do grow quickly and taste great. Snails like them as well. Now most of them have gone into flower, so I am growing another container full of juicy green salad leaves to enjoy before winter.

I used the leaves in salads many, many times. I really enjoy how it works. I take care of salads and salads take care of me :)

Disconnected and Stitching

New birdies hanging from the windows

Something happened with our routers a few days ago and so far we've been unable to fix it, so there is no Internet connection at home at all. That is why I am sitting at the university (on Sunday!!!) and blogging and writing my e-mails from here. Luckily now that I have no work that would require being online, I can enjoy my time at home without the need to check my email or Facebook every three minutes. 

Life is sweet without living in the cyber-space. I managed to do a lot of things that I couldn't do for a long time - cooked, re-potted some plants, tidied up the room finally and even spent a nice evening in bed, watching Narnia and stitching up some socks and eventually also these little birdies that have been waiting in the box for a long time.

See?? You can get work done if you stop wasting time online! So get away from your computer (but come back later for more posts) and do some work!!

Soon to be listed on Etsy

"Crystal" Friendship Bracelets

It's been ages since I blogged about anything even remotely crafty, so here we go!  These are a few bracelets that I made for my shop during this summer. It is not often that I learn a new pattern, but I really liked this one, so I did. It is called "Crystal" and originally it is designed for six different colours, however, I decided to use only three -two full coloured and one variegated. I made three different bracelets with this techniqe and I really like them.

The green one (on the right) is already sold, however the dark blue-grey one and the orange-yellow-brown one are still available in my shop.

The design comes from my favourite Czech website naramkypratelstvi.cz (see the tutorial here) and is originally from a Polish crafty website.

In the Tower of St Elizabeth's Cathedral in Košice

We are back in my Prague home, full of impressions from all the travelling (and FOOD!!!) we have been experiencing in Slovakia in the last week. So while my lovely English man cooks lunch and I am not allowed to stay in the kitchen, let me tell you about one simple trip we took in my hometown (Košice, eastern Slovakia).

On the day that we were leaving Košice by a night train (if you ever buy a night train from Košice to Prague or vice versa, make sure you travel by EuroNight train - really nice - and buy your ticket in the city from which you are starting your journey - the City Start discount is huge), we decided to walk up the northern tower of St. Elizabeth's Cathedral in the city centre.

Entering the cathedral is for free and it is really worth it. It is a proper working catholic church, so sometimes it happens that you enter during  service, but there are always some people who just want to look around. For 1.50 EUR (children younger than 15 years have a discount) you can enter the highest tower of the cathedral - the northern tower.

It is 59.7 meters high and there are 160 steps leading to the top lookout. There isn't much space there, so do not go if you are claustrophobic, afraid of dark, heights or swirly staircases :)

In several places on the way up, there are little rooms - with bells, with the mechanism of the clock and windows that offer views almost as great as the top lokout.

View from the top is still the best though. We spent quite a while up there, looking at hidden yards and pretty balconies of the town that one can only see from the top.

Up left: Hlavná (Main) street and State Theatre; Up middle: Alžbetina (Elizabeth's) street; Right: Urban's Tower
Down left: city centre; Down middle: Hlavná (Main) street with a park and a piece of St Elizabeth's Cathedral

Down the River between Slovakia and Poland

Our little summer vacation is here and with it trips to cottage, walks, mosquitos, sandal tan, sunglasses, hats, sightseeing, cool drinks and cycling bruises. My English man and I are together for about two weeks now. We started in Prague, then continued to Košice (Slovakia) and soon we are returning back to Prague again. We took several trips with my parents at the beginning of this week, one of them being rafting down the river Dunajec on traditional rafts in the north of Slovakia, where the river creates a border between Slovakia and Poland. The water level was low and a journey of 9 kilometers took our rafting guides almost two hours. (It was a very hot day and Adrian kept splashing river water on me all the way). We met ducks, lots of other (mostly Polish) rafts, saw fish and a lot of natural beauties of Pieniny national park, some of which are pictured below.

Traditional raft on Dunajec, Slovakia/Poland

Most of the guides wear traditional vests and hats. The hats are covered in seashells, because originally, the rafters were transporting wood down the river all the way to the sea. For every completed journey to the seaside, they brought back one shell. So the man with most shells was the coolest one :) (You can buy the hats as a souvenir. I checked - all the shells were made of plastic)

Seven stone monks, Dunajec and rafts

Seven stone monks. According to the legend, there were seven monks living in the "Červený Kláštor" (Red Monastery) nearby on the Slovak side of the river, who were allowed to visit one nun living on the Polish side (as the guide mentioned - for prayers, of course!). The only condition was that they had to go one at a time - a different monk every day of the week. However, because according to the rules of the monastery, the monks could not talk to each other, they couldn't agree on who will go when and so they all went, and every day (praying must have been very important to all of them). And therefore, because they disobeyed the rules, they were all turned into a stone and so was the nun (who is represented by a rock on the Polish side of the river, of course).

Tri koruny

The three rocks "Tri koruny" (Three Crowns). Each of them has its own name, both in Slovak and in Polish, the only one I remember is that the first one is called "Duch Pienin" (The Spirit - or Ghost - of Pieniny). If you look closely, you can see that the trees on it form its eyes and sad mouth or moustache.

Beautiful scenery of PIENAP (PIeninský NÁrodný Park - Pieniny National Park)

One Loud Blackbird

EN: Common blackbird
L: Turdus merula
SK: Drozd čierny
CZ: Kos černý

It's been a while since I took this picture of a blackbird male. I think he was looking for a female, with very loud and whistle-like calls. He would sit down on my windowsill, next to my flowerpots, or on a street lamp in front of my window and sing. It was hard to keep the window open around him : )

I am not a huge fan of birds, but when I take a picture of one, I tend to read about it a little bit and according to biolib.cz , this bird also feeds on Portuguese slugs (Arion lusitanicus), which are very common and invasive in our gardens and gardeners hate them. So - a really helpful gardening bird!! :D

Little Sugar Glider Lady

This little animal is a sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps), an omnivorous marsupial. My friends keep a couple of these and they have had many babies since they got them, two at a time. The babies have only 0.2 grams when they are born and climb into the female's pouch where they suck milk and develop further. Later, when they are too big, the mother leaves them in the shelter. They develop fur, open their eyes and become a little bit more independent (see wikipedia for more).
This little girl is still on milk, but very friendly, so she stayed with me for a while, as we watched TV. I made her a nest in my scarf on my lap and at first she was very curious, but eventually she fell asleep : )

Crafty Košice (Cassovia Folkfest 2013)

Košice (in eastern Slovakia) became European capital of culture for 2013. Many cultural events have already taken place, city got nicely reconstructed, parks were renewed and events will be going on until the end of the year. Most of them are new, but some - like Cassovia Folkfest - are already a tradition and take place every year.

Part of this year's folk festival was also an arts and crafts market between St. Elizabeth's Cathedral and St. Urban's Tower. There were toys, decorations, jewels, food and much more. Some of the crafters even performed their crafts right on the spot, which was really interesting. Here are some photos.

Little Parent Bugs without a Parent

Approximately two and half years ago, I blogged about planting some citrus seeds from fruits that we used in the Christmas punch. Those were mostly lemons, but that winter I also planted about fifty seeds from a single very seedy yellow grapefruit. Now those seeds are young plants (I gave away some, but I still have about thirty, so if you are in Prague and want a little grapefruit plant, let me know!!) and right now they reside on the outer windowsil of my room. Last week, I had to bring them in because of bad weather (a very windy storm woke me up around midnight and I was afraid the wind might knock some pots off the windowsill, so I took them back in). Two days later, I discovered a group of little creatures that probably just hatched, on the lower side of a leaf.

Twenty-two parent bug hatchlings found home on one of my grapefruit plants

According to the opinions of my entomological friends, the creature pictured is most likely a parent bug (Elasmucha grisea) - a shield bug with sucking mouthparts, females of which guard eggs and hatchlings for several weeks. According to this website (perfect detailed pictures, have a look!!), these insects feed on alder and birch. As there are definitely no birch trees around where I live (alder possibly, but when I looked for it for my class, I did not find one), I think that choosing grapefruits was probably an accident.

Elasmucha grisea (?)

And why is the mother missing?? Well, I have a hypothesis! think that the strong windduring the storm must have knocked her down and blown her away, so the little ones were left unguarded. I have never particularly liked shield bugs, but this little adventure will stay in my mind for a long time and has quite changed my relationship to the whole group. Little things like this show me again and again how wonderful and diverse nature is and how much I still have to learn about it. And I lovearning by these rare little experiences : )

Lawyer!

My big brother (one year younger than me, but taller) raced me and graduated first this summer. So I came to watch him receive a red diploma (= with honours) in a big fancy awarding ceremony.

The whole family gathered, we had a huge lunch and indulged on a lot of law-themed sweets afterwards :) Even though my bro barely speaks a word to me, he was extra tolerant to big hugs from his old sister on this day :)

So - big congratulations to Tomáš! :)

Great cake. Mum's plan to save half of it to freeze for later did not work out. It was great as little afternoon snack...
or... you know - big breakfast!! :D

And then thewe were cupcakes... They disappeared almost immediately :)

Orchids

Two of my four orchids opened their flowers last week - the yellow-and-pink one was a present froma  friend for my birthday two years ago and the spotted white-and-pink one is my last bargain from IKEA unwanted plants discount shelf.

One more would be flowering with them, it shot out a nice stem, but I managed to break it when moving the pot (SILLY sheep!!). It is even sadder because of the fact that I bought that one without any buds or flowers, so I do not know what the flowers look like. It would be a surprise, but I wil have to wait for a longer time now ;-) Stupidity and carelessness never pay off!

Plastic

Freedivers are lovely people. They are jolly, they are friendly and VERY committed. They will sign every petition to stop shark finning, write to nearby restaurants that sell shark-fin soup, sign and share everything to help sea turtles and openly go against keeping dolphins in captivity... but when it comes to deflating a plastic bottle and throwing it into a correct rubbish bin… my oh my. Plastic massacre all over the place.

This is just the Sunday morning plastic rubbish that I collected in and around the house where we stayed last weekend. Some I even pulled out of the bin.

I am one of those people who idealistically believe that we can live happily in this world and keep all our comforts while still protecting the environment, simply by changing the little things we do and keeping certain good habbits – like automatically throwing all plastic waste in one big bag and then taking it to a plastic rubbish bin.

The place where we stayed does not have access to drinking water, so everybody buys bottled water for the trip. This produces vast amount of plastic waste, very easily recycled, if only the owners of the place did it. So the best we can do is to collect it all up and take it home with us, throwing it out on our way home.

Hereby, I officially declare myself the recycling supervisor for the following freediving trips, as long as I shall freedive. I already have a volunteer to help me and we are thinking about having team t-shirts (any suggestions where to get some are welcome!!). I must remember to get larger rubbish bags next time though.

I am feeling much better now, knowing that this all will be recycled and used to make new stuff rather than sitting undecomposingly on a pile somewhere. The picture was taken in my own garden. Next time you throw something recyclable out, imagine it piling up in your own garden and how sad that would look. I find it helps :)

Love Is in the Air!

Vegetarian Stuffed Mushroom Snacks

After meeting a very nice and vegetarian freediving judge last weekend, I was motivated to get into a bit of vegetarianism myself. I really like meat, but I think that meatless meal can be great as well, you just have to know how to prepare it - and choosing the right ingredients really matters!

This time I tried to combine my favourite recipe for polenta stuffed peppers from Etsy blog (see the recipe here) with something new that I saw on foodlover.cz - stuffed mushrooms (recipe in Czech here). I basically wanted to fill the mushrooms with polenta mixture from the pepper recipe - I wish I knew I ran out of polenta when I went shopping, so eventually, I had to use mixture of cous-cous instead. What you see here are mushrooms filled with  cooked mixture of cous-cous, cheese, beans and spring onions.  Given the size of those tiny mushrooms this was more of a light snack rather than a proper meal, but it was delicious.

I served it plainly with salad from my own windowsil (and will write a post about it later, because it is SO exciting!!) and enjoyed it in the light of the late-afternoon sun in my west-facing room.

Freediving Weekend

Apnea Academy Depth Minicomp took place in Barbora quarry (pictured above) in Czech republic last weekend.

My gear, left to dry after diving.



It was my kind of holiday minibreak after a long time and I was very excited about the whole trip. Eventually, mind was refreshed, friendships renewed, body exercised. Swimsuit swam, fins finned and wetsuit got wet. (And torn. And stuck together again.Thank you, helpful diver, whose name I probably already forgot.)

I did not expect much of myself in terms of diving, but eventually I managed to get into a depth of 35 meters (which is three meters deeper than last year) and I was exceedingly happy with that. Even though I managed to lose the tag on my way up, so I got yellow card (penalties) for that, but the achievement still counts ;-)

Barbora looks idyllic from above and from below the water surface. Water was (un)pleasant 5°C, but it was definitely worth going in!!

Every evening we stayed out by the fire and roasted and barbecued while drinking beer and talking.

The whole trip was incredibly relaxing and it kicked me into doing more physical work on myself, so maybe you will be seeing dive-themed posts more often :)