Tag Archive: off grid living

Gazebo and Woodshed (Altanok a Drevarka)

gazebo6

This year’s big work about the house was to build a woodshed as last winter saw us woefully unprepared. We had the wood but because there was nowhere to cut, chop and stack it, my sons and I had had to go out in literal blizzards to chainsaw metre-long logs, then chop them on an […]

Wolf, Boar, Snake

wolf2

I finally realized another of my life’s ambitions whilst on one of our evening walks outside the village. My wife and I spotted a small herd of Red deer hinds and fawns on one of the hillsides and they bolted into the forest. Thinking they’d picked up our scent we carried on walking. 20 minutes […]

Diversity – First Spring Weekend 2019

redsquirreleating

On an extremely spontaneous impulse we decided to stay the weekend at the house for the first time since leaving it on New Year’s Day. It’s been a long, harsh winter this year and having a couple of days of heat and blue sky was too irresistible. Unfortunately, the interior of the house is still […]

Livovská Huta – Minčol Hike

rustysnowhill

Yesterday, my friend Rusty met me in Bardejov, East Slovakia to take me hill walking. I left my car and got into his Toyota Hilux Kingcab, then we headed off on the Stara Lubovna road until turning off onto progressively smaller and worse condition roads until ending up in the incredibly middle-of-nowhere, end-of-the-road village of Livovská […]

Still in the bleak mid-winter

snowsunsetplane

It’s been quite a while since I last updated my blog, since well before Christmas in fact. It’s been a strange period with several ups and downs and much reflection. We stayed at the house in Eastern Slovakia over the Christmas and New Year period, which was both hard and amazing at the same time. […]

Global warming, my arse…

icefalls

A few weeks back I got really sick of hearing people tell me that, because of global warming, we’d have a warm winter this year. The start of November was incredibly warm – I was doing our evening walks wearing a t-shirt. However, you could smell the oncoming cold in the air, and then it […]

A Busy Autumn

lesnicacemetery

Most of the following will undoubtedly be in the wrong order. This Autumn has been hectic to say the least and saw a big upheaval in our family when my eldest boy, Brano, went to Uni. I haven’t kept up with my blog because things keep changing daily – as did Autumn itself, transforming from […]

Bats in the Budka

bat on wasp nest

If it walks, crawls, flies or slithers then chances are I’ve got one somewhere on my property. The old log cabin (budka) at the end of my garden is home to quite a few bats. This one is roosting from one of the multiple wasp nests we have about the place. There’s an immense wasp […]

Hand-Forged Bastard Sword from Fabri Armorum, Prague

hand forged bastard sword fabri armorum

  Yesterday a very special package arrived for my eldest son, Brano. This was the culmination of months and months of research, deliberation and changes of mind. As a graduation present for finishing grammar school with excellent results, and for passing his entrance exams and being accepted into medical school, Brano asked for a sword […]

Ice Bath Nightmare

icebath2

Spring is on the horizon so today we went to the house to check the water situation. We switched off the mains supply over a month ago, before the temperature plummeted to minus 20, and we left the taps open. Unfortunately, the tap in the bath was dripping, although we have no idea why. Fast […]

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