We have been living at the inner city of Budapest since we have been born, and as university students, working is not the primary activity for us during the summer! This is apparent from that we have returned from our adventure at Hódmezővásárhely 2 weeks ago, and we report on it just now!
Summer holidays after summer holidays in the middle of the summer, but we have been engaging ourselves in Countryside – Adventure for experience and adventure!
At July 3rd, we arrived to Gilicze farm situated between Hódmezővásárhely and Szentes. Zsolti and his family greeted us very nicely, and it turned out immediately that even if we be working a lot, waking up early, we will eat (“aoat”) very tasty things! After a quick guided tour and introduction, we quickly went to sleep, since the morning wake-up was getting closer at an alarming rate.
At 5 in the morning, everyone had been woken up, and our day started! First, the animals were fed, so our breakfast was always around 9 o'clock! Day by day, we knew better and better which animal eats and drinks what. Milking the cow was among our morning tasks, only one of them gives milk out of four, not much milk, but just enough to practice milking by hand. maybe one of the biggest experiences was this, if only it hadn't been striking us with its tail.
We were always eating at the kitchen of the farm, with the family. With our farmer, Zsolti and his parents. Uncle Feri and Aunt Jutka made delicious things to eat, but the energy was needed for the quite long workdays. Bacon was a necessary part of the breakfast, sometimes in omlette, sometimes just by itself. But there was also fresh cocoa, toaster with garlic, hot pepper with tomato (“szecska”). Of course, every product was from the garden. For lunch: bean soup, pasta with potato, goat stew... We ate for dinner what was left, but it was so delicious that it was good to repeat :)
Land cultivation was among the duties for the day, fortunately we didn't have to go through all 100 hectares, but we had the hoeing training. We have been hoeing onion and sunflower. This is a very hard task under the shining Sun, not for someone from the city, so to say. But we coped with it well, although we were happy for the break. One day, we went to the potato field to spray it with a tractor, this was a nicer, because we only had to open and close the “wings” of the sprayer. Only the hotness made me sweat.
What we have also learnt from farm life is its inevitable tool, DIY! It's sure that they are handy with everything!! We welded a lot, because the onion harvester had to be renovated as the time to do so was closing in. But I think that they can repair and do anything! But I gathered a disc from a heap of used iron which we made a beautiful meat roaster of with the help of Zsolti.
All in all, it crossed sometimes our minds at Monday evening that we cannot be sure to survive here until Friday! But then we got used to work better, and we had a great time. We met with very nice people whose way of life is not so nice (for us, city dwellers), but what could we do without them!
We could have made a lot of experiences about agriculture, especially on a farm that even lack electricity.
Thank you for the opportunity, AGRYA, thank you Zsolt Gilicze!
Miklós Asztalos
