First Fruit

I ate my first fruit of the season yesterday. First there were the early cherries from our orchard. I spent half an hour collecting a large bowlful from the first of our two trees. In a few days it will be a bucketful and I will be resorting to freezing them.

Then whilst on a walk in the woods above our house I came across a bank of wild strawberries. The bank was in full sun and the plants were way ahead of the other strawberries I had passed which were in flower and such fruit as there was was small and green. No, here on the bank the fruit was red and glistening with that “come and eat me” sheen. I duly obliged, savouring each little berry as its flavour exploded in my mouth. The intense taste of wild strawberries is so far removed from those waterlogged Spanish monsters that one gets in British supermarkets as to make one believe them to be totally unrelated.

My feast finished, I walked on through the woods past slopes covered with bilberry plants and raspberry canes. The first boletuses were pushing their velvet crowns through the loam. I made a mental note to bring mushroom basket next time.

Miracle After the Storm

One afternoon I was sat with Salamander at her house looking out across the river when suddenly a thunderstorm formed. The sky went black and river was soon a cauldron, as large raindrops shattered its smooth surface. The storm was over as suddenly as it came on. I drove home. The road up to the village was a river; my yard was white with hailstorms.

The following morning Salamander rang, “I haven't woken you, have I?” It was 7am, she had not. “But the mist this morning is amazing, grab your camera and get out here. It will disappear soon.”

I have spoken before of the mists that lie in the valleys after summer rains, of the way it sometimes appears that the trees are breathing smoke. That morning these were indeed spectacular. I drove past Lake Lipno where the mist was so thick I could see and photograph very little. So I drove up on to the hills above Horni Plana, where the mists were folded between them. From there I took the road to Lake Olsina, where ghosts of mist rose from the surface as if Vodnik, the watersprite, had his stove on in his house under the water.

When I returned, I called in at a favourite spot of mine, near the ferry at Horni Plana. Now Lake Lipno was clearer and a deep blue against the orange of last year's reeds, and beyond that there were wooded hills with a scarf of mist.

Scything

I promised to blog about scything a fortnight ago or so. There was a danger at that time that I would turn into a scything bore, as I was much taken with my new found skill (although skill is probably too good a word for it).

Faced with a large orchard, which has been allowed to go wild over several years, I had employed over the last few years a number of people to scythe the grass. With the exception of the first year, when I had employed a group of locals to have a scything party, the orchard has always resisted being completely cut. This year I decided I would have a go.

I bought a scythe and sharpening stone and started. I was pathetic, my technique was clearly rotten, and, as I later found out, by trying to cut the shorter less thick grass I was attempting to cut a section which was less conducive to scything. So what to do? Well thank goodness for Youtube, there were a number of videos by scythe advocates showing me how to do it. My first reaction was "I'll never do that", but on watching and rewatching I began to understand the errors of my ways.

I also got some good advice from a Czech friend, who told me the best time to scythe was early in the morning when the sap was up in the grass and before the midday sun. So I started rising at 6 and getting four hours in before the day started. I managed to mow all the areas under the fruit trees and paths to them as well as the area at the back of the house and in the yard, approximately one third of the orchard.
I actually started to enjoy it. There is great pleasure to be had as a swathe of nettles bites the dust. The exercise is good for the muscles in the arms, legs and waist and indeed for the heart. I could think about other things as I mowed and I found that the orchard birds came to see me as part of the orchard fauna and so ignored me as I scythed.

After a fortnight of showers and sun of course I need to start all over again, as I want to keep the growth down. But that is not the point, I will never turn the yard and orchard into a neat lawn and I don't want to. What I want is to mow enough and at the right times of year (once in early summer and once in the Autumn) to create an old-fashioned haymeadow, to keep the more rigorous weeds down and to allow the wildflowers to take over.

On my mother's side my family has worked the land for generations, and it gives me a certain amount of satisfaction to gain a skill that my ancestors would have had in abundance. I imagine my lovely Uncle John and the granddad I never knew watching me, and commenting on my rubbish technique and what was that scythe I was using (I have an Austrian type not the British one here). I am sure Uncle John is just itching to get in there and show me what's what.

An Encounter with Eagles

My husband and I were playing the tourists last week. We decided that we would make the one and a half hour drive to Jindrichuv Hradec to see the town and its castle. I will blog about the visit shortly, but this post is about an incredible experience we had on our way home. We had come out of Jindrichuv Hradec on a minor road and were making our way through the countryside towards Trebon.

We were approaching a medium-sized lake – a fishpond for which the area is famous – when I suddenly noticed three large birds circling above it. At first I thought them storks given the size of them. But then as we came nearer, it was apparent that this was not the case. Two were far larger than storks (which are large birds by British standards), they had a wingspan the length of a bedstead.

My husband had to draw my attention to a bend in the road, I was so preoccupied in watching them. Some trees shielded them from the view from the road and then we saw them again. Now ready I pulled over to observe them more closely. There appeared to be two adults and one juvenile silhouetted against the sky, which made it hard to discern colouring. At the ends of their wings the feathers were spread out like the fingers on a hand, this and their bodyshape and size confirmed that these were large (very large) birds of prey – larger than the buzzards we see near our home. This and the fact that they were patrolling a lake with wildfowl on at approximately the level of the tree crowns gave away their identity. We were watching white-tailed eagles, the largest raptor in northern Europe and one which I had read could be found patrolling the extensive system of ponds around Trebon.

I had been planning a birdwatching foray to Trebon, but had had little expectation of seeing anything so spectacular. Now here, unlooked for, were these princes of the air. We sat a little and watched with open mouths.

Spring Flowers 2009

Knowing from your response to previous posts about Czech flowers how much you like looking at photos of the flowers that I see on my many walks in the woods and fields of South Bohemia, here is another set for you.

Some will be familiar (violets,) to my British readers, some known only as garden flowers (grape hyacinths)

and some completely unknown such as the purple Phyteuma nigrum which grows in great numbers here.

I will blog again at the end of next month about the flowers of early summer, so watch this space.

UNESCO Acts, Let Us Hope In Time

We have heard that UNESCO has asked Cesky Krumlov Town Council a series of questions about the riverworks , to which it requires answers by Monday. All of us who have been expressing our fears about the environmental and heritage impact of the works are incredibly grateful to UNESCO for this. Only UNESCO has the power to (at least temporarily) halt the damage and only then I believe if there have been procedural faults in the approval process. We need UNESCO to ensure that the response it receives is full and verifiable - we have been unable to do so ourselves. And we need UNESCO if it finds faults to act on them. Our main desire is to stop and repair (where possible) the damage. We certainly do not want the World Heritage Site status removed, it is our main hope of protecting this precious town.

To elaborate:

a) there is a need for speed in any action that is taken, given the rate with which the damage is being done and continues to be done. Is there any way UNESCO could ask for the works to be paused while they consider the report?



The authorities have only been working on the area under Cesky Krumlov Castle for a week but look what has happened in that time. A temporary island has been formed consisting of material which has been dredged up from the riverbed by the diggers. The transformation can be seen by comparing my photos above with the panorama show on the Council's own website

http://www.fotogalerie.ckrumlov.cz/php/fotogalerie/panorama/index.php?lang=cz&vr=9

I was able to identify within the rubble a number of stones which appear to have been elements of man-made structures. A number more are lying on the shore (see photos below), including a date stone showing MDCXXV.



b) The second issue is this: inside the Town Hall UNESCO's request will have been met with alarm, especially as the Town Hall (unlike with UNESCO's previous report) has so little time to respond. If the Town Hall has the answers to UNESCO's questions then they should have no problem. But given their inability to answer the questions of objectors, including requests for detailed plans, one suspects that this is not the case. The onerous task of responding will have fallen on the local Branch of The National Institute for th Protection and Conservation Of Monuments and Sites. The officers involved are employed by the Town Council.

There appear to have been several procedural faults. It appears there are no minutes of any committee that approved this project. It is my understanding that, in order for the outline permission to be given, the conservation officers' agreement would be needed, but that for the later detailed plans and changes to the outline that officers 'views might not have been sought. Clearly some permission was given but on the basis of what? What important changes and additions were there in the final plans (if they exist)? Did they for example include the removal of the island? What permission was given at this stage and again on the basis of what?

The officers involved are dedicated professionals, who are between a rock and a hard place. I know from personal experience the pressure that one comes under from politicians and other officers in such circumstances, and that was in the UK where there is a long tradition of an independent civil service which exists to serve the people not its political masters. Any report written in such circumstances needs to be considered very carefully, in the end it's only verifiable evidence that can be believed.

Obviously I have no knowledge of the content of the report, nor do I have access to it. But then nobody else has either.

Mixed Blessings

I start with the riverworks. No photos this time, I can hardly bear to bring myself to watch, but then I don't have to - I can hear them from my desk. Huge diggers are ripping up the riverbed and banks, in their scoops are mixture of historic evidence and young fish and eels - heritage and ecology destroyed. The island had almost disappeared when last I looked, the safe haven for local wildlife destroyed in a few gulps by the monster diggers. The haven gone, the young birds will have fallen prey to the local cats.

The good news is that there is an archaeological symposium in town, let's hope they are able to say something and even be listened to. After that UNESCO arrives, but I fear it will all be too late. By the way I sent a letter to the Mayor of Cesky Krumlov, I shall be interested to see if he replies. It was a very nice letter - offering my assistance. If there is a development I will let you know.

On a brighter note I saw my first stork yesterday, carrying a branch (yes a branch not a stick) in its beak and flying towards Kajov. Let us hope it brings good fortune, we need it.