If 25 years ago

"In 25 years in Turkey, what have I most enjoyed?" asked İnci.  No hesitation "GÜNEŞKÖY"!  With challenging times as global tensions and local incidents push people a little more off-balance, after several weeks without coming to Güneşköy, I need to recharge.  

Getting food, bottled gas... just things to do. But how to be?   Ramazan's 6 year old now has a 16 day old sister; Ramazan has been with us since 2002...

A 7th grader skilled in customer relations (bottle gas sales) and dreaming of becoming a lawyer;

Chickens to be closed in for the night... if the door hinge hadn't dropped a little too much;

Worms returned to their box after a population scare.

No reliable phone network, and zero internet for 24 hours :)  

A peaceful evening with the wood stove cracking - tea and "su böreği" then an early night. At 7am, the waning moon still has 3 days left and lights are still on at the solar farm and mushroom place (not in the village, as there's yet another power cut - so we have neither light not water in the glasshouse).  It's the magic time of day where yellow is the only colour along with tones of grey, making it hard to identify much.  Dry grasses stand outi having shed their seeds.  

Flowers?  In December I've never seen any wild species yet - tuned into the the harsh conditions of the Central Anatolain Plateau, they're all passive.  Kruidentuin's salad burnet is still hopeful, purple flowers among luxuriant leaves. 

Maintenance: Not only emptying the mud that clogs the boot-cleaning grills, or the hinge on the hen coop door, or the blocked plug no longer letting out liquid from the bathful of old tea leaves... Or the roof of the 9 year old prototype greenhouse now letting rain water run down the walls... Or tidying away the watering system before winter    

Also maintaining our connection with nature to maintain our spirits and hope when carelessness and shortcuts are resulting in unnecessary accidents and deaths. Ali Baran wrote 18 months before his life ended too fast "Writing is not enough to describe thoughts and feelings. No form of communication can explain what is in people's minds. Each sees different infinite horizons. To see these, individuals need guidance, not education. The place where real horizons can be perceived correctly is nature itself."