Meet, listen and see what happens

İbrahim had stayed over on the last Chicken Watch - before our second person starts his summer season. Celal came back from leave with Ali, İnci and me - nice weather, everything growing well.  We sit down to talk about how to start our new UNDP Small Grants Program project GİDYO... More information to be given soon.   

We paid a visit to Hısarköy, our nearest village.  13 years ago I used to stay there regularly, before we had anywhere for me to stay at Güneşköy: I knew the children of different families so I stayed over and we played a variety of games together.  So many memories that I had not recorded... Our main visit was to the Çetin family, Ömer Çetin now being the elected representative, the Mayor of Hisarköy.  In 2002 his father (then mayor of Hisarköy) encouraged to acquire the 7.5 acres of land.  Ali and İnci know all the sons well, as they have stayed with them when it was too cold at Güneşköy. Bonds of friendship matter.  And converstations flow, about military service past and present (Ömer's nephew will start tomorrow, in Ankara), then drift on to possibilities padded with comments of past choices or events... More connections and bonds are formed... 

We saw Ekrem Dayı sitting by the road.  No longer very mobile, he is still as joyful as ever.  "Come to see Saadet!" he says; still working as ever (in her extention where a machine can extract milk fat; she has 3 cows) Saadet Teyze tells of sadness following their son's sudden death, and happiness - after 10 years applying for the pilgrimage to Mecca, she will be going with a friend; a little late for her husband of 62 years.   

For the last time, we harvest brokoli, spinach and cabbage from the lowest of the 4 terasses (of the 10 000 tons of alluvial soil "dumped" from the excavation of the 13th and 14th pillars of our viaduct). This week, Celal will plough the soil for planting some of this season's plants.  Our call for the 2019 Bahçemiz weekly produce deliveries has been put out!    

In the greenhouse, weeds are enthusiastically growing between the tomato plants!  Convolvulus arevensis (bindweed), and Chenopodium album (apparently "Lamb's-quarters" in English) are in full swing.

More wild flowers to be added to Guneskoyflora ...which will probably never quite achieve the full list of species for April.

A couple of examples: a forget-me-not  and a Speedwell