What a Great Week

It kind of started and ended in the town of Balf.  Monday, on our P day we went to a Spa in Balf, which is about 7 km from Sopron.  It is a picturesque drive on a narrow road to a small town.  We were looking for a hot tub to sit in, but found a tub which was warm, but blew cold squirts on our bottoms.  It just wasn't as fulfilling as we had anticipated.  We finally went into a Sauna for a couple of times and got really "warmed up" and then sat in the bubbly pool again.  It WAS bubbly.  

On Wednesday we went to help in the garden with Eva and her father, Josef.  They are so kind to us, and Eva has brought us wonderful bouquets of flowers on several occasions.

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We have shared pictures of The Garden before, but there were a few "typical European" things I wanted to show you.

This is the compost pile at the garden.

They do not have irrigation water here, but their crops are watered by natural rainfall.  They have a couple of sheds with rain gutters, which collect the water from the rains into barrels.  Then if they want to water, they take the water from the storage tanks, this tank and the tub above and water the plants.  I helped my cousin, Erik, in Germany water some of his plants, and he did the same thing.  They are very conscious of water conservation.

We needed to add this picture as it shows me working..... at least I do have a shovel in my hands.

We drove back over to Balf to the forest.  It it called a forest because it has trees, but there is a ball field just over the ridge from where we were.  Eva is harvesting Bear Onions.

The bright green plants are the onions.  The one laying across is one we harvested.  It is thinner than a pencil, but the best part is the leaves.

The ground was covered with them.  There were other people in our area harvesting them as well.  We went right home and put some "cut up leaves" on a baked potato, and it was delicious.  Eva was telling us the people in Balf have a yearly "celebration" in honor of this harvest. I loved the drive to and from Balf

It is good that Steve lets me edit so I can get pictures of him in here. He is an onion picker too.

There is a "mineral spring", also in Balf, where there is a company which bottles the water and sells it for medicinal purposes.  There is a spring like this up in Soda Springs, Idaho.  The water is somewhat carbonated and has a strong mineral taste.

This is where people can come and fill up containers of water.  I find it so neat the way they put something like this is such a "nice package" for display, if you know what I mean.

This is what the original "filling hole" looked like.  I personally like the other one better.  But you must admit, it is quaint.

This bottom picture was in commemoration of a place where royalty  who was crowned went to the hill top of Sopron and dedicated it in all directions, or something.  That is about as specific as I can get.

This is one of the bouquets Eva brought us.  Those are peach blossoms along with the daffodils.  The mess around the flowers is obviously Sister Flammer's.... it is mostly books and a movie Eva lent us!

We also received a new elder this week, Elder Wright from St. George.  He is a football player and is trying to decide whether to play at TCU, BYU, or U of U.  We strongly suggested there is one more choice further north in Utah. Utah STate hey Aggies all the way!   He seems like a nice young man. It is Elder Bullocks 20th birthday so we took them to lunch.

I just really liked this picture.  We took it while Skyping with Rob's family.  That is such a thing to look forward to each week, Skyping with the family.  They talk about the family being blessed for missionary service, but it's hard to imagine them being any more blessed than we are.  Do we miss home? duh!!  But we wouldn't change this for anything.  We appreciate so much all of your support. How could we be more blessed?

Just a post script.  Remember the tree we transplanted?  Shauna and I were going to the car to take the elders to dinner for Elder Bullock's birthday and our land lady was out front looking at the tree.  It was decidedly leaning toward the starboard side of the lawn. We have a lot of wind here, and I guess the foot of foot and a half we buried it wasn't enough.  Frankly I am surprised it survived at all.  I don't know how much of the root system we broke off in transplanting.  But, it still there and once again upright.  lol