We came, we saw, we copied. In this case, the great national pastime of the Czech Republic, mushroom collecting, indulged in by 80% of the population here. We’d been watching people walking past the house with overflowing baskets for some 3 months before we decided to give it a go ourselves. Like the apples, we nearly missed the boat.

Now the temperatures have dropped and the season has finished, I’m really missing it. It was lovely to take 1/2 hour or so every day to meander through the forest together & I now feel like I know my locale that bit better. I wonder if the start of the hunting season is also a push factor to the conclusion of mushroom picking here – as some varieties still grow now… if you’re wondering around in the forest, there’s a risk of being mistaken for something else (two easy ways to die through misidentification in mushroom picking). Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been working on our project plan today, and thinking about heating. One very useful site I found today is called Gaisma, the data from which I should be able to use to calculate what will be the most effective way of heating our home.

Nový Mlýn is at an altitude of 540 metres above sea level. It is this factor which is the main influence on our climate. We’re about 90 metres higher than our nearest town, Tábor, but close in altitude to a neighbouring town Pelhřimov. The average temperatures are likely to be above 10 degrees c for six months of the year (that includes night time temperatures).

Our approach to heating is decidedly ’suck it and see’. This winter we will use the traditional heating method for this area – ie wood burning stoves, and see how successful this is. Will we manage to keep warm? How much wood will we need? Will the daily work of setting fires become a grind? There’s one way to find out.

We’ve moved our bedroom so it’s above the dining room & kitchen, which we keep warm during the day. The bedroom is now adjoining the room upstairs with the super efficient barrel shaped stove. So far, so good, but the temperature outside is a mere 0, and it has much further to go. At the moment, the weather here looks like this, but in the middle of winter, temperatures could be as low as this.

Make your own Rock Bog, it will save loads of water and is really simple, and best of all free.

Convert one of your toilets into a Rock Bog by putting one or two large stones in the bottom of the pan, then reducing the amount of water in the flush with stones or bricks so that you have just a 1 or 2 litre flush.

Why? You’ll have a super efficient liquid only loo which can be used by men AND women (no not so mellow yellow splash back for the ladies). You will save water and money AND it will look nice (a Zen garden in your loo!).

A free idea for you from Bog – the accessible eco bathroom Read the rest of this entry »

We have been drifting. Drifting, and meeting new friends, and slowly figuring out how Nový Mlýn works, and appreciating our good fortune to be here and now, however, drifting. It’s time to take charge of our destiny & put the Nový Mlýn show on the road.

When I lived in London, I wanted to do an MBA (masters in business administration), but there was no way in hell that my employers would commit to this. Instead I researched the syllabus of a decent MBA & studied each area in turn, using resources such as the library system. I don’t have the kudos of the qualification, but what I learned has been incredibly useful.

So… I will employ the same technique to learning about project management. I’ve project managed before – market research, events & playschemes, but I’ve had an inkling that there must be more method to complex projects than a business plan and a Gantt chart. Read the rest of this entry »

Something has happened in my brain… I seem to have lost the ability to hazard a guess at English pronunciation of unfamiliar words. My pronunciation has completely czechified, as a result, I shall now be teaching people here the Italian word for Hřib mushrooms: Porcini. I think that very few British people would know what Cep were, or that they are the very same thing as those very exclusive Porcini mushrooms:

Read the rest of this entry »

An easy & speedy dessert recipe which can be made for one person. The inspiration for this recipe is the English custard tarts I love and have not yet found in the Czech Republic. Using the apple itself for the casing means less cleaning, and incidentally produces a gluten free pudding.

*My mum used to make us apple bombs as children. It’s not the name she gave them, just the result of the occasional apple explosion. Read the rest of this entry »

www.blackle.com might be gimmicky – but it is a perfect example of the way that mass action can have massive reactions. In this case, using a search engine designed to use less energy in lighting up your computer screen, has so far saved 203,250.862 Watt hours. And if you set www.blackle.com as your home page, you’ll see the figure going up as well. I just wishe they’d bother to add all the other functionality you get with the higher energy version.

It’s a shame you can’t see a similar measure of energy saved by mass scale repetition, such as switching to low energy light bulbs, or making sure your electro equipment isn’t left on standby.

The woman whose patterns I am looking into has a shop here:

http://eobchod.fekar.com/

They are really very typically Czech, by which I mean interesting and a little quirky. It reminds me of the work of Denisa Grimmova – who produced a beautiful series of scenes in old fashioned tv set boxes. Funny, very human, monsters sitting down to tea together. They were installed in a bar in Prague for a while, but the last time I went there, they were gone. Shame, as I don’t have any pictures of them even & haven’t found any info on the web yet.

I’ve just had a quick look on Ebay. Hand made soft toys are not selling at a premium there, probably because lots of people can make them. Though, if she is prepared to make some toys from reclaimed materials, I could try putting something through to see how it goes. I doubt they would sell for as high a prices as they are in her shop. The toy patterns are selling, however, especially those with a seasonal theme – so at the moment Halloween theme toy patterns have a lot of bids on them. It might worth a try?

To be continued