Home Stay in Karanac

A very warm welcome from Dennis and Goca. (Taken through the front bus window.)

We will find lots of antiques and collectibles all around the property.  

Frieda the Golden and Lulu the Dachshund were immediately popular.  Lulu was harder to get a picture of as she always came right over to my feet.

Married 29 years with one son.  Notice all the doors behind them.

Traditional Rakija Welcome.  Flasks of brandy.  This was Apricot from their own trees.

I had the yellow room, Elva green. The street frontage of the house is narrow for tax purposes.  So in this village almost all thehouses are one room across and then extend in a long line with each room having an outside exit.  In this case the family quarters is at the street side, then the old kitchen, then the new meaning with gas cooking and a dishwasher.  A large breakfast activity room follows and then they had divided the storage and feed storage part into five bedrooms, each with a private bath.  Dennis and his friend did excellent work.  Each room is a different color and Goca did the stenciling here and everywhere and on many things.

Tool storage at the end of the house then the long narrow space is divided into vegetable garden and animal keep with chickens and roosters!  Looking over the fence the neighbors' houses are similar except that multi generational family live in most of them.

I figured my room must be near here.  Goca likes red and Dennis blue so many things are collected in these colors and enhanced.

Our hands on activities started almost right away.  Here Goca is showing us how to place herbal leaves on our eggs and tie them into a pantyhose foot.  Dennis had boiled up onion skins and in honor of the Eter weekend we got cookin' so to speak.

Eleven year old Luna is a little overweight and has had some back surgery.  Dennis was a Vet for farm animals until Croatia joined the EU and the licensing changed.  Since his village doesn't really have farm animals he was kind of out of work for awhile.  !2 years again Grand Circle, parent of OAT, was looking for women to host home lunches in this town where the foundation suppoets the school.  They like the family so much that they suggested they turn that storage into bedrooms suitable for American travelers but still in the village style and that is how this enterprise started  They have a second house three doors away and are quite busy during the season with two to four groups a week.  They seem very happy but are working quite hard.

Compost corner of the vegetable garden.

Tina laughs as Dennis clowns around about his 'new love.'

Eggs boiling in the new kitchen.

Oven still used for bread baking.  Everything we ate was from their farm or a neighbor's.

Breakfast eggs cooking.  Time to clean the beans and get them soaking in hand made clay pots for tomorrow's lunch.

Lily arrives!  Time to  make the cheese!

Four liters of fresh, never chilled milk from Lily's cows.

Vicki uses her thermometer finger to make sure the mil is body temperature or 38 degrees C.

Karen adds two large spoonfuls of liquid Rennet.  It is bought at the pharmacy and purchase quantities are limited by your license.  Litly's is for non commercial use.  She can only sell at farmer's markets or from her home.

Rita begins to separate the Whey.  We all drank some of each - the unpasteurized milk and also the whey.

Judy is spooning out more Whey while Jim spoons the Curds into the cheese mold.  I was the timer.  We needed exactly 30 minutes after adding the rennet to begin this process.  I must have done good because the texture was perfect.

The eggs are done cooking and coloring so now we open ht little sacks so the eggs can dry..  Then rub them with the fat side of the ham rind to shine them.

And now it is time for our second Home Hosted Dinner in two days!  Elva and I were in Lily's group with Tom and Judy, Rick and Lana, Karen and also Mickey joined us.  If he didn't there was no where else to eat in town.  I think Tina went to the other home.  Lily and Goca have been friends since childhood.

We walked four doors down being led by Frieda.  It is Lily's parents home and before that her grandfather's house.  They remodeled a few years ago to give Lily and her two children a private entrance and hallway with bedrooms away from the parents so everyone has more privacy.  Lily is divorced which she said is very common in even in their Orthodox faith.  Her family and Goca's will celebrate tomorrow together tomorrow, Easter, like they do all the big holidays.  Then next week they will party at Lily's for Orthodox Easter. 

Lily seems happy to share life with Mom and Dad.  Lily also seems happy to be pretty much running the family farm.  Making sure everything is done right and licenses and government interaction is done on time.  She keeps the book but at five a.m. she helps with the milking machines and cleaning and then starts her extra jobs.  But Cheese making and arts and crafts she makes and sells together with Goca keep her very busy.  Her daughter is 18 and living at home as is her 12 year old son.  We did not meet them as they were each out with friends.

 

Tom pours my water.  Next to me is Rita, then Connie, and Elva.  The table takes up most of the kitchen.  The classic sofa has been placed into the hallway. 

Dad does all the woodworking including the shelves, a wagon wheel chandelier that hangs over the table, and a beautiful wall clock.  Dennis helped Dad subdivide the house.  Everyone seems very self sufficient.

Although Lily's father had made Cherry and Apricot I chose the Blackberry Brandy.  Wine followed.

The conversation was lively.  Lilly doesn't seem to be interested in outside travel  Judy thought perhaps she felt trapped when the siblings went thier own ways and left her with the aging parents.  I didn't pick up on that.  I know she had said before she was 18 she had no interest in the farm or domesticity but then all of a sudden decided that she really enjoyed what has now turned out to be her life.  She has real talent for every thing she chooses to do.

Also since part of our assignment was to find out about life during the Homeland War it was a short discussion.  In this part of Croatia UN troops kept the peace.  There was a ten pm curfew which if they wanted to stay out they went by the back yards instead on the front sidewalk.  Her dad nor any of the men from the area were called to serve.  Maybe because it is closer to Serbia so could they be faithful fighting against them

It was a wonderful lending to a very busy and great day.