Something from southern Moravia

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

The plums you show in the first picture are elongated ovals and look to me like what I know as Italian Prune PLums.

Is the flesh yellow and wonderfully sweet?

On the farm where I grew up there were two huge trees with those plums, planted who knows when by the Shakers when they owned the property and that takes us back to the mid-1800's.

I've been having a discussion with a local lady who says she won't eat ANY plum that has yellow flesh, only those that have red flesh. I told her that plums were domesticated in China, which they were, and then moved West and that the sugar level (Brix) content of yellow fleshed plums was higher than red fleshed plums.

Plum cookies? Never heard of using them for cookies, so why not cakes and more?

Just noting that my mother was a mushroom picker, learned from her relatives, and my brother and I used to go with her to find them. Not in the woods, but in abandoned pasture where cows used to roam.

I love mushrooms and in the Hudson Valley south of where we lived there were several commercial places where they grew the typical white button ones in caves and my father would bring home from market the oval boxes they were packed in.

And when I moved where I am today there was a wonderful place where they raised all kinds of mushrooms for sale, but the place burned down, so no more mushrooms from them.

The closest access I have to local mushrooms now is that they grow in the track of a sliding door, not on the track itself, but in between the screen and the glass door.

I don't harvest them, I just look at them.

Carolyn

Carolyn, you are right, that these plums are from Asia. They are very sweet and aromatic (very good for distillation of slivovice). On the picture is most sweet Czech variety of plum „Domácí švestka“. It is heirloom variety old a several centuries- moravians name its Karlátka ( according Czech king Charles IV. from 14. Century).
The cakes from plums bakes my wife. I needn´t that.

PS.:Carolyn, do you know, that you have a university in Prague? The mentioned Karel IV. enterprised Universitas Carolina Pragensis in 1348 y.

[carolyn137]

Yes, I do know I have a University in Prague.

I've lived many lives in the past and back then I was married to a very successful merchant who was very very rich.

When he died I inherited a lot of money and since the king was also a good friend, he used to borrow money from my husband, I gave the King enough money to develop a University in my name.



Carolyn

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Yes, I do know I have a University in Prague.

I've lived many lives in the past and back then I was married to a very successful merchant who was very very rich.

When he died I inherited a lot of money and since the king was also a good friend, he used to borrow money from my husband, I gave the King enough money to develop a University in my name.



Carolyn

Wow, Carolyn you knew the Holy Roman Emperor?
I'm glad you escaped the Plague in Prague.

Worth

[MrBig46]

This is the garden of my mother-in-law (88 year). She do all herself. I do only the setting of potatoes and autumny rulling. I am not on the picture, he is my son.
Vladimír

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

This is the garden of my mother-in-law (88 year). She do all herself. I do only the setting of potatoes and autumny rulling. I am not on the picture, he is my son.
Vladimír

That looks like a very big garden for a woman of 88 to keep up, she must be remarkable.

I see fruit trees in her yard as well as over the fence on the right.

What are the most popular fruit trees to have in that area?

Do you live very near your mother in law and if so is your garden as big?

A picture would be nice, if you have one. especially if there's you in the picture, maybe even drinking some plum wine.

Carolyn

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

That looks like a very big garden for a woman of 88 to keep up, she must be remarkable.

I see fruit trees in her yard as well as over the fence on the right.

What are the most popular fruit trees to have in that area?

Do you live very near your mother in law and if so is your garden as big?

A picture would be nice, if you have one. especially if there's you in the picture, maybe even drinking some plum wine.

Carolyn

Carolyn,
my mother in law is fit, the work in the garden is her life. She want to do all what she can cope. She says me: „Vladimír, the shoulders ache me“. I answer: „ I am about 20 year less and the shoulders ache me too“ . But her daughter (my wife) is twenty years invalid and she can do in the garden nothing . The garden of mother in law is 20 km from my home, about 8000 sq ft, she growes vagetable (tomatoes, zucchini, onion, carrot, radical parsley, celery ,potatoes, etc.) on the area about 1600 sq ft, the other is grass, trees and flowers. She is living herself in the older house. She don´t want to migrate.The trees are all apple trees ( 15), she has a good cave where she can cache the apples. Apple trees are most usual fruit trees in our country.
My garden 16000 sq ft, from its about 12000 sq ft is grass. I have only fruit trees (30 treers , whose fruit I need not warehouse, I have no cave. They are: apple trees, plum trees (Stanley, Jojo,..), apricots (Bergeron, Harcot,…), peaches (Redhaven, Cresthaven,..), pears (William´s,…), cherry trees and walnut trees. I have red and black currants, gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries too.
On the picture is my son, I am a little older ( 1946 y.). I was there, where is the solitary spade on the left of the picture.
Slivovice is not wine, but brandy. On the east of Moravia, where are plum orchards, each does brandy, some in official still-rooms (big taxes), some at home (on the black). I don´t like Slivovice.
I drink wine or beer, but I drink alcohol a little . I don´t extend neither the diametral consumption of beer on the one Czech person (sumed including infants)- 37 US gal per year .
A nice day is wishing Vladimír

[MrBig46]

We wandered two days by „Moravský kras“ in last week. I forgot my mobile phone Nokia at home and I must use mobile of my wife. Some photos look like paintings of Claude Monet. Moravian karst is countryside full of chalky rocks, underground rivers, stalactical caves and chasmes. On two pictures is point named colour sands. Next two pictures- most abstruse chasm in Central Europe. It is low 138 m and it name is „Macocha“ – stepmother (currish). High bridgework (pic.3) is a place where a suicide jumps. There are five caves complex opened for the visitors. The „Punkva caves „ is most interesting for visitors, becaus it views on the garrison cap. The pictures from this cave is not my photos.
Vladimír

[ddsack]

What grand scenery! The boat rides into the underground stream looks really tempting, but spooky! How lucky you are to be able to view these natural wonders.

I too, would love to see a photo of your remarkable mother in law. I hope I am still able to garden when I am 88, but at my current rate of aches and pains I have my doubts. I wish her many more years of independent living.

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by ddsack

What grand scenery! The boat rides into the underground stream looks really tempting, but spooky! How lucky you are to be able to view these natural wonders.

I too, would love to see a photo of your remarkable mother in law. I hope I am still able to garden when I am 88, but at my current rate of aches and pains I have my doubts. I wish her many more years of independent living.

My wife was in each cave only once, she doesn´t want there again.
Vladimír

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

My wife was in each cave only once, she doesn´t want there again.
Vladimír

My dream is to one day be a certified cave diver. In fact, I hope to start taking classes next winter.

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

My dream is to one day be a certified cave diver. In fact, I hope to start taking classes next winter.

Too dangerous hobby for me. Some stay in the water forever.
Vladimír

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

Too dangerous hobby for me. Some stay in the water forever.
Vladimír

I understand completely.

Worth

[lexusnexus]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

My dream is to one day be a certified cave diver. In fact, I hope to start taking classes next winter.

You will absolutely love it, Tracy. I was on a 2 week business trip to LA several years ago and went on a short live aboard dive trip over the weekend. We dove some sites around Santa Catalina Island, and a few others. There were several dive students onboard from Phoenix doing their certification dives. It was a really fun trip. You will need a 6 mil wet suit because the water is pretty chilly. (By the way there are only two temperatures in diving, warm and cold. Numbers are just numbers.) Life is so cool below the surface. You might see some seals or sharks. Sharks don't interest me too much. My favorite activity is to hover closely over a reef and watch all the things going on.

[lexusnexus]

Very beautiful pictures! Here in Maryland we would write a blank check to have soil like that. Looks so rich and loamy.

[Alfredo]

Beautiful landscape