We were finally graced with perfect weather last weekend. I wish I had had more time to enjoy it, but there were lots of house repairs to take care of - painting the ceiling against termites, Lennard repairing gutters, and cutting out a tree that was damaging the foundation of the house. Jeroen picked a ton of apples and  plums and small pears and made several litres of fruit juice. But it was not all work. I started on T.C. Boyle's  Drop City, and read a fascinating article  about  climate change and  Easter Island in the New York Review of Books.  We grilled a couple times, and while Jeroen did the preparation, I was on the grill. This led to me being called the "varken jood" (in Dutch) for the rest of the weekend, or "pork Jew" because I was cooking their pork chops along with my chicken. Much like a shabes goj is employed by Jews on the Sabbath to press elevator buttons, turn on lights, etc. Of course there had to be alcohol involved and we sampled dogwood (som), blackthorn (kokeny), quince (birs) and chestnut, along with some hazi palinka from Guszti Bacsi. The general opinion was that Guszti's still rules. One of my favorite, and affordable, red wines is Castillo de Liria's (Spain) Bobal & Shiraz, and their Bobal Rose is just is good. We also ate some real yummy Fair Trade organic chocolate covered Brazil nuts and almonds, available at Treehugger Dan's. Most importantly, we swam across Rakaca Lake and back both Saturday and Sunday in perfect Autumn weather. Hopefully there are still a couple such lovely weekends left this year.