Two days after Kata mentioned that she had not seen any swallows around the yard, two decided to adopt us. They have been industriously building their mud nest bit by bit for a couple weeks now, only slowed down by the lack of rain. While making a bit of a mess, their presence will be welcomed if this summer turns buggy. They eat several hundred flies a day! For some reason they chose the damaged pillar by our front door to make their home, and are very chatty.

Rakaca Lake is extremely low, but the first swim of the year was in very choppy water. A few days later it had calmed and the water was smooth and delicious after a day in the garden. Almost everything seems to be doing well this year, if not slower than our neighbours. Since we as yet do not have a winter garden to sprout the seeds, we only sowed and planted out in mid-May. Our only real concern at the moment is the Colorado Beetles which last year only showed up at the last minute last year. This year, however, they are a real menace. Of course there are pesticides, but we are organic and therefore have to collect them by hand and squish them. The other concern has been the unusually dry weather. We have been out mushrooming a couple times, but there is not a single mushroom of any type to be found in the parched forest.

The exception was the mushroom I found on my way to swim a couple weeks ago when I spotted another dryad's saddle mushroom near to where I found the other one. I called the Koltays in Aggtelek for recipe ideas, but they could only suggest drying it and making mushroom powder for seasoning. My classmates in the mushrooming course suggested the same. So I broke out our hi-tech mushroom drying system, the old screen door, and made about half a jar of mushroom powder. I employed the same method for drying a load of peppermint after we had made several bottles of peppermint drink syrup, and a batch of oregano. Fresh cilantro rots when you defrost it because of a certain enzyme that kicks in. To preserve cilantro in the freezer you should quickly blanche it and put in ice water before freezing, or make cilantro ice cubes that can be dropped directly onto food without a slow defrost. I decided to try the ice cube method this year. I do not know what we will do for jam, since our sour cherry tries again got hit by a late frost and the strawberry lady in Szendrő was hit by the heat wave and ran out of strawberries a couple weeks earlier than expected. Of the 5 strawberry plants we received from Marikanéni, 2 survived and we enjoyed 2 delicious strawberries. The red currants we got from Szikla are also bearing fruit, but not in enough quantity to process anything from them.

Our various lettuces are doing particularly well and we eat salad almost every day. While thinning out the sprouts I thought it would be a waste to toss the superfluous broccoli and cabbage sprouts into the compost. People pay big money for various salad sprouts. I decided to dump them into a salad one night with very good results. Purple chive flowers are also edible and decorative in salads.

Three smaller trees, which we thought were plum but turned out to be sour cherry, toppled in high winds and we tried to save them by tying them to the fence posts. Lacking suitable rope, Kata suggested I sacrifice one of my precious old t-shirts. I chose my Mobilize for Women's Lives t-shirt from a pro-choice demonstration I participated in in 1989 with friends from Bates College in 1989. It was most likely the first t-shirt I ever bought with my own money, and also the first demonstration I was ever in. I put it on and took before and after photos before sending both to the Facebook page of my 25^th college reunion last week.

One day we cycled to Perkupa to visit Marikanéni and afterwards stopped for an ice cream. Éva Csordás and her husband run a very modest little ice cream stand in Perkupa with a relaxing garden in back. In passing she mentioned that her inventing is keeping her busy. It turns out that she invented a new kind of abacus for teaching children math called the Matanda, which won an award in the First Lady Inventors World Fair in Korea.

We were supposed to have had to go to the Lavender Festival at the Balaton National Park this weekend, and had been counting on it for weeks. However, it was announced that we did not have to set up a national park stand there as expected, as only the national park directors were officially invited. Finding ourselves with a free Friday night, we joined the Fire Fly Tour at Aggtelek National Park.

UNESCO, drawing attention to the importance of the role of light in our lives, has chosen the 2015 International Year of the Light. It is only appropriate then that the large firefly has been chosen as 2015's Insect of the Year. The flying males of the species are looking for exactly this sign from the wingless, flightless females. Once they find each other, and following a short honeymoon the male dies. After the female deposits her eggs, she does not survive much longer. The emerging larvae feed on snails. They also shine brightly but for a reason other than the adults. The young fireflies warn off predators with their luminescence.

The illumination originates in a gland located in the insect's abdomen and is caused by the oxidation of an enzyme called luciferin. The intensity of the light is regulated by the amount of oxygen allowed to mix with the enzyme. The light produced is called "cold light" because 90% of the energy used in the process goes directly into illumination and the rest into heat. Normal incandescent light bulbs on the other hand use energy mush less efficiently, devoting only 4% to light production with the rest being lost to heat. Whereas the tropical firefly manipulates the intensity and frequency of the flashes, the big firefly emits steadily.

The small, vivid lights in the darkness have long attracted human attention. In Hungarian, the beetle has been linked with Saint John (patron saint of fire-fighters) and Saint Ivan's Day (June 24, Midsummer Night) on the summer solstice when firefly activity is around its peak. European belief claims that the lights represent the departed souls of the dead, forever burning bright; or indicates buried treasure; or more simply, hope in the darkness. Source: http://www.magyarrovartanitarsasag.hu/az_ev_rovara_2015.html

Ildikó Tóth led the 12 of us on an 8km 4 hour tour from Aggtelek along the green + and orange trails through Kecső Valley to the Hungarian-Slovak border, and then back through Mész Valley along the blue + before emerging back in Aggtelek on the roof of the Baradla Cave lookout point. It had rained all day, but while the weather was quite cool, the rain had cleared. We stopped several times to listen to the night sounds. We did not spot any wild boar, but there was a fox, and a very large brown owl that buzzed the group in the dark. Entering the oak forest people insisted on turning on their bright caving lamps. This consistently pissed us off because our eyes had adjusted and we could have easily walked without lamps. Never give people bright flashlights or guns - they are going to want to play with them. This group was no different. At the first firefly appearance everyone pointed their flashlights at it - so of course, then no one could see it. When someone said, "hey, the first star!" - everyone then pointed their lights skyward as if raking the air for enemy bombers. When the fireflies appeared en mass it was a truly magical sight. Kata and I have been entranced by the few in our garden, but it was nothing as spectacular as this. I would have been happy to just sit there for an hour and watch, but the tour moved on and left the fireflies mostly behind. We encountered the border marker by Kecső Stream, as well as an historical-art installation of two symbolic outhouses connected by a speaking tube on either side of the border. The tour was not long, nor was the terrain difficult, but my knees were painful just the same by the time we got back to Aggtelek around 12:30 am.

This coming Saturday on June 27^th we are taking our granddaughter on an Herb Walk (starting from Vörös-tó at 9am), something I have always wanted to participate in.