And then there was the stork

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When I came into the office on Friday, someone had brought us an injured white stork (the kind that sits on chimneys and brings babies). Why? Because we are an environmental organization of course. We were supposed to go to Almas, the village where we are doing rural tourism work, but instead we speant the day with Storky. Feeding it, making a bed in our closet, trying to find a sanctuary, medicating… it was interesting so I thought I would share some pictures. If anyone has a better name than Storky, feel free to email. The stork is doing better, up and walking around today and has even escaped a few times. It does not look like it will be able to fly to Africa this winter though so we are still looking for a home.

We did get out to Almas on Monday and I have included some pictures. We are preparing for a visit from some Hungarian tree doctors next week. There are two kinds of apple trees here. Pre-communist and communist. The pre-communist populate most of the towns and are indigenous varieties that are often Transylvania and sometimes valley specific. These are the ones we are working on with the doctors as they are in bad shape because people do not really now how to care for them. They are salvageable though and we are hosting some tree care workshops with the orchard owners. Why not save the communist trees? Unfortunately, they are a variety that quit producing after 20 to 25 years and apparently there is nothing that can be done to re-vitalize them. I am sure there was some sort of political undertone to this discussion when I had it with my counterpart… The pictures from Almas are from a orchard we will be working in and show a bit of the village and the Unitarian church in the middle of town. The picture of the cigarette poster was in a café where we stopped for coffee. A good example of how a catch phrase may work in one language and not another…

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Comments

[will]

Very funny cig ad!
If only I *could* have an extra lung! I'd start smoking again! :^)

[William Haas]

Stork!?
You had me worried there for a minute.