As of lately ~ in pictures

Last week we had some special guests here in Ukraine. It was our family ;) (Hello! O&Z) They were in Lviv for a short time, but wanted to see and do as much as possible. We suggested the Lviv Opera Theater, since they've never been there. We ended up seeing Die Fledermaus (The Bat) or летюча миша in Ukrainian. The operetta was funny! Everyone did a marvelous job. After seeing this operetta, Michael and I decided that we need to go to the Opera theater more often. Once we have more time, we definitely will. Our family also enjoyed it and wanted to go back there the next day!

At the entrance hall of the Opera Theater. People always take pictures there. I don't blame them, it's a beautiful space!

Dining out was another thing we did a lot of while our family was here. Michael and I don't get to do it very often and having them here gave us an excuse to go out for lunch or dinner, or maybe even both. We visited our regular spots, such as Green and Veronica's. We like going to those places, because we are confident in finding delicious and nutritious plant based dishes there. However, we think we discovered yet another favorite -- Amadeus. It has the same owners as Veronica's. The decor and the menus were, indeed, very similar. Our family had been there before. They stumbled upon it on their last trip to Lviv and had nothing but good things to say about it. We are happy to have agreed to visit it with them this time. We feasted on delicious green salads with sunflower sprouts and pea shoots, green curry and poppy seed varenyky.
The picture above is of the panting that hung by our table at Amadeus. Her name is Anna D'Austria Regina Gatta IX and she has a cat babe? Bizarre and cute! 

This year nature gifted us with another early and warm spring. Therefore, I happily started planting in our vegetable garden. It feels soooo good to dip my hands in the soil and dream of all the veggies we will soon have :) Pictured above are two of our small seabuckthorn beds. We have 12 of them lined up. We built these by encircling our seabuckthorn trees with some rocks we found around the property and adding compost. These two have been planted with mache salad, turnips, lettuce, garlic chives and more. I had to put some branches/sticks around the beds to keep cats and chickens out. Our cats love using fresh soil as their toilet. And although we don't own any chickens, the adventurous chicken from next door always finds her way into our garden. Later, it's a big drama trying to get her out. She always seems to forget her way back home. 

This long bed was planted with fava beans, carrots, beets, spinach, different lettuces, greens, and dill. We have four such beds in the veggie garden.

Two more composting bins were added. The way we garden requires a lot of compost and our household also produces a lot of organic waste--kitchen scraps, garden clippings, other organic materials etc., so having large composting bins is a must for us. (or any gardener, for that matter)

Our pond is still waiting to be be finished. The previous owner dug it up (by-hand!) and started lining it with rocks. He was hoping to connect it to the natural spring, which runs not too far from us. However, one of the neighbors didn't want the pipe to go through his property, so he put a stop to the project. We will have to figure something out in the near future and turn this into a nice water feature. 

Home remodeling continues. Work is being done in our last room. We are dividing our bedroom in half, in order to have enough room for a bathroom and a closet. This shot shows the future bathroom area.

Michael working hard, as always. 

And the wall is up. Drywall was used to construct it. Although, not our kind of building material, but the previous owner had bought it, so we decided to put it to good use. 

Spring is moving forward. We're discovering more flowers, like this Liverwort (Hepatica nobilis).

It's time to gather medicinal herbs again. It is my first year harvesting coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) flowers. We have a small patch of  them growing on our property. These are some of the earliest flowers in the spring. The flowers come up first and the bees love to visit them. Later, once the flowers are done blooming, the leaves appear. I will collect those also and combine them with the blooms to make tea. 

And more crocuses. These are quite large in comparison to the other ones. Also, beloved by our bees. 

There is also some flowering happening inside the house, Bright red flowers add cheer to our veranda.

We hope you're enjoying spring as much as we are!

Yulia

З Новим Роком! Happy New Year!

Our Year in Pictures

We spent the last day of 2014 by going on a long walk. The weather was gorgeous. It was cold, but very sunny. 

Our cats, Levko and Laska, also enjoyed being outside

And there is Toma. She always enjoys a good walk. We've been seeing a lot of grey partridges (similar to quails) out in the fields during our walks and Toma likes to play a huntress with them.

We spent the evening eating tasty foods and watching our favorite shows.

Our 2014 was full of renovations:

Our kitchen (before)

Our kitchen (after)
Although, it's not completely finished yet, it's starting to feel like a real kitchen

We added another pichka (wood burning stove) to our house. It made a big difference to have it in our living room. It keeps our house warm and cozy. And the cats love laying around it, pretending they are on the beach.

Ah, yes - we also got a new roof installed on our house.You can read about it here

Gardening:

So many choices!

Fava beans in bloom. Michael's favorite bean!

These tiny green pods are freshly harvested young black chickpeas. They taste amazing and we'll definitely be growing them again. 

Our first tomatoes of the season. We had about 15 different varieties!  We are looking forward to trying out new kinds next season.

I used to dream of being able to make fresh green salads every day. I am so grateful for our garden.

Coriander (cilantro seeds) drying

Our first gooseberries

No-till garden bed full of lettuce, spinach and fava beans.

Beets were planted in early March. The spring arrived early in 2014.

Preparing foods:

In the fall we did a lot of juicing. We used our garden-grown carrots, beets, apples and different greens such as parsley, kale and collard greens. A liter of freshly made juice became our breakfast staple for  some time.

Freshly picked black currents and a green smoothy topped with bee pollen.

Vegan pizza (made from scratch) with home-grown tomatoes, basil, arugula and borage flowers.

Sweet potato vegan brownies (oil-free/refined sugar free).
We found a person in Kharkiv who grows an amazing variety of organic sweet potatoes. Naturally, we had to order some. We're happy to report that his sweet potatoes were some of the tastiest we've had. We'll be buying some from him in the spring to grow in our own garden.

3 patty pans + 1 gill's golden pippin squashes stuffed with quinoa and herbs (vegan/oil-free).

Spending time with our families and friends:

Michael' and his parents meeting their relatives in Lopatyn.

A reunion in Berezhany. 

Michael and Rick discussing  the artwork. Thank you, Rick, for always making a great companion!

And our most favorite things:

Oh, Spring! You make me swoon...

Going on walks ...

... with Toma

Spending time together

Having access to fresh, clean drinking water is very important. We are grateful to have a spring in our village. It is our only drinking and cooking water.

Living on our land makes us HAPPY!

May we all be the creators of a happy new year!

Бажаю всім нам бути творцями щасливого нового року!

Yulia