Clouds over the Buffalo Ranch

Baby Buffalo

Buffalo and Budapeste

Visiting Buffalo and Budapeste

I’ve two postings this week. The first involves a field trip close by the village of Mihai Viteazu. This is the town where a 1600 century Romanian leader of that name emerged, but nothing else has happened since. It lies about 30 km. east of the city of Sighisoara, in a rural area of Brasov County. Nancy and I had been invited to join with about 40 students, grad students and professors from the Agricultural University in Cluj for a field trip to visit a buffalo farm. We traveled in style, in a very large bus that the University owns and uses for various trips. It is a fairly new bus, although the air conditioning wasn’t working and the suspension suspect so that the driver did his best to avoid the many potholes that the roads are generously sprinkled with. The 400 km. round trip, complete with stop for a mici cookout, was not too uncomfortable.

When I attended Wofford College I enrolled in a Geology class taught by my favorite College Professor, ‘Dr. Rock’, Harrington, a retired oil geologist whom the college paid $1.00 a year as salary. Every Weds. Dr. Harrington would have two Trailways buses brought on campus and we’d load up for a tour of some geologically important site in the Carolina piedmont. He called it a ‘Cone of Vision’ lab, in which he attempted to widen our vision of the “Wasness of the Is”. Now over 35 years later I was on another ‘Cone of Vision’ outing, in completely different surroundings but with a similar intent.

I had mentioned a little about the Buffalo farm in an earlier posting, but I knew it then only from reputation. I have now visited it and can give a more complete picture. Apparently, there is a group of European investors (some of the richest men in the world, we were told) that have made a significant investment in Romanian agriculture with this farm as a part. An old communist co operative was purchased complete with dilapidated concrete buildings and machinery. After over a year of work, the current owners have demolished three of the old stables, remodeled another, added a modern milking parlor accumulated several new pieces of equipment and made various improvements, the most important of which is the renovation of much of the pasture of the 450 ha. land.

The idea is to organically farm this land, milk the buffalo (water buffalo, not bison) make mozzarella cheese and sell it to export markets. As of now, only 18 buffalo cows are being milked, but as the herd ages, by this time next year they hope to have 100 milking. This is an organic farm, so no nitrogen may be used on the hay fields except for what the buffalo themselves provide and much attention is paid to that hay and pasture, for that is what will sustain the herd of 250 buffalo through the winter.

The farm manager is from the Netherlands and appears capable and confident of the farm’s success. He also speaks highly of the value of buffalo milk for the best cheese and ice cream. I’m not sure how much organically grown mozzarella they really needed in Italy, his prime export target, but I was much interested when he said “Ice Cream,” one of the seven basic food groups. Romanians eat a lot of ice cream, but it is not particularly rich or creamy. I would imagine that once people tasted good quality stuff, a market could develop supported by the new consumers demanding a better quality in all their purchases.


Last week Nancy and I traveled to Budapest a few days ago and the report is that Hungary is a different country than Romania. In the United States we tend to lump all of Eastern Europe together when actually each country can be very different in culture and attitude and language from one another. Hungary, like Romania, was dominated by the Soviet Union, each throwing off their communist governments at about the same time, but it appears that either Hungary, because of history, location, attitude or ability has made much more dramatic progress toward becoming a fully developed country than Romania has.

We did not get into the countryside so I may have an unrealistic view, but Budapest, is as pleasant a city to spend two or three days as is imaginable. It is filled with historic attractions, of course, all European cities are, but the sidewalks were broader, the streets cleaner, the drivers saner, the parks more interesting and the place more livable than what we are use to in our small city of Cluj or our visits to Bucaresti, There was an awful lot of graffiti on the buildings, but beside that the impression was very favorable.

Romania’s glory is in its countryside, in the natural flow of the topography and the pastoral bucolic beauty of the fields and villages. Rolling hills in front of taller mountains, rectangular fields of potatoes, corn, wheat and sunflowers along with scenes of the village church steeple and the red tile roofs of the houses are what make Romania worth the visit. In Hungary, at least for the two thirds of the country we covered via train the landscape was flat, Iowa flat. The fields were much bigger, the agriculture more intense, but the impression after the first hour, was boredom. The conclusion is “See the city in Hungary, see the countryside in Romania.”

St. Istvan in Budapest

Romanian Painted Monastary

The Painted Monastaries

The Painted Monasteries

Last week Nancy and I traveled by train to the Romanian town of Guru Humorilui. It was a six hour trip to the Bucovina region of the section of the country known as Moldovia. Scattered amongst the towns and villages of the area are a number of monasteries built when Columbus was navigating on his journeys to America. What makes these places unique is not their age, for many things are as old, nor their size, for they are mostly small, but it is their art and particularly its durability

The story is that King Stefan the elder, after each victory over the Turks, then invading Romania, pledged a monastery to God in thanks for the triumph. An arrow was shot from the highest hilltop and where it landed there the central church was constructed. Around the churchyard walls were erected in case the Turks came back. On the church walls were painted all sorts of scenes from the Bible and the gruesome imaginations of the painters. These walls were painted inside and out. Five hundred years and most of the paint is still there, the story still readable. These are nothing like the frescos of Italy, similar instead to a more direct and primitive impulse, yet done with skill and style.

The monasteries are operated by Greek Orthodox nuns and the sites remain quiet, reflective places even though they are a major tourist attraction and one of the prime draws for travelers to Romania. We visited four, hiring a driver for the day. Each site is roughly fifteen or twenty kilometers from the other and the drive over the rolling hills and through the towns and pastures of the region was as inspirational as the monasteries themselves.

The weather was overcast and I have but one good picture. I include it above, along with a contrasting photo of the Church of St. Stephen (the Saint, not the King referred to earlier) in Budapest. Built roughly at the same time, the contrasts are striking. Next posting I’ll write about our visit to Hungary. I also have completed a rough draft of a new short fiction. If you’d like a copy let me know with an email at snowridge2000@yahoo.com and I’ll send it along.

Preparing to Perform at Satu Mare Days

The Kite Flyer

The Kite Flyer

All fall, winter and early spring I’ve been studying the children that play on the playground a three minute walk from our apartment. One of the favorite past times of the young girls is hopscotch on the pavement. I have taken to carrying a few sticks of creta – chalk – in my pocket and when a few children look like they might need a new drawing stick I produce it. I’m not sexist, if the boys want some, they get some, too.

What I haven’t seen are kites. It’s a good place for kites, a large lot with few trees to grab the misflown kite. Zmeu, is the Romanian word for it. I looked most of the winter in various stores for a kite to purchase my self, but was a long time disappointed until one day, perhaps six weeks ago I found one. Now I own two. And I am the curiosity of the park, an old man who talks broken Romanian trying to fly a kite. If the wind is good, I have no trouble, but Cluj is not a very windy place and by the time I get out on an evening the breeze has tapered to a whisper. That makes it challenging.

We’ve had lots of rain and a cool spring but when the sun has stays out and we get a warm day the young ladies somewhat older than the ones I give chalk are out sun bathing. This is Europe and when they sunbathe they like to get tanned all (almost) over. I have to be careful where I let out my kite. (Sorry, no pictures). I’m too much of a prude to intentionally run the kite string out so that I’d have to maneuver amongst the spread towels.

Perhaps it is a comment on our times but it seems to me that those countries that have their females bare the most skin are the ones with the lowest birthrate. In America, we are yet fairly conservative about topless, preferring to display such only in private and our birthrate at least equals that necessary for population stability. Europe, however, faces a decline in birthrate. Muslim countries, where the women are covered, have plenty of births. Romania is a conservative country and the exposure of it’s women is only now catching on. The birthrate is higher than other countries of Europe but it is now just below the replenishment rate. That’s my theory of the inverse ratio of exposed skin to births.

But back to kite flying. The other day while I was flying my kite I was approached by three children. The older girls were twins, Alexandria and Mihiala. Adrian was the younger boy. Ages I suppose were 7 for the girls and 5 for the boys. I let them fly the kite and they laughed and had a good time. I've now put on the list of my Peace Corps accomplishments kite training. Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know that both Alexandria and Mihiala were fully dressed.