Shepherds at the Salaš

Remember when Tim got his Slovak T-shirt from the basketball guys??  Well this week I was given a Slovak volleyball T-shirt by the student I went to watch play in last weekend's tournament!!  So cool!!   :-)  

Front side - with the Liptovsky Hrádok team logo.

Back side, with the tournament information for the Juniors Tournament.  I'll LOVE wearing this special T-shirt from Miška!!     :-)

Marian emailed me a few more pictures from our Saturday hike, so I'll add those to this post too.  It was such a fun day!!  

This was at the micro-brewery enjoying the morning air and pivo outdoors on the patio before our hiking began.  

On the trail with Susan.

Overlooking the stream and waterfalls far below in the valley.

Next to the mill with Marian.  

Sunday was one BUSY day!!  I woke up early and decided to bake a batch of cookies.  :-)
We went to church as usual, had Jan translating for us, and stayed for the separate Holy Communion service afterwards, which includes an additional liturgy and sermon.  Then Jan gave us a ride home, because we had to hurry to catch a bus, since church lasted an extra 30 minutes!  

On the walk to church - some of the beautiful flowering trees!!  

On the walk to the bus station - the beautiful flowering lawns -  dandelions!!   ;-)  

We went to Liptovsky Hrádok to see Miška, my I.A5 student, play volleyball in another tournament, this time with a team of younger girls.  She "plays up" for the older team and starts for them, and she is definitely the best player on this younger team.  They had a rough first game, but ended up playing well and winning the match!!   :-)   I pretended to be "team mom" like in olden days, and took cookies for the girls after the match.  

Saška, our elementary principal, picked us up at the bus station when we arrived back in Liptovsky Mikuláš, to take us to a special event in the valley behind her village, Bobrovec.  

A salaš is a sheep farm/ranch where they make sheep cheese, and there is usually a  small restaurant or at least somewhere to have a beverage and buy some cheese.

This beautiful valley with its rolling hills was a scene straight out of some movie!!  See the sheep on the hillside way in the background?  They were giving horse-drawn carriage rides over the meadow as part of this special event.  

The event at this salaš was a one-day demonstration of the art of shepherding, plus kind of a folk festival of music, traditional foods, a craft market set up in stalls, rides for the kids, etc. etc.  This shepherd and his border collie were amazing as they herded the sheep together.  Here they are first heading out towards the sheep.  

The sheep were spread out all over the meadow, and separated into two groups at first.  Saška's husband, Ignace, brought binoculars for us to use, and it was neat seeing the little baby lambs out in the group too.  

The border collie was dashing all over around the perimeter of the herd, and he quickly got all the sheep bunched up tightly.  Very impressive!!  Then the shepherd would give commands to move the whole herd different directions, and the whole 'blob' would just go wherever the dog moved them.  

This shows more of the surrounding hillsides, with another big herd of sheep over to the right in the distance, and Liptovská Mara way out there in the center of the picture.  

The weather in the distance over the mountains was strange - clouds and rain would go across, then it would be sunny again.  Eventually we had a little light rain at the salaš too, but nothing much.  It was incredibly beautiful out there on the sheep ranch!!  

The grill on the left was for various typed of sausages, and the kettle on the right held lamb goulash, both with wood fires underneath.  Saška got us some goulash to try --- YUM!!   It was served with some lovely brown bread.  

There were some folk musicians performing traditional Slovak music in local historic costumes.  We saw another group leaving with instruments in cases, so they must have traded off performances during the day.  

There was a big crowd enjoying the salaš for this special event, but Saška says it's normally very quiet and peaceful out in the countryside.  They hold 8 of these events, one each Sunday during May and June, at 8 different salaš locations in the Liptov region.

These are the traditional wooden mugs used for serving žinčica, a much-loved drink which is a by-product of the sheep cheese making process.   Ignace and Saška explained that the shepherds had many long hours of boredom in the pastures, so they would carve these intricately decorated mugs!  

This little cutie-pie was in the doorway to the salaš.

Saška gave us a taste of her žinčica - it's O.K., but not my favorite Slovak specialty!  (Kind of like watery-tasting buttermilk, thin and watery but sour, and with tiny curds.)  They definitely love it here!!  :-)  

This is a particular specialty of Bobrovec, called droby, which is a sausage-like food made of potatoes and blood/meat.  It was actually delicious, but the texture wasn't as firm as most sausage - it kind of fell apart when you picked it up.  Saška and Ignace are on the left, and some friends of theirs from the Ukraine are on the right.  

Ignace and Saška in front of their house, where they also have 2 apartments and a cottage for tourist rentals during skiing and hiking seasons.  And they surprised us with the American name!   :-)

Saška had been telling us all along that she was looking forward to introducing us to her American neighbors.  Well, this is the place next door ---- the Slovaks who once lived there moved to America in about 1913 and never came back!!  HAHAHA!!  Evidently there aren't any heirs and the legal situation is unclear, so the house just sits there vacant and is starting to fall down.  

This boy was over playing with Janko, Saška's son, and Tim was so excited that they were both wearing caps from Michigan colleges!!  I'm not sure the little guy knew what Tim was even talking about, but he smiled for the picture!   

Then Saška gave us a tour of their house and the rental properties out back - we were amazed at how beautiful the place is, and how gorgeous the views are.  Wow!  We went inside and had some cakes and mineral water - delicious!  We even got a short piano recital from Janko before going back to our flat.  :-)  

Our final destination for the day was dear Janka's house for dinner.  She picked us up and took us to Okoličné, (technically part of L.M.) where her house overlooks the Vah River.  Poludnica (which we climbed last fall) is the mountain right over Tim's head in the picture.    What a view!!  Her garden is absolutely gorgeous with flowers, blossoming trees, and vegetable beds too.  Janka cooked spinach lasagna which was delicious, and we had a relaxing time sharing 'paradise' with our other Slovak 'daughter'.    :-)

This is a random school picture from this afternoon ....
Right now the World Championships for ice hockey are being played in Finland and Sweden, and there is hockey mania here in Slovakia.  Our students, Tim's basketball buddies, and lots of other Slovaks are glued to the TV's for their team's games, and we see flags fluttering on many cars in town.  Here are four students at our Drama Club rehearsal, sharing one set of earbuds to listen to the game today.  LOL!!  

Today was a normal busy Monday school day, with one Slovak lesson during the day and another after school.  Then we went to church choir practice, where "Kumbaya" is coming along nicely.   :-)    We dashed home to change clothes for volleyball, and our landlords and their daughter were in the flat checking on the washing machine.  It works again.  All by itself.  Just started working again.  Embarrassing!!  I tried it multiple times over the course of TWO days, and every time I'd start it, the red 'service' light would come on and it would stop.  Well, all they did was just turn it on, and it worked fine.  Grrrrr!!!!  But they are also trying to check out some water leakage that's damaging the flat below.  It sounds like some pipe  joint below the floor is the problem, so they're trying to figure that out.  Lenka, the daughter who lives in Prague, was here, so we had fun talking all together.  We love getting to communicate with her mom, Luba, since usually we are rather limited by our language barrier!   They liked the sugar cookies we shared with them too!!  :-)  So we didn't make it to volleyball, unfortunately.  

Just now we enjoyed a snack of some cakes that Janka's grandmother made (she sent some home with us) and a cup of tea from some herbal plant from Saška's garden that she sent home with us.  So the good times of Sunday's excursions continue with these delicious memories!