Caves, sink holes, and white horses

 I got into bad habits when my knee was injured, and in truth, I got lazy and fatter.  So, I've slowed down quite a bit.  Liz, on the other hand, has not slowed down.  She gets restless if she isn't involved in a half dozen projects with fierce deadlines to battle.  But eventually, she wants a day to play.  So she reached that point last Wednesday afternoon and told me she wanted to go see the Karst region of Slovenia.  I said, "Mmphf," so she booked a gausthaus near the caves in Karst for Thursday night., and we left bright and early.

[Start of Science.]

About 2-300 years ago, the word reached the World scientific community that there were amazing caves in Slovenia, and the scientists flocked to see.  At that time, there were only a few scientists in the scientific community, and they were busy naming things.  So when the Slovenes told them an area of eroded limestone, sink-holes and collapsed caves is called a Karst, that became the scientific name for it, and I learned that name in freshman geology class at BYU.  And a valley created by a major cave collapse became a doline, because that's what the Slovenes called it, and so on.  They did NOT adopt the Slovene word for cave, because it is "jam" (plural is "jama") and that was already taken.

The Karst region of Slovenia is on the rainy side of the slopes of the Julian Alps, and the limestone is seriously eroded.  There is a place where a pirate King lived for many years in a big castle built into the mouth of a huge cave.  He was invincible in battle, but died when one of his servants stabbed him with a spear while he was sitting on the john.  The castle is probably the biggest tourist attraction of the Karst region, but it and almost all the caves are currently closed due to COVID.  The only cave still open is at the village of Škocjan.

Škocjan, a tiny village on the edge.

There is a river that flows down from the mountain to the left, but it sinks into the ground and disappears.  Immediately behind the village, there is a several-mile-long valley with nearly vertical walls.  The river flows out of the sheer cliff at the far end of that valley and then disappears into a cave in a sheer cliff just on the other side of the village.  The river flows through the cave directly under this village, proved by a sinkhole down to the river next to the house where the vicar lives.  In all the photos I took, I don't have one as good as the face of the brochure they gave us, so . . . .

At the top of this brochure photo is the village in my photo.  Under it and a little to the right, at the base of the cliff, is a black hole which is the cave where the river flows out from under the village and into this next doline (collapsed cave that creates a valley).  The river flows through this doline, under the two foot-bridges visible in the photo, and disappears back into the cave at the cliff on whose top I was standing when I took the photo above - the same spot where the brochure photographer stood when he took his.     [End of Science.]

Škocjan is on the far side of Slovenia and we arrived by 10:30, which shows how small Slovenia is.  We went into the visitor center to enquire if there was a cave accessible to poor, old, decrepit, kermudgeons who need a cane to get up and down stairs.  The guy at the counter just said we were welcome to go on any of the trails and into the cave, and the shortest cave hike has 800 steps.  NOT FOR ME!

Shortly after, another lady came out and pointed out a walk around the smaller doline and through the town.  She said it is much easier.  I keep forgetting that Slovenes walk everywhere and their estimate of easy is different than mine.  But we headed out and walked up a moderate incline on a gravel path until we got to the overlook where I took my photo above.

The cave where the river flows out from under the village.

The river flowing under the natural bridge at the bottom of the doline.

The river was really roaring out of there with the spring rains.  If you look closely you can see several little caves where water is also pouring out above the main flow of water going under the foot bridge.  I would love to have gone down there.

It started to rain about this time and I put my good camera away to protect it.  But I used my iphone to take a video clip of this river on Marco Polo.  Sadly, neither of us realized that we had zero cell coverage and the Marco Polo videos we took here are gone, gone, gone.

This is the observation point, looking back at the visitor's center where we started.  By this time, my knees were already aching and most of the stairs were still ahead of us.  The heavens opened up and it rained hard for a while, so I didn't photograph them, but we climbed more from here and then took an endless (seemed like) set of stairs that went down to the lower level of the village.  After that I wished I had two canes and I was in pain.

I did stop to take a photo of this olde beehouse.  Most of them are wood nowdays, but the really old ones were built of stone.  This one is the museum version of that - with modern mortar between flattened stones, and the hive fronts are decorated with large child-like graffiti.  But, there are 24 beehives there.

The bee house.

This little house was pointed out as having the old style of roof.  It is made of pieces of slate.  The walls were made of round-ish river stones, and the sign points that out, but it has been recently plastered over.  This little area of the village is on a lower level from the main village where there was a less-serious cave collapse.  I had to wonder if the people who live here worry about any more collapses.  None have occurred in history, but every year the caves are eroded more and more.

When we got up to the main village there was a sign by a little grate in the rock wall along the road.

This is pointing out that there is a sink hole that goes all the way down to the river in the cave below (after a bit of a dog-leg.)  The smaller drawing is showing how the river flows through cave, doline, cave, doline, and finally into a cave that flows into the sea.  I tried to get a decent photo of the sinkhole behind this sign.

The sink-hole.  It is about 20 yards across, sheer walls, and a 90 meter drop straight down.  90 meters is about 300 feet!  The vicar's little garden yard has a hole in its rock wall that drains straight into this hole.  The rock wall that holds this grate is at the very edge of the main road into town, which is barely wide enough for one car.  I bet they are very careful here, because you would NOT want to run over this wall!!!

It was still raining, I was very, very sore by this point, and the trail became uncertain.  We followed a road down the hill a bit and found the administration office for the park.  They let us sit on a covered bench outside to wait for the storm to pass.  We sat for about a half hour watching rain, hail, slush, and lightening.  After that rest it felt much better to complete our expedition.  We found our night's lodging where Liz had thoughtfully booked a room with a hot-tub.  I soaked until dinner was ready,

I was very hungry and I nearly forgot to take a photo of the first course.

Ravioli filled with local soft cheese, and cooked in a butter sauce with crisp prosciutto, leeks and herbs from the gasthaus grounds.

The main course was pork loin, cooked slow, with rosemary from the grounds.  With new potatoes from a local farmer.  It was fantastic, but after eating all those luscious ravioli we weren't able to do justice to it.

Dessert was a little cake with molten chocolate inside, in vanilla sauce.  The cook is the owner of this gasthaus - a retired chef who just loves to cook.  We were served by her daughter who is also retired.

  After that, we retired to our room and the hot tub where we nearly decided to spend the night.  Sadly, it cooled off and we gladly went to bed.  We were very happy to be warm, cozy, and well-fed, after a wonder-filled day. 

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This BLOG has gone on quite a  while, so I think I'll save the white horses for a separate post.  Sorry.

We teach school

 A couple of months ago, when we were under fairly tight restrictions, the young missionaries arranged to meet a school teacher named Tomislav, at our apartment.  He had responded to their Facebook offer to provide service to anyone who needed it.  He wanted to set up a day when they could come to his 3rd grade class and tell them what it is like to grow up in America.  We all wore masks as we spoke, but we made a good impression on him and he promised to let us know a date when classes resumed.

A week or so ago, the missionaries let us know they had a firm date to go to the school.  They planned to go as a group of four - two elders and two sisters.

This is the sign in front of the school.  It says  "Osnova School     Holy Sunday".  The school was named for the Holy Sunday, commemorating the day the Turks withdrew from Slovenia after failing to penetrate into Austria in the 14th century.

A few days ago, the missionaries called us to let us know the school headmaster had contacted them with a request for us to present another 45 minute presentation on what "Mormons" believe, in the two 7th grade ethics classes.  There are two groups of the ethics class to keep class-size down, so we would have to present it twice.  And none of the other young missionaries had that day free, because quite a few of them had to go to the government for visa applications that day.  So we were nominated.

Rules:  

• we couldn't preach to them, nor 
• solicit them to join the church.

We had three preparation days.  Liz decided to do a Who, what, where, how type of presentation, and I agreed.  Then we gathered up some films from the LDS Media website for missionaries, including a couple in the Slovene language.  Two of the English-language videos were problems:

• The first one was "60 beliefs in 60 seconds".  It is perfect because it is little clips of people from around the World saying a 1 or 2 word belief.  But, it is in English and 1 per second is way too fast for children trying to translate from English into Slovene.  We decided to go ahead and show it as-is first, and then challenge one of them to read the list of 60 Slovene words (which we had printed out) in the same time period.  That worked OK.  I'm sure they missed a lot, but we were only presenting an overview so it wasn't critical for them to get it all.
• The other problem film was a 1 minute film that used illustrations to explain how Christ's church had come to become so many denominations.  Again, it went by very fast.  It also introduced the idea of a church leader and twelve apostles.  For this one, we asked the help of two young missionaries who are charged with media presentations and have a special computer to do that work.  They slowed it down until it ran in about 3 minutes instead of 1, and overlaid the soundtrack with their own reading of the text in Slovene.  This one was a big hit, but we think that was because they were laughing at our American pronunciation of their language.  Whatever, it was fun.

I took my laptop to the school, which we connected to their projector.   That way I could move through the slides in our presentation and play the movies.  We took turns explaining.  It was very stressful, especially for me, because I was still editing the slide show up to the very second we left.  But presenting it was fun.  The kids were polite and attentive and interested.

We were met outside the school by the headmaster and (we think) the headmistress, whose name is Mirriam.  They stayed with us the whole time we were there and she helped us with translation when needed.  We went straight into the first class and gave our presentation, and then we had an hour off until we were scheduled to do the other class.  So, they took us to the teacher's lounge and fed us the morning snack - a sausage-vegetable soup with bread and fruit.  We were surprised they fed us, but they thought it was perfectly ordinary.  The have a big commercial kitchen with several cooks who serve three meals (they call two of them snacks)  to all the children who want them, every day.  As we ate, the headmaster asked us if we'd like a tour of the school, which we gladly accepted.  

How did I miss taking an outside photo of the school?  However, I did take a photo of this doorway between the old part of the school and the new.

The two square pieces on each side, at shoulder height, say 18 and 16, so the door was placed in 1816.  That is for the new part of the school.  Of course, it is built of stone and masonry.  Apparently it is traditional to rub the keystone when you pass through.  It looks like maybe you rub any food off your hands onto it.

The school is very well equipped with modern equipment, but they wish they had a new building.  It does have a LOT of stairs.  They are obviously very proud of the school, which they invariably described as "our school".  During the tour, I asked if they teach how to keep honeybees, and the headmaster said they don't anymore, but would I like to see the bees at the previous headmaster's house after we finished our next presentation?  Of course I said yes.

The previous headmaster was there for 40 years and had only recently retired.  He lives just down the hill from the school.

This sign as at the entrance into the former headmaster's yard.  He is Mr. Skok.  The sign says, "Beehouse Skok - Domestic honey and beehive products".

The sign at the front of the yard is not just a sign.  The little white disc at the bottom side of the sign is an adjustable bee entrance.  The front of the sign opens up and you can see the bees inside through glass.  They don't have any bees inside, yet, but it is a favorite of the children during the summer holidays.

It turns out the teacher who invited us there is the new Mr. Skok in school, and he is also a partner in the bee business.  He called for his father, who was in the garage making new frames to go inside the beehives.  

Most of the hives were bustling with bees.  They collect pollen in the hives on the bottom row, honey in both the middle and bottom rows, and the very small hives on top are for catching swarms and raising new queens.  But almost all the work of managing the bees is done inside the long shed.

The backs of the hives are along the walls on the left.  On the top shelf at the right, you can see the new frames like he was making, with wax foundation already inserted.   Various tools and supplies are scattered about, but generally it is well organized.  There are two chest refrigerators they use to store frames of honey until they are ready to extract the honey from the frames.

When I think of all the days I've spent in a heavy bee suit under the hot, Texas sun, it almost makes me sick to see this wonderful arrangement where these Slovenian beekeepers work in the shade and peace of their sheds.  The bees defend their entrances, so they remain fairly calm in the dim light of the shed, even when the back door of their hive is opened.

This hive had a screen instead of a back door, and Mr. Skok opened it up so I could see his Carniolan bees.  This is the only kind of bees allowed in Slovenia, by law.  They are grey instead of the bright yellow of Italian bees or the black of Russian bees.  They are reputed to be very calm and easy to manage, though prone to swarm very frequently.

After we left the bee yard, we walked over to the church and castle.

The round turret is typical of a Templar building.

As we walked the short distance past the church to the castle, the headmaster asked me if I knew about "Holy Day".  I told him we celebrate Good Friday, Christmas and Easter.  So, he told me about the Turkish invasion and the great day when they negotiated the Turkish withdrawal in the 14th century.  Apparently, the templars built this church and castle right after to make sure they remained withdrawn.  I told him I knew a little about the templars.  But he surprised me when he told me that the templars still send money to maintain this church and castle.  I told him I'd thought the templars were wiped out on black Friday (Friday the 13th), but he said that was only in Italy, France and some nearby countries.  Of course, the Rothschilds are descendants of the templars, who invented banking, so that is who sends them money, still identifying themselves as Templars.

I can't believe I didn't take a photo of the outside of the castle with its round corner turrets.  Grrr.

When we entered the castle there were a lot of old museum pieces of farm equipment.  There is a museum there, but it was closed after the Dec. 29, 2020 earthquake, which centered in Croatia, but cracked the outside wall of the castle in one place, forcing closure of the museum.

These two photos are of a huge press.  It could be set up to press wine, or to hold millstones to grind flour.  The size of it is mind-blowing!  Compare it to the full-size road motorcycle.

A Templar cross in cobblestones inside the castle.

This well still has water.  It is about ten feet across and has a geared machine to lower a bucket.  When the castle was full of knights and maids it took a lot of water, I guess.

The castle is currently occupied by "social residents" - people who can't afford a place to live.  The Templar church grants them space in the castle.  It wasn't exactly bustling, but you can see a modern garbage can in the corner behind the well.  We saw several doorways with unmistakable signs of residence.

After the tour of the castle we returned to the school for lunch.

Fried chicken patties, rice, vegetable soup, corn, green salad, fresh fruit, and deep-fried croissants filled with orange-apricot jam.  It was piping hot and very, very good.

When we finished, the headmaster asked us if he could take a photo of us all together.  So we went out front of the school.

The headmaster, Liz, me (the only one wearing a mask), Sisters Hart and Williams, Tomislav (the teacher who invited us), Elders Kunzler and Miller, and Mirriam.  

A group of students were nearby and they wanted their photo taken with us, too.

This is only the students who happened to be outside when we took the photos.

The final thing that happened was the school presented each of us a parting gift:  a jar of the Skok's Floral honey in a nice gift box, for each one of us.  It is wonderful honey, too.

Jeruzalem is the town just to the east.  I think it has a catchier name than Osnova.

Altogether, this was a marvelous day.  We hope we can return many times.

All the missionaries in Slovenia

 We have been spending a lot of time on the road of late - or maybe it just seems like it because for many months we rarely had an excuse to get on the road at all.  In any case, we have been driving back and forth between Maribor and Celje, and between Maribor and Ljubljana.  Tuesday, we went with the Maribor sisters to Ljubljana for Zone Conference - a meeting in person with all the Slovenia missionaries, and  via Zoom with the Mission President and wife and the missionaries in Bosnia and Herzogovina, and the APs.  It was great to be all together, although I couldn't help thinking about the eleven missionaries with COVID who got it at a similar meeting during the last transfers.  Thank goodness, none of them had severe symptoms, except the senior sister who seems to be recovering, but is still quite ill.  

There is a tree that reminds me of this.  I grows beside the road we take into the downtown Celje.

This is a live tree, growing beside (and over) a section of fence made out of concrete with wire reinforcement.

This tree looks almost like it has stuck out an elbow to lean on the fence.  I am amazed it hasn't crushed the fence, but the tree is probably still growing up slightly each year.  I think it is like the missionary work we are doing.  We meet obstructions, but we keep pressing on.

Here are some selected photos from the Zone Conference, and the lunch we shared afterward:

Admiring Liz's new ring

Our Zone Leaders

Sister Williams pretending to be shy

And then jumping into my shot

The Zoom attendees

The Zone Conference is a regular meeting where we receive instruction - mostly encouragement to continue working.  We also share success stories with each other.

Sister Ashurst and I have had a bit of success ourselves.  There is a family in Celje that I'll call the Z's.  They were rocks in the branch for a long time, but have been absent for the last few years.  When I was asked to serve as first councilor in the expanded branch presidency that includes Celje, my first assignment was to find out what caused the "cancer" that is eating the members in Celje and led to people going absent.  We made an appointment with the Z's and had the elders take us over to the Z's house to introduce us.  Liz and I hit it off with them right away.  At one point I had a feeling that we should just ask them straight up why they haven't been attending church.  At about that point, I realized Liz was asking Sister Z exactly that question.  They told us all about it, the incident that offended them, how it grew, and how they regret letting it affect them so much.  We let them talk it all out.  We had a great visit and we feel like we've made some long-term friends.

The next Sunday, they came in to church and stayed.  And the Sunday after.  We are so very pleased that we were able to be the fulcrum to turn them back to the church.  Of course, it was their choice, and they seem very happy to have made it.

A week ago Sunday, we were down in Celje for church and afterwards, in spite of the fact that I was still feeling the affects of our COVID injection, we decided to turn off the road and drive through some rural towns.  It was a lovely afternoon and we had a great time doing it.

We love the little farms on the hillsides.

I am fascinated how they ventilate their barn attics with interesting patterns of bricks with air passages between them.

There are shrines in every village, and most are religious.  This one appears to be new - and empty.  They usually have statues, flowers, etc. inside.

I liked this church.  Notice how the church and steeple have bricks at the corners?  They are actually just painted onto the stucco.  This is very common in Slovene architecture.

Storks commonly build their nests on chimney tops.  In this village, they solved that problem by erecting a special nesting place.  Notice the chick in the nest.

Another pastoral scene, with dandelions and little white flowers in the grass.

Liz had me take a photo of this path into the woods.  It's like a path into a fairy tale.

These fruit trees are being trained onto support poles.  I assume so they can be mechanically picked?

Helitours?  This place is miles away from the freeway.  However, there are castles and churches on every hilltop, so maybe it is a good place for it.

This beehive is in a schoolyard.  I wonder if they teach beekeeping in school?  They probably do.  I didn't see any bees flying, though.

And this is another path into the woods.  Another adventure in the making.

Side effects of COVID vaccination

 When I got the 1st vaccination I had light side effects.  As we were getting into the car, I felt a weird wave in my head, like a drop of food coloring dropped into a bowl of water.  I was very, very surprised at how fast it hit me.  It made me a little bit dizzy, but not like I was losing my balance - just weirdness.  Over the next couple of days, I had a fever and all the things that go with that, but mostly my head just felt weird.  I didn't trust myself to do anything like drive, so I hung around the house.

When we got the 2nd injection, the nurse warned me that side-effects are more severe the 2nd time around.  She had it right.  I didn't feel any immediate effects, but within an hour my body started to feel very odd.  It seemed like a cross between light pain, and numbness and it was in my head and arms at first.  I've heard that some people with COVID say they feel like they are outside their own body, and I can understand that, but I don't feel quite like that myself.  My body doesn't feel like it has ever felt before, though.  By evening it was in my trunk and legs, too.  I had a fever.  I slept a lot.  I ate too much.  This morning I have a sore area on the top of my mouth, but I can still taste and smell.  I feel very tired, but I don't think I have as much of a fever.  The weird feeling is still there, but it isn't as strong.  Maybe I'm getting used to it.  On the other hand, I can feel it inside my chest now.

I feel like it is tapering off, and maybe we can make our planned trip to Celje tomorrow.  Maybe not.  Too soon to tell.

We have the COVID vaccination passport, so I asked the Area Auditor what he thought about us taking a tour of the mission to meet the branch leaders and do training after our waiting period.  It is something that we were supposed to do, before COVID changed all the rules.  The Mission President went ape over it, though, forbidding us to do such an embarassing (to the mission) thing.  So, I guess we'll just stay in Slovenia, but we intend to tour around more.  We haven't been to any of the wonderful caves, or to the wetlands where thousands of storks live and make their nests on chimney tops.  We want to do those things.

Also, we expect to have visitors:  Angela +2 in September,  Bill & Barbara in October.  We will definitely go at least into Croatia to visit the Benac ancestral home with them.  I say definite, because I think our passport will let us do that without being a problem as things get better and restrictions ease.  We would be very disappointed to miss out on seeing Sarajevo and Belgrad while we are here, but we will follow the rules.