Kuldīga Food Market

14 May, 2016 | Shopping Venues | 43 seen

Kuldīga Food Market (Kuldīgas pārtikas tirgus, in Latvian) is located on Aizputes street 2a in Kuldīga, Latvia.

Frankly speaking I have no idea why they call it a food market, as from food there are little to nothing to choose. Instead this is a great place to buy plants, seeds, wood products (spoons, decorative wood figures), honey and yes, they have a small stand selling smoked fish. Does it sounds like a food market? 

Kuldīga market

Flower plants for sale

Honey

Prices are in EUR

Strawberry plants

Bought here a dozen of strawberry plants, paid just EUR 4 total

Wood products

Edward The Brushcutter AW-BC620TH Trimmer

12 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 58 seen

Meet Edward, our newest team member to help us out in our home remodeling works. I first met Edward at local DEPO DIY store in Liepāja, Latvia. The sales person wanted me to buy  a Jasper, as Jasper was listed just under EUR 100. In my mind I had already allocated about EUR 400 for a new brush cutter / trimmer purchase and I asked to the salesperson can he show me something more powerful than Jasper?

I was introduced with many never heard brand names before, when Edward popped up. Sales guy told me - hey take a look on Edward! I asked who the hell is Edward? Ahh - you know, some Chinese guy, but really great guy. Edward  AW-BC620TH was listed for EUR 220, but owners of DEPO loyalty card could own it just for EUR 189. 

I took a look on Edward's technical capability, enjoyed that it features both string and knife nozzle and it runs on petrol. So I opted for Edward after some 10 minute wondering around Jaspers, Hetchs and other never  before heard brand names.

There were still few formalities to pass, before acquiring Edward, like to get other buyer and ask his DEPO loyalty card to be swiped at cashier desk before mine purchase to acquire that huge but trust me, fake discount.

And here you go - Edward  AW-BC620TH the brush cutter / trimmer

Edward fresh just from the shop

I decided to unwrap Edward just in the middle of it's new working field - the grass.

Edward unpacked 

It consists from few essential parts - an engine, stem, protecting device, trimming nozzle and few more. It took me about two hours to get Edward right. Thus instruction was provided, there were some unclear sections for me, after all I figured it out and Edward was ready for work.

Edward ready to work

Author of this blog captured in action - trimming grass

The fight with grass has turned to be personal already, see how I started this fight using a scythe about a year ago.

Now, huge was my surpirse when in evening I tried to find some reviews of this model - the brand name Edward never popped up, I was able to find this model by its serial number AW-BC620TH in some Russian and Belarus online stores listed under Grasshopper brand.  And for much less money. In Russian sites it costs about EUR 110, while in Belarus about EUR 140. It just confirms my theory about all those locality cards - they are scam.

But I'm not complaining and hope Edward will please us for years to come. I will keep you updated.

The Big Spring Cleanup Part 2 - Trimming Trees and Branches

11 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

After the successful Big Spring cleanup of territory surrounding our rural house, and after masonry works with chimney it was time to get rid of old and broken branches.

Frankly speaking I thought it will be enough just to cut one broken branch from our apple orchard and trimming some smaller bushes in garden. Turned out I was wrong. After all we trimmed many trees and way more branches. For this task I hired a professional saw guy, which I was already familiar since last summer's home remodeling works. We made a first barbecue picnic today as well. 

Let me show exactly what we did today:

Cutting trees and trimming branches

Some good firewood for winter can be made from some trees.

Man with a saw in action

Guntars or Guncha how we call the saw guy is a wonderful guy, he is master of many tools, but the chain saw is his heart thing. I was just amazed seeing him in action, how virtue this guy works with a chain saw. Just amazing.

First Barbecue this season - Chicken wings - yummy

Cutting osier shrubbery 

Some major fish pond works are planned for this autumn, for today we trimmer shrubbery around it.

View towards house from apple orchard

Former Kolkhoz Spartak

10 May, 2016 | | 7 seen

It was on a still and tranquil Friday evening when we took our cat Tiger on a walk. I took a tripod and camera and just documented were we went. Turned out we were walking with our cat at former kolkhoz Spartaks territory,

A kolkhoz was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to emerge in Soviet agriculture after the October Revolution of 1917, as an antithesis both to the feudal structure of impoverished serfdom and aristocratic landlords and to individual or family farming.

Former kolkhoz "Spartaks"

Located in Laidi parish, Kuldiga district, Latvia, nowadays this former kolkhoz Spartaks seems is used by locals to store a firewood and some small animals.

Nearby fish ponds

Skew roof

Seems these guys need a little help in roof works

Transformer building

Piece of Life after all!

Drupal Patch For Location Module To Update Province List for Latvia With Latest Data

9 May, 2016 | Drupal Development | 4 seen

Made a simple Drupal patch for Location module to display latest administrative divisions of Latvia. Default one is still showing outdated data using old "Rayon" as administrative divisions of Latvia.

Will try to submit this patch to official module release on Drupal.orf

From Wikipedia:  

According to the Administrative territorial reform of Latvia (2009), Latvia changed its administrative divisions from two-level municipalities (the districts were the first-level municipalities, while towns, cities, towns countryside territories and parishes were the second-level municipalities) to one-level municipalities - districts were liquidated, but towns (Latvian: pilsētas), towns countryside territories (Latvian: pilsētu lauku teritorijas) and parishes (Latvian: pagasti) were merged into 110 municipalities (Latvian: novadi) and there are 9 republican cities (Latvian: republikas pilsētas) with their own city council and administration.

To update to the latest administrative division - replace location.lv.inc file (/sites/all/modules/location/supported) with following:

Clear cache and you should be done. For a live demo see here:

Repairing Old Brick Chimney

7 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

On April 20, 2016 we completely changed a top of our brick chimney at our rural country house. It was not planned actually to change all top of chimney, just to add two rows of bricks. Thus after a quick inspection it was clear - it's time to replace it all.

Read how we lost a chimney in past: Replacing Roof - Part 3: Removing the old roofing (Losing Chimney)

Workers inspecting chimney

It was clear - there are no other option, but to remove brick by brick from atop of the chimney, and rebuild it from scratch (almost)

Removing old bricks from chimney

It was much easier that it seemed - due to the harsh weather and lack of any maintenance for the past 25 years (at least) bricks were detached from the mortar and in fact it was already dangerous to have such an unstable and unsafe chimney.

Red bricks for chimney

They are not new, they are actually some 80 years old, as we took them from the second chimney base (the one we lost last summer)

The mortar

Half way there

I was told a chimney should have seven rows above the roof.

Done

It took us three people, three sacks of the mortar and some thirty bricks to complete chimney repair works in some six hours. A chimney is an integral part of our rural country and now we can move on, keeping our place warm.

Restaurant "Ukrainochka" in Batumi

6 May, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 22 seen

Restaurant Ukrainochka is located at Batumi Railway Station terminal building, some 3 km from Batumi city centre. Food served here is true masterpieces of Ukrainian cuisine, not to mention blonde and beautiful Ukrainian girls serving your meal here. 

We enjoyed our Ukrainian meal here, while waited for train departing back to Tbilisi.

Spacious space at Ukrainochka in Batumi

Menu at Ukrainochka restaurant

Both traditional Ukrainian cuisine and Georgian is served here

Traditional Ukrainian Borsch served with smetana (sour cream)

Really delicious

Pancakes served with cold milk

Milk was not offered in menu, but I asked to the blonde Ukrainian girl, is it possible to manage it, as pancakes and cold milk is the best. She was a quick learner and sold us milk as matsoni (Georgian yogurt). 

The Bottom Line

Restaurant Ukrainochka in Batumi central station is one of the best Ukrainian cuisine restaurants I have visited lately, great food, excellent service. The price? We paid about 60 lari here, which might be a bit above average.

Batumi Railway Station

5 May, 2016 | Railway / Bus / Ferry | 369 seen

Batumi railway station has been recently constructed and opened for public, making travels by train from Tbilisi to Batumi a little bit easier.

Prior that, train stopped at Makjinjauri station (some 7 km from Batumi city center)

I took a train ride from Tbilisi to Batumi at start of March 2016, and was 100% sure that new station will be located somewhere in Batumi city - I was wrong. The new station is still located some 3 km from city, and to actually get to the city, you must take additional taxi or bus. Very strange.

Newly constructed Batumi Railway Station

It has been opened in Summer of 2015. Former Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili praised the opening of the new railway station.

"This is a very important investment for Batumi. Partnership Fund and Georgian Railway contributed significantly in implementing this project. Batumi’s potential is growing and we all should support the city to use its potential,” said Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

A Georgian Railways representative said the new train station was another major infrastructure project implemented by the Government and Georgian Railways that aimed to increase tourism potential and fit the interests of Batumi residents.

Parking lot near Batumi railway station

During train departing / arrival times parking lot is full of taxi cars. Near the railway station is located some bus station, seems marshrutkas are leaving from here as well.

Waiting rooms at Batumi Railway station

There is a luggage storage room available, I was asked to pay 5 lari for storing my luggage here for few hours.

Platfrom at Batumi Railway station

How To Make Burger Buns at Home

4 May, 2016 | Food blogger | 15 seen

If you asked me how to make hamburger buns at home question some eight years ago - I would say - it's complicated and most probably impossible. Ask me today - and I will not only exactly tell - but I will show some cool pictures of both how to make burger buns at home and some really delicious home made burgers and variation of hotdogs.

Allow me to inform you - I'm not the original creator of what you will see next (I was allowed just to photograph) - but since we made burger buns at home - let me say - there is nothing impossible a man can handle. For today's photography I used 100mm zoom lens (My findings: 100mm are really cool for food photography).

• See my first attempts of simple homemade hamburger recipe (using buns bought at local supermarket)

For burger buns dough we took Belle's Hamburger Buns recipe from allrecipes.com

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) envelope active dry yeast
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon water

Cooking Directions:

Photos

Divide dough equally in ten to twelve parts

Dough for burger buns divided equally 

Use your regular kitchen knife for slicing burger bun dough

Give it a tennis ball shape form

Put on a frying pan and leave dough to rest for some 30 minutes (so the yeast continue to ferment)

Press them flat and add sesame seeds

Put your burger buns in oven and bake for some 15 minutes

The result:

Freshly baked burger buns

Now it's time to prepare your homemade burger

For burger toppings you can use, tomatoes, pickles, salads.. just the usual stuff.. yes cheese goes in very well also.

Toppings for burger

• For patties recipe please see: Simple Homemade Hamburger Recipe With Photos

From dough leftovers you can create really cool hotdogs (sausage wrapped and baked in dough)

Simple hotdogs

The result:

Homemade hamburgers and hotdogs

The Big Spring Territory Cleanup

3 May, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

Few days ago I announced start for Season 2 of our home remodeling adventures. We have some really big plans to achieve this year - like getting a water supply and constructing from scratch few walls. Also a bathroom is planned to be finished until end of this Summer.

But our home renovation tasks starts with outdoor territory. More precise with the big Spring cleanup. We had to clean area not only from old leaves and branches, but also from plastic bottles, cans and even TV picture tubes.

Let me introduce - The Big Spring Cleanup of 2016

Dump with old TV picture tubes, plastic bottles and cans

We got this together with house already last year. Previous owner (RIP) seems have collected TV picture tubes and sold nonferrous metal parts from them. I don't have other explanation why there can be so many of them at one place.

Sacks of dump

Today we collected 13 sacks of dump - 9 from TV dump, 4 old leaves and branches from garden. It will ask another 25 sacks to complete our Big Spring Cleanup.

The Big Spring Cleanup in the garden

Old leaves and branches, as well few cans and bottles. We didn't made cleanup here last year, so it's vital to perform cleanup here. Afterall I hope to see lovely landscaped territory here - it consist from apple orchard and cherry trees.

First flowerbed

Flowers are essential for beautiful landscape surrounding house.

The Bottom Line

I believe landscaped territory makes 50% of home value. 

Batumi Botanical Garden

2 May, 2016 | Tourism objects | 32 seen

Batumi Botanical Garden is a must have to visit tourism attraction site when in Batumi.

Botanical Garden is actually located at the place called Mtsvane Kontskhi ("The Green Cape") in distance of some 10 km from Batumi city on the Black Sea shore, it is one of the largest botanical gardens in the former Soviet Union. 

You can get here either by hiring a taxi from Batumi (I negotiated price for about 10 GEL .March 2016) or using mini vans (marshrutkas) from city,

If you have already visited Tbilisi Botanical Garden you will notice that Tbilisi garden is a weak echo of botanical garden if compared to this one, located in Batumi.

Our taxi driver recommended us to take second entrance, instead of main entrance. Which means - you don't have to walk twice (forth and back) the same route, instead you start your walk from the end and reach main entrance, from where marshrutkas departs back to Batumi.

Entrance fee at Batumi Botanical Garden: 8 GEL

Tourist cab at Batumi Botanical Garden

For additional 3 GEL you can take a ride in such vehicle to explore garden, we decided to walk.

Glass house

It turned out it's not allowed to enter glass houses at this garden, but hey, right here we started our trip.

Hiking trails at Batumi Botanical Garden

It's definitely worth of taking a hike here.

Batumi Botanical garden

Currently, the garden consists of nine floristic sectors, those of Caucasian humid subtropics, East Asia, New Zealand, South America, the Himalayas, Mexico, Australia, and of the Mediterranean. The garden collection comprises 2037 taxonomic units of ligneous plants, including 104 of Caucasian origin.

Palms at Batumi Botanical Garden

The Batumi Botanical Garden was started by the Russian botanist Andrey Nikolayevich Krasnov (1862-1914), brother of General Pyotr Krasnov, in the 1880s and officially opened on November 3, 1912. He was aided by two skilled gardeners and decorators – the French D’Alphonse and the Georgian Yason Gordeziani. Krasnov died in 1914 and was interred at the garden which still houses his grave and statue.

Bamboo trees

Under the Soviet Union, the garden was further expanded and developed, since 1925, into a principal institution for the study ofCaucasian maritime subtropical cultures.

View towards Black Sea from Botanical Garden

The Batumi Botanical Garden had formerly been operated by the Georgian Academy of Sciences. Since 2006, it is an independent institution.

At Batumi Botanical Garden

View toward Batumi city

Might be a really cool place for sunset/sunrise photography

View towards Kobuleti / Black Sea

Surrounding Adjarian mountains

Man selling kvass

There are small cafeteria at main entrance of Botanical garden, also some souvenirs and gifts can be bought here. 

The Bottom Line

It took us about 3 hours to complete route from one entrance to second, and it was worth it. Grab your best gear and go Batumi.

Official website: www.bbg.ge (Georgian only)

I Will Miss This Tbilisi Wall

1 May, 2016 | Living in Georgia | 6 seen

I have observed this wall for the last three years (with short interruptions, when on longer travels) from our Tbilisi balcony. Probably, right at this wallI started to improve my photographer skills when about two years ago I reported first time lapse - Brick Wall turning green.

Looking on this wall I have spent countless hours by zooming, experimenting with f stops, changing lenses and so on, making many photographs for my 365 days photo challenge project. The following picture is how I will  remember you, my dearest wall, for next couple of months, until I will return back to Tbilisi to our lovely apartment, probably I will visit you even sooner, who knows, right now I', spending my days in another interesting walls and roofs project, see  Home Remodeling - Season 2 starts now

Tbilisi wall

See you soon Tbilisi and Georgia.

Home Remodeling - Season 2 starts now

29 April, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 7 seen

Loyal readers of this blog are already familiar with the home renovation and remodeling process which we started a year ago, if not, make sure you check out article - How it all starts.

On April 14, 2016 we made a long and tired journey with our cats to get where we left this process at the end of Summer 2015. I was really glad that I had spent whole winter improving my photographer skills (see digital photography school), so it was just a matter of installing a tripod in meadow and setting my camera to capture HDR images.

There are two major things we did last year - replaced roof and landscaped surrounding territory - the results - looks amazing (if compared how it was a year ago). For this years plans - a water supply is a must have, in order to get water here, we need to dug a well at first. We plan to construct a bathroom (for that we will need to change few bearing beams and rebuild from scratch few walls). I believe a lot of effort will be put on territory improvement, one of the things we plan to do on this - to dug our small fish pond a bit bigger). But for now - take a look, how well Spring around our rural house looks through my camera lens.

Our rural house

There is some junk still in the from of house (old TV's), we plan to remove major junk, before grass have grown up. 

Our small fish pond and surrounding area

This autumn we are planing to dug a pond as well, let's see how does it will go.

Dog house and snow drops in front of hour house

In Spring it's just amazing how lovely it looks here - a snowdrops in front of your house, can things even get better? Speaking of dog house, take a look how I built it last autumn. Good folks (who kept an eye on house during our absence, have even made lovely entrance decor for dog house - curtains (well, it's more to keep house warm). Really good people are living in countryside. 

Back view of house

The major home renovation tasks are performed at this part of house, it's planned to change a few bearing beams, construct new walls, build a bathroom and plan a really cool outdoor terrace.

Pine coppice and our veggie garden

Apple orchard

There is a lot still to do in garden. That Honda CRV in background is our vehicle for 2016. 

View towards house from garden

As you can see, there is still a lot to do, to build our dream house, but hey, we are here for another amazing summer. 

Drupal String Overrides For Comment form + Translated Month names

27 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 9 seen

In yesterday's article How to hide Drupal comment Subject line and help text I talked about a simple and neat module Simplify, with help of whom I was able to get rid of confusing Subject line field and help area under Drupal comments. I was working with a Drupal for a non-English language website and had to translate some strings - of course I could go for Internationalization module, but since this site is just in one language - Internationalization might be too much - I didn't wanted to install Drupal in other language than English - I was left with few options to rewrite some of English language strings to other language. 

Luckily, some time ago I was working on Georgian language site, and I remember I used neat module String Overrides:

Provides a quick and easy way to replace any text on the site.

For todays challenge - I had to change (translate) strings on Drupal comment form and provide translated version for month names. Let's start with changing strings for comment form:

Download and install String Overrides module, from modules configuration page enter Original string, for example Add new comment, and Replacement string, Leave a comment, for example (as you can see, the original idea of string overrides module is not to use it as replacement for translation module, but to override existing Drupal strings, of course you can use it to add simple translations for smaller website also). Save configuration, clear cache and you should be done. 

Drupal string overrides configuration page

Now, for the translating month names in other language, it was a bit trickier - and involves writing a new function in sites template.php file. I took following code from here.

Add it to your template.php file, clear cache and from string overrides configuration page again enter Original string, for example April and Replacement string, Aprīls (translated in Latvian) in context field enter  Long month name

Here is the final Drupal comment form translate using string overrides module:

Drupal comment form translated to Latvian using String Overrides module

Hope it helps!

How to hide Drupal comment Subject line and help text

26 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 33 seen

There are several ways of hiding Input format options for Drupal comments, the simplest (but the wrongest) way is by just hiding area with CSS (display:none), second -  you can use the hook_form_alter function to make changes to a form before it is rendered (See article: How to Theme the Comment Form in Drupal 7)  and third one is by using a simple module with simple name: Simplify.

In this article you will find how to hide help area for Drupal comments using module Simplify.

I must admit, I have always avoided using default Drupal comment system (which ships out of box for any Drupal site, you just need to enable it from modules page) - I don't now actually why I have been avoiding them, and opted to use third party comment providers (Disqus, for example)

I was working on non-profit Drupal site (voluntary) and wanted to build it without involving any third party plugins, the site involves blog posts and for a comment system I opted in for default Drupal comment system. Just shortly after enabling them - I really didn't like them, because of - confusing Subject field and filter tips area.

Default Drupal Comment form

It was easy to disable Subject field - just visit your content type, and under comment settings uncheck - Allow comment title

For disabling help area under Drupal comments - it was tempting to use CSS trick - display:none, to get fast results, but as you already know - that's a bad practice, which might end you penalized by Google (Google don't love hidden texts). I almost started with hook_form_alter, but that involved a little research and testing, luckily I found Simplify module and was able to get what I was looking for.

Simplify allows particular fields to be hidden from the user interface. This helps to de-clutter forms and present a more user-friendly experience to content editors.

After I installed and enabled Simplify module, from modules configuration page (admin/config/user-interface/simplify) , under comment settings I checked next to Hide - Text format selection, and I was done. Took me less than five minutes, here is the final result of Drupal comment form:

Formatted Drupal comment form

Hope it helps!