Dear Lords and Ladies,
friends of Hundertbücheln,
this is the current churchfortress newsletter number 26 with winter greetings in the pre-Christmas season! A lot has happened again this year since you heard the last news from the village of a hundred hills in the heart of Transylvania!
In the winter meeting this year we looked back on the past year with all the projects that we have accomplished together in our small association with full energy and with great joy. This year a lot has happened and of course we don’t want to keep it from you!
The small group “Water Stories in the Teacher’s House”, founded at the last meeting of the association, had laid the water pipes in the house in spring with some support from the village, opened floors and walls for it. A long trench was shoveled from the house towards the pigsty and the pump was laid in the garden. The wastewater from the house will eventually be pumped by the pump into the freshly constructed constructed wetland. The constructed wetland was still planted with reeds and will certainly be guarded with more greenery and vegetation next year.
In early summer the market of possibilities took place in Holzmengen. Paul and Ana-Maria presented their home-made products, from various delicious jams to Paul’s home-brewed Hundertbierchen. Plant printing was offered for the children. The various wildflowers from the meadows of the Harbach Valley were immortalized by means of plant printing on white cotton fabric.
In order to make the progressing renovation of the teachers’ house a bit more pleasant and with less walking distance between the parsonage and the teachers’ house, we installed a temporary kitchen in June. With it we can now strengthen our forces again on the building site or perhaps even spend the night a little more comfortably. The kitchen, actually intended as a provisional solution, was so beautiful that it will hopefully outlast the construction period.
In addition to the kitchen, many other countless projects were realized by the hardworking active members of the association this year, an outdoor shower and a sink, gardening, collecting herbs and whatever other small and large tasks arise.
Like last year, 2022 was able to attract a group of European Heritage Volunteers to Hunderbücheln for the second time and complete two projects together with them, the wall at the church castle and the stairs in the gate tower. For the stairs in the gate tower, woodwork was the dominant theme. Planks were cut to size, planed and installed. In addition, the rotten floorboards in the parsonage lent themselves well to be replaced as rainy weather work. The technical expertise gave us Pia, a stonemason from Herrmannstadt and Alex, the carpenter from Großschenk, who knows very well with old handicraft techniques and has already shown us last year with the gate in the teacher’s house his craftsmanship.
In addition, we were able to bring a theater group to the village again as a conclusion of the volunteers’ stay. The play was celebrated by young and old.
Next year in Hundertbücheln we are expecting again renovation-intensive work on the Teacher’s House, maybe another cooperation with the European Heritage Volunteers, the preparation for the Movile Box and so much more!
We wish you a peaceful and pleasant winter time, stay healthy!
Your churchfortress-Crew
