Dear Ladies and Lords,
dear supporters,
Fresh back from Movile, we would like to keep you up to date with the latest progress and experiences from the village. We were back on site for two weeks and worked intensively on various projects – with both hard work and a lot of fun.
Great progress on the teacher’s house
After we had already completed a lot of construction work at the beginning of the year – including the new connection to the public electricity grid, laying the power lines in the house, landscaping the garden and masonry work on the walls (more about this in the annual review coming soon) – this time we had a particularly exciting task on the agenda: plastering the two front rooms of the teacher’s house with traditional clay plaster, which is becoming increasingly popular again.
Some final preparations had to be made for this. Holes in the walls were sealed, the tops of the walls were bricked up, pipe routes were mortared and the walls were thoroughly cleaned before the actual precision work began. Because plastering with clay (a mixture of sand, clay and horse droppings) requires a sure instinct: if the plaster is not applied at the right angle, too thick or too thin, or if the consistency is too dry or too wet, it will fall off just as quickly as it was applied!
But despite the challenging work, we had a lot of fun. Mixing and throwing on the plaster was physically demanding, but it also showed us how much fun it is to work with local building materials. The clay came directly from the nearby clay pit in Apos, the sand from the local building materials dealer, and the horse droppings came “virtually from our own production”, namely from the horses of our club member Vicky, who not only helped us with materials but also with her knowledge.
A big step forward
After two intensive weeks, the first of the two rooms is now almost finished and is slowly but surely becoming homely – a great success! We have prepared the second room to such an extent that it can be plastered at the beginning of next year. This brings us a big step closer to our goal of making the two front rooms of the teacher’s house usable for our 10th anniversary next year.
A new oven and the Movile Box
In addition to the plastering, we have obtained a new (second-hand) stove to heat the house and enable us to pack the popular Movile Box in the warm room. The box will be available again this year – with handmade products from Hundertbücheln. It is not only a special gift for your loved ones during the Advent season, but also supports the villagers directly.
Autumn break and mushroom hunt
Of course, in addition to all the work, we also took some time to enjoy the beautiful fall landscape in and around Movile. We spent a few days outside, hiking in the clear autumn air and found an impressive variety of mushrooms – a real nature experience at this wonderful time of year that you don’t find commonly anymore. This year, for the first time, it was also possible to press fresh and wonderfully sweet and sour juice from the so-called Hundertbüchler grapes from Aunt Erika’s replanted old vines and we enjoy it straight away! The vines around our pergola at the teacher’s house were also a real eye-catcher this year and a welcome source of shade in summer!
Our way to the 10th anniversary
All in all, it was a fantastic stay that has once again brought us closer to our goal of completing the front rooms of the Teacher’s House next year. Thank you for your continued support – be it through donations, your energetic help or simply your motivating interest in our project.
Come along, get in touch with us and continue to support us financially. All of this helps us, the churchfortress project and the village of Hundertbücheln / Movile!
Best regards, Your friends from Hundertbücheln – Movile
