Stuff you see on Turkish highways

Driving down the highway in other countries can be truly eye opening.  FWIW, David Bradley, DR products, Troy built, and Gravely among others made similar power units, but trust the Turks and /or Chinese to hook up a trailer and make them into a family driver and freight hauler.......I snapped a quick picture of a new one outside a farm supply store. It is a small unit, but still has the bench seat in front and the footrests.... How would you like to get stuck behind one of those on a windy, hilly, mountain road? Oh, and FWIW, it has a 10 HP diesel power plant with electric start. A classy unit, not all the small diesels around have electric start....

 

According to the store manager this unit is 2250 NTL (or about 1250 CAD) complete with trailer.  As can be seen from these pics they do have the option of RWD via a propshaft through the articulating joint.  The articulating joint would be fairly easy to duplicate...

Did anyone catch the foot pedal for the rear brake?

Food for thought.  At this rate, I’ll have enough project ideas to keep me busy well into retirement...

Some of the things we see I’m not sure should be duplicated though..........

I'm going to try to remember my camera more. There's more stuff that is a bit startling, but defies description....

I guess you can only use a wand wash car wash for these... or get a good rain coat. They're a little short on creature comforts. They appear to be stripped down pick up frames with small single cylinder diesels of +/- 15 HP like an auger motor. Not at all unusual to see them toodling down the shoulder of the 4 lane freeway flat out at a grand total of 15 MPH stuffed to overflowing with firewood, field workers, families, or produce bound for the big city....

Some sport obviously homemade cabs while other are open station, fresh air machines.

Another difference. There are very few true flat beds around. Most trailers or open cargo areas have fold-down sides. Typically, the cargo is not chained down in any way. Just set it in the box and away they go...

'Course in North America, most people don't consider the Ag tractor a primary means of transportation. In other parts of the world, like Turkey, it is not uncommon to see a tractor and wagon making deliveries in the city, parked in front of the Chai house, or toodling down the highway with a wagon behind it. I counted 5 tractors on the streets of the little village I went to for groceries the other day. The trailers are a bit different too. These are pintle hitch trailers with hoists

Does the tarped load remind anyone else of an ant with a bread crumb?  Such loads are not uncommon.  The locals use a lot of wood for heat. The harvested firewood is cut into 1 m lengths in the woodlot and drypiled there. It is loaded onto trucks (body jobs or semis) and hand stacked to equally dizzying heights using other sticks for supports. Not real safe because if anything slips, it could spill 6" butt lengths of log a meter long onto the 4 lane or street from 4 or 5 meters up in the air.....

FWIW, I think this is a load of small square straw bales..... 

And let’s not forget the ubiquitous military presence. I was told 20% of Turkey is secure military area and has a military force in the top 5 for size in NATO. In fact, our exploration licence includes a live fire range. The guns can clearly be heard several kilometers away. There are several active miltary bases around. It is a little disconcerting to drive through the town past a guard post topped with 3 tier of sand bags and see a uniformed soldier with a rifle staring back from under his helmet. There is a lot of military traffic between bases.  It's even more disconcerting to round a bend on a back road and meet a convoy of 2 jeeps, a tandem troop carrier truck, and 5 - count 'em 5 tanks rumbling down the middle of the road.....

One of a dozen tiny frustrations

Yarn check
Pattern check
Knitting Needles ???

It isn't that I can't go into Gelibolu and buy needles.  It's that I have a drawer full at home which I was certain were here in a box. 

There were some things we left at home intending to replace here; furniture for example.  There were some things we left at home not knowing we'd want or need them here; baking pans for example and a ladder. And there is a growing list of things we forgot.  So on my list of things to bring, next time I move to Turkey: knitting needles.

Making Icons

Okay so I learned how to make icons.
These are my first attempts:

So I now love BBC's Sherlock holmes
Mycroft is never seen without his umbrella:











Moriarty is king of weird facial expressions











and Sherlock is well Sherlock



I also did some from the Lord of the Rings:




Pippen and Merry










Eyowyn and the witch king

Gandalf XD

Legolas

One of my favorite quotes

The Chronicles of Narnia

Prince Caspian

The Pevensies

I am still working on moving icons :/ I used Paint to make these. All the pictures are off the internet.

Enez Photos

So You know we went to Enez These are some of my pictures









Some of the ruins looked like this











Some of the ruins looked like this










I really liked these arches










I think this is a well


Nothing I would want to fall into lets just say that

this was knee high..... just enough to tip you in and not a guard rail in sight......... well except for the 40 foot drop into the excavation hole but only on two sides and that was chicken wire........ Mom and Dad are not amused by this. us kids like climbing al over these ruins though. :)

Out side the walls

Through the entrance to the castle you can see the house that someone has built inside. There were chickens farm equipment and a horse inside the walls........... Typical Turkish care of old ruins.

SHRIMP!!!!

Dad found fresh shrimp in Gellibolu the other day... they were very good :)

Enez-The Castle and Chapel

Yesterday (Febuary 20,2012) we went to Enez, which is about an hour away from our house. Getting there took a while because we took the scenic route :-)

Enez has a ruined castle, and an old chapel, hence the field trip. We saw the castle first. It was amazing!

This is the only part of the castle that has a roof on it.

Looking up!


The castle was amazing and sad. There was garbage everywhere and some graffiti, it's really too bad that they don't know what they have.


The castle was truly huge

Almost right underneath the flag is the entrance to the castle.


This is a photo of one of the staircases in the castle.
About a foot wide and nothing to hold on to as you climb up 20 feet!

After we were done looking around the castle we went to see the chapel......


Too bad the door was locked....LOL :-)

Food, Fashion and Fabric - Market Day at Gelibolu

Tuesdays and Saturdays are open air market days in Gelibolu. Farmers and merchants set up tables along the streets and sidewalks and sell their merchandise. Today we parked in our usual spot across the street from the ING Bank.  We crossed the road so I could use the ATM.  I hadn't used my card yet, so I wanted to make sure my card and pin worked.  Previously we'd been using HSBC's ATM to access our Canadian accounts, but now we have bank accounts in Turkey so we're using those. 

Johanna in her new cape coat.
She's still wearing the hat Grandma M made for her a few years ago. 
It makes her easy to spot at the market.

Sam wearing his new scarf tied in a European Loop -
like "Sherlock" wears his.

Johanna's new bag with the fabulous fringe.

A delicious variety

Nicole's fabric stash.  Curtains are purple.
The pink and white fabrics are for a project she's dreaming about.

The strawberries.
I thought they deserved a photo of their very own!

We walked about 2 blocks uphill to the first street of merchandise.  The first street consisted of olives and cheese.  Merchants set up their stalls in the same areas each week and vendors selling similar goods always have tables side by side. In December, one of the cheese merchants, "Thunder" spoke to us in English and was sure to fill us up with samples.  The kids enjoyed his "string" cheese.  It's quite salty but has a mild flavour and like the name implies comes in foot long strings. His stall was near the end of the block this morning, so we went to say hello and of course he fed them their favourites and then we bought a kilo or so to take home.  Cam went back later and bought a sharp cheddar and some olives from him as well.

Then we continued up hill through the fruit and vegi vendors.  We wanted to find the curtain man who had sold us the purple drapes for Nicole's windows.  He was right where we thought he would be and had panels the same size and colour as we'd purchased previously. Nicole has a large window and a street light so she needed more panels. We walked a few more blocks and visited the clothing, and fabric vendors. On the way back down the hill we bought vegis: broccoli, brussel sprouts!!!, garlic, cucumbers and 5k of potatos. We also bought some strawberries.  I saw them on the way up the hill and had to back track to buy them - they smelled so delicious.  We ate them all when we came home.  They were so good.

Plumbers

The long awaited plumbers came Thursday while Cam was at work.  They cut away the plaster on the outside wall of the house near the kitchen window and broke the bricks underneath.  Then they came into the house, broke the ceramic tiles and removed mortar material around the pipes behind the washing machine. This demolition exposed two dripping pipes.  We knew there was a problem because there was mold growing on the outside of the house.

The kitchen window was open from the time they arrived at 10 am to accommodate their power cord.  We also had to leave the door open because if it's closed it's locked. (A lesson Nicole and Sam learned the hard way one afternoon in December.) The house was freezing by the time they left at 5:30 p.m.

They repaired the pipes, filled the hole with mortar inside and out and replaced the tile.  They have to come back to apply a top coat on the exterior wall  and texture it. They will come one more time to paint the patch. The tile needs grout as well so the tile guy will have to come back too.

I pointed out the leaking pipes under the kitchen sink while they were here. We keep a bucket underneath to catch the water. They had a good look, undid the pipes, flooded the cupboard and the kitchen floor, shrugged their shoulders and said they would fix it another time if it could be repaired but maybe it can't be repaired . . .

They did a pretty good job cleaning up.  They wiped up the puddle in the kitchen and scooped all the demolition debris into a bucket, carried it to the seashore and dumped it.

One bat is a coincidence

A week or so ago our evening was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a bat flapping around downstairs.  Round and round the livingroom it went while the girls and Cam moved to corral it or contain it.  I cowered in the kitchen.

I know I know.  I'm Miss "bats are cool" - "bats eat insects" - "bats are good".  My head said all of this while I stood with my back to the wall in the corner of the kitchen and prayed someone would "get it".

Cam finally ejected it from an upstairs window.  I didn't ask for details.  I just really really hoped it was dead and like the traittor's head on the castle wall, its tiny carcass would serve as warning to all bats everywhere that my hospitality did not extend to them.

So you can guess where all of this is leading, can't you?  Yes I was just sitting quietly up in Nicole's room when I heard a rattle among the shells on her window ledge.  I hoped it was a little bird.  It wasn't.  I hoped it was a result of having the doors open all day. (plumbers but that's another post) It wasn't.  How do I know this?  After it flapped around my head while I filmed it with Nicole's camera, it "disappeared" between the beams of her ceiling. Not good. Not good at all.

I'm back

SO! I'm back in Turkey...... I have to admit I was glad to get here. The whole seeing everyone before we left, checking all the boxes as mom says, got on my nerves. No issues with seeing everyone that was great fun :0) but rushing around trying to get everything done with Grandma's house, visiting, shopping, and........... ya 'nough said.

Not that Turkey's perfect either. My heater stopped working :( but now that is fixed. No social life here....... not that I care too horribly much. I am not by and large a social person. Dogs are everywhere and mostly they are the kind that you can envision attacking you without a qualm... Not so cool. They don't of course, but if provoked I can only imagine........

Anyhow there are some upsides. Firstly the fast wireless internet :). I really missed that in Canada. Then there's the beach, also good. Then there's the market, and the vegetables (don't flinch they're delicious). The people tend to be friendly and as helpful as possible with their 5 words of English :D. However the language barrier means I'm not able to be as independent with shopping as in Canada. Oh well that’s probably for the best......:)

That’s all I have to say on that topic so later :)

Some drawings

Yes a post from me is long overdue :) What can I say? Anywho these are some of my drawings from the past year or so:



Jedi Fighter













Andriod (sorry for the sideways thing)










Here There Be Dragons (agin with sideways)

















Really like this one :)











John Wayne














London Things