Report for 2007 and looking forward to 2008
2007 was supposed to be the year that the smallholding side of things became self sufficient - things didn't work out that way. We started the year with high hopes, we had the crops planned barley and peas for the top four hectares, maize, soya, haricot beans and sugar beet in the bottom five hectares and our grass and Lucerne in the last hectare. The barley, peas, soya and maize would form the basis of the animal feed this year and the sugar beet would give the animals greens and the cooked beet. The haricot beans were to become part of the aid to be distributed, Romanian people think highly of the haricot bean and it is used extensively in cooking. The garden was to be put down to things that mainly do not need a great deal of work because our five-hectare field was going to need working. The produce would of course feed us and be included in the aid given out. The pig production was doing well we have enough pigs to keep everyone supplied with pork through the year with pregnant pigs that will ensure we have pork at Christmas. The chickens were keeping us in eggs and giving us enough to be able to give eggs away with aid. The plan was to incubate eggs to produce more chickens. We were also going to add goats to our livestock so that we can produce milk and make cheese. We were hoping to move the caravan and join the animal house to the building we call Sian's room.
 
As you know the weather was against us all year, the lack rain meant that none of the crops grew which meant we spent the rest of the year buying animal feed which has taken a great deal of money. The garden could not be kept watered and very little grew, radish that had just peeped through in the morning were dead because of the heat by the evening. The pigs were heart breaking when we lost nearly half of our stock, we are not sure what disease they had but the lack of water did not help. We lost breeding stock, babies and piglets born later in the year. The chickens continued to lay eggs but we lost one complete batch of incubating chickens because of a power cut. Another batch worked well and we did have two broody hens that produced a few more chicks. We lost our original ducks to pink maize but we did incubate a few replacements. Cariad and Me-La, two milking goats; Bora da and Fa, two kids joined us and kept us in milk for the rest of the year, we were also able to give milk away to families with young children.
 
We had several people working with us during the year. Ali and Cosmin from Constanta. Ali, head of one of our poor families, had to be organised with a black book (for legal working, paying taxes and insurance). Ali and his wife have five children; they are living in a derelict single roomed office. He was working at the docks at the end of the year. Cosmin's partner and her son had been living on the streets; we helped them with the deposit for a flat. After leaving us he found himself work in Constanta. George was only with us a couple of weeks. Then we had Cristi who left us after a couple of months to go driving. Then we had Lili and Elena who were with us through till the end of the year.
 
Kids Club went well all year until December when the electric company cut the electric because there was no contract with the Premier's Office. This meant that the planned Christmas Party had to be cancelled. A much reduce party was held in January. Everyone of our Kids Club Kids had a Christmas presents, including hats, teddies, pencils, crayons, colouring pages and sweets. We also gave presents to every child in the village under the age of six.
 
We continued through the year providing weekly aid to several families and with two lorry loads of aid arriving we gave out clothing, shoes and household linens to those families and other families in our village and in Poiana where our friends live.
 
We also continued our support to the Children's Home that we started to support at the end of last year, with pork and clothes.
 
Now we need to look forward to 2008. This year we are changing the focus with the land, we have planted six hectares of wheat and we will plant the other three hectares with barley, neither of these needs work after they have been planted. The barley will be used for feed. Some of the wheat will be sold, most made into flour.  We are going to concentrate on the garden; first on the agenda is to buy a 5000 litre water tank, that with the 1000 litre tank we already have should mean that we can water the vegetables when we need to. We have the rotivators that have already been over part of the half-hectare garden but they will soon be in operation to cover the whole area before we start planting. We have one greenhouse but we plan to build another two in the next couple of months. I am going to weave some mats to shade the greenhouses in the hottest part of the day to protect the plants from scorching. I will also make more mats to shade the seedbeds. We plan to plant tomatoes and peppers some of these will be preserved for winter use, salad crops, winter root crops and wintergreens. I am going to try growing potatoes in barrels that way we might keep the Colorado Beetle out, we won't get very many potatoes but there should be enough for our own use.
 
We will continue to breed the pigs during the year, to supply pork to the families and the Children's Home. We are increasing our sheep and goats through breeding; the milk will be given as milk and cheese to the families. Incubating our own eggs will increase the chicken stock. We will continue to give eggs to our families and again this year we will supply the eggs to the Children's Home for Easter. 
 
We are at the moment working on our feed store to turn it into an area where we can hold Kids Club. During the year I want to increase the number of clubs we hold but this will depend on how Kids Club works in the feed store. We have given up with the Community Centre for now.
 
We will continue to support the families with whom we are working in any way that we can with food, clothes and shoes. Easter, in Romania, is a time for new clothes and we will try to ensure the children each have something new to wear.
 
Several of you insist we think about a proper house this year so that we do not spend another winter in the caravan. We have to start again with planning permission; our old planning permission has run out they only last three years. We have been busy designing what we want, then re-designing it, then again and again. Of course cost comes into it, it needs to be big enough to do the job but not so big that we can't afford to build it. Do we build it with accommodation for the managers we want to take over from us? Do we build it with a room big enough for the Clubs we want to hold so that we are not dependent on the Community Centre, which is big but has no facilities, not even a toilet. We had drawn plans for one large building that would cover all these things but the cost would be horrendous. Re-think. Now we have thought that we will go for a three-phase scenario, but the plans will have to go in at the same time. The first phase a three bed-roomed house with bathroom upstairs, toilet downstairs, kitchen, lounge and separate small areas for milk and meat preparation (Health and Safety Regulations say you can't process meat and milk in the same area). Second phase, joins onto the house, a hall with large kitchen, toilets downstairs and storage space upstairs, for the Clubs including the Lunch Club for the Elderly. Third phase, joins onto the hall, another slightly smaller three bed-roomed house for the manager (no need for the meat and milk rooms). Doing it this way we can do one phase each year for the next three years - if the money is available. The plans need to be drawn and submitted to the planning authority.
 
Well that's the plan for 2008.