I have just finished part 1 about our visit to Heidi and Kalle Trautmann. It has been raining since very early morning and the sun is just now trying to make an appearance. I will try to get some walking in to work off the huge plate of spaghetti with meat sauce I ate last night. It was a really good dinner made better because our friend Sharman came to share it. Randal was the chef and I only had to clean up the dishes.
Our power and Internet seem to be back to normal just now. It is a wonderful coincidence as our dongle expired this morning at 10:25 am. We will go later this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning to add more days. We never run out of bytes, we just run out of days to use it. It is actually just a back up for the marina wifi, but really quite necessary if we want access all of the time.
I have put links to Heidi’s website several places in the email. Heidi makes everything come alive through her writing and she can tell you about her home, the towns and people much better and more accurately than I.
Ru
Heidi and Kalle Trautmann: A Visit to Their Home January 2012
Randal and I went to visit Heidi and Kalle Trautmann at their beautiful home in Yeşiltepe just west of Girne/Kyrenia. Rather than write a great deal, this email will be mostly photos. Heidi has a website www.Heiditrautmann.com where you can learn about Heidi and Kalle and their experiences in Cyprus.
I met Heidi online. I had searched the Internet looking for an artist in the Karpaz area of North Cyprus from whom I could take lessons. I found Heidi’s website and she has become my “encourager to do art,” to practice and try new things. Heidi and Kalle came to visit us here one day and in return invited us to come and stay with them for a weekend. Last weekend we did just that. We talked and talked and still didn’t talk about everything we wanted to talk about. But it was a start.
First I will show photos of their land, next we’ll tour the house and finally the small villages in the hills nearby. It will take several emails because I think it is the only way for me to share the experience with you. At Heidi’s website you can also see her artwork which fills her home and made me want to pick up something too and try to tell a story with images. But first I will tell this story with photos.
Heidi and Kalle at their front door.
Look, there is a fox outside our kitchen door…
11.12.2009 By Heidi Trautmann http://www.heiditrautmann.com/category.aspx?CID=5572113521
“We live in Yeşiltepe, that is Green Hills – about 150 m above sea level. Around our land a small river has dug its bed, completely dry now. The bamboo there growing since ages along its bed is in a very sad state and has lost all its lustrous green. Also the frogs don’t make their music any longer. Some years ago my husband has imported the spawn of the green‚ ‘singing frog’ in a jam glass from Bellapais. No trace of them is left, no evidence of them for three years. There is no more water, in the summer season we had to buy our water for the garden.
We have a natural biotope in our valley (derived from Greek bios (life) topos (place). My husband has kept the valley path free from black berry bushes, down to the riverbed and up to Ilgaz. There we encountered small wild life such as quails, partridges, francolins, mice, rats, badgers, snakes, lizards, and we learnt to distinguish the sounds they give off. And often we saw foxes in the valley, also stray dogs left running wild or lost by hunters.
When the hunting season is on, we avoid being around the valley although there is hardly anything left to shoot at. During these dangerous days the birds take refuge in our big garden and I warn them: Chums, keep to yourself and hold your tongue, the hunters are around. …….”
(You can read the whole adventure and more at Heidi’s website; that was just a bit to entice you.)
Looking back towards the house from one of the places on their land where grapes are grown.
Kalle and Randal looking out from the corner of the property into the ravine that surrounds the Trautmann land. Kalle calls the ravine “no man’s land” because it is too steep to really develop so no construction will surround their property.
The swimming pool provides Heidi with exercise in the warm season and water for the garden when necessary.
Looking down into the ravine towards the city and the Mediterranean.
Along the side of the land, the grape vines.
Such a beautiful place to be.
A stone garage which houses wine making supplies and a supply of wine.
The water tank holds water for the garden when the rains don’t come or are not enough. Heidi said they lived on their boat “Early Bird” and in the garage while they supervised the building of their home according to the plans they had designed themselves.
And outdoor cooking and eating area.
Along the back side of the house are lots of herbs: Randal particularly liked the lavender.
A summer place to sit.
Kalle built the stairs and then planted land holding trees down the slope just beyond.
Picking grapefruit which amazed Randal to no end.
I especially liked the grapefruit marmalade that we ate during our visit. Heidi had brought a jar of grapefruit marmalade and a jar of orange marmalade as well as a bottle of their red wine when they visited us. The wine has been finished! But I had to use up a “store bought” jar of jam in the fridge before I could open one of Heidi’s. Now it can be opened!
The tour continues through the orange and lemon trees. There are nut trees too.
The beautiful side patios…don’t you just want to be there in the spring and fall when it’s warm and breezy and you can hear the quiet.
Next email we go inside