September 15th Mostinica

 We left our hotel to ride to the country side and hopped off to a small village that produces cheese. 

The farm was started by the grandfather and now the younger generation is working it. The daughter who gave us the tour would spend three months up in the mountains with the cows.  It takes 6 hours to get them up to the place they live but first they needed to fatten them up for the journey.  The cows are coming down now and Sunday is the big day of the festival for them all to be down. 

The cows mate in the spring and will produce new members 9 months and 9 days later! The cows get milked 2x daily and produce approximately 200 liters a day which equals 53 gallons a day. 11 to 13 liters of milk will produce a wheel of cheese which takes 3 days to make cheese.

They also have what is called krackle (sp)? It is lard that is hung like a sausage smoked, chopped, and crushed.  They use it in potatoes and other things , this takes a month and half to harden.  We said goodbye to our hostess and walked on down to the bus through the fields.  On the way we saw many hay racks for drying, some animals, and corn that had coke bottles on it.  We think it was to protect the new corn from being eaten by the animals.

Next stop to the Mountain called Studol  in Bohinj Slovnia . This lake was created by a glacier and is the largest natural lake in Slovenia in hte Julian Alps. - 2.7 miles long 0.62 miles wide and 98 feet deep.  We took a 65 year old electric boat down to one end. We had a choice of walking around the lake and back to the hotel  or taking the boat back.  I picked the hike of 6 miles. - 7 to the hotel.

                                                                   The country side

                                                            Drying racks for hay

                                Greeted with a good shot of grappa.. sets us up for the morning

                                                    Showing us how to make cheese

                                                                Their kind of cows

                                Cheeses that they make and sausages. They were delicious

                                                            Two kinds of local beer

                                                                    Just a pretty house

                                                        Corn covered with coke bottles

                                                                                    Hay racks

                                                            Beginning of the lake

                                                        On our walk around the lake

I collected sand for Amanda and Mert here.  We are a little ways into our walk which will end at the other end.

            The mountain we will be climbing tomorrow. Mostly going up the Cable car and chair lift.

We end our day with various drinks.. this one was Cathy’s.  The bartender gave her her drink with the bottle in it….