By early February we were inundated with snow. Driving over the Frankovský Kopec (the hill between Veľká Franková and Spišská Hanušovce) was treacherous yet glorious. The tall spruce were overladen with snow, their boughs bent down so low towards the earth that they appeared to be silently bowing and making offerings of snow to those who passed by. Sometimes the branches snapped, blocking the road, and creating minor havoc for anyone trying to cross. The typical nervous old driver, during the wintertime I drive as little as possible.
Of course since it is only February, we expect to receive many more snow falls. But honestly, I doubt whether any will be as significant as that of earlier in the month. Already snow has once again fallen, but only a small amount which, according to the weather report, should be gone by Tuesday.
I failed to mention that we do not use salt on the roads here. This is ostensibly to protect the flora from poisonous salt deposits, although cost could also be a factor. Instead, they plow the roads and put down gravel. I suppose it helps a little. Once the snow melts, the gravel creates a tremendous amount of dust. In the spring when people drive too closely behind me, I drive my car as far right as possible to stir up as much dust as much as is humanly possible for the car behind. They usually back off after this assault.
Ľudka had organized a ski race for February 4. However, on that day a tremendous amount of snow had fallen, making it difficult to travel on the roads, let alone ski. We agreed to postpone it for two weeks. But by the time two weeks rolled around, the sun had already begun to warm and the snow to melt. Instead of snow flurries, we received a fine mist of rain.
Still the event took place which, as it turned out, was truly the last possible date for such an event due to the warming weather. I was the first to arrive, with the Kosturák family right behind. Once parked, it was necessary to climb a gentle slope to the start area. I was physically unable to do so. I apologized to Ľudka and returned home, hoping for the best. Everything went well and I received a trove of lovely photographs of happy people.
This month I discovered DeepL.com, a machine-translation website. I had read that it was really pretty good, unlike Google Translate which I find very untrustworthy. So I translated the entire story of The Golden Apple into Slovak. The major problem I found was that the system did not apply the different quotation mark styles according to the language. So I had to change them manually, which took maybe only an hour or so.
I then passed a PDF version to select friends and asked their opinions. Erika ignored the fact that it was translated by a computer and raved about the story itself. Martin in Michalovce wrote, “I think I'm starting to be afraid of artificial intelligence. I read just 10 pages, but for 95% it is perfect. [The remaining] 5% is individual preferences.” So, I am delighted to have saved around 1,500 € in translation fees. I still want to pass the document over to a proofreader who can ensure the language is perfect.
I also tried my hand at the Dall-E website to generate pictures for the book. What it created was very impressive. Unfortunately it did not create anything that I would want to use for the book. But I think it might be helpful to give to an artist as a kind of guide.
March is right around the corner.