Awesome and not so awesome

Pauline and Guillaume mud plastered the end wall, a skill they had specifically requested the opportunity to learn.   They also weeded and organised and generally fitted in with whatever needed doing, finding jobs that we hadn't been aware off, like replacing the bottom gate into the animal compound, with hindsight the condition of the original one is probably why we always used the top gate. 

  Guillaume is very experienced with working in wood and took great pleasure in learning how to use the lathe although Pauline seemed to 'take to it' with more ease.     I'm not sure if it was as a result of not finding a tool he needed or something else but Guillaume instigated the organisation of our workshop and tool boxes, we still think fondly of him when we find tools without going through 4 tool boxes.   I'd asked if it would be possible for me to have some steps from the garden into the field  Pauline and Guillaume delivered so much more.

  What I expected

What I got in addition to the steps


Guillaume had found the remains (he thought) of a stone wall when excavating for the steps and asked he could explore further.     We love it when helpers show initiative and create their own projects - the results are normally outstanding.

Beginning of June Paul and myself needed to go to VT to collect 24 broiler chicks, Pauline and Guillaume had already discussed with us modifying the shower, to stop an occasional overflow so we left a note defining for Marcus and Sarah the area that needed weeding next.  We returned at lunchtime to find the area completely untouched although Sarah had totally cleaned the kitchen, however we still don't know, to this day, what Marcus spent the morning doing although he did tell us he'd been assisting the French Foreign Legion.  

We did wonder if the fact that Guillaume and Pauline were creative and enthusiastic was what was making us view Marcus and Sarah in a less than positive light, afterall even Paul and myself were feeling inadequate next to the French energy and cheerful natures.   As neither Marcus nor Sarah expressed an interest in any particular area, despite being directly asked, they got a lot of weeding jobs which resulted in me losing a lot of my garlic plants - surely they would have noticed after 2 or 3 plants and not removed EVERYTHING from a 30 foot row.   This in addition to the fact that Marcus had informed me he had a lactose intolerance and I cooked to accommodate that only to watch him add cheese to every meal resulted in Paul and myself to give him and Sarah a couple of days after Pauline & Guillaume went to France before considering asking them to leave early.     

Pauline and Guillaume returned to France 11th June, leaving Martin (the van) with us.     Their thinking was if they returned with Martin everyone would assume their travels were over and it would be harder for them to leave again.     Within 24 hours of them leaving Paul and myself realised we needed to ask Marcus and Sarah to leave early, possibly Marcus spent so long Coachsurfing he thought Helpx was the same arrangement.

Marcus and Sarah did leave the morning of the 13th although not exactly as planned.     I woke shortly after 5am and smelt burning - we had a barn fire.    First priority was obviously making sure Paul woke up.

Much has happened since I last updates, so hopefully this is the first of 2 (or 3) blogs this week to bring it all up to date.

May was predominately rain which resulted in major frustration as the weeds snatched the opportunity to grow and thrive.   Luckily we managed to get some consecutive dry days enabling us to get some weeding done.   The weeds are still winning though

Our rabbit population exploded as a result of the bunny matings in April.    Initially I wanted the rabbits to live as a colony but when we tried this last year we found the kits were getting eaten by the older rabbits.     The, less than ideal, solution is the rabbits live in cages but a buck and a couple of does are let out into the compound for a few days.    The does than go into maternity cages, and we keep our fingers crossed.   So far this seems to be working well, the does don't get to run around as much as we would like but they do get some freedom, and we get healthy litters.   We also purchased (second hand) 5 new rabbits hutches, increasing our number of maternity cages.

As we don't drink that often I'd decided to try finding drinks recipes, for preserving, that didn't rely on vodka, or other alcohol.   So far we have stores of lemon balm cordial, elderflower (foraged) cordial and cherry cordial.

Somehow I managed to break the Bulgarian mini oven that we inherited with the house.      Heating element decided it didn't want to stay at the top of the oven but wanted to drop onto the food being cooked.    Paul managed to fix it but it did the same a couple of days later, luckily we have the halogen oven so not a major disaster.



We'd been given the opportunity to purchase wood 50% cheaper than last year so ordered another 10 cubics.     Following a 9.30pm wood delivery we now have enough wood for the next 4 years IF our consumption is the same as previous winters.

At the end of May we welcomed Pauline and Guillaume, a lovely French couple who had contacted us via workaway, into our home.   They are very different from Julie & Remi but also very similar in their enthusiasm and work ethic.

A week after the arrival of Guillaume and Pauline, Marcus (Australian) and Sarah (Malaysian) arrived with a very different view of the helper/host relationship and work ethic.      

A month of birth and death and more births.

Our French helpers have been and gone, if the rest of our visitors this year are as good as Remi & Julie we'll be very lucky.

Paul and Remi spent a few days replacing the fence down the edge of our fodder field.    I think the concreting the posts in, to stop them sliding down the hill, took them longer than connecting the actual fencing wire.  

During those days Julie and I got on with planting, weeding and playing in the kitchen, we tried some traditional Bulgarian recipes with English/French twists to them.  Walnut milk was an interesting experiment - nice for cooking with but has a Milk of Magnesia taste as a drink.


Timmy  (ewe) had been diagnosed with hypocalcaemia  by the vet and, despite her (slow) recovery we weren't overly confident about her having a live birth so it was a nice surprise for her to deliver 2 live lambs.   Unfortunately she rejected the lambs and our vet was most unhelpful, refusing to visit and telling us if we could get to the surgery before he went home he had some colostrum and powdered milk in stock.  He had no colostrum, so we made a substitute, sadly it wasn't good enough and the lambs died - one after 34 hours the other 11 hours later. 

Because of the time taken looking after the lambs, and Timmy,  I neglected to keep a check on the incubator so failed to notice the cats had managed to adjust the temperature so we lost the unhatched quail chicks.     My brooder design was also not good enough so the 4 hatched quail also died.    We've learnt where we went wrong with the brooder so will give the hatching process another go, once we have everything modified and in place.  Three weeks after giving birth Timmy also died, the hypocalcaemia and birth took too much out of her.     Shaun (10 month old ram) is the last of our current big animals and is due to be culled next week - yummy, more lamb prosciutto to be made.     We will then be taking a break, of a few months, from large animals before deciding if we get more sheep (my choice) or goats (Pauls choice).  We did consider just continuing with the poultry and rabbits but lamb and goat meat is difficult to obtain here and with our own animals we know they haven't been pumped full of chemicals. 

Talking of rabbits we had 2 does give birth at Easter and another doe give birth 3 days ago.    Next week we'll breed another 2 of the does, followed by another 2 the week after,    Bunny burgers will be on the menu a lot this year IF all goes to plan.  We also acquired 6  (month old) chicks and 2 geese with 5 goslings so it looks like we may need to expand Poultry Palace into another outbuilding.

   
 
The little bedroom, which was my project, was at the install electrics and then remud-plaster  stage.   While Paul and Remi were installing the electrics Remi and Julie showed interest in learning the techniques involved with the plastering, and getting dirty, so that room is now much more advanced than expected.





It wasn't all work as a friend was having a birthday celebration a few villages away and the 4 of us had a very pleasant night out.   Two days later was Pauls birthday and Julie was leaving for France, followed by Morocco for a wedding, so she cooked a brilliant birthday/leaving lunch.



We were sad to see Julie leave but she did loan us Remi for a further 2 weeks.  Those 2 weeks seemed to include an extreme number of conversations between Remi & Paul regarding how 'to be reused' items could be repurposed into things that involved explosives and missiles.   Boys will be boys - whatever their age.

Ok so apart from great laughs and some great food, including both of the chocolate fondants (should have been mousses) that Remi made, what did we achieve during April - other than losing an upsetting amount of livestock?   We have a field fence, again.   We have solar powered outdoor lighting, that works finally.    We have guttering that feeds into our IBCs.    We have a junk room well on the way to being ready for decorating and turning into a bedroom.  We have the base for the pool nearly finished - we ran out of sand/gravel/cement due to underestimating amount need. 

All our crops were planted out although a hailstorm last week did wash away/kill a large number of the seedlings.   Luckily the fodder crops were unaffected and we managed to get replacement seedlings from the pazaar and they are now in the ground with no more storms forecast.   There is a great satisfaction in seeing crops break the surface and start to grow, although the weeds seem to grow much faster I'm slowly getting areas under control.  




I have a better idea this year of when crops will be ready so have started devising recipes to preserve as much as possible, without using alcohol.   So rather than fruit vodkas we will have lots of bottles of cordial this coming year, at least that's the plan.

Since the last posting the weather has been mixed, some days needing just shorts and t-shirts whilst other days definitely justify bundling up before venturing too far from the house.

More crops have been planted and I experience frustration when seedlings don't appear and little (silly) bursts of happiness when a row of greenery pops up.  Last month I mentioned the rhubarb my mum brought us from England had not survived the winter - I was wrong.    We have a rhubarb plant, admittedly not the 3 we had last year but we HAVE rhubarb,  Yeah

Paul has declared I have a root obsession.   It took me 3 days (with lots of coffee breaks) to dig a 6 square metre area, previously uncultivated, to a spades depth  removing weeds c/w roots at every spade full.   The poultry loved me as one 2 metre row was producing a full bucket of weeds for them.    The cleared area will be used for growing baby corn this year as the transplanted vines will not be established enough to affect their growth.
 

Also following on from last month, we cut and tasted the Lamb Prosciutto   WOW  it tastes awesome, even if I say so myself.     We also had friends come over to scrounge some compost and used them as guinea pigs they agree that the taste is pretty awesome, I did do other items for lunch just in case they didn't like it..  Lessons have been learnt though - next time we cure and air dry a joint, of meat, we will debone it first.   By we I obviously mean Paul who is much better at butchering than me,  he prepares, I process, seems to work for us.   Another conclusion was that if this becomes a regular occurrence we will need to purchase a meat slicing machine, getting the meat thin enough with just a knife is difficult and very time consuming.

As we keep killing the livestock, to eat, we (actually I) thought we better expand the range.   Paul would like to increase the number of sheep we have and get some goats, I'm not convinced.     We have bought 4 Muscovy ducks and bartered, some seedlings, for 23 quail eggs which will hopefully hatch in the next week.     Incubating eggs is nearly as frustrating as planting seeds due to the 'wait and see' element of the process.    If incubation is successful the quail will be for egg production and also meat.   The 4 (original) ducks are not intended for the table although their eventual offspring will have no such protection.   It is very likely that we will be purchasing some chicks at the market next Friday to replace the chickens that have either been killed by the Byalka (pinemarten) or wandered off, never to be found.

We have now been living in Bulgaria for 2 years and apart from occasionally missing my family and friends I have no regrets at all.   One of our friends came over, for a week, 2 months after we moved in and is coming back this year, it will be interesting to hear her comments as I often feel that we have not done much at all, other than what seem like day to day activities.     Other visitors this year include Paul's youngest 2 children who will be here for 5 weeks and possibly his aunt and uncle from New Zealand will be taking a week out of their visit to the UK for a detour to Lomtsi.    Both Paul and myself will get to spend a week in the UK this year, independently, as airline restrictions mean an adult needs to accompany his youngest son.     I get to see my family early July whereas Paul has to wait until mid August to visit the rest of his family.

On the subject of visitors, some of you are aware that we are registered with Workaway and Helpx - we host travelers, infrequently, throughout the year.     These people provide us with help around the place in exchange for bed and board with the added bonus of new faces, topics of conversation and often increased enthusiasm for what we are doing here.   Although we enjoy having helpers stay with us after 5 months of no (live-in) company it was daunting the week before the arrival of our first helpers of 2014.     Julie & Remi arrived a week ago, during our communication beforehand I was impressed by their enthusiasm and  sense of humour which is so much more impressive in person.  If the rest of the 2014 helpers brighten our days as much as this couple we are in for a good  year.

To round of this months update I had been thinking about a bee tattoo for quite a while but although I knew the bee I wanted I realised it needed something more, probably something floral.   Talking to the local tattoo artist she took my idea and worked with it until we were both happy with the final design.   The top of my right leg is now adorned with the most fantastic body art.  No more tattoos planned - unless I lose something else important to me.

More than I thought

Half way through March and this is Februaries blog.   I kept procrastinating the writing as didn't think much had happened here, until I read last posting here.

The snow came and went  in February and March started drizzly and not so warm but it is now sunny and warm - in fact t-shirt weather whilst working in the garden.    Talking of the garden we have now installed a greenhouse 16' x 6' with a trickle irrigation system.    I can imagine you all thinking WHY? considering the hot summers we have here.    Currently the greenhouse is being used to raise seedlings and during the summer will, no doubt, be used for overflow planting and dehydrating BUT it's main purpose is to provide us with winter vegetables.    The winter of 2013/2014 was remarkably mild with not much snow, however the previous winter was deep snow for extended periods.   A greenhouse, hopefully will just entail us clearing a path to it for harvesting, rather than trying to remember whereabouts crops are under the snow and digging down to them.

On a less positive note when we started the van, to go collect the greenhouse, the cab quickly filled with smoke and the engine didn't start.   Subsequent investigation, by Paul, discovered the fuse box had a short circuit which had resulted in some of the wiring loom melting - hence the smoke.   Hopefully this will be resolved soon as we have some stone slabs to collect for the outside dining area, as well as some furniture which should have been collected end of last year.

Crops:
The garlic and onion that was planted last October/November is doing well, with the plants protected by cloches much further advanced - this has the unintentional result of successive harvesting.   Unfortunately the rhubarb my mother brought over from UK for us did not survive the winter so we are now attempting to grow some from seed.   The herbs had a mixed winter with the chives, lavender, lemon balm, mint and sage coping well, the rosemary is currently in intensive care with seeds having been sown just in case it doesn't survive.   Talking of herbs I made a mistake when positioning the herb bed and placed it near the outside dining area, so have repurposed an old animal feeder into a backdoor herb trough, this will be moved into the greenhouse during winter.

As I type we have 8 varieties of tomatoes germinated, along with some annual herbs and sweet peas.   we are still waiting for the trays of chillies, aubergines, peppers and brasscias to show themselves.  Although in previous years we didn't plant direct to ground until the end of march/early April the medium to long term weather forecast is good so I've gambled on an early sowing of mangetout, beetroot and carrots.

The warm and dry weather also means Paul can work in the field preparing it for the sowing of lucerne (alfalfa) and maize.   The field will be divided into 4 strips (1 lucerne and 3 maize) meaning 3 paths down the field, these paths will be edged with peaks planted with onions, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, mooli and turnip.    Normally we would also plant garlic in this area but I think I may have overdone it pre-winter by planting 500 cloves, we will see.

Last time I mentioned making Lamb Prosciutto,   this is a long drawn out process of curing a leg of lamb in a salt/sugar/herb/spice mix and then wrapping in muslin before airdrying it until it loses 40 - 50% of it's original weight.    We are nearly at the desired weight and tastings will be happening SOON.

Out of cure, about to be wrapped.


I also mentioned the fact I was removing the mud plaster from the small bedroom in order to install electrics and straighten the walls (hopefully).   I have had to admit defeat after removing over 90% and ask for help, even with step ladders, which I have an annoying habit of stepping backwards off, I struggled to removed the plaster from the ceiling.

The biscuit and cake making has eased off a bit as the weather improves and I spend more time outside.    When I do make a batch up it is not all cooked but stored in the fridge and cooked in small batches which means we don't eat as many in one sitting but also if we need a sugar hit fresh baked cookies can be ready in 10 - 15 minutes.

Interesting start to 2014

Well  what happened with the weather.   We go into winter with stockpiles of essentials ready for being snowed in and mid January I'm building raised beds in the garden only for the snow to arrive and bury them all a couple of weeks later.

Admittedly it's only our second winter here but we were worried at one stage that the snow wouldn't arrive.   Surprisingly it feels much colder than it did last year, even though the temperatures haven't dropped below minus 15 celsius.   It may be that this year is more windy and we had some days of fog which dampened spirits.


The boys room has been put on hold as I'm too mean to heat parts of the house we are not yet living in, and I refuse to voluntarily give myself frostbite.    The only part of the main house being used currently is the bathroom, which is wonderful  when the petchka is lit and we can have a soak in hot water before getting out into a warm room.  It's a guaranteed way of warming my feet up, which are rarely warm at the minute.

January feels like it has been a month of not doing much, other than keeping warm, but small steps forward have been taken on various projects, like the garden and the boys room.   I think I have probably made more biscuits than normal this month, so another reason to look forward to spring and getting rid of the winter tyres.

Paul has been working on increasing the supply of pieces he is turning so that when we eventually list them, for sale on  Etsy, he has a good selection of work to display.    His work did get interrupted by a most unusual commission, it can't be every day a woodturner  gets asked to make a new wand as the old one broke after the cauldron was dropped on it.

As a point of interest only novice witches use 'whippy' wands

We are also experimenting with making lamb prosciutto (lamb ham), more about that at a later date.    The jars I 'put up' during the summer are supplementing  the dried goods we stockpile in the run up to winter and some weird but tasty concoctions are being enjoyed.     One gap in the  'made' jars  is curry sauces - all the ones in the cellar are tomato based so research is being conducted into other options such as spinach and aubergine for this summers crop.    I think a cabbage based curry sauce may be a step too far though.

There are lots of things that need doing but at the moment the weather is against us, although we have taken a gamble and covered half our kitchen table with seed pots of herbs and spices in the hope they germinate - it's really too early for them but if it works it frees up tubs for later sowings.

More about crops sowings, lamb prosciutto and room demolitions next month.

Love and laughter to all.

Blogging hasn't happened since May 2012, as most of our family and friends have been following our progress on Facebook but we've recently had requests for updates from friends who don't use social networking sites.   This post  is intended as a quick bring up to date and then I will try to make time to update on a semi regular basis.

We have now been living and thriving in Bulgaria for 21 months, during which time we've made mistakes (not many and none serious), learnt new skills, found new inner strengths and laughed a lot.

Friends and family have visited, some loving it and planning return trips, others we'll have to visit in order to see again.

The house is still not fully renovated which can cause stress at times, but then I remember hearing of people who have completed the renovations quickly only to be dissatisfied with room layout, or more seriously location.    We considered 4 possible rooms as the bathroom before we decided on it's final location 

We removed 30 bags of mud flooring before installing a wood floor

 

 

 

 

Another view from bath, bookcase made by one of our volunteers

Back of bathroom door, painted by my sister and nephew

  

Most of the house windows, there are a lot, have been stripped back to bare wood and repainted.  

 Rewiring is being done in stages with separate distribution boards covering each area as done.    Bulgarian electrics are 'interesting'.   On the good side we no longer get electric shocks off appliances.

We have had 2 successful growing seasons and our cellar is now looking well stocked with preserved produce.    The freezer is well stocked with animals we have reared and slaughtered - yes we kill and butcher ourselves.   Currently we have 2 sheep, 7 rabbits, 6 chickens, 1 goose and 7 cats, although these numbers fluctuate depending on births and our requirement for meat.

Garden - as was

The coming year will see new techniques tried in the garden (assorted raised beds) and hopefully the garden terraced with flat paths and wide steps - I have slipped and fallen a few times on the slopes.

This will be the base for the pool.  Off the picture you have garden to left, fodder field to right

The vines are being removed and new vines established in the bottom corner of garden as they attract too many stinging insects, for me to be comfortable - although we were impressed with A & E when I got stung last year.


No doubt in future posts I will make reference to things I should have mentioned here and you'll be thinking WTF but you'll just have to ask, if it doesn't make sense.

Love and Laughter to all who read.  xx