Week forty seven.

Blossom everywhere

We've had a busy and productive week or so, so lots to write about today!

Thursday 25th

So yesterday whilst we were chopping the wood we decided we needed to build a woodstore for it all, as we don't have enough room in the barn to store it all. We wanted to make it out of palettes but the shop they sell them in Chirpan didn't have any - so we improvised with the 2 palettes we did have and some other wood. It took all day to make it but we are very pleased with it and think it looks great. We have made the roof from plastic and baton as the roofing we wanted to use was way more expensive than we expected. The plastic roof is okay for now, but if it snows it may not be strong enough to hold it, so we will probably replace it in the future.

Base and top made

All together and extra planks for flooring in

Making the roof

Extra plank to make the roof slanted

Finished!

To stop the wood falling out the sides we wove old mulberry branches we had lying around in the garden. We love it - we want to use it as a seating area! But no, sadly it must be filled with wood.

Chopped wood going in.

Friday 26th

Market morning of course. When we were back home from the market I decided to plant out some of our tomato and flower seedlings, as they were getting a bit big for the egg trays. I also planted some more flowers that we'd bought in the garden. Whilst I was doing this Pete was in the kitchen making a chicken liver pate and a ham terrine - both absolutely delish!

Seedlings everywhere

New pink flowers - not sure what they are

Pate

Terrine

In the afternoon we went down the road to do a couple of hours of gardening - the main job being to cut back the massive ivy plant that was overtaking the old barn. Then after this we went home and chopped and stacked more wood for an hour or so.

Massive ivy!

Chopped right back.

More wood is in!

For dinner we decided to experiment with a traditional Bulgarian dish. In our garden, and everywhere around the village, there is this plant growing which we had been told was edible. We asked the lady at the shop what it was called and found out it is Lapad (in English it is called a Patience Dock.) We looked up a recipe and found one that involved making wraps with mince in the middle and then covering it with a tomato sauce. We had bolognese left over from last nights dinner so it was a perfect opportunity to make it. We foraged the Patience Dock from our garden, but didn't find many that were big enough - so improvised and finished the dish with the sauerkraut that Hristo had given us. It turned out to be really yummy.

Making the stuffed leaves

All packed in, ready for the tomato sauce and the oven.

Saturday 27th

Not too much to write about today really. It started off quite overcast - but that was fine by us as we planned to chainsaw, split, carry and stack wood all day - and that is what we did! We still have a few big logs to cut but Me, Pete and the chainsaw were worn out after several hours, so that will have to wait for another day. We did get it all in off the street though so that is good. One funny story is that whilst Pete was using the chainsaw an old man, that we've never met before, came up to tell us he had been listening to the sound of our chainsaw from his house and could tell we were doing it wrong!! He stopped us and gave Pete a lesson in how to chainsaw properly (or not!) As well as chopping wood we planted the persimmon tree, the rosemary bushes and the strawberry plants we'd bought yesterday - the strawbs are our first plants in the raised beds! In the evening we attempted to play Scrabble, but Bilko ruined it, and we skyped Pete's dad.

Planting our persimmon fruit tree (yes it's just a stick at the moment.)

The chickens are out to roam - we're getting 3 eggs a day now which is great

Splitting wood

Finished stacking for now

All gone from the road

Daffodils in our camping field

Strawberries are in

Rosemary bushes in with the flowers

Bilko didn't want us to play Scrabble!

Sunday 28th

We had a bit of a lie in this morning - it was Sunday after all - and then spent a few hours cleaning and tidying the house. I also changed the lampshade in the yellow room as I didn't like the one we had and I removed the extra rugs we'd had down for winter, as well as putting our 'summer curtain' back in the bedroom - exciting stuff now the weather is warming up! In the afternoon Pete went out to do some more dry stone walling whilst I decided to tackle the disastrously messy barn. We've been meaning to do this for ages as we need to store the extra wood in there, as well as make room for all the stuff upstairs in the house when we start renovating in summer. It is still quite messy (well it is a barn!) but I did manage to create some spare room as well as organise everything a bit.

Handmade shell lampshade

Summer curtain!

Before: we couldn't even walk in

After: we can access the whole barn now - just that huge pile of wood to organise!

The hyacinth I planted is doing well

Monday 29th

Spurred on by clearing the barn I really wanted to sort out the huge pile of wood we've had sitting there since the first few months. As we now had so much good wood we decided to use this old wood as our bonfire wood for summer. It was all from in and around the house, so alot of it was full of nails and/or full of woodworm - so not that great for using in the woodburner. So we started the day on the chainsaw again and got all the wood chopped into short lengths. Pete then went to carry on the the stone wall - a never ending task it seems - whilst I organised the wood in the barn. I used the old bulk head from the van to split the piles into bonfire wood and woodburner wood! 

Morning fog over the hills

Huge pile of old wood

Now gone!

But here it is outside and all chopped up

Moving wood!

Organised :)

As I just hadn't had enough of moving wood yet I decided to also bring into the barn all the wood we had cut with Pete's mum back in December, which needed to dry out for next winter too. As Pete was still busy with the wall, and I was feeling productive, I dug out a small flower bed by the front gate. In this bed I wanted to plant the wild hollyhock and tall poppy seeds we had collected last year. I'm not sure if it will work but I hope they grow really tall and you can see them over the wall from the street, which will be really pretty - if successful. Over the afternoon Pete also went for a forage to collect loads of violet flowers from around the garden and then he mixed them with sugar - in a few months they should have infused and we'll have violet flavoured sugar! Yum!

Drying out wood

Dry stone walling

Collected seeds

Rubble area before

Small flower bed after

Pretty little violets

After all this work we still somehow had time to plant out more vegetable seeds - including a few varieties of salad leaves, which we plan to now sow every couple of weeks so we have a constant supply through summer. More excitingly we also planted big trays of basil, sage and mint which we can't wait for as finding fresh herbs to buy is surprisingly difficult around here. For dinner we had a delicious Bulgarian style meze - with cucumber and dill yoghurt, roast potatoes, chicken hearts cooked with onions, sauerkraut and coleslaw. Pete even had a small glass of local rakia to wash it down - how traditional we are!

More veg on their way

Herbs too!

Blossom everywhere

Tuesday 1st March

In the morning we got up early and did a few chores around the house - washing up, washing clothes etc. We were meant to Skype my brother in Australia but he didn't turn up and we had to leave to Chirpan before things started shutting for lunch! We needed to get our van insurance sorted as we weren't able to change to BG plates before our old insurance runs out. We were quite apprehensive about doing this on our own, but it ended up being really easy - we just handed the paperwork over and they sorted it all for us. After this success we went for a coffee in Chirpan - it was busy in town as the 1st of March is the start of a holiday in Bulgaria to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Once we were hme we did a few more hours moving stone in the garden - Pete doing the new wall and me removing the old.

Insurance documents for Pitar!

Wednesday 2nd - Thursday 3rd

These 2 days have been glorious weather wise and we spent both of them outside in the garden finally finishing the stone work. We have ended up taking the old wall almost completely down and this has really opened up the garden. It is quite hard to explain if you haven't been here - so you'll just have to trust me! It still looks a mess at the moment but eventually grass should grow over the mud and we will create a new stone path diagonally to the house. Pete has also finally finished the stone wall, so now we just need to make a concrete cap for it. We will use all the extra rubble and stone to fill gabions, which we will use to re-build outbuildings and crumbling retaining walls - hopefully a much quicker and easier way to use up all this stone we have in a useful way. 

An example of a gabion

Pete had also started digging the trench for the water pipes to get to the barn (and also later on the campsite) so that's exciting. On Thursday we finished and did a massive tidy up of the garden, including getting the big table set up again - ready for the warm weather. :) We also had a visit from some English friends we haven't seen since last summer and they got to see the house and everything we've been doing, which was really nice. On the same day we also had a visit from our neighbours who wanted a tour of the house too and seemed quite impressed by our work! On Thursday evening we went for a few beers at the bar with S & G.

About half the wall left to demolish

And it's gone!

Before

After

Pete digging out the huge tree stumps

Nice new entrance to the garden

No wall in front of the barn now

Piles of stone everywhereee!!

Trench going in

Tidy garden

Drinks at the quiet bar

Friday 4th

Today we had our good friends visiting us for the night from VT, which we were really looking forward to. We woke up at about 8 so we could get to the market early to stock up on food and drinks for their arrival. It was a horrible. rainy morning and disaster struck as we got in the van to find that it wouldn't start. Argh! We didn't have time to get it sorted now - we just went inside to check we had enough food to make for tonight! Luckily we still had various veggies in the fridge and Pete rustled up a veg curry for later. Whilst he did that I spruced up downstairs and made it look pretty. We then popped down to our village shop to get a few snacks and some beer, so it wasn't a complete disaster!

Our friends, S & N, arrived early afternoon with their two young boys - who are lovely! It was a drizzly afternoon but we sat in the yellow room with tea and cakes and caught up on the last few months since we've seen them. By the evening the rain and cleared and it turned into quite a nice evening - we even had our first bonfire of the year, which was great. We had marshmallows over the fire for the boys and Pete even heated up his curry on the fire and we ate it outside. It was a fantastic evening.

House and garden looking lovely and tidy

Friends arrive!

We all played with clay and Pete made a piggy

Bonfire!!!

Saturday 5th

We woke up to a gloriously sunny day, but with the first frost we've seen for a while. We sat inside and had tea and toast whilst listening, and dancing, to music with the kids. After brekkie we went for a walk around the village - we bumped into a few locals and introduced S & N to everyone. Back home we chilled out in the sun for a bit, the boys loved playing with Lucy and the chickens. Annoyingly Bilko has been terrified of the last few guests we've had and she has just hidden in the barn for the last two days. At about midday we all drove out to the local hotel and had a lovely lunch in the restaurant on the hot and sunny terrace. After lunch it was time for them to drive back to VT so we all said a fond farewell until next time. It was lovely having them here. :) 

Hanging out in the garden

More blossom photos - this is our almond tree in the garden

Walk in the village

View from the hotel

My hyacinth is blooming

Dovejdany xxx