A whole lotta scything going on

First night in Julian in the new location last night and also the first night using the newly fully correct light switches and what a great success it was to be able to go down the stairs without a torch and without risking falling. I did, however, wish I had the torch as the undergrowth by where Julian is parked was really high - I avoided the huge thistle at least, by using the power of memory.

The sun just appearing

I was woken this morning by Rambo barking at birds which is quite ironic as I have been cursing out the other dogs for waking me and now I've moved a bit further away (and they are a bit quieter now for me) now he is barking. I shouted from bed but he didn't hear me so, as I needed a wee anyway, I dragged myself out of bed and as soon as he saw me he stopped running around like a lunatic and thinking he could knock the birds out of the sky by the power of his voice alone. It was then that I noticed that he had roused me just as the sun was coming up and it was a lovely sight. I quickly grabbed my phone (I had again forgotten to take my camera down) and snapped this picture.

As usual, mist in the valley

I went back to my pit for another hour after this, and I finally convinced myself to get up when I heard The Electrician walking past taking the washing we had put on the night before, to hang it up for drying. There is nothing like someone else working to shame you out of bed. I was a bit lazy getting out for the rounds this morning and had my brew made and left on the side before I went to fill the watering can (no free water today, so back in to fill from the shower tap) and then I went and did the rounds. This consists of first of all opening the gate for Rambo then going and filling his bowl up then emptying the rest of the watering can on the four trees then back and getting his food bowl. Another fill of the watering can, food in the bowl and back over to put it in his house where he then stays scoffing. I'm then up onto the top pasture for the Magnolias and now the Zinias, and then the rest of the water goes onto the trees. It is a nice round and I'm sure it'll get longer as I plant more and more.

Poppies

One thing that I have really been appreciating the last few weeks is the hundreds and hundreds of poppies that have sprung up everywhere. They were a day or two later than other places so when my special guest was here we were thinking that we'd have to transplant some in but I have SO many I will just move the plants a bit later to add colour to my entrance flower garden.

Mo trying to unbeach himself

I returned to Room 13 to drink my brew and spotted that Mo had managed to get himself a bit beached on a dry lump of soil. He was swimming and looking a little stuck but I have seen him do this many times now. He is a determined little creature and sure enough, about two minutes later, he was off and moving again. Bless him he is lovely. I have also today taken him down to the table tennis table so he can be outside and in the sun more; I'm going to do this I think every day depending on how happy he is. I had to build him a little shelter though as he was huddling for shade during the heat of the midday.

Rambo presumes every time that you are there for him

Once again T was here bright and early and just set to without any kind of hassle or worrying. He had brought his strimmer to attack the weeds in the garden so he could get started doing the wall behind it so I can get some chickens in there. Rambo was, as per, in attendance as T worked on the strimmer, trying to get it started and putting a mix of petrol and oil (I think) in until it sparked into life. He's very good with the engines.

Really tall weeds

I was making posh scrambled egg as is my wont however we had run out of mushrooms so it was just olives and I have remembered, as I type this, that I also forgot to put chilis in. I will have to make it again before The Electrician leaves because he hasn't really experienced the wonder that is the full Posh experience. While it was cooking I saw that T was making some amazing progress so I dashed out with my camera, snapped an action shot, and then back upstairs to dish up and eat. The weeds really were nearly as tall as he is.

After this it was eating and it wasn't too bad even if lacking in ingredients. I was just finishing the first of my many brews when I heard a whistle and looked out. The Kmet was at the side gate (which was open) and there was a chap with him and T had grabbed Rambo and locked him in the garden area. The Kmet REALLY does not get on with Rambo and won't do anything when he is around. For example when he was leaving after this visit he stood in the porch until I was able to confirm that Rambo was locked in his compound.

Johnny Foreigner SIGN HERE!

The chap who was with the Kmet was the strange person I spoke to on the phone yesterday. It turns out he is part of the family who have the farm below me; the young one is his nephew I think. He had worked in kebab shops in Manchester and is back for a bit. They were over to have a chat about the school and I once again invited them for whisky (which may happen tomorrow now) and then asked about my immigration forms. I have been left to fill them out and tomorrow I am going to go to the obshtina to get it sorted. I think. Anyway, I did love this one field on the form so I had to share it with you.

My new scythe

With this done, and people heading to work, I dashed out on my morning trip to the builders merchant, with The Electrician in attendance, to buy six bags of cement and a scythe. Yes, I bought myself a scythe. What could POSSIBLY go wrong! I got back home and Usmivka Muzh noticed that I was walking around with a scythe and came straight over to help me out. This next section is a story of just how helpful they are next to me and how welcomed that help is. What generosity, particularly considering that they have so much of their own work to get on with.

I had rocked back home thinking "ahh I've got a scythe, I'll just give it a bit of a superficial sharpen to refresh it, and then get using" but I couldn't have been more wrong. It was completely not sharpened at all. Usmivka was attempting to explain to me what I needed to do by waving a small hammer, and a round grinding stone, but my Bulgarian really isn't good enough to cope with this so, after about ten minutes of confusion, he said for us to go down to town where he could get it sharpened for me.

Hammering the blade to temper the cutting edge

It turned out that all he had been asking for was a normal angle grinder which I do have. It was still good to dash down into town and pull up at a garage where someone took the blade, got the grinder, and just put an edge on it in about two minutes, then handed it back with a smile and didn't want any money at all. What a country. Anyway, we were back in Thomas and back up home again very quickly. The next task was tempering the edge so the sharp edge would stay. This was achieved by hammering a wdge of metal into the ground and hammering the blade with the little hammer he had been waving around earlier. I sat and watched him for about ten minutes or so and then tapped his shoulder and indicated I wanted to have a go. It was (as you would have expected) harder work than I thought it would be but I was feeling quite good about my efforts until he took it off me and went back over everything I had done at length. Oh well.

The Little Lady had returned from wherever she had been while we were sitting here and, true to form, went in the house and emerged with a plate of eggy bread, and a bottle of really cold ayran for us. She also insisted T join us and was looking for The Electrician as well but he had just gone off to take Rambo for a walk while he stretched his legs and explored the local hills. More of that walk later.

Removing the hoop

With the blade nicely tempered we went back to my land (we had been sat in their garden, quite near the barky dogs as it happens who were fast asleep in their kennels) and started the process of attaching the blade to the handle. This involved pulling a couple of nails out that were holding the wedge in place, and then removing the metal hoop and hammering it a bit flatter. Usmivka also got a large nail and gouged out a groove for the hook in the blade attachment to sink into.

Trimming the handle

He then had to trim the handle down slightly to be able to push the hoop high enough to allow the blade in and then jam it with the wedge but after a few minutes the two were joined together loosely. He then got a bit of string and made sure the tip of the blade was the same distance from the middle handle as the bottom, nudging it round until it was. And that was it. I had my scythe. We tested it out briefly and it did the job quite satisfactorily so, with a smile and a handshake (and a promise that they can have the grass to turn into hay, for the time being at least) Usmivka went back off to carry on his scything and I went inside to do the telephone call that was rapidly approaching. The whole thing had taken so much more time than I expected that I decided I would not make the hen house today but what a great experience and how lovely is that couple.

Good start on the wall

T had finished the strimming earlier on and was now building the walls to secure the fence to. He was digging down to create a level surface and then doing the same technique as before with the bricks which the fence can then be looped into. He was making good progress with this when I popped out to check on him just around lunch time.

Bodge fix that works

My speakers have been doing my head in the last few days with the right one (which has a broken connector on the back) continually cutting out and breaking up as the connection becomes more and more loose. I finally decided to fix it today and grabbed some scrap cable from the wiring job. I bent it into shape, attached it to join the two pots, and it has been working great ever since. This is a classic make do fix and I'm really pleased with it.

Slightly high weeds

When I next got a few minutes break in my paid working day I headed outside to play with my new toy. The weeds around Julian were my target and as you can see they were really high and made accessing him (the door into the living quarters is right in the middle of that undergrowth) a little tricky to say the least. I backed Julian out the way and then set to. There were quite a lot of rocks in the undergrowth and also some metal wires which had to be removed as the scythe kept striking them however it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I cleared the whole in pretty short order.

And all cut and piled up

I went over the area once, then got a rake and collected everything into a pile, then went back and took down the stragglers which was a bit harder as most of them had been beaten down and were quite floppy and so didn't present enough resistance to the blade for it to go easily through.

As I was finishing off The Electrician returned from walking Rambo and I persuaded him to video me with the scythe, showing off my excellent form and the fact that yes, I was actually doing it and no, I hadn't (yet) paid a Bulgarian to do it for me.

He is such a water-dog

An old bridge they found in the woods

He loves the water

So, this walk. Having worked so hard the last week The Electrician has been taking some well earned relaxation time for the past few days however today he realised he wanted a bit of exercise so he offered to take Rambo and ramble up the hill and see what he could find. Apparently he found lots of water (four lakes, all of which Rambo swam in) and some pretty dense woodland. See above for all the best photographs he took and kindly let me have.

My place, behind the new roof of my neighbour

On his way back he saw that he was above the school and looking down across my village so he took a picture of it; you can see that my neighbours are really not that badly off with their obviously brand new roof on their house. I think their sons do contribute quite well to the pot to be fair, and the both work really hard most days on their garden and with the milk from the cows.

Starting to sort the rope chairs

One task that had been set was to put the hooks up for the rope chairs so they could be more easily put out and taken in than having to do a knot every time and myself and The Electrician worked together, on his return, to do this. We have found that the one branch is quite rotten and when you put the chair out where I want it, the whole thing creaks and cracks alarmingly. I am going to get some rebar and reinforce it, then move the chair again to the point we want it. At least this is done now though.

Waiting patiently for his bone

I brought Rambo a sheep bone back from the open day on Monday and today I found it and so I put it to one side for him for when he came back from the walk. He was very excited when I unwrapped it but was really good to wait for me to allow him to come take it. He sniffed it, looked at me, and walked off. Ungrateful so and so! I did see that a bit later he was chewing on some of the meat, though, and now the bone has disappeared so he has obviously decided that he does actually want it.

Loads of bricks in place

I have spent the rest of today doing paid work to pay for all these extravagances and T has been hacking away at roots and undergrowth to allow the wall to continue up the final couple of lengths; he should be finished tomorrow which is amazing. The Electrician has been sitting on the rope chairs, dozing on the rug and is now reading on the hanging chair and fair play to him; he really has done a brilliant job for me and deserves every second of relaxation he can get. I'm taking him out for a meal tonight I think as part of my thanks to him.

What is this plant?

I have kept forgetting to put a picture of the little plant the Little Lady gave me the other day so here it is. Any bright ideas? It's a succulent of some sort and she was very insistent that I take it.

I will be back later with the report of how that meal went; I'm going to sign this off now and go and enjoy the evening sunshine.

Mo having a proper tortoise kip

So we just got back from our meal however I have an awesome picture of Mo first. I was just about to go down for a shower after I completed the previous typing and I looked in on Mo. He had been really struggling to get out of his bottle top bath so we had lifted him out and straight away a beeline had been made for the heights on the right. It seems he got tired on the way as he had fallen asleep (which he often does) however this time he had pulled himself into his shell which he normally doesn't do. Often he just snoozes right in the middle of a step but this time he was fully chillaxed.

The biggest spag bol I've ever had!

So after a shower and a change of clothes (into jeans and a shirt, no less) we headed towards town and my favourite shop where we only just made it with a minute to spare before they shut. Most of the supplies on my list were easily found and stashed in the back of Thomas for the short trip across town to the bar I went to last year where they didn't understand having ice with a drink. Two beers, a burger for The Electrician (which arrived incredibly quickly) and an order of two plates of chips which was delivered as one and I was still waiting for mine and still waiting while we said "where is the other plate of chips" and then finally it arrived and wow it was huge! It was pretty tasty but not amazing and I think those two experiences tells me not to go back to this place ever again. Oh well.

So we headed back after this as I couldn't have more beer and The Electrician was in no mood for one on his own and here we are, our night out mutually and happily concluded a little earlier than previously expected. Tomorrow I will continue on the paid work and I also want to get a start on the chicken coop. I may even achieve this aim.