Make hay while the sun shines

I am starting to write this blog post in word as, about 9am this morning to go with the mains water which has been out of action now since last Thursday, my electricity went off. Now this looks like it was a planned outage (there are workmen dismantling the substation for the village and when I went past and asked they said it would be back working today) but it has left me a bit scuppered for paid work and being online to write this blog. I haven’t had a boring day sat around, however, as you will find out.

 

Female Preying Mantis at the window

First of all however is a picture I took last night. I was on the phone as usual and having a nice natter when I saw something large fly past the window in front. I immediately thought it was one of the bats that live in the roof and dismissed it however about ten minutes later I noticed that there was a quite large Preying Mantis on my outside window ledge and it was scrabbling and fluttering around as if it was trying to get in to the light. I immediately got distracted from my conversation and, much to her disgust, I grabbed the camera and managed to take this picture which I was quite proud of as I couldn’t reach to look through the view finder so just held the camera out and pressed “shoot”.

 

A slightly better, clearer, shot

After we got off the phone I climbed onto the desk and got close so I could properly frame it however this was still quite difficult as it is outside a sealed double glazing unit and the glass is no longer clean, which compounded with the fact I had to take with a flash and the camera did its flickering thing to focus (which then startled the poor thing and made it move) this proximity didn’t really improve much. I did try with my zoom lens, and from a bit further away, but this didn’t work either. So these two pictures are the best I got. I’m still buzzing, though, as this is the largest specimen I’ve seen yet.

 

The hole spider with babies on its back

On to this morning and once again I slept past my preferred wake up time of 7am, opening my eyes to see that it was 7.30 and I didn’t pause in bed at all as I was so thirsty it felt like my mouth was the sahara desert. The urgency for a brew was not great enough to make me forget that I was supposed to be checking for the hole spider today and, laying on my stomach inside Julian and leaning out the door so as not to disturb it, I was able to get a pretty good picture while it was just sticking its head out the hole. A bit later I found that it was actually outside so got the picture inside this one which helps you see the tiny baby spiders that are clinging to its back. A few times today I have seen it scuttling back inside so you may be treated to an even better picture if I am lucky enough to capture it.

 

Finally she is eating

I was a bit dozy and found it hard to operate first thing, sitting at my desk and drinking my entire cup of tea before even beginning to think about going out for my rounds. Indeed T had arrived and was well on with things before I finally emerged to feed and water Rambo but I didn’t do my watering round then but a bit later on. What I did do was hear Sassy doing her banging to get my attention thing and I took her some food and she actually went to eat it. This is great news and maybe she is getting better finally.

 

A daisy and a tiny blue flower

It was while I was continuing to chill out that the power went off and this prompted me into moving. First of all I had to do the full watering round so I did the watering can from the standpipe and headed off. All of my trees are doing OK apart from the one in the corner which has lost most of its leaves however even that has some green growth on it and one or two branches of healthy leaves. While I was walking round I saw a gorgeous tiny blue flower and thought I’d take a picture with the daisy as a comparison for size purposes. There are so many lovely wild flowers over here and the perfume which wafts across my land is often divine.

 

My first tomato has appeared

I did two runs with the watering can, pleased to see the zinias are also making good progress though there aren’t as many coming up as I hoped for; maybe I’m being a bit impatient though so I’ll continue to water the whole patch in hope. I returned to the hose and used it to water the plants on the table and, in doing so, saw that I have my first tomatoes appearing. It is still green but I will certainly be looking forward to eating that in a little while.

After this chore was complete I decided to go and do my off site job of getting the final piece of information from the kmet. I had text him first thing with a question but not had a reply so rung him early and he said he was already in the Obshtina and so I should come down. I told him I would be a while however with the power going off I left a bit earlier. My plan was to ring him on getting to town. As it happened I didn’t need to do this as I caught up with the little white car of my young farmer friend and as I did so, it stopped and the kmet jumped out. He came to my car and got in, indicating I should drive on.

As I was about to a BMW drove past, stopped, and tooted its horn. Now Lubo B has a beemer so I didn’t know if it was him, but the kmet seemed to be telling me to drive off. I was confused and the chap got out the other car (it wasn’t Lubo) and then offered me a petrol generator. I said “no” and left him standing there; I should have listened to the kmet; this guy had seen the UK plates and decided to try and scam me. Nice.

We parked up by the Obshtina and headed into the bill paying area, being accosted on the way for a chat by the kmet’s brother. Once inside they asked for my passport which I’d left in the car so I headed back for it. When I returned, the kmet took me away from that office and we went round a few others in the main building, not having much luck, until he disappeared into a private area I wasn’t allowed, then came back out with a look of comprehension in his eyes. I think he hadn’t really known what was required at all.

From there we went to the final office where the really helpful, slightly stern looking, woman from the auction and other visits last year was and he and her had an animated conversation about what the number might be for my place. The word “nyama” came up a a lot which means “none” however after a while they seemed to agree and wrote 94 on the sheet of paper. So now I know, I live at number 94. I have a suspicion they just counted up the other house numbers and tacked me onto the end.

 

Mo is always out his shell, Jesus hides

One other benefit of this brief meeting with the kmet was to hear that the water should be back on tomorrow. My fingers are firmly crossed as I want to do a load of washing, and my morning routine of washing up is all out of kilter. Anyway with the final bit of paperwork in my hands for my residency I headed back home. I was pretty thirsty having only had the one cuppa so I made myself another and then saw that both Jesus and Mo were out and about so I picked them both up and set them on the desk to watch while I drank.

 

This about as brave as Jesus got

The difference in their characters is quite telling as Mo was immediately out and off pulling himself labouriously along with his not-working back legs while Jesus sat there right inside his shell for ages before finally poking his head out a bit to have a look round but never moved once. He is obviously older as people have been telling me and so has more of a nervousnous around me than Mo, who I am certain was only just hatched when T first found him and so has learned that I am OK and to not fear me. To be fair, Jesus’ concern is far more intelligent and maybe Mo would be best being kept in a covered compound as he doesn’t hide when a shadow falls on him.

 

Jesus hasn't moved, Mo it exploring

So I sat and chilled and watched and waited for Jesus to do something, anything, interesting but he didn’t move once and after my brew I picked them both up and put them back in the tray. Here Jesus has found his legs and he has been everywhere, though once again he is burying himself in a hole while Mo explores and keeps managing to tip himself; just now I had to turn him over again for the second time today. Silly Mo.

 

This is where I am going to start scything

My main task for today I had chosen as the scything so I took the sharpening stone downstairs and stropped the blade for a bit until I could see it was sharper. Then I headed down round to near the entrance gate to start off. I had decided that I would start by the drive and clear round under the trees in that direction as that would improve the entrance quicker, allowing me also to place the stones I want to between the trees to demarcate the drive, and also it is slightly more open there so easier to swing the scythe. The grass has got really high though and is about waist high to me in places.

 

What I did by lunch, and my sweaty hands

When I stopped for lunch I had cleared a good area and was starting to get the feel for the pendulum motion that apparently is best for this task. I still was leaving a fair bit too long behind me, and also was struggling to swing the scythe in such a way that it cleared the cut grass out of the way, and allowed me easy access to the next bit, but those things will come with time. I went to sharpen the scythe again until I slipped and sliced into the top of two of my fingers on my left hand. Woops. They weren’t bad cuts so I wrapped them in toilet tissue and I just went in to make a brew and some sandwiches and as soon as I  stopped the sweat just started pouring off me. I was soaked with it and could feel it trickling down my back. Good honest work does that to you though. I had some nice cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches, sitting outside next to T while he had his lunch but not really talking that much, just in companionable silence,

 

A spider and a very large grasshopper

It had stopped bleeding by the time I finished eating so I picked up the scythe and went back to it. On my first stop to fork the grass over to my newly formed hay pile I spotted a huge grasshopper on a bit of thistle and next to it a spider. At first I thought the spider was hunting the grasshopper but as I carried it over towards my camera (which I had left by the porch for some unknown reason) they met and then ignored each other. I snapped the picture then went and put the chunk of thistle into the long grass near the steps.

 

Dried blood from my little cut

After another hour or so and feeling quite tired from the physically strenuous exercise I stopped to take stock and noticed that the cut on my finger had been bleeding while I was working. It hadn’t hurt at all and I hadn’t even noticed until then however it looks really impressive (or is that stupid?) so here is a picture. I am man; I bleed!

 

The first day of scything is done

I was rapidly drawing to the end of the target I had set myself for the day which was to get back to the power pylon and down to the second tree and I achieved this pretty quickly really; I was probably scything for two hours or so to clear all of this land. The grass has been piled to one side to dry and I will probably ask for some help from Usmivka to get one of the poles in the ground and build a hay stack like they have for all the grass I will get from cutting it all down; I am going to have loads from the looks of it.

I was completely soaked with sweat by this point, and had some mud and dirt on me from a few sweeps of the scythe which took soil as well as grass, so I determined to have a shower from the hosepipe which I had previously made sure was completely full of water for this very purpose. I changed into my swim shorts, grabbed the shower gel and a scrubby thing, and proceeded to have an absolutely lovely, very hot, shower stood on my front yard. This occasioned much amusement from my neighbours who were shouting over asking what was going on.

Once I had finished, and rinsed myself off, Usmivka appeared and invited both myself and T (who had appeared just at the end of my shower looking to refill his water bottles for cement) over for a coffee so I towelled myself dry, put a t shirt on, and we went over to have some lovely strong sweet coffee. We were offered food but I was not feeling hungry at all having just finished the exercise so refused as politely as I can without much language. I was put into use however as I changed the batteries for them on a little radio/light thing. While we were there the Little Lady was trying the lights and grumbling a bit as the power was still not back on however I was not able to explain that I had seen the workmen at the sub station and they had all the insides out and in bits. My concern is if they can’t get it put back together by end of the work day then they may  just leave it til tomorrow. I have the generator though so if the power isn’t on by 5pm I will spark that up and get at least the fridge, freezer and my router powered up. I will probably need to plug this laptop in too as the battery is looking a little low.

Anyway since then I have done very little other than type this blog however just now the storm clouds built quite impressively so I expected a downpour but this has not materialised and once again we are in gorgeous sunshine with even the rumbles from around the hills no longer occurring. There is not perfect peace because two dirt bikes just went blatting up my lane and are making a racket as the climb into the hills; I’m glad we don’t get too much of that because I am a grumpy so and so.

I’ll sign this off now and be back to it later with more thrilling updates from my day without power.

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I am back and I have power; it came back on about 4pm which is pretty impressive when you consider what they had to do. After / left before I went downstairs and sat with T for a while chatting and playing with Rambo. I then decided that I would head up the village to find out what was happening with the electrical work. T came with me and this proved a good test of the security of his wall and fence as we left Rambo out loose and he did give it a good try to get out, pushing hard at the gate, but he didn't manage it at all.

Replacing the switches in the substation

We strolled round enjoying the heat of the sun which was now fully out as the storm had blown past without effecting us. In the centre a chap tried to talk to us but I wasn't sure what he was saying; he might have been asking about the tiles on my roof but I'm not sure. I'm sure he'll come see Bekir next week if that is what he wants. Anyway, we got to the substation and could see that they were still working hard and it became clear just how much work they had to do; they had ripped out all the old switching gear and concreted a whole new setup in place. At the time we went up the final wiring was being done and it looked good for being done today.

I think he thought I was photographing him

The new road has been progressing up the hill well and the big digger was clearing ditches and widening the road and I snapped some pics of that as well, much to the amusement of a couple of the workmen who probably thought I was photographing them. I'm not too sure how I feel about having a tarmac road up here as it may encourage more traffic however it will be good for the vehicles and does show that the kmet doesn't lie as he promised me this would happen by July and it will.

We meandered back to the house and Rambo bounded over from where he was dozing in the shade on the porch completely overcome with joy that we had returned to him. T disappeared off to continue on the wall at the top of the land and I decided to achieve one more thing; fix up the ramp for the chicken coop. I briefly toyed with the idea of cutting up some wood and attaching it inside the pallet however I quickly decided that this was a bad idea. I grabbed some duska that had been used to do the lintel over the inner bedroom window and it looked great, though one needed a bit of extending and this was done quickly. They don't have access to the side platform yet but I'll fix that eventually. I also put a large rock in place to stop the gates swinging and I think I'm pretty much ready for my animals.

Lovely blooms on my rose

The mutlicoloured rose has been putting out more and more blooms which is great however the older ones are bleaching and changing in the sun, going from red/yellow stripes to a deep burgundy and white. The other two roses bought as root stock from the market still haven't really done anything but I'll keep watering them and be patient.

I was going to look out a latch (I'm sure I have one somewhere) to improve the security of the chicken run / garden gate however when I got back in I found that the power had been put back on so I came in to do a bit of paid work, and send a much-waited-for email. I've not really done much since coming in apart from drink tea and type so that latch will have to wait.

Jesus, mid chew

While I was sat here I could hear scratching from the tortoise enclosure and I initially presumed it was one or other of them digging. I checked it out after a bit and Jesus was up out of his hidey hole munching away on some undergrowth. I took about thirty pictures trying to capture him with his mouth open and the third one was perfect. After about twenty minutes of chowing down he turned and went back into his cave.

Spider, just before it ducked into its hole

So I am not expecting anything else to happen today, and I want to stop typing so I can read for a bit before my enjoyable evening conversation begins. I will leave you with another attempt at photographing that awesome spider by Julian which is the best yet. I hope there are no arachnophobes in my audience. Tomorrow is my day sorting my residency out so is a big red letter day for me.