SLED SLED SLED SLED!!!

Hello again. It's good to be back into the swing of writing these updates everyday mainly as it is so nice to actually have stuff to write about happening once more. Of course tomorrow will be the last update which I write from here and A will be taking over after that; that is actually quite a sad thought as I am really not happy about having to go back to England but need's must and all that. The five weeks will fly, I am sure, and then Whisky Festival and the final drive back here. I have LOADS to do during the time as well including selling the scaffold (anyone want any scaff? I'll give you a good price) and buying a caravan or trailer to bring everything we left, including the stuff in Hungary if I can possibly collect it. Anyway, on with the update for today.

A getting back into the hang of the electric saw

Today started much earlier than I wanted it to as I woke at about 2am local time needing a drink and by 3am I had given up trying to sleep so got up and made myself a brew. I spent a couple of hours at my desk working on my paid work, a good way to get the hours in, and had quite a good amount of progress before heading back to bed at 5am and sleeping through well from then until 8. I have been quite tired through the day from this disruption but getting up and achieving stuff sure beat staying in  bed feeling annoyed. When we did wake up A left me in bed while she went to sort Rambo out but I didn't stop in for long; I'm not good at lazing around really. Once we had a cup of our morning brew A went to start cutting up wood for the petchka using the saw which was returned by S and S yesterday. We got lots of extension leads and set up in the kitchen and she went at it for an hour or two cutting better quality wood which has enabled us to burn far less volume today.

Lovely fresh milk from next door

While she was working away on that I went back to my computer and finished off the tasks I had set myself for the weekend. This is good as it means I have recovered income from two of the missed days last week. The problem which sent me back to bed at 5am was solved very quickly and I am well set for tomorrow to finish off before I take Tuesday off to fly back. What a sad thought. I fried myself some bacon and eggs for breakfast and washed it down with the fresh milk the Little Lady had given us the other day. That is something else which I am going to miss a lot, again.

Angry flames

The flames reaching up

We had once again built up quite a lot of burning rubbish and to avoid attracting rats we wanted to get rid of it as quickly as possible so I took it out to the burning drum and got rid of it all. One little spark is all it takes for these plastics to go up in flames and it is a salutary warning about how easily a blaze can spread if you have such flammable items around. I remembered my challenge from last year where I asked people if they could see anything in the fire so once again, what do you see?

The snow is melting across the valley, but not here

While I was up there I took the time to look around. The snow is melting very fast in places, while not at all in others. Across the valley it looks like it is nearly all gone however our top bank has only a few places where it has melted. It is still about 5" deep most of the way around the house and it gets to twice that in a few spots. The good thing is it has not melted so much that we can't try sledding later. You have that to look forward to.

Sassy watching me watching her

When I came in from the burning Sassy was sat in the middle of the room and she sat still enough for me to grab a picture. I then went and called her and she came bouncing over to the door and allowed me to scratch and fuss her for a bit before going again. She is probably a bit uncertain still what with all the changes, and there are things still with S and S like her hutch which it would be good for her to have, but on the whole she seems to be settling down quickly. A real bonus of her time with S and S is they managed to toilet train her again so she now has a place to go in a big tray which will reduce the cleaning and smell significantly.

Rambo waiting semi patiently for walkies

When I finished my work for the day we got ourselves ready for outdoors and took a walk down the hill to the shop. We were taking Rambo with us and as usual he was over the moon at the sight of his lead and bounced all over the place for a while before settling down. A has been a little nervous of the fact that she is going to be on her own with him and I am the one he really obeys however I've been taking a back seat with him and he is responding well to her. At least, he is no more disobedient with her than with me.

Snow melt cascading into the cut

Half way down the hill, after laughing at Rambo eating snow and bouncing in snow and generally loving being out in the snow we came to the cut under the road where the pretty waterfall was last year before the diggers came and smashed it all up. Under the cover of snow, and with copious snow melt run off creating a few waterfalls, this area is again looking pretty. Nothing will beat the old tree and waterfall over its roots, though.

The new bridge takes shape

Yesterday while out with Lubo he had pointed out where the new bridge from the town was being worked on. This will mean that road traffic will no longer go over the narrow bridge though I fully expect the locals to keep at it. I asked him how long it would take and he laughed and said "this is Bulgaria" but if they keep working weekends, and they were hard at it today, it'll be finished quite quickly.

Being watched carefully as we walk past

Our shopping trip was a partial success and we returned with the loaf of bread and some butter that we really needed. I had stood at the end of the lane which takes you to the shop with Rambo and bless him he had almost broken his heart with A walking away from him. We strolled back up the hill and just as we were entering the village I saw the young foal (not so young now) with its mother in the field next to the road. It was curious and came to see us so I got a lovely few pictures of it watching as we went past. Rambo, of course, ignored them.

Two Olive trees, two results

When we got back we decided to have a quick stroll around the property to check out at close quarters the damage done to our trees and other plants. I went to bed thinking about checking on the Olive Trees and woke up wanting to as well so this was the first place I went to. What I found was not great but also not as bad as I had feared; two of them look completely fine; they were just bent over by the snow and not damaged, but the other two have snapped, one of them completely and the other not quite through. I would really appreciate some advice on rescuing the one which is only partially snapped; I'm thinking of just taping it together and hoping it maybe recovers? Am I being stupid? Probably. While we were there we also pulled the two fir trees upright and both of them look none the worse for their experience which is great; they were the first things I planted last year and I defended them from goat, sheep and cow attack so it would be gutting to lose them to the snow.

An oak limb crashed down, but life returns

Further along we came to a scene of devastation where branches from the oak tree and the tea trees had crashed to the ground, flattening some of my temporary fencing and bringing half of the right hand bush loose to land on top of where the daffodils had been. I pulled that huge pile of greenery away and lo and behold underneath was one daffodil looking a little battered but brightening up the day. The irises have also pushed through the snow and are looking very good. I forgot to check on the rose down there which I will do tomorrow but it looked like everything else has gone; fuschias and marigolds. Oh well.

Rambo thinks we should play with him

Rambo was accompanying us on this round and he gracefully bounded over the fence, proving it as completely useless for its main purpose which was to keep him off the flower beds, and then ran to get his kong which once he had it he stood with in his mouth looking at us expectantly. For Rambo if you are outside then you must be there to play with him, surely?

Humanure rotting down really well

I checked up on the humanure while I was down there and found that it has really rotted down well over winter; it is certainly a long way further down the line of decomposition than I expected. Unfortunately it looks like someone human has come on and stolen the grate which I put over the top of it to stop Rambo digging it up. I will be keeping a weather eye out for that and if I see it I'll be claiming it back, with angry words if needs be. When this place was empty then things were fair game. Now there are locks on the gates so it is private property, people! Because of the weather we have had to make the choice to put this collection point back into service as I could not get to dig out and make the permanent collection point as was my purpose for this trip; it will just have to wait until summer.

Hiding out under the cherry tree

Not all the trees have been damaged so badly; the cherry tree (I think) is looking particularly healthy with flowers all over it, even though it also has been dragged down and pinioned by snow. I snapped a picture and A laughed and ran to get inside underneath the branches. As I was taking this picture Rambo legged it after her and got involved so who was I to begrudge his fun.

This one is not quite so healthy

The tree in the middle of the "front lawn" has completely gone unfortunately. It does seem to still have roots in the ground but it cannot stay like it is, laying across the grass. This may need to be dealt with by A on her own and there is a lot of work for a man with a chainsaw so maybe we can pay the Special One for a day to come and sort it all out. There will be a lot of wood either for the petchka or other purposes once all this is cleared up.

The avenue remains. Just

Finally for this review we ended at the silver birches. A had been down first thing with Rambo and pulled them up out of the snow and of the five I planted only one has any significant damage. This is brilliant as the night we arrived and waded through the thigh deep snow past them I could only see two trees standing. It just goes to show how hardy they are. I think the damage to the one would also not have happened if I had done as I intended and removed the stakes from them before we left last year. Oh well.

So we headed back inside and finished off the stew which had been slowly heating up on low in the slow cooker all morning. This was just as fine second time round and the heat from the chilis was notable. After eating I was feeling pretty exhausted but first of all we had to go sled! I grabbed a lid off one of the plastic boxes we had brought food in from the UK and off we went to find somewhere to try. If the snow had been frozen then this would have been an epic success and we could have gone right from the top of the land I reckon. Sadly the snow is melting and so we had to go for a short steep section near the clothes line. It was a lot of fun anyway as you can see from the videos above.

We did a few descents each and then went back inside to warm up and I headed to bed to rest for a couple of hours. I'm not sure if I really slept but I do feel better for it mainly. I played a bit of my game before dinner which was the left over chicken from the BBQ fried up with rice and very tasty. While she was cooking she tried the electric hob and there was a flash and the power went off at the pole outside! Neither of the electric hobs works and the oven doesn't either so I think we'll have to take it apart tomorrow to see what the rats have chewed. Now I don't know what we are going to do, probably not very much. It is a Sunday evening and tomorrow we both are working for money again. It goes so much further over here though.