Tuesday 11th February 2020

After many long, dry, warm months, winter finally arrived last week, dumping about a meter of snow on Mezhdene. I always get excited by proper snow, and will kneel on the couch to stare out the window at the swirling flakes, watching the layer of white getting deeper and deeper. I suspect this is a throw back to my teaching days when a decent fall of snow meant parents were phoned and children sent home from school early - woohoo!

I think anyone who comes to live in Bulgaria, never fails to be impressed at how well things are kept moving. Even in our tiny village the snow plough came through to keep the main road clear, and there was even a tractor of some kind along my street to clear a track. The bread man still managed to get through with his delivery (actually, I discovered from Baba Bona that there are two separate bread men; Ivan on Monday and Friday, and Martin on Wednesday. I'd always thought they worked together and just took turns), the brief loss of electricity when a cable feel down was mended in half an hour, and the bus into town kept running, even though it took him lots of shuffling back and forward into the snow banks to get the vehicle turned round.

For myself I left my car buried under the snow as I'd no plans to go out, and focused instead on keeping pathways to the toilet, bath-barn, woodshed and washing line clear. It was perfect snow for shovelling - just wet enough that the walls of the paths stayed in place, apart from when Bella ran up and down smashing them with her waggy tail!

Snow also makes finding and picking up dog poop much easier!

Prior to the snow it has been amazingly warm, and I'd begun transplanting some of the plants I brought over from Gostilitsa. I made a full list of what I had every time I potted up another plant or bulb from my old garden, but unfortunately didn't make an effort to actually label the pots that they went into. Of course now many of them are just bare sticks and I can't even find the notebook with my list in. Hopefully I've correctly identified the ones I've been transplanting. I think they'll be okay under their coating of snow which will have protected them from the colder temperatures, and theey're all pretty hardy things anyway. It's looking more like an actual garden now with the curvy beds and some plants in them, and I think this year I'll probably plant some of the smaller veggies like onions and lettuces there too, whilst I'm still working on the raised beds.

Work has continued apace on the rewiring. The downstairs is all done and connected to the mains, and upstairs is mostly done but isn't connected at all as Ivo has to remove some of the old things before installing the new. He's done his best to work cleanly, and has taken away several sacks of dust and plaster, but naturally there's still a thick layer of plaster/mud dust all over the floors, walls and dust sheets up there. Still, downstairs was like that too and is now pretty much cleaned up, so I have to try and not get too disheartened by the sight of the permamuck. It's brilliant having sockets everywhere and much brighter lights, oh and yes, he did get my washing machine hooked up for me!

I'm lucky in that I've got a regular enough supply of water to actually use the washing machine, as there are neighbours further up the street who for much of winter have only had water sporadically. So much so that one of them organised the water diviner to come over from Tryavna to locate sources of water for bore wells. I said I'd let him have a look on my property too, as it would be handy to know if ever the mains water became too much of an issue for me too. It's quite a science using the divining rods. They're made from copper, and apparently have to be custom made for the diviner because the length of the rods is connected to the length of the person's forearms. Anyway, is rods were on form as within seconds he'd located a water source in my front garden. The problem though would be access for the bore machine, as my front wall is about 2.5 metres high from the street side and that was too high for the drill. It also turns out that my garage gate entrance would be too narrow to get the truck in, so instead he found a water source just outside the garage gates. He said they'd need to drill down close to 40 metres to the water and from there it would be pumped to a holding tank close to or in the house somewhere. The current cost is 55 levs per metre, plus the cost of the pump etc. Not cheap but at least it's there as an option. If a lot of the other villagers go for this option then there'll be more water in the reservoir for me anyway, haha!

Now that the electrics are close to being finished, my thoughts are turning to the plumbing, with decisions about water storage tanks, pump, water softener, solar water heater, dry composting toilet and so on. But more about that in another post.

Just before Christmas I decided to buy myself an electric chainsaw so I can chop up my own firewood. I've always shied away from getting one before for fear of the serious injuries they can cause, but figured if I get an electric one then I won't be able to start stretching up trees from the top of wobbly ladders, and hopefully won't come to any harm. It still took me till last week to pluck up courage to actually use it though, but now I have chainsaw fever! In mere minutes I have enough logs chopped up to have the fire fully blazing for several days. How awesome is that! I want to make another frame to support the beams whilst I'm cutting them, as it's hard to cut the last bit into short enough pieces with my current frame, and once the snow's gone I plan to also cut up some of the old poles to make the sides of my planned raised beds. My next craving is for an angle grinder so I can cut through metal bars and do finer woodworking things.

Little Sukie cat has been making an amazing recovery since her horrific injuries back in December. I took the cone off a week or so ago so that she could have a good clean of her fur, though the vet said yesterday to put it back on for another five days so she can't lick any of the ointment off at all. Her wounds have pretty much healed though, and she just has a couple of small scabbed patches on one leg. Boy is she fast! She's been itching to get outside, and if I don't watch her she'll tear through the door and out onto the patio. I made her a little elastic harness with a string leash, so I can take her out for some fresh air but so I can keep hold of her. She's funny when she does get outside as she shivers and sniffs the air all round cautiously, but after a few minutes she settles down and will happily lay in the sun on a heap of straw.

The next thing will be to get her neutered as she's just come into season and is yowling constantly through the night whilst writhing provocatively on the carpet, much to Finlay's intrigue. Thankfully he's not able to do anything about it so there won't be a bunch of mini Sukies any time soon.