Tuesday 29th September, 2020

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Well, not quite, though up till a few days ago it had most definitely been a case of water nowhere and nothing to drink. Our village water comes from underground sources which fill some kind of container (probably a concrete pit) from which it is pumped to the houses. There are three such places around the village, I believe, though I don't know if they're all functioning. Last year, when I'd just moved here, I was used to the water pressure being low, or totally off for a day, but it wasn't a major issue. It was a different story for people living further up the street, who seemed to be cut off for over a week at a time. Maybe I had gravity on my side, being at the lower end of the street, and still got the trickle of water when it didn't have the energy to get up the street. This summer, however, it's been much worse.

it was back in August, I think, that the water started being turned off a day at a time because of shortages. That was okay, but within a few weeks it became a lot less predictable, and began stopping for a few days at a time. At this point some of the villagers decided to take action. The water divining man from Tryavna came with his copper rods and visited all three pumping stations to see if there were other underground sources nearby. Great news, it turns out there's stacks of water all over the place. So, all the council need to do is drill down into them and get the water flowing into the stations. I'm not sure about the next point, but the council said something along the lines of we'll look into that over the next year or two. Well of course that didn't go down well. The water's there, why wait?

So a petition was organised as the first stage in escalating the issue and shaming the council into action. The petition was handed into the mayor of Gabrovo and the water board, at which point the water went off for two weeks. Coincidence? I like to think so. As far as I'm aware, the water board has actually now drilled down in one of the places, and the process is that the new water has to be left to settle for a bit before they check that it's ok and somehow figure out how many cubic metres of water it's giving a day. One of the neighbours also told me that a leak has been discovered in the system somewhere, but hopefully the waterboard are on the case to fix that.

I suspect that this is a big part of the water issue - old pipes which haven't been maintained for donkey's years and are probably leaking water all over the place. Still, if the problem is being looked into, and we keep up the pressure on the council to tap into these new water sources, then maybe we'll end up with a good steady supply all year round.

My back-up water supply is working wonderfully already. The two 500 litre tanks are filled with mains water which is then pumped into the house via my swanky new hydrofor. The solar hot water boiler is already producing buckets of lovely hot water, though there's a tiny leak to sort out on the bit where Solar Man inserted the element for using electricity to heat the water in winter. The plumber has said he can easily sort that out which saves me having to get Solar Man back yet again. I had to get him in when the boiler was first filled because there was quite a serious leak from underneath where the cap into a drainage hole hadn't been screwed in properly. He came and amid much swearing managed to fix the problem. I don't know why, but he always manages to make me feel like I'm a huge inconvenience, despite the stonking amounts of money he's been paid to do a half-assed job. So, if someone else can sort any remaining snags, so much the better.

My village isn't the only place suffering from a lack of water. Last Friday I went down to the Koprinka Reservoir, on the other side of the Shipka Pass, for an overnight camp with some friends. I've seen the reservoir from afar many times, and always wanted to explore the area as it looked like it might be the sort of place I can camp with the dogs for a few days. We wanted to camp away from the main crowd of fishermen up near the dam, so we headed off along a track through fields. It was a bit rough going for my tiny Fiesta, but with guidance from my friends we bumped and bounced our way to a little sheltered spot overlooking the water:

No, I've not uploaded the wrong photo, the reservoir really is mostly empty! Where we were it looked more like an African flood plain after a heavy downpour, with the sudden flush of greenery everywhere. I could quite imagine half a dozen wildebeest coming down to the watering hole to drink. Up the east side of the reservoir there was a lot more water, but with it being used as the supply for some major towns, and with the feeder rivers all being bone dry, I'm wondering how long it will last unless we get some decent rainfall pretty soon.

We went for a walk along the exposed shore where there were some amazing examples of nature flourishing, despite man's efforts to pollute everything:

This plastic bottle had become home to a bed of tiny shellfish.

And this half-submerged glass bottle is acting as a greenhouse for the seedlings growing inside.

Even with the missing lake, it was a brilliant location, with lots of little inlets and forested areas. Up the end where the dam is there are a couple of hotels and restaurants where we stopped for a coffee on the second day.

Not far from the dam is a village, right at the base of the mountains, where there's an ostrich farm open to the public. The ostriches there are mostly kept for their eggs which are used to make some very lush creme caramels, the shells being made into decorative items. A member of the family who runs the place, came and told us all about the ostriches. They have four separate pens, each with a male and two females. They're big creatures up close, and have two forward facing toes, one of which has an enormous claw. They can run at up to 70 km/h and use their weight to kick out when attacking. I bet a good thump from one of those claws could easily kill. Luckily, because their knees bend the opposite way to ours, they can't step over any kind of barrier, so, if ever you find yourself with an enraged ostrich stampeding towards you, just stand behind a fallen log and you'll be perfectly safe. (Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for ostrich related injuries as a result of following the advice in this blog!)

At home the big barn is now fully re-roofed with just the guttering to add. It was a bit of a mega operation, with such a large area of stone slabs to remove first, but it's all done now, and finally I can properly sort and store things in there without fear of ten tons of rock descending on my head. I've uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube where you can see progress halfway through the project:

This first one shows the smaller side section of the barn https://youtu.be/Gn-kbvUGDXA

And this is what it looks like now with the roof on and timber stored in there:

It was whilst clearing out all the tons of old hay and sticks at the bottom end of this area that I uncovered a perfectly preserved threshing board:

There are hundreds of little razor sharp stones embedded in this side, which would be placed face down on the newly harvested wheat, for example, and then it would be dragged all over the stalks, neatly separating the grain from the stems. If more weight was needed, someone would sit on the board as it moved around (I vote for that job!)

This second video focuses more on the larger part of the barn, which again will be used for storage for now https://youtu.be/D5xK9HGmSpw

Here's a shot of the whole roof where you can get an idea of just how big it is:

A friend called in the other day with a drone to take some aerial shots of the place. He took a few photos from different angles, and I must admit I was stunned at how brilliant the property looks from an elevated view:

Pretty cool, huh? This is the link to one of the videos he took too https://youtu.be/dXAgBOR7NQQ

If he's around in winter I might drag him back on a sunny morning to capture the place with snow covered peaks in the distance, which would be stunning!

As summer starts to take on an autumnal flavour, things are beginning to close down in the veggie garden. I've got a good late crop of beans just coming in, and the squashes are all being left on the vines as long as possible. There are quite a lot of peppers, though all rather small ones, so I'll just chop them up into strips and freeze them ready for stir fries. Beetroots are growing nicely, and they can just stay in the bed along with the cabbages for winter. The older carrots are pretty big now, but still tasty, and there are some tomatoes still to ripen. Considering they were all just grown in pots this year, the toms have done really well, especially the big beefy ones. Take a look at this baby:

I think I'll grow them in pots again next year, though maybe on top of some soil instead of just hay, to hold the moisture in better.

Something else which has been growing in a pot is Mr Buffo the toad. He took over my lettuce tray earlier this summer, and would nestle in the damp soil for a few days before disappearing for a while, presumably to feed, before returning once more to his den. I've not seen him for about a week now, so maybe he's gone to a more suitable winter residence now. If you fancy coming back in the spring, Buffo, your lettuce tray awaits you.