Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games here in Bulgaria. We are creating a food-rich environment for ourselves, and lots of other pests are keen to get in on the game. This includes numerous mice, rats and moles, as well as moths etc. Having tried various methods of dissuading the rats we’ve resorted to trapping…
Read moreChicken bums for dinner
Or, the perils of buying things in supermarkets when you don’t speak the language. Looking for frozen chicken in the freezer and I found something called “трътки пилешки”. Пилешки means chicken, and it looked like pieces, so I bought them. Turned out to be a whole packet of parson’s noses. Yummm, chicken arseholes boiled with…
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Mud, glorious mud!
Having removed internal walls and plaster, we’ve found lots of holes and gaps in the walls which will need to be filled before the insulation goes on. The building is constructed of wood frames in-filled with cob, a mixture of local clay, sand and straw. We’ve never worked with cob before so we turned to…
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Goodbye to the storks
I’ve never seen so many storks in a flock before. We think they are gathering, preparing for their migration south for winter. We wish them all the best, and hope to see them again next year!
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The toad in the woodpile
We have a resident toad, a European Green Toad , who lives in our woodpile. For a while he was a solitary toad, but has now been joined by two much smaller toads, named Linford and Flo-Jo, because they’re very fast over short distances. It gets quite tricky walking around in the evening for hopping…
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Cornelian Cherries
Found this weird fruit growing in our garden. We asked our Bulgarian neighbour, Maria, and she said they are called Drenkie, Дренки. They are supposed to be good for upset stomachs and she recommended making a compote out of them. We looked them up and they are Cornelian Cherrries.They taste strange, quite astringent, but quite…
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Building a bog
A Mars a day may help you work rest and play, but even the pope needs somewhere to defecate. We want to have a composting toilet, so we can generate some valuable compost to put on the garden. Eugh, I can hear some of you going, but it’s really not like that. It’s all sanitary,…
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