B woke up at a really good time today – 7.06 but almost immediately started being defiant and then tantrumming, which was quite surprising as he’d been pretty chilled most of the holiday so far.
It’s probably linked to the burglary again as we couldn’t think of anything else that would have set him off!
He loves the freedom of exploring the garden out there, and we love mooching about together finding all the little bugs and plants.
He always seems so happy and contented when we’re out there, and when we’re not there he’s often asking when we can go back to “our other one house”.
After breakfast, Ian prepared a spot for one of the walnut saplings we think we’ve identified by digging up a giant burdock plant.
The sapling was from a fallen walnut from the next door neighbour’s very established tree, and we didn’t want it growing and competing with his, so we decided to move it further out from the boundary wall and a little more down the garden.
One of the downsides of being here that we’ve not talked about much is the lack of personal hygiene facilities!
With no functioning shower or bath, getting clean involves lots of strip-washing in the sink!
And hair-washing (at least in the summer months) can be done in the outside sink, with water heated in the buckets by the sun!
Nobody can say we’re not prepared to rough-it for the sake of our future life 😀
Caroline messaged us and asked if we needed any more shopping, so we requested a few bits and they kindly dropped them off later.
They also brought some of their lovely home-grown vegetables, and some eggs from their own chickens, as well as a very generous chunk of the most delicious pumpkin cake!
I used the vegetables in a slow cooker meal, which turned out very well 🙂
B and I gathered some lemon balm to make a tincture using some of the rakia the neighbour gave us when we first came here.
I made that, and then gathered some elder berries too, to test-dry in the sunshine.
I’ll store them in an empty jam jar and see how well they save.
Elderberries are great for making vitamin C rich syrups for coughs and colds, so hopefully we’ll have a nice stash of dried ones when we next go out there.
Ian discovered some bats hanging in the basement!
More excitement from us all for seeing yet more Bulgarian wildlife!
Plus, they were incredibly cute, all fluffy and quivery, presumably because they were reacting to the light.
We got some more video, of course!
I didn’t record much else about the day, but after B was asleep, I rested on our bed as I was still finding the physicality of the days a struggle, even though I loved them.
As I was resting, I received a message from my sister, who had just been to our home to feed the pets, telling me that our last poor little Silkie chicken, Shirley, had been killed 🙁
I felt very upset and guilty that it had happened whilst we were away and not there to look after her.
She was such a funny little thing, with her punky white feathers, and she’s recently just started to become really friendly towards me, running towards me when I went out there, following me around the garden, coming to sit pressed up against my feet when I was sitting out there.
So it was horrible to think that she’d lost her life that way, poor girl 🙁
We’d never seen ANY sign of foxes in our garden before, despite having 6 chickens in it for the previous 5 years!
And in Summer, we’ve always left the coop door open at night so they can come out as soon as the dawn wakes them so they can get out to feed.
So when we’d left, we’d told my sister that it was fine to leave the coop door open at night as we’d done it so often previously, so she didn’t need to go round early in the day to open it up and let her out, then go back again in the evening to close it up.
So my poor sister had the job of clearing up what was left of her too 🙁
Whilst I had a good cry and fell asleep feeling horribly guilty and sad that our poor little pet chicken had gone through that.
I didn’t record anything the next day either…
Photos from today…
