Free Food Well On Its Way Now

Can I firstly thank everyone who sent Yambol their condolences over the last week; they are appreciated and make a difference.

After the catastrophy we spent the weekend in the village farmhouse and just reflected on lots of things. How lucky we are to be here doing what we do and having people around who care. Family here is everything part of everyday life, never shut out and that is very new and reassuring to me, but that's normal to Galia.

Relaxing is something the farm doesn’t do as the work lay before me on the land. It was a full two days of watering, weeding and setting up another Bulgarian growing system that was taught to me before after the failure of the melons. We now have more crops that should survive with this new system. Also we have our good friend and neighbour who has offered to water the crops mid week now the hot weather is upon us. This certainly helps relieve some of the worry from our side. This same friend and neighbour had also gathered up all the hay that was cut over the last two weeks and stored it in the hay house. Mind you, this hay is winter feed for his horse, but he would have done it anyway!

The evening in Skalitsa are fantastic sitting out in the warm evening air as fresh as you can ever get and no noise whatsoever other than the night noises that used to scare me when I was first lived there. I know what every noise is now and can relax with that thought.

My first encounter with a snake in the field whilst cutting hay took place on Saturday, it was more scared than me. I saw a movement in the long grass and then as I approached the speed of this snake was amazing as it darted toward the outside toilet with me in pursuit. Within a few seconds it had covered 10 metres and was in the hut. I wouldn’t be going to the toilet for while with this 1½ metre snake occupying it. It wasn’t a poisonous snake and like I said was far more scared than I was. It must have been to dart into the toilet so quickly!

And so the weekend ended Sunday afternoon and back to Yambol where we were invited for an evening of eating and drinking with family, we refused as we were too tired. Monday it was the factory farm, which was doing pretty well right now. We have almost finished all the lettuce that we have grown; it is becoming too hot for them now. The potatoes had the first round of Colorado beetles that are hand picked and destroyed on sight, they don’t cause a problem if checked and destroyed regularly.

More advice was giving on the melons growing there as moats were made for more access to water. The branches that were pruned from the fruit trees in Skalitsa in the winter now support the tomatoes on the farm and work pretty well. The peppers need no support other than another pepper! What do I mean? Well you plant two peppers seedling in the same spot and their roots wrap around each other and this gives them a good base stability and no need to stake them up. Last year all my peppers fell over as they were planted singly.

The factory farm really does look like it will provide all the tomatoes and peppers that will be eaten from July onwards and many preserved for the winter ahead. There will be big savings from these crops and of course that was the whole purpose of growing them anyway. It is really strange me working on the field and Galia a stone’s throw away working it the factory office…

Bean Day On The Farm

Another day planned on the Yambol City farm, but it had been snowing overnight as I woke up to a white Yambol City and had doubts whether any grafting on the land would be done today. All I kept thinking about was my lettuce seedlings I have planted two days ago. All the Bulgarians had planted their under home made clotches, mine were exposed to the elements, had they survived the snow?

By lunchtime all the snow had disappeared, the sun was out and it was just like a summer day. So off I go with a plan for beans.

On arrival I checked the lettuce they were all in perfect order and now thriving in the rich dark chocolate coloured soil, this was a relieve - I had got away with it and previous thoughts of the first failure disappeared. The ground now was perfect for sowing, not too damp to work with as I hacked away at breaking up the soil ready for the laying of two sets of green beans. Within no time the first variety had been sown in five channels. This was done using the same techinique taught to me a couple of days with the potatoes which was to prepare a soft bedding and cover the seeds up making a grave like mound only this time on a smaller scale.

By the time the second variety of beans were sown the factory was closing for business as the workers began to set off home, I could have stayed longer, but didn't want too overdo it. Most of the workers there tell me to just spend 20 minutes a day there, 'Leka po leka' they'd say, which roughly translated means little by little. I know there is no rush and always start off really slowly, but of course I'm English and after a few minutes it's 100 mph again over a four hour session. It's not even April yet when the real work on the land really begins - I'ts a good job I'm fit otherwise this could be very bad for your health, even fatal.

There was another 10 minutes or so before the factory locked up so it was out with the radish seeds and sowing a 4 metre line parrallel to the lettuce already standing to attention after two days in their new home. The radish don't take up much space and won't affect the progress of the lettuce crop. Jobs were now completed for the day.

As I walked out through the factory gates onto the road where the Lada was parked, I could see the plot clearly. How lucky we are to have this to work on and get the rewards later in the year, the money our family will save on food will be quite substaintial during the coming year. There is also the additional produce from the village farmhouse that will stretch saving even further! Life just doesn't get better than this right now with 8 months of warm weather to look forward to as well.

Back home, Galia had prepared a simple meal of salad, fantastic bean soup as small glass of rakia and ice ridden ayran to wash it down. This is a life well worth waiting for.

City Farm In Yambol Now On

We are lucky we live in the City of Yambol and have a village retreat, but anyone who has a home here knows that growing crops is a full time job from April onwards in Bulgaria. It is a sense of frustration that I can't be on the farm everyday tended to the crops, this was one of the biggest reasons for me coming to Bulgaria. Galia knows this and some wheels of motion were workng to get around this problem behind my back.

It was an excited Galia in her sick bed today who finds it very hard to keep secrets and couldn't wait to tell me this one. The good life got better in the space of 10 seconds of the news being told. I tease you no longer as the news is we now we have the option of farming and growing crops in Yambol and not just on the village farm. Let me explain.

Although off sick from work at the moment Galia works as a floor manager in a boiler manufacturing company which happens to be owned by her elder brother. The factory is situated in an industrial part of the Yambol and has grounds alongside the big new factory of which part is set aside for farming. This is managed by some of the workers who get food as a reward for maintaining the farm.

Let me just put more detail of the situation as it stood up unitl today. All our farming is done in the Skalitsa village farmhouse some 35 kilometres away from Yambol and all through last year to now it had just been weekend farming. This was very difficult, near impossible to keep up with the extreme heat in the summer. Watering needs to be done at least every two days and in really hot weather every day, this wasn't possible last year. We managed to get some crops out of it, but it was a poor year with the system of weekends only. The retreat to relax after a hard week of work was seeing us work 100 mile an hour to catch up with the work that should be done each day, we ended up more tired on Monday morning than if we hasdnt' had the weekend retreat. Added to this the cost of fuel to and from the farmhouse just didn't make it an economic venture.

This year I had intended to stay there four days a week, but that would be on my own, Galia would have to pay taxi fares to work and back and still there would be a 70 kilometre round trip that had to be made once a week. Besides that there was the fact I wouldn't see much of Galia.

So with this news, the answer to growing crops without expensive overheads and logistic problems seemed to be answered. What we would like is to start our livestock up again? I am at the factory every morning and evening dropping off and picking up Galia from work, so a little extra time there tending before my work starts would be totally practical. On paper it would work very well.

So, you can now see why I am excited, but at the same time apprehensive about leaving the farmhouse and letting it go to seed if this was taken up. I can see us being in Yambol full time if this does take place, not what I want, but work here in Yambol forces the issue. We just can't financially afford the fuel each week and not get crops to supplement our low income. Everyone is happy for us to be in Yambol and can't understand why I have such a great love for village life that has nothing to offer other than isolation. Every Bulgarian around me says it's not practical - They are dead right, it isn't practical seeing as there is now the opportunity to farm in the City. I count myself extremely lucky to be with such a kind and caring community and my yearning for village life I feel is a very small sacrifice to pay for this.

There is another bonus, perhaps now we have the chance to relax at weekends during the warmer weather rather than rushing around trying to play catch-up on the farm. This would also end the weekly disappointment and frustration that happened last year where we regularly found our neglected crops failing because they have been left for 5 days without water.

Right now there are just onion, garlic and the vines that are growing there, these don't need regular watering so they will be okay and the rest of the more senstive crop now are planned for the City farm. How lucky are we?

The bottom line is we can't afford to be sentimental here and reminded me of what someone mentioned to me the other day about living in Bulgaria, "Life in Bulgaria is not about living it's about surviving." This is very true and this is what we have to do to achieve that right now.

Skalitsa Man from Eden to Heaven

Things change and this week there was another chapter closed in the road I live in Skalitsa. Another member of the Skalitsa community passed away last week, my closest neighbour Dino. He was 73 and fell asleep in the field of sweetcorn never to wake. A very peaceful ending for a man who never stopped working all his life but always had time for people. His wife departed some 10 years ago now is joined up with him again in Heaven's garden having both spent their lives in the Garden of Eden.

His family are working his farm now but on a scaled down level whether it carries on as a farm or whether it gets put up for sale and turned into an ex-pat home is up in the air at the moment. But as trends go this is what is happening in the villages. He had helped me personally no end with learning the ropes of farm life and took me into the community with such warmth and friendliness and I miss him being there now.

Dino was a man of small stature, he have a severe curving of the spine hence he was bent forward permanently, quite common in many older generation smallholders. Never really found out what the cause of this was whether inherited or from the labours of the land. He was well known to everyone as are all the people who live in Skalitsa. It was quite strange about Dino's relationships with most other folk in the village but they never ever commented on whether they like him or not. They didn't have an opinion of him he was just Dino and nothing else. Of course everyone talks to everyone else all the time and Dino was no exception and often villagers on their way past his farm they would pause to sit on his bench outside his farm talking sometimes for hours as the sun sinks down the Bulgarian skyline.

The produce Dino had on his farm made him completely self-sufficient bar bread, lemonade, gas and electric. He works very hard never having taken a day off in his life, that's a fact I found out when speaking with him one evening. His farm is large and livestock comprehensive with every food on his doorstep. He makes money out of his livestock and together with his feeble 80 pounds a month pension makes ends meet. Not a day goes by in the three seasons where free is gathered food for his animals from neighbouring community shared lands. Once a week the accumulation of muck is taken away by his horse and cart to one of the Skalitsa village municipal dumps, namely an allocated field up the road!

Rakia and wine was made on an industrial scale with his own distilling system in one of his outbuildings. I remember him taking me in to see his rakia making in action, he had 10 x 120 litre barrels full of sliva fermenting away, the fermenting fumes could have knock you out there and then!

Many an evening no matter what season he would come around with a small bottle of homemade rakia and tomatoes either fresh or bottled depending on the month and we'd sit in or out and just talk. It was the case that he considered my rakia better than his as by the end of the evening it was always my bottle of home made rakia that has seen it's way to the bottom and his untouched. It took quite a while to realize that he was a skilled master at poaching other's rakia by praising it! That's all part of his make up.

I always remember him asking me for 1000 leva for a Lada car as he said his horse was too old now - this was asked for not as a loan but a gift! He thought that this Englishman was lined with gold after seeing the inside of my house with what I thought was very humble personal belongings. Even until the day he passed away he was sure that I had more money than I needed and he never gave up asking me.

He used to swear a lot, I knew this solely from the tone of his voice, routine first thing in the morning and last thing at night and a sporadic basis in between these times. The reason being that his sheep and goats never did what he wanted. Most evenings he was chasing them up the path by my house trying to get them back into his pen and I often wondered in his wisdom why this wasn't solved many years ago. I asked him this very question and he would just shrug his shoulders and not give me an answer then carry on where he left off, yes he's Bulgarian alright!

Quite often when the flocks of sheep and goats come by and fleece off to their well trodden ground back home Dino would have forgotten to shut his big farm gate and flocks of sheep and goats wonder in his yard to eat his hard earned hay for his own herd. I used to watch this with humour from my kitchen window as I knew at any moment after, the swearing and cursing would start and the waving and beating of his stick to get them away from the free feed and back in to the road. Again, after all the years he has been here working why does this happen? I don't bother asking as I know what the answer will be...

The day before he passed away I was helping him pull up his broken water pump, service it and put it back down his well. This is the least I could do as it served me well when I had no water in the first few months here in Skalitsa. It now worked perfectly after six months of non operation. He was a very happy man at this point, he had his well water back and of course it didn't cost him anything to fix, even more reason to be happy.

He loved having his picture taken. The very first time I gave him a print of himself, (sitting on the rubble that had been dug out for my septic tank.) I went to his house a few months later at Christmas and in his living room this photograph was the only picture in the room sitting as the main feature on his side cabinet. This make you feel so humble about things you take for granted.

Dino was part and parcel of the character of the the street and now he's gone his cursing and nose for good opportunities to poach rakia will be missed. His companionship will be sorely missed but most of all the simple fact that you knew that he was there all the time, it may seem quite strange thing to say but that how it feels.

So as another chapter unfolds, the old population in villages are gradually being faded out and no one to carry on the farming tradition. Towns and Cities give the call of money to the new generations and you can hardly blame them for seeking a 'better' living for their families. Opportunities in towns, cities and other EU countries for that matter now are ever increasing and the villages leaving a void to be filled. These homes are turned into holiday or retirement homes for ex-pats in the main, others are bought and just left to rise in price but vacant.

I felt compelled to write about Dino and so I have but this epitaph could have been written for many other older generation Bulgarians in villages throughout the country.

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