Fire Hazards Not Just On The Television News

Quite often I see fires raging swamping up homes, but mainly confined to the television news. Well in this intance is was a live hands on experience and more advice to those who have holiday homes and leave them for the best part of the year unattended. The reason I am writing this is that I nearly ended up with a fire-gutted property and to be quite honest I was extremely lucky to get away with it.

It happened a few weeks ago, where one of my neighbours was burning used toilet paper in their yards and left it unattended for just five minutes. The wind picked up and blew away one of the burning tissues into the adjoining field of tinder dry hay. This caught alight easily and the wind now took hold and swept the fire onto a direct path of destruction not only to my house but others in the neighbourhood.

It was quite a few minutes before the true realisation of the potential of this trail of wind swept fire became apparent. We were sitting watching television when we could smell smoke; we assumed that someone was barbequing peppers as that was what we did earlier that morning. It wasn’t the smoke that made us aware of the ongoing fire now gathering momentum, but the crackling that could now be heard a walnut and sliva (plum) trees were caught up in the fire. This led me to make an investigation and as I walked out into the street there was a few locals gathered watching a blazing fire sweeping towards my house, no action was taken at this point as they had already rung for the fire brigade and the fire was too fierce to tackle by hand. The trouble was that the fire brigade had to come from Yambol 37 kilometres away and that was half an hour journey!

I barged into a neighbours garden and asked for help and some brooms to try and beat some of the leading fire trail down leading to my house and we were all soon armed with home made twigged brushes trying not to get too burnt as we hit the trail. There was also fire trails now leading in four different directions, all to neighbouring houses and homes, mine was the first in line.

We managed to stem the route of the fire with only 10 metres to spare where there was long overgrown dried grass in the surrounding landscape. Another tow or three minutes and the house would have gone up in flames. Our efforts now were directed to other homes in danger as the women passed buckets of water to dampen down the area that could well have re-ignited. One of my neighbours was the president of the village hunting club. He called all his members out to help as hunters came from all directions. Without this help it would have been a hopeless situation.

The fire brigade finally arrived after we had got everything under control and just spent a couple of hours dampening down the whole burnt out area and made inquiries as to how it was started, which is why I know.

There was a great sense of community satisfaction that we managed to deal with this and if it had not been for my neighbour harvesting the field next to my house for winter hay this would not now have a house there. If is happened on a weekday there wouldn’t have been anyone around and I would not have a house. If I had not reacted to the hearing the crackling of the fire when I did I would not have a house.

People beware of overgrown dried out gardens bordering your holiday home, it only takes a second for a spark to become a raging inferno, as was the case here. I consider myself to be VERY LUCKY to still have my house thanks to the help of the local community; others might not be so lucky.

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A Weekend Of Violent Storms In Skalitsa

We had a weekend of non-stop storms that scared the life out of Galia in the outback of the Bulgarian countryside based Skalitsa farmhouse. Being a town girl she is used to the protection of many building around her so when there is a violent storm she is shielded from natures extremes of weather by man made elements. This last 48 hours was a first hand experience for her of the powers of nature.

It really was a humdinger of a weekend for me, I just love the extremes of weather and was outside feeling it for the most unblocking drainage pipes during the deluge of rain that came from a seeming ocean full above. Having been through weather like this before alone I knew that there would be some damage, but is would be soon repaired or more like patched up, as it always is in Bulgarian villages. The way in which the trees bend to extremes in the almost tornado force winds is quite a feat of nature especially being born of a full set of leave that act as sails. Galia was concerned of the extent of the swaying and bending, but then if they didn’t I explained, they’d just snap!

The storms one after another last from Saturday midday through to around midnight. We counted the number of storms that cascaded upon us to around 6. Throughout that time we had no power as unbeknown to us the power cable had been severed with trees beating on them. It wasn’t until Sunday lunchtime that we realised that it was only our street in Skalitsa that had been cut off for 24 hours when an massive cherry picker came to chop down the culprit trees across the road from us to free up the electric cables that were entangled. The whole neighbourhood came along to watch on this now sunny Sunday.

Galia was concerned about the farmhouse and I was concerned about my sweet corn and melons. We had water pouring in from the ceiling of the bathroom, but that’s okay it is a wet room in any case. The septic tank had flooded and half a metre of water was standing on the concrete surface so it was out with nothing on expect a pair of underpants wading through the flood water in torrential wind and rain to clear a drainage point that have clogged up with branches that had fallen from the linden tree.

Would you believe that during these storms on Saturday afternoon we had a barbecue! The summer house has a little a metre square tin roof, but this wasn’t enough to prevent the forced rain and hailstones that hit from a vertical angle in the gusts of up to 80 mph winds. I was forced to withdraw right into the summerhouse and continue amongst the tremendous noisy of weather that was around us. I was having a ball, what fun, living a bit on the edge is something that just hits the mark, Galia thinks otherwise, but then she ate the barbecued tikvichki and pigs ears and thanked me for making the effort as we ate dinner under candle light. We went to bed at 8:30 that evening and just listened for ages at nature at work around us

The series of violent storms wasn’t the highlight of the weekend though. After the wild weather the calm and another simple yet effective food was experience on Sunday. There was Dill Potatoes, a basic dish knocked up in forty minutes of which I have given details of this dish and recipe in my Herbsways blog. Then there was the simple strawberry milk shake made from this morning’s goat’s milk from next door, freshly picked strawberries picked from from the farmhouse grounds and a touch of sugar. A bit of technology from a liquidiser once we got our electric back and Galia had her first every Strawberry milk shake. This was another weekend that was different and not expected in July, which is meant to be the dry season. My well is also very happy for the extra water, which again was taken back to Yambol with us along with all the other home grown vegetables. I won’t mention the carrot that disappeared before I could take a picture of it and I won’t mention Galia’s name!

Fishing for Nothing In the Cold

It was forecast a cold weekend in Bulgaria, but most of us had fogotten what cold was as winter was such a long time ago. We have had a hot or very warm six or seven months and it was with that in mind we decided to go fishing for a few hours.

The journey to the next village of Ovchi Kladinets, which means sheep well was our destination as we were told that there was good fishing in this village. It lies 7 km west of our farmhouse in Skalitsa, but as we were to find out that was only half the trip.

We had been given instructions on how to get to this reservoir which was meant to hold very large carp. Although the place is technically in Ovchi Kladinets there was a further 4 or 5 km to travel over rough ground to reach the fishing area.

After reaching the village we turned onto the initially stone track which is designed for horse and car not ladas and made out way, slowly and carefully. With pot holed and subsidence ridden tracks it was an exciting route to take in this wild area of Bulgaria.

3 or 4 km later we entered into a deeply wooded area and followed this through, it was magical ovoiding trees as we made out way to the sight of a little clearing about another kilometre on. As this was reached we could see this massive expanse of water and wandered how many people knew of this place. It would be hard if not impossible to reach after rain as the track to the reservoir would be a mud pit and the rises and fall of the tracks far too steep to negotiate for any motor driven vehicle; even tractors would find this hard to reach on this track with rain.

We had arrived as the car was parked right next to a sandy shore with much wildlife around from the floral and fauna kingdom. We still had to walk a little way beyond some rocks that sttod in the way of the 'beach' type shoreline. It was while waliing through swamped brush that most of the thistly seeds decided to come with us as we swept past! Removing these was a very painful process without gloves and we were without gloves!

The fishing postion setup and we cast our lines and waited. There was a strong wind coming off the water, often whipping up a little wave or two, so repositioning out lines was frequently done with the floats wandering quickly out of place. It was hard work as the first half and hour wnet by and no bites made. It was now cold as the wind was consistently blowing in this open position we had taken up. All the time in our heads were the thought of just one big fish for dinner tonight on the barbecue, the cold was a minor inconvenience with this in mind.

We endured another hour or so and still not one bite was made. The cold now was becoming unbearable as we shivered our way through each regular casting; time and time again we had the same result; Nothing!

Finally, the fanstastic views, the massive variety of waterfowl that shared our environment and our love of fishing was no match for the cold. We packed up and made out way back to the windcheating inners of the Lada. That was a lovely moment when we sat down out of the wind, but not before another rich picking of thistle type seeds off out trouser and socks (ouch!)

The journey across the open countriside track was enjoyed to the full in the warmth of the car as we all relaxed knowing that there was a wood burner and rakia waiting for us at home to warm us up even further, but no barbecued fish today.

I must add that this is the first time I have been fishing in Bulgaria where I ended up with absolutely nothing!