Early Winter?

Well the locals here in Kruschevo said it would be an early, cold and hard winter.

So it didn't take long for them to be proven correct.

The fog and rain and cold has set in, complete with the earliest frost in many years here. Thankfully, it seems to be our luck that along with the cold weather we have been blessed with a gift of many bags of clothing donated to our hosts. Much of which is children's sweaters and hats, scarves, long sleeved shirts, and general winter clothes of all kinds. Wow, serendipitous.

We are still able to work a bit as the rain is very close to our hearts. It is often just like a good old Portland drizzle, with bits of hard rain thrown in for fun. One glaring difference is the lack of paved roads here, which makes the foot travel about town a combination of mudhole and nugget stomp. We have affectionately named it, "crappy poo mud" and there seems to be no shortage of it here.

As we work or "raboti" here, the peaceful drip drip of the rain is mixed with the occasional clucks and mutters from the chickens and ducks. Somewhere off in the distance, a donkey will bray his annoyance at the cold. The constant buzz of chainsaws mixes with the thock thock of the men chopping wood. At a frenzied pace now as winter seems to have arrived.

The few days last week of nice weather were spent chopping wood for next winter. A huge truck was supposed to deliver about 3 cords of wood, precut into convenient 4 foot lengths to the house. Too bad for us it got stuck 600 yards from its final destination. Some men were hired with chainsaws to cut the heavy lengths into managable blocks, which we then had the pleasure of chopping into cordwood. We all worked hard to make the bigger pieces smaller. This we accomplished with a splitting maul and a handy Bulgarian axe and about 50 man hours of chopping. Hello Ibuprofen.

Over the last few thousand years of chopping wood, the Bulgarians have developed a really clever way of chopping wood. Brut force. No really, they do have a clever trick that I had never seen before. They seat the axe firmly in a round of wood. Usually a 12" long by 12 to 18" diameter piece. Then the axe with block attached is lifted clear above shoulder height. At the very top of the swing when the block and axe become weightless for a split second, the whole assembly is turned upside down. Now the axe should be under the round. Gravity then takes over and the whole bunch comes down upon the chopping block. If done correctly, this usually splits the round right in half.

After practicing this move, I could only admire its efficiency. Then I slightly altered the move by golf swinging the axe directly into the immense wood heap, plucking directly with the axe a chosen piece. Then came the flip, which we have named the "Bulgarian Backswing." And then the slam down on the chopping block to split the wood. This proved extremely effective, and I John Henryed through quite a heap in record time.

The caravan buildings roof is our next pressing priority because the rain threatens the humidity of the interior. The roof framing is complete and about 1/2 is covered in lampier. Lampier is our equivalent of sheathing, or 1x. This comes rough cut directly from the mill in varying widths. Lengths are 12' standard for lampier and 2x, however longer lengths are available. Unfortunately, most are pond dried [editor's note: wet] and deceptively heavy.

It is hard to believe our hour is almost up here in Bulgaria... almost to us is about 2 weeks as time seems to have a distorted quality to it. The days blend continuously with no apparent weekend. I was actually surprised when I said it was Friday, only to be corrected by my young son who proudly stated that it was in fact Tuesday. So I lost 4 days... did it really matter what day it was? No. Not really.

However, that rule only applies once you are settled in. During the travel times you need eyes like a hawk and reflexes like a cat. Not to mention a vocabulary like C-3PO. Travel mode is intense ready for action mode. Like a front line soldier... well that's a bit much, but you do need to be on your toes.

We have cemented our travel plans, at least the getting to Turkey and then Morocco portions. Leaving here on the 27th of October for Plovdiv and then onward east to the ancient city of Istanbul, sprawling across two continents. A village near the southern Turkey town of Bodrum for a month by the sea, another few days in Istanbul and then Marrakech [via London!] by December 6th.

I am sure the next few weeks will bring more lovely company, food, and satisfying work.

And yes, I will tell you all about it.

Thanks for sticking with us!