A few photos from the mountains

                                     Part of the garden where beans are growing

                                       scrap metal anyone?

                                         the lovely Balkans

                                           the sunset setting isn't so great

                                       Sign at the entrance to the farm

                                     lovin' the blackberries

                                  the guesthouse is on the left, animal house is the center house

                   this cat is super cool, hangs around the wood burning stove whenever I am there

                                        tried to do something cool here, but did not really work

The Adventure

So last Thursday night I had quite the adventure in finding my way back to the CROP farm. It kind of starts out like this. I departed a train in what I thought was the village of Tserovo. Upon viewing my surroundings I was surprised to see that I was in the wrong. What does one do in a moment like this? Try to just relax and look at the map. Oh yeah, I was without map, so forget that idea. Instead I decided to walk the train tracks to the next town. Unfortunately I strolled down the wrong side of the tracks. After a two mile walk if the tracks, I discovered the town of Bov.  I found a local fellow who appeared to have some car troubles . After saying good evening (with my very limited Bulgarian vocab) to him, I asked where Tserovo was located. Turns out that  I was only a three mile walk to the village where I have been staying at the farm. After dodging cars on a narrow two lane road, I arrived in the vicinity around 10 pm.
The next part of the adventure was getting up to the mountain outside of the main village. I was running low on water, as well as light (which I was using on my IPod).

I was very appreciative of the village homes lighting my way to the trail (that leads to the farm). I definitely was not ready to hit the panic button though. Coming down the mountain in sunlight was cake. Going up in darkness could not have been too bad.  Then you starting to consider your adventure getting to that point. According to my legs and calculations, I had walked about eight miles and possibly more throughout my whole evening.

The more I wanted to just stop and sleep in the forest, the more I began to look toward the stars. I started to pray to God to be my guiding light. I knew that the eventually I would be in an open field. My iPod even started to flash low battery too. This meant that giving up could be an option, or I could just look up to the stars and be led.

I took a moment to think things over, and suddenly a rush of energy hit me. I felt as if I was gliding through the forest into the open field. Sure enough it was just myself in that field joined by the starlight.

It was there that your path was illuminated by the stars above

After entering someone else's land, I found the power lines that led me to CROP farm.

go to this for more www.scripturelifejt.blogspot.com

Greetings from the land of internet

Hello everyone. I was lucky to have the day off at the farm, so it seems that I have four more days of work, before I start a light tour of some really small Eastern European countries.

I have really been enjoying my time though. Here's a little ditty that I wrote last night.

I’ve learned quite a bit lately here at this farm. First of all, technology is way over rated.

I still love technology in the manner that it allows me to communicate with so many people around the world. I do agree though that it is a distraction to people’s social lives though. One of the greatest difficulties I found in having meals with Korean friends was that they seemed to be distracted at least fifty percent of the time by their smart phones.  We are blessed with such abundant natural resources and beautiful surroundings in our world.

For seven of the last nights, I have been parked in front of a wood burning stove. The last few nights have consisted of baking bread in the oven. Other activities in the wood burning stove may include making compote from wild plums, or blackberries, cooking dinner, or even preparing dinner for the dogs on the farm. The gentle sounds of nature, along with the sight of nearly every star in our galaxy have really made life much simpler. We may have to sit by this wood burning stove and oven and practice the art of patience, but believe me this is totally worth it. Everyone, no matter their age, should experience this kind of environment at least once in their lives. When I hear of church youth groups, or companies hosting retreats, I would recommend they find a locale such as this. If you really want people to develop better relationships, then bring them out into the natural world, not to some beach or amusement park, or fancy golf club.

A few pictures from my temporary digs

                                            So this is the place where I sleep at night

                                              Outdoor shower

                                       Note inside the toilet area

                                                    Nice view though

Toilet

Greetings from Sofia Train Station

. . . . . and thank goodness for internet after four days without radio, internet, and TV.

So here we are on Wednesday night, at 11:07 p.m. This is time that my computer has powered on since sometime Sunday afternoon around 4p.m. There is no internet available on the CROP farm here in some mountain village known as Jelen (pronounced Zelen in Bulgarian.) Currently this is being typed on MS Word. Tomorrow sometime you will be able to read this after it is copied and pasted onto the blog.

 So I arrived in this area on Sunday evening to come spend some time learning what this Permeaculture stuff is all about. I don’t plan on using this type of thing in my life one day, but there may be some useful elements to take from this very different style of farming.

Let’s go back to Sunday for now though.

Sunday evening: I took an early evening train out of Sofia to this little village area. The cost was about $1.50, for an hour long ride. This isn’t one of those fancy bullet trains. I wouldn’t be surprised if this train that I was riding dated back to mid-Communist era. I sat facing a lady and her child, or possibly grandchild, with the other one at my side. The two little boys tried to make conversation with me a few times, until I pointed to ‘ole Glory flying happily on the younger one’s t-shirt. Then the lady and the boys understood that I was American. The older brother asked my name, and so a moment or two later we were introduced to each other.

Sadly, I was to depart the train about ten minutes later.

 I pulled my wallet out of my shorts, and spotted two George Washingtons though. I handed each boy his dollar, and a quizzical look shot up on both of their faces. They said thanks, and I waved back to them as I prepared to depart with my duffel bag (aka body bag), and backpack. Surprisingly, as I stepped out of the train, I peered to the right and the boys were flailing their arms wildly. Perhaps that was the first time that hands were waved at me as I was exiting a train. 

My Sunday Evening with Ian

Now to the real fun!

I walked around this ghost-town looking train station and noticed a Mercedes pulling in to make some deliveries to neighbors, it seemed. I was looking for Ian, who was to meet me that evening. Walking around for about ten minutes, I started to wonder whether or not the Brit had received my last text message, stating my tardiness. Then towards one direction a scrawny gentleman, who did not appear Bulgarian, approached me.

“Are you John?” he says in his British accent.  I was relieved that this was the person I was meeting. So we decided to go have a beer, and eat some Bulgarian cuisine in the village restaurant. We got to talking for a few minutes, and were discussing languages, when he says, “well I thought you would have French as a 2^nd language being from Canada.” I was not sure if I was to feel insulted by that one or not, so I shrugged the mistake off, and explained that I am nowhere near from Canada.

It seemed that Ian had his computer stolen a few days ago, so he wasn’t even sure who I really was, with the exception of my first name. This little village seems to have quite a bit of drama of its own at the moment, and my ears were worn down from taking all of it in. A few kilometers later, and I came to the realization that this man may talk more than anyone else I know in this world. I have been around quite a few talkative people, but this dude tops them all. I have a feeling that the good Lord sent me to be a temporary pair of ears for the man.

 Now this place is four kilometers from the train station.  During that four kilometer hike, you are also climbing a few hundred meters too. Getting to this CROP farm was a hike that I had not been anticipating. Somewhere along the hike we met Maggie. Maggie is the donkey that Ian owns. The donkey is probably treated better than most people’s dogs are treated here. Maggie led us, if you want to call it that, up the hill and on towards the houses that make up this CROP farm.

I was shown to my guest house, dropped my belongings off and made my way to the main house. Though it was dark, we were both hungry, so Ian went to his garden to pick up some veggies to make us a salad, to go with some Turkish style oats for a late night snack. After pulling late night duty at the hostel, it was an act of God that I was able to handle this man’s talking to me until midnight. 

Monday at CROP Farm

Monday

On Monday morning I slept a little late, considering the little sleep attained on the previous night. I found the toilet, which was an adventure the first time. This toilet is referred to as an earth compost toilet. There is even a sign which states “We thank you for your poo and pee. It will be recycled and returned back to the earth.” Don’t worry there will be a picture of this thing very soon. There is also a solar shower here too. Ever wanted to shower underneath the stars? You would be green with envy knowing I have performed that act twice. 

Monday was a day of plums, plums, and more freakin’ plums. I jarred plums, cooked plums, preserved plums, and even ate a few plums. I felt as if I was eating some syrup on some hotcakes, only the hotcakes were non-existent. All this work was being down on the outdoor wood burning stove. I have spent maybe half of my week around this darn stove. Pine cones are very useful when it comes to lighting these fires in the stove. We ate some kind of soup to go with some Nan bread for supper. Of course the man talked and talked some more that night.

When one looks in the dictionary and reads the word frugal, there may very well be a picture of Mr. Ian. His electric bill each month is usually $13. This is a man who has hitchhiked numerous times from his homeland in England, to his home here in Bulgaria too. We have discussed his penny pinching methods that he used when working as an English teacher in South Korea too. Permeaculture is all about self-sustainability, hence the frugality.

Maggie the donkey did assist us later that evening as we went to the forest. There is an area that locals use to get the wood that they need during the seasons.  Mr. Talker spent so much time talking, and talking that we kind of arrived as the sun was going down. Chopping wood in the dark is not very exciting, especially when a neighbor approaches you in a not so kind manner. I was sawing a pine a little too close to where his kids were sleeping, so one could imagine the anger he was expressing. Thanks to Maggie we were able to get some good wood hauled in that have helped us over the last few days.

I showered a little bit later, and it was then that I realized I put in a good twelve hours of work. The description on the WWOOF website stated that most people work six to eight hours a day. Oops. Back to the shower – cold, strange, a little uncomfortable and just plain odd. Outdoor showered aren’t too bad if you are at the beach and you are just rinsing some sand off. This one though, takes the cake. The picture may do it justice, see for yourself.