July 2008 We are still busy at Rock House

Hummingbird hawk moth

Mitzy meets Goldie

The Onions in Store

The Winter Preserves

This month saw the start of some very warm weather indeed 46c that is hot. We follow the locals and get our chores done early, and spend the afternoon inside. We have now almost got all our crops in. This meant that we had work to be done again in the kitchen, and in the store shed. Our onions are dried and we have strung them to hang ready for winter use likewise our garlic. We had a stringing lesson from one of our Bulgarian friends, thank goodness our strings passed the test.......... if they failed it was back to square one.
The chickens are growing fast and our two boys are starting to crow in the mornings. They are still young and have not quite got the hang of the cock-a doodle-loo we get some funny variations of it.
Our holiday apartment rental has been very slow this year, so it was with some excitement that we received a bookings for early August and late August. We are looking forward to having guests to stay. We can feel the barbecue calling, it will be fun to have an evening on the patio with our guests.
As August approaches we really have to start making plans for our winter. Hard to think about cold and snow with the heat here at the moment, however it's time to plan and plan we will. Please call back the end of August for more tales from Rock House.

June 2008 A mixed month indeed

The New Arrivals

The sunflowers in Bloom

The Stork

A Gift from our Bulgarian Friend

June 2008 is very different than June last year. We have had some hot weather, however this year it has been humid with many thunder storms. The crops have loved the water and most things are showing early this year. We have picked many of our crops and prepared them ready for winter. This entailed much activity in the kitchen, jam making, pickling, bottling , freezing, drying and baking. Unfortunately we lost our entire crop of peas to the pea moth. This is something you have to expect as it is our first year of growing, and we have chosen not to use any pesticides on our crops. We grew English peas and next year we shall grow Bulgarian peas as none of our neighbours had a problem. Another lesson learnt. We have some new arrivals here at Rock House. We are the proud owners of eleven chickens they are settling in very well, we watch them with great interest, each of them forming its own character. We are looking forward to having our own eggs later in the year Jasper and mitzy also watch them with interest, but we are sure for very diffrent reasons. Hopefully in time both chicken and cats will lead a full an happy life here in harmony.