What is a Smallholding....
I often get enquiries from people looking to leave the UK and set up a smallholding in Bulgaria. They want a property with several acres, outbuildings, no neighbours etc....
However, a typcial smallholding as you would get in the UK - your nice cottage with maybe 5 acres and a few barns, simply does not exist in Bulgaria. Or is very rare.
Here in the villages, nearly everybody is a 'smallholder'. Each family has their house, usually set in around 1000 sqm of land and several small barns, lean to sheds etc. They each keep 3 or 4 sheep, a few chickens, maybe the odd cow and goat....
Each morning the cows, sheep and goats are let out of the yard and are collected by the local shepherd, who takes all the village animals outside the village onto common grazing where they roam for the day, watched over by the shepherd and two or three dogs. Should danger approach then the sheep do not run from dogs as they do in the UK, but all crowd behind the dogs, which circle the sheep and keep the predator away. In some areas, the dogs live constantly with the sheep and wear studded collars to ward off attacks by wolves!
However, things are slowly changing and with new EU regulations banning the keeping of livestock within village boundaries, soon this way of life may disappear. But for now it is lovely to see the sheep wandering slowly home at the end of the day, watch the donkeys pull huge loads of hay stacked on carts from the fields....
So if you are looking for a smallholding in Bulgaria, please keep in mind that finding a property with over an acre (4000sqm) is extremely difficult. But finding a lovely house (but requiring serious renovation) with 2,000 to 3,000sqm and many outbuildings is no problem and should set you back no more than 15,000 to 20,000 Euros.
Tierschutz Mission Dog Rescue Burgas
I initially heard of this rescue centre from a friend of a friend back in November 2007 when I was desperate to re-home 2 of the 4 puppies from a street dog I had taken in. I took the dogs, met the lady (Margarita) who runs the place and saw the centre, made a donation and left.
In March 2008 I received a phone call to say the 2 pups had been re-homed which I was delighted to here. Margarita told me how desperate they were for funds for food, blankets and medical care.
On 5th September 2008 I visited the office and centre again to meet with the German journalist who has funded the centre from her private savings and donations she can raise back in Germany. I told her of my plans to start fund raising for the rescue centre. To date they have received practically nothing from either Bulgarians of Expats despite local please for funds in the Burgas area.
I have set up a webpage at
Tierschutz Mission to help raise funds and awareness.
Irakli Nature Reserve - Beauty Spot or Crime Spot
A couple of weeks ago we planned to go camping at the Nature Reserve/Eco sport - Irakli, situated just past Banya and before Obzor. We arrived and followed the track to the beach, where there were several cars, a cafe and fair few people.
Looking for the camping area we drove further along dirt tracks until we came to a small parking area where there were 4 or 5 other cars. However, having left the car for 15 minutes to find a suitable place to camp, we came back to find window smashed and my bag had been stolen with all documents, passport etc....The car was parked with along 5 others and people were coming and going from beach all the time so looks like someone watched us leave and ensured we were a safe distance away while someone else broke in quickly and did a runner.
Police 'helpfully' said that there had been 20 to 30 such breakins over last year or two and possibly mafia related in that mafia connected developers want to build there and so they are trying to put people off going camping etc.
Personally the place is nothing special anyway and the campers had ruined it with rubbish everywhere etc. Alright beach but not much else.
Still waiting for police report so I can get a new passport. First one they issued failed to mention my bag at all and has now taken several phone calls and over a week to get them to send new one.
What the heck is this???
Just look at what I found in the dog's bowl. Horrid isn't it? Not sure of the name of the thing but apparently eats all your plants. So this little sucker got tossed over the wall.
And on with ant saga......
The
Raid just keeps on getting them. I went back to check on one room in another property that had got ants sneaking in through a hole. I blasted them all with
Raid a couple of weeks ago and hoovered up the hundreds of dead black bodies. Yesterday I discover hundreds more apparently dead ants. Only when I started to hoover them up, all of a sudden the hoover packed in and when I opened it up, loads of nasty, live ants tumbled out. Guess they are very good at pretending to be dead and having a whirl around a vacuum cleaner brings them back to life. So another dose of
Raid for both room and hoover.
Ants - amazing creatures but very annoying
While ants are amazingly organised creatures, this level of organization can cause havock in the garden. The above photo was taken of a huge an colony on a tree branch in my garden. This
army got blasted with RAID ant killer as the little buggers kept eating my cucumber seedlings.
And I discovered a large mound of grass seed by an ants nest in one of my other properties. The ants had obviously spent many days collecting seeds and transporting them back to their nest. Unfortunately for them, I have since swept up all my
removed grass seed and placed back on the garden.
This year there seems a massive amount of ants around and there are ant holes everywhere you look in the ground.
