WEEKLY REPORT
We Are Being Treated So Well, We Don’t Want To Leave
My Week In Photos — Week 30 — October 6–12, 2022
Some of you will notice that this weekly update is not being posted in Weeds & Wildflowers like I have been doing for the past 29 weeks. If you are confused, here is the last post I wrote where I announced my intentions to move my weekly wrap-up to my own publication Artistic Voyages News.
I’m mostly doing this in an effort to gain more control over the photos that I can publish. When I post to other publications, they have their own rules that dictate what creators can post. One of the main criteria in many publications is that they want written permission from anyone that is being displayed in a photo that isn’t the author, or partner/husband/wife of the author.
However, I like to share photos of the people we meet along the way, which is a huge part of our experience. Of course, I always ask them if they are okay with me sharing photos, but to get them to sign a piece of paper then scan it and email it, which is a requirement for some, does not sit well with me. So here we are.
No hard feelings, it’s just time to move on.
If you are just joining me for the first time in my weekly wrap-up, and want to learn more about our traveling life, I will link my list below that houses all wrap-ups that I have written to date.
Moving forward, my posts are going to be very photo-heavy. It’s also something that I felt a bit limited with in my last posts. I always felt like I was oversharing and that people may not want to look at so many of my photos. But in reality, it is such a huge part of my life as I document most of what we do every day by capturing numerous photos.
So, I will not be limiting myself anymore, and I apologize to those on mobile devices as you may be scrolling a lot.
On Friday we are leaving a place where we have been volunteering for the past three weeks in Bulgaria. We are staying with a local family and we have been helping them in their apple orchard by picking apples, clearing vines, cleaning branches and stacking firewood. It’s been a very labor-intensive few weeks, but we have been loving it.
We love it because we get to work outside and with nature, and we love it because we are getting good exercise which is sometimes hard to do with this nomadic life.
But most of all we are loving it because we are getting treated so well!
Our hostess Marina, has been feeding us the most incredible home-cooked Bulgarian meals that we could ever wish for. Three times per day, she has something on the table for us, and we have not gone hungry once. Heaven forbid if we did! She would be aghast!
To highlight the food, I’m simply going to post many of the meals that we have eaten in the past week alone. This will give you some idea of how good we have had it!
She even bakes her own bread and has made me gluten-free rye bread!
I’m telling you, we have been in heaven!
We had a couple of very cool events this past week. One evening Marina told us that she wanted to take us to the “Stone Forest”. We had no idea what that meant, but we all piled in the car close to sunset and we were off.
We arrived moments after the sun had set past the stones, which is unfortunate because I am sure they would have looked amazing in the golden hour. But I managed to get some really nice shots nonetheless. I have yet to write a complete post about our experience, but this will give you an idea of what we saw.
This is all naturally made, and the tall posts you see are petrified trees. As you can see they are HUGE! Marina also told us that there is fossilized coral in the mix as well. So obviously this whole area was flooded by the Black Sea at some point, even though we were over 20km inland. It was also covered in very fine white sand.
Such a unique place.
It was 2 days before the full moon, so it played a large role in the pictures as it started to rise. It was quiet, peaceful, and serene out there. A very beautiful night.
On Sunday she took us to a small artisan festival. Again, as we have felt at many moments while being in this part of Bulgaria, we were transported back to the West Coast of Canada where we last lived before becoming nomadic. There were workshops going on about gardening and permaculture, there were artists and craftspeople both selling and teaching people about their crafts, there was delicious food being cooked, and there were hippies!
We truly felt right at home!
They even had traditional Bulgarian music playing and some line dances that anyone could join. Our host got in there with her nephew and wanted us to join, but I insisted on just being the photographer. I did capture some videos of them as well, and I think she did appreciate my role in all of it because now she has those memories to look back on with him.
We also got to eat some of the big pot of bean soup that they were cooking up! It was a beautiful fall day and we relished in the gorgeous weather and the happy vibes of those around us.
This is my favorite photo of Marina (in black), her nephew, and her friend dancing.
Other than that, we have been plugging away in the orchard, hacking away at all things that we deem shouldn’t be there, trimming the trees and getting everything all set for the winter season.
The first picture below shows only the top trees pruned, then you can see it once they are all pruned. I should mention that when we arrived, we didn’t even know that there were trees below. It was a completely overgrown mess! We have done a lot, and they are very happy with us.
These apple trees have been hard-pruned and will take a couple of years to fully come back. But they are okay with that since we harvested almost 300kg of apples from them, and they have made over 100 liters of apple juice, a bunch of apple sauce, and have eaten a lot as well!
The trees hadn’t been pruned in 5 seasons, so they were well overdue.
And so, we have just two more nights here in this fabulous place, and we will be sad to leave on Friday. But we are also ready for a break, and are looking forward to a visit from a German friend that we haven’t seen in over 2 years!
I’ll fill you all in on that next week.
In the meantime, we will surely miss this view from the porch outside our room. The sun rises from this direction and you can actually see the Black Sea in the distance. It's been a beautiful spot to hang out.
Thank you so much for joining me in our week in photos. I feel like this is a new chapter that is beginning, and I am very excited about it.
To see all of our past weeks in photos:
I’m also tagging those who requested to be tagged from my last post on Weeds & Wildflowers. If you want to be added to this list, please let me know and I will do so moving forward.
Sending out much love to you all and I hope that you have a great week!
xo Jill
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