Village Sounds

I always used to think that village life would be quiet and peaceful. However, the longer that we have lived here, the less I find that that is the case. You just have to stop and listen, and you will soon hear that it is not quite as quiet as you might imagine. I am not complaining, as the majority of sounds are made by nature, rather than by mankind. If you will bear with me I will take you through an average day, starting with the sun just rising. As we are in a rural setting we have plenty of woodland and lakes surrounding us, so the village is a constant hive of activity for bird life amongst other things. Now that the weather is warming up, each day is greeted with the dawn chorus, rather than the birds being huddled up in their nests, coughing and sneezing.

It doesn't take long for the various Cockerels to start crowing, and as soon as one starts another one tries to outdo it. They carry on throughout the day, as they try and keep an eye on their gaggle of hens. Then there are the various Geese, Ducks and Turkeys which have also been roused into wakefulness. Occasionally you can also hear the odd Pheasant or two, coughing away at the edges of the village. The villagers are soon up and about, sorting out their livestock, and getting children ready to meet the school bus. The children must still be half asleep as I never hear them first thing in the morning. Dogs soon begin to appear on the village streets, I can only assume that they belong to people as come the evening they have all disappeared again.

The morning continues to warm up, and goats and sheep are taken to the shepherds who then take these larger flocks out to various bits of pasture. I am always amazed when they return, as they all know where they live once they get back into the village. People just stand at their gates to hold them open as their animals return. There are no barking dogs, no shouting, just the gentle clanking and clonking of various bells. Every so often one adventurous goat might take a fancy to a choice bit of vegetation, but a stern "Haide" and they are off to catch the others up on their return journey home.

Once the livestock, and children, have been sorted out people can then start on their own daily bits and pieces. More often than not this will involve tending their gardens. So above the hum and drone of bees visiting flower beds and blossom, you might hear the odd word or two or a radio being played. What we do often hear though are two shy visitors. Every so often you might see a flash of yellow flying between trees, this will be the Golden Oriole, but it has a very melodic call. The other is the Cuckoo, definitely not so melodic, but always a pleasure to hear, even if it is bad at telling the time. Whoever heard of 27 o'clock? Some villagers don't seem to have a working volume control, and any conversation is carried out at one level, loud. I am sure that these could hold a conversation between them selves from one end of the village to the other.

If there is work to be done in the fields, old asthmatic tractors are fired up and off they chug. There are a couple of newer ones, but the old faithfuls do keep going, even if they do look like they are held together with bits of wire and recycled bits. Nothing seems to be wasted, even if it can no longer be used for its intended purpose, it will be given a new lease of life when it becomes incorporated into something else. Eventually even old tractors have to die, but some of their parts still live on. There always seems to be someone tinkering away, elbow deep in the guts of an old tractor. So rather than everything having a use, it seems as though everything has a multitude of uses, it all depends on how far along the timescale it has got.

We often get wood lorries growling their way through the village. Many appear to be ex-military, and have definitely seen better days. Like the old tractors they keep on going, often only on a wing and a prayer. Then there are the recycled rotavators, which will putter along, towing a trailer. It might be quicker to walk, but in the Summer heat no one wants to rush anywhere. The quietest time in the village seems to be between 1 and 4 in the afternoon, which coincides with the hottest part of the day. We are often sat up under the barn then, reading and just letting the sounds of nature wash over us.

Life seems to pick up a notch with the imminent return of the school bus. Parents and Grandparents go to meet the youngsters, and take the opportunity to sit and have a natter and catch up with each other. Pretty much the same the world over, although what happened in EastEnders, Coronation Street, or Britain's Got Talent might not feature highly on the list of village interests. Its nice to hear the children playing, laughing and shouting when they get off of the bus. At least here children are allowed to be children, and once they have done their chores they are allowed out to play again. They seem to do whatever homework they have in the early evening, before turning in for the night.

As the sun sinks lower on the horizon the chorus of Blackbirds, Starlings and Sparrows picks up from where it left off in the morning. The Swifts, Swallows and Martins do their bit for mankind by eating as many mosquitoes, gnats and midges that they can before calling it a night. The fading light doesn't mean that there is a cessation of noise however. It just gets passed on to something else. Often I seem to be followed by a cloud of whining, biting bugs as I finish off watering the garden, so there are the slaps accompanied by vaguely muttered swear words. We also get a Jay which sits up in one of the Walnut trees laughing at me, if I get my hands on it it won't be laughing any more.

The warmer weather has woken up a numerous amount of field crickets, much to the cats enjoyment as they seem to feel that they need to be hunted. From the remaining crickets there is that constant chirruping in the background. In a few weeks time they will be joined by the tree frogs. Sometimes it sounds almost tropical living here, thankfully we don't have quite so many nasty beasties living here.

After having eaten their fill of crickets our cats seem full of energy, and will play fight between themselves. Heaven help any strange cat which dares to venture into their garden, as they will gang up on it and have a full on scrap. The cats fighting will even drown out the sound of the local frog and toad population. From around the lakes, and beside the stream they can be heard, croaking, booming and chuckling. This will carry on throughout the night, and at times it sounds like a constant hum, similar to what you used to hear if you stood beneath a power pylon.

Finally, you can lull yourself  off to sleep by listening to various Bats, Owls and Nightingales. During the Spring and Autumn we sometimes hear Foxes having a nose round the village. It is easy to trace their path, as the sound of village dogs barking follows them. Then in the Winter there are the Jackals up in the woods, the colder the Winter the closer they will come to the village.

Maybe with Paisii being in a small valley up on top of the hills, sounds might be a little more enclosed and tend to echo a little, but if you listen it is always full of life. This village life certainly might not be as quiet as I once imagined it, but I wouldn't want to swap it.    

Hibernation Starts

We woke up this morning and on looking out of the window we were confronted with a grey, gloomy looking sky. Turning the radio on proved that we were still in Bulgaria, and had not been mysteriously transported back to the UK during the night. I don't remember noticing the weather forecast warning that it would degrade before the weekend. I had things that I had planned to do outside, such as another bonfire to get rid of more garden bits and bobs. Once it started raining that put the kibosh on that idea. I am glad that all of the wood is now up under the barn, cut into cheeses and drying out ready for next year. So far the running repairs which I had to carry out on my English splitting axe are still holding out.

So if my previously planned outdoor activities couldn't go ahead, then I would give Net a hand indoors. With two of us doing it we could give the house a good go through before the onset of winter. Very much like Spring cleaning, but in the Autumn. As we don't have carpets, normally everything is swept by broom, but today the Dyson made its way out from its lair in the cupboard under the stairs.

Another added benefit of the vacuum cleaner coming out is that I can get the nozzle into some of the higher corners. Admittedly I'm no man mountain, but I am taller than Net, so it makes more sense for me to do things like that. Now although it might be heading towards Halloween, and cobwebs might be considered seasonal in certain circles, if Net tells me that they have to go, well who am I to argue. Unfortunately it wasn't just the webs which ended up being sucked up, but several spiders also made that one way trip. I am sure that I didn't manage to get all of the spiders and tomorrow webs will be back festooning the corners of the ceilings. At least with the damp weather now, there shouldn't be so much dust flying around from the fields and roads around the village. So hopefully the new webs might not be quite so noticeable.

So while I was causing death and destruction to the local spider community I started thinking about some of the other bugs and beasties which we get indoors. It wasn't until we moved to Bulgaria, that we first confronted these House Centipedes. They are mainly nocturnal, or inhabit shadowy areas, and supposedly prey on other insects and bugs. I have never seen them eating or even hunting their prey, but I have seen them running across the wall when disturbed. I will say one thing for them, they do have a fair turn of speed, as a consequence we refer to them as road runners. We have been told that they do bite, fortunately neither of us have had to experience that. Also their feet have an acid like substance on them, so if they do run across bare skin there is the possibility of an allergic reaction.

Another set of visitors at this time of year, are the ladybirds. They are looking for somewhere to hibernate during the winter months. You would be surprised at just how many sneak into your home each day, and then all of a sudden you will find a colony of them. Everyone seems to think that they are harmless, unless you are an aphid, but these are something else that will bite you. That's gratitude for you.

Our latest visitor arrived courtesy of one of our cats, thanks for that Brahms. Those living in the country will be well aware of all of the work going on in fields. As fields of stubble have been burnt, and then turned over by rough ploughs, their normal inhabitants have found themselves being evicted. So they head into the villages trying to find somewhere warm and dry. Our cats certainly seem to know where to sniff out these new neighbours, judging by some of the dissections we find on garden paths. We wouldn't have minded so much had Brahms let us know that he was bringing a friend home to tea, but nothing had been said. The first we knew about it was when we saw Mr Mouse just sat there cleaning his whiskers. A quick swat with the brush stunned it, and I was able to scoop it up and move it outside. My problem was trying to place it somewhere out of temptation for the cats, otherwise they would try and bring it back indoors. At least we haven't had to face any visitors which hiss this year.

When you consider that this weekend the clocks are due to change, as is the weather, we shouldn't be that surprised with things trying to find somewhere to hibernate. I don't know about anyone else but the clocks changing always seems to come round so quickly. Maybe even more so this year, as it feels that it has been a very wet summer. The good news is that most of our winter preparations are already either complete, or under way. So I hope that the really bad weather doesn't set in yet, the nights getting colder we expect, and delicate plants have been moved under shelter