Our Hardest Winter Days in Bulgaria

The light begin to return but the cold is at its deepest. These are the hardest winter days in Bulgaria. This week has been the hardest since moving to Bulgaria. Beyond the bitter cold we received some bad news. It was minus 17 last night. My machine is stuck on the tree. When it cuts, I want it to know that it can cut. He's got himself into a little pickle with his chainsaw I think, trying to cut a tree. It's gotten stuck in the tree. The tree has fallen on his chainsaw and it's gotten stuck and we can't really help because our chainsaw isn't working. Not really sure what we can do really. Chris is over there just helping him out now. Together with our neighbour and some of Zorro's dog friends, we gathered in our local village park to lay Zorro to rest. Well about a week ago he was attacked by, I believe, a dog. He came up with really bad injuries to his body. There was a female dog, she was on heat and around this particular area of the village there were a few other stray dogs who were male dogs and this one female dog was around the area and so Zorro would be a little bit more protective of the female dog. They got into a little fight so he came back the following day but he was limping. We took him in and it was about a week we kept him inside and then the girls would take him out on the leash to make sure that he wasn't going off anywhere because we didn't want him to go off. So at that time he was minus 11 and so we took him out on the leash a few times and just made sure, although he wasn't happy about that, we just made sure he wasn't going anywhere. We gave it another three or so days and then we said okay you know because he was really like, you can see when he wants to just go off and do his thing so we thought okay we'll just let him out he should be fine now and he was fine you know he was feeling a lot better. So we let him out and that's when I think he went back to the same place again with these particular dogs, with the female dog again and apparently a neighbour of our neighbour said that they saw Zorro being attacked by these dogs. It's a very difficult week for us this week, it's like having a family member going out and not coming back that's how it feels. Literally around the corner from us, literally a few roads away and I feel bad I wasn't there for him. The kids are really sad you can see you know they're trying to keep happy we are going to be having a burial for Zorro as well. We'll be taking the kids with us unfortunately Amari is struggling a bit with the feelings and he just doesn't want to be there. The girls will probably come and say goodbye in our way to Zorro. It's been a tough week and I just want to say thank you all so much for all of your well wishes, for all of your condolences that were sent to us and our family. It's not been easy but we will get through this. Going forward we have got to obviously stay strong and understand that unfortunately in these situations we have no control over it. Days are getting longer now, the light is coming back. Between all of us we just got him to catch a ball. It's something he's never done before and he started catching the ball. Oh my god he's catching the ball. He's never had a toy. We got him a toy, he loved it. You see he's got a picture of some green frog, I don't know what it is but you know and it was something where he's like he's sort of like yeah it was different for him. It was becoming a lot more domesticated, a lot more family orientated and I think he loved it. He was showing more emotion, he was showing that he loved that life you know and it was just beautiful to watch. It was just such a well-behaved good dog. We allowed him in the house and we didn't know he was there. He sat down, he never messed in the house, you know pooed or weed anywhere. He let us know when he was going to the toilet. He used to wait till the morning, he's so patient. He'll just sit there and he'll never touch our food on the table. Yeah you leave chicken out he won't touch it and that's something which I worried me I'm like oh he's gonna do it one day and he never did. He never touched any food on the table or in the kitchen if we left it out for any reason. He's just such a good dog which is unusual for a dog which was technically a stray. The girls used to go out every day looking for Zorro, every single day and now they can't. Yeah which is tough, it's hard on them. I can see that they are they are struggling quite honestly. When we trained him to listen to the word net in Bulgarian he somehow knows no. And I think I remember when he was saying about wash he disappeared. I mentioned wash and he's like uh I'm not here and I'm like where's Zorro he's not here and he'll come back the day after he knows I'm supposed to wash him. Our English-speaking Bulgarian dog. But as I said all we can do is see the beauty in his life, see the beauty in the experience that he had both with us and also before us and just you know just remember those those moments, the good moments. For those of you know and been following our videos and our social media tiktok etc we'll realize we called him roadman dog because he was on the road. Yeah. And he was a little man and he was our dog. So that's where he got a name from. He was a lovely dog, he wasn't aggressive at all, he had a beautiful nature. Yeah. And he'll bark at people but it was all out of just like you know getting attention and yeah he's a lovely dog. Yeah. So yeah sadly missed. Very very sadly missed. We got uh and it's hard to say because we've got to move forward. We do, we do need to move forward and you know start afresh with the memories, the good memories of Zorro coming along with us. Yeah. Our videos going forward you'll see and I think you know with this happening to Zorro it does make you realize that life is short. Yeah definitely. And you know it you don't want to spend your life being cooped up in one situation doing the same thing. Life is meant for you for us to explore and to enjoy and to experience different things around the world and that's how we started this whole journey. Although we are saddened by the passing of Zorro it has taught us one thing which is that we want to get back out and enjoy our life. We was traveling before we found Bulgaria and we started off really traveling in our boat car which behind us Columbus. It's amphibious, it goes in the water and we started this before YouTube. We started this before we did any social media. We did this for us and we found Bulgaria and you know we found Olmsted which is amazing but we don't want this to be the end of where like Lane says where we stopped. We want to stimulate ourselves as well in what we love doing and traveling is one of them that's our passion. We are gonna do more traveling and we're gonna take you guys with us. Having a little break you know from this and then yeah you'll see us back on the homestead carrying on with what we need to do. Working away, planting our food, knocking stuff down, digging up the yard. There's gonna be a lot more and there's gonna be some adventurous stuff we're gonna be doing. I've got some stuff planned some crazy stuff as well. I've learned a lot a lot of skills which I didn't have before and I'm still learning. It'll be interesting for us to see how different countries compare to our current lifestyle in Bulgaria. Ultimately we want to go out there and show you guys what you can do when you live in Bulgaria, what countries you can travel to, what things you can do in these countries that you travel to and maybe bring back to Bulgaria once you come back home. Yeah because obviously living in Bulgaria doesn't mean you stop in Bulgaria. We've got an Olmsted, we've got a family, why not go out and travel and experience what Bulgaria and its surrounding countries can offer you. It's gonna be a quite exciting time because now we can truly, before we had to drive all the way from the UK, all the way across Europe, three, four, five, six, seven, eight days, sleeping in the car, sometimes in the thing, getting wet. Oh gosh we've been through all, the kids have been through all. Now in Bulgaria we've got five countries to start off with. Within a few hours drive we can drive to an experience we've never been before by the way. So we're gonna, why not? This is all an adventure for us. That's all the point of being in Bulgaria is to experience what it has to offer and that is one of them. Yeah. And as well as working and learning skills, I mean that's standard if you live in a rural area isn't it? Yeah definitely. So guys this year is gonna be different, we're gonna ramp up our content in terms of showing you what we do, we're gonna take some places, you're gonna see this Olmsted get transformed. You're gonna see more of us, more of Olmsted, more of Columbus right here. Yes. We're and beyond. Thank you very much for your support and our kids thank you as well for your messages. Yes they do. They don't say much but because we're always chatting too much but they do thank you guys for supporting them as well and they appreciate and read all your comments. Keep the comments going, just nice to see that people understand what we're about and are getting some enlightenment and some encouragement for what we do. Yeah. Get out there, live your life as best you can and also just do something new, start a fresh start. Yes. And get some sticks while you're at it. Everything looks so different in the snow. Just going for a little walk in the garden, just making sure that everything's okay out here. It is beautiful in the snow, it's so peaceful and quiet. All you can hear is the sound of winter, a few birds, dogs barking and just silence. It's beautiful. Right, my feet are freezing. I love being in the snow, I really do. I think it's just so peaceful. Let me know in the comments what you guys think. Do you love winter or do you love summer more? Today I've installed the lights into the light bar which is going to be going into the ceiling in the pantry.