Josh, this was an above average income woman, in that she was the widow of a well-known author who wrote many books after the collapse of communism. Make no mistake: Bulgaria has a lot of history, but it's an entirely modern country. Nearly everybody has appliances... well some appliances, anyway. Every washing machine I saw was front-loading and in the kitchen. Nobody has dryers. Everybody has at least one balcony, and they line dry their clothes. This is true of both city and country folk. I didn't see a single dishwasher while I was there. Also, I experienced very little AC, which was uncomfortable only in that we were experiencing record highs (100+ F)... this accounts for us spending so much time in the (cooler!) mountains! Here's a picture of a backyard in the next city we went to. Notice the satellite dish? When we left Irena, she asked if we would copy our pics to CD and send it with Vesko on his next trip by. Concerned about compatible file formats, I asked (through my interpreter) if she wouldn't prefer prints. She laughed and said "No, I have a TV, a DVD player, a computer, and more. Your file formats won't be a problem." One last thing about Kovachevitsa, its designation makes its property very desirable... especially to people from other EU nations looking to snap up bargains. Irena told us property has been selling in this village at the heretofore unheard of rate of 1,000 Euros per square metre ($147 US per square foot?) Sometimes we change things the most when we try to keep things exactly as they were! After Kovachevitsa, we went to Leshten. Lots to see here. There are beautiful gardens attached to restaurants, and some very charming old buildings have been converted to hotels. There are only two official residents of Leshten. It was dark, but Vesko knocked on their gate and asked them to let us in to meet them. They were in the middle of milking their goats (!) but they obliged. She's 76 and he's 81. Five times they begged us to drink rakia with them, but we were reticent to continue our interruption so late at night. They could not have been friendlier or more charming. By this point I was understanding a surprising amount of what was being said. Certain phrases amused me though... One was "Dah Bah Dah" which was interjected quickly in a conversation when the listener agreed with the speaker ("Dah" means yes). To me, it always sounded like "Yabadaba-doo!" and would always make me giggle. Well Vesko had a surprise for us at the very top of this hill. He called it the "Yabadaba-doo house" for obvious reasons. Vesko found the power and we turned on the porch lights and enjoyed a fantastic view. He said he knew the owner and had always wanted to stay here (no one was when we were there). He said the house had satellite and wifi. I wondered why anyone would go to what seemed to me to be the end of the earth to plug in. We walked back to the car (much easier to negotiate those cobblestone hills when one is sober and wearing proper footwear) and drove back to our hotel in Ognoyanovo. We wanted to eat dinner on the patio by the pool, but there were no free tables, so Vesko got the waiters to carry an indoor table outside to accommodate us. Vesko had told us he had a surprise for us and asked us to wear our swimsuits and cover-ups to dinner. After dinner, he strapped a spelunking light to his head, took us off the hotel grounds, walked us across a narrow and precarious suspension bridge (daylight pics don't do it justice), and up the road for about five minutes to a geyser-fed hot spring mineral bath that's been operational since Roman times. The moon was bright and barely waning, the air was clean, cool and fresh, and the water was bath-tub warm. My friend is a very driven woman. She's a serious scientist with lots of business responsibilities... and we learned about then that she's also a hopeless "city girl." The whole way up she was terrified of encountering snakes or bears... and even frogs! After we had soaked for a good long time, we went back to the hotel grounds, sat in a circle, and drank Vesko's pear rakia until the call of sleep finally became louder than the chorus of crickets. Steve took these pics the next morning... they don't do the experience justice. And thus ended our fifth day, and second with Vesko...

Ice cave testI am home and catching up on everyone and want to try posting a picture Lavender- so sorry to hear about Mandy. MissyMoo also sorry for your loss and anyone that I missed. CampHappy- sounds like fun! I am so glad everyone is enjoying this post Test on pictures - not sure any are successful, so might need to edit Fourth try- ok, I give up on PB for now - will have to read the hosta post in gardens to figure this out but here is another cave with DH inside from my iphoto Pancake Bay Ice cave 2014

Ben, Sorry Olivia didn’t bloom a lot by 1 1/2 years. I think the 3rd year is considered the mature year, at least for own-roots. 3rd year is tge charm! Lol! My Moonlight in Paris does bloom non-stop huge flushes all the time!!!! MIP may be my best bloomer next to Walking on Sunshine. MIP has blooms all over all the time-she’s a floribunda. Plum Perfect & Kimberlina are blooming all the time all over, too! And a few bush roses like The Fairy are blooming all the time, too. @CeresMer Zone 7a NJ , I am excited to hear that your Olivia bloomed non-stop 2nd year. I think next year will be my Olivias full 2nd year-hoping for lots of blooms!!! Our weather is similar. If I have her in a sunny enough spot she will perform well! We will see! I may get another & put her in a sunnier spot! She has no BS-so she is a super winner for me! Out of my 120 roses, Olivia is one of the few with zero BS ever…. pouring rains damp soil in fall ongoing. Ok, I think Olivia is gorgeous! I have one similar that blooms kinda like Olivia, called Vicontesse Decaux, (a cross of Earth Angel & Winchester Cathedral), but Vicontesse doesn’t have as beautiful a foliage or bloom as much as Olivia.

Campanula - I am still in an urban environment and I do find I have a lot fewer critters to deal with than those on GW who are more rural. I think trying to resolve critter issues must be very draining. The few times I've had to deal with them in anything more than a minor way, it took away some of the fun of gardening. But then again, dealing with heat and drought is no better. This is the first summer out of the last four, that I didn't have to drag the hose over every square inch of my small property on a regular basis. I appreciated it very much. I find I've expanded my interests to include more than gardening alone. I was so intensely invested in gardening for so many years, that I found I was burned out to some degree. I believe I will never have any pursuit that will replace the number one position that gardening holds for me, but my expectations have changed quite a bit from when I first began. You have to take the "should" out of it. And having other interests, keeps gardening in balance for me. My expectations are not nearly as dependent on outcome now. It's a process and you may as well get the most out of where ever you are in the process and enjoy it. I think we are saying the same thing. It's lifelong. As for the long season of bloom. I have only that front bed that I have that expectation of. The rest of the property has to be about what is the best fit for the conditions. I have a lot of fun, tinkering with just that one bed to see how much I can fit in there to keep the interest going. And it's not too large, that a change from year to year is a monumental load of work to accomplish. And it started out with a loose plan of how to accomplish that but since then it's become the most spontaneous decisions I make in the garden. I love annuals when I can start them from seed, otherwise, it's too expensive to use them in numbers that make much difference. Cool fall weather will get the same enthusiasm from me that spring does. I love to get out there when it's comfortable and try to get a jump on spring. This year though, indoor projects are competing for my attention. So maybe a mad dash next spring instead. I am planning to get some bulbs in though. If I ever get an order made.