Above and right: farmhouse below the main house in Vrbovo. |
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Above: just finished cutting the
hillside with a sickle.
Left: one of the toilets we do not use but similar to the one we do use. Piping and
such stuff often gets installed last in a house, but many times we live out of a finished
house or hotel while working on another. Not always the case though! |
Above: Shiroka Laka, one of the
towns nearby.
Right: not one of ours but typical of the delapitated houses that many prefer not
to sell but hold onto. |
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On Thassos island in Greece. |
Vorbovo village where one of the houses are. Below a friendly French guy is reconstructing
his roof. |
In the days of old the village was full of stone masons and the chimneys can be quite
interesting. |
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The temporary solar showers heating up in the sun until the real solar shower system is
complete. |
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Above: measuring and making
plans of the barn, to be converted into a two level house with many rooms, each with their
own bathroom.
Right: The Bulgarians like to post people who died. |
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Above: view of beautiful
Smolyan, where one of the houses is located and a larger town where we do the more
important shopping.
Left: just down the road from Shiroka Laka. |
Above: at the bottom of the
path to our house in Vrbovo, just above the Frenchman's house. If we park by the village
pub it is 800 steps uphill walk to our project!
Right: part of the path towards the top of Vrbovo village where our house is. |
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Above: Roger along the path
to the top. Notice the mold on the tree branch to the right. That mold only grows in
environments where the air is VERY clean.
Left: went for a walk along a path above the village. Saw fresh bear tracks and
eventually decided to turn back. |
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Across the valley in Vrbovo village. |
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There are several things interesting about
how Roger sets up his operations, so it can be a good learning experience. As you can see
from his Global Warming Response website above, Roger, an engineer by profession, is
concerned about the environment and the state of our planet and is shooting for self
sufficiency. From the picture on the left you can see that he uses piping to distribute
the heat from the furnace around the room, and then a fan to push that hot air back
downwards into the room. He uses solar panels to heat water and is now working on a grant
from the EU to set up an electrical solar power system for the entire village. He also
uses advanced septic technology to distribute sewage waste under a vegetable garden for
automatic fertilization.
Roger knows many languages and is good at waving his arms to get his point across. He is
an easy person to get along with. Technically you do not need to know English to work with
him, but since many of us do converse in English, it could also be a good opportunity for
you to improve your English or learn from scratch! |