Monday 12 February 2018

Normality restored

Winter wonderland
Just kidding! Normality! What's that? Having said that, it has been a quieter week. There was a trip to pick up some roofing sheets to get ready for putting the caravan outside but under permanent shelters as soon as the weather improves - although that will not be any time soon by the look of it, but it could be when I go away, so it is best to be prepared. Another reason for the trip was also because the horse box needed to go for it's technical (trailers also need to have roadworthiness tests here), so it was just a matter of going from the testing station to the builder's merchant close by. It therefore saved a journey another day.
Lots of paths need to be kept clear by Ian. I don't get out so
often as writing on the computer in temperatures of just above
zero is not too much fun. 

I love the laciness of the trees 
Having said that, some like to sit outside in it. 
We were a bit worried about the brakes on the horse box because they have been freezing up. We now leave the horse box parked without the brakes on, to stop them freezing onto the wheels - a problem we had last year. This time though we were worried that they would freeze in the off position and not stop the box during the test. We were relieved that it wasn't a problem at the test station and it passed all the tests. The problem was when we got to the builder's merchant. As we got out of the car there was a strong smell of rubber and the wheel was quite hot. In doing the test on the brakes, they had frozen on. Fortunately the heat unfroze them and on the way back it wasn't a problem. Mind you Ian stopped several times to check.
Our wood pile and hay stack are disappearing in the snow

Narnia?
You can see the sore patch under Aggie's chin that needs the
magic cream. At least the lump now seems to have
disappeared from last year's issue with the tooth abscess
I've had to go out to the land twice this week to apply the magic cream to the girls. The milder weather seems to have resulted in an early onset of the mite issues that we get plagued with from time to time. The magic cream is just comfrey and plantain infused olive oil with a few essential oils in it and that seems to do the trick. The girls loved it on the first day as the cream was still warm from having beeswax added that morning. You could almost hear them go "Hmmmmmm! Arrrrrhhhh!" I think they may have been a bit disappointed the next time it was applied, as it was much colder.
Freddie smiling

We had blue skies and sunshine too, just not on the day that
I was out on the land of course
Ieva Prane's workshop
My next trip was to our Latvian felter on the outskirts of Riga to discuss a project for the next felting course in June. It is exciting to see what she is planning and we discussed how she can best use her skills to encourage people to develop their design work. We didn't manage to finish the article but at least we got a feel for the project and the potential it has, so I am looking forward to seeing the finished product and to see what it looks like on. On the way back to pick Ian up from the caravan where I had left him at lunchtime I saw a racoon dog and a deer on the road not far from our land.
Our project with an alpaca fleece fringe
I love the colour of this little oak tree that has clung to its
leaves all

It is a good job the snow isn't as high as it was about 8 years
ago, our sign would have disappeared too
Much of the week I have continued with my writing. I actually feel like I am seeing the end of the tunnel and it shouldn't take much more to actually get them finished, which is a rather nice feeling. I am still waiting for a reply to the last one I submitted and will probably hear in the next week or two. My supervisor and I have even started to discuss when I defend my PhD, although I do have to get some sort of conclusion to these papers first though. Preliminarily though we are talking about a pre-defence in September. This is the time when the glitches in the thesis should be ironed out and is the hardest part. Then it goes in for a period of a re-write and hopefully defended in November. If all goes well on the day I get my doctorate. Well that's the plan! Let's see first how things progress - as the Seto people in Estonia say.
There's a pond in there somewhere 
Eyre out and about in the snow

Brencis spent sometime reflecting on his own this week. He
must have had a fight with Tellus before Ian arrived to let
them out.
One of the nice things about our life at the moment is the access to good food. We know where the majority of our food comes from, since we have watched it grow. I have even started off onions and peppers to get a head start in the spring. The onions should be fairly hardy but the pepper just seem to take too long to come to maturity and so starting them early might help and we will keep them inside for as long as possible. We did try overwintering some but not sure if they have enjoyed the cool conditions in our other apartment.
Preparation for next year's tasty Latvian potatoes. I am
always so sad as I pile the potatoes onto Ian's plate and
then put a small amount on mine. I do love Latvian potatoes
One day our evening meal consisted of our own lamb, dried rhubarb, dried tomatoes, dried chanterelles, herbs, beans, peas, onions in a nice rich stew, all from our land. You might wonder at the dried rhubarb but it adds a tang a bit like adding lemon to a meal and cheaper as it means we don't have to buy lemons. Another day we had a go with Rocky Mountain Oysters - I will let you google that one, but suffice to say they were surprisingly tasty. I have also started making our own chocolate bars. In essence they are really more like a very rich cocoa butter icing I suppose, but it hits the spot, is cheaper than a bar of dark chocolate and we don't have as much problems getting the ingredients as we do trying to get dark chocolate in our village.
Mr. P is much easier to photograph these days

 Low fat, low calorie Ice-cream! Yum
I suppose I should add that all this good food has not done me so much good over the last year and some of my weight has crept back on. To be fair it tends to leap on when I go away and not drop off afterwards so readily, especially in the winter months when I am much less active - fear of ice does curtail activity to some extent. It has now got to the stage where it seems to be interfering with blood sugar levels again, so the weight has to come off and I need to sort out those things that affect the levels the most and cut down on them. Heh ho! Still at least I have more idea than I did when I first started measuring the sugar levels, what does and doesn't affect them. Dark chocolate is still okay - in moderation of course, okay in a loooot of moderation!
A bit of a wobbly start to the first skiing session of the
season

That's better on a roll now

You may have heard of slow food! Or slow fashion maybe!
Well this is slow skiing aka Nordic skiing with Grandma Oh Oh!

2 comments:

  1. Here is a new word for you: marcescence = a characteristic shared by a few oak species, and also some beeches and hornbeams, is the retention of leaves through the winter on juvenile trees, and is a natural phenomenon.

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    Replies
    1. That is quite a posh word for it :) Thanks for that. Now all I have to do is remember it :D

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