The Journey

To heat or not to heat, that is the question

2012-01-23T22:35:00.000+02:00

Chilly days with frosty trees

A bit of excitement tonight, I got a phone call from our house manager - can we go up to the boiler house, there are two drunk people in there. I didn't really follow all the conversation but I did understand that our presence was required ASAP, so on go the wellies, on with the coats, the hats, the scarves and the extra socks and we walked up the boiler house, well it is rather chilly outside at -7C. Our heating has been a bit intermittent and rather lukewarm at times, which isn't fun when it is so cold outside. Admittedly we have our wood stove and can supplement the heat, but that was not the original plan to be using it whilst the communal heating is supposed to be doing the job, the intention was to use it for the times before the heating is switched on in the Spring or Autumn on those cool evenings. It is also not fun for those who have not got double glazing like we have and are on the end apartments and one such home has a week old baby in there and their house was only just registering 13C.

Stone cold skies!

Anyway we got to the boiler house and our house manager hammered on the door, no response. One man appeared to be working, but apparently he wasn't the one who should be there and the other man, who should have been working was in a room with bottles of vodka, and we saw the photos to prove it, although by the time we got there the curtain was firmly shut. Another phone call, this time to the company, the second phone call of the evening to the them. Eventually someone turned up, he hammered on the door, no response, he hammered on the window, still no response. Off he goes to get a key, by which time we are getting rather chilly, the wind was blowing making it feel much colder than the -7C stated on thermometers, so we sat in the house manager's car to wait. Another gentleman from a similarly poorly heated apartment block, kept coming to see what was going on, also waiting to get in to check on the temperatures of the water directly from the boiler. After waiting in the car for what seemed like an age, discussing the problems of the company and our village, the other guy returned but still no key, so we all waited yet again in cars for what seemed like another age. Eventually our house manager got fed up and went and hammered on the door again, success! We were in. The guy inside the building could barely walk, never mind work he was that drunk, the smell of alcohol wafting around. The company guy went to the thermostat and we all read the meter, around 43C out and 33C back, I think those were the numbers and certainly in that ball park and not the figures that our house manager showed us on the chart. According to the chart -7C outside means the water should be heated to 75C, vastly different to the 43C. Eventually the night shift guy turned up and the other rather blotto chap was to be taken home, at least the new guy looked alert, but we are still waiting for that heat to go up, and depends on whether they can get more than just frozen wood chips to burn. Our house manager made it all official and she had written down everything on a piece of paper which we all signed, I think the company guy was very uncomfortable at doing this but it was better to see the proper processes been done. It's also great to see a Latvian taking the initiative to fight back on issues that need to be fought. No longer should it be good enough to accept inadequate heating and then pay a lot for it.

Thick snow on our land too, and landscape features slowly
disappearing

We have had quite a bit more snow this week and it is beginning to look like a proper Latvian winter and so it was typical that Ian was not feeling too good; he wasn't very ill, but definitely under the weather and not up to driving around. I had three interviews to do this week, interviewing landowners about their damage from the pigs, one was in our apartment building and so not too far (he owns land elsewhere) but two of them were out in the sticks and I had to drive to get to them. The main road was bad enough and was like driving through sand but when it came to turn off the main road, there were big drifts across the road and in places I wasn't too sure where the road itself was, scary stuff. I made it though! I was worried about the trip back as it was snowing heavily but fortunately by the time I had finished the interviews the road was being cleared by one of the local farmers. I'm really enjoying these interviews as it is wonderful talking to lots of different people and hearing their stories.

Repurposed tablecloth

It has also been a fettling week again, just as it should be -the time of year to fix and make things. I taught Ian how to sew up his coat and he did quite a good job of it, I made a light shade for a lamp we brought across from America by recycling an old tablecloth that had got stains on it. The lamp had a light shade, but it was one of the few things that broke on the way across, so it has only taken me nearly four years to get around to it. I also fixed some pyjamas for Ian as there was a gaping hole in the neckline, so I cut off the collar and edged it with some extra fabric - waste not, want not! I have also sorted out my fabric stash into colours, I love to see studios with white box type shelving with all the fabrics folded up neatly on them, it inspires me and so just getting my fabrics sorted into basket temporary shelving is better than nothing. Ian also tried to fettle the microwave buttons that are rather temperamental again, and he thought he had done it but the buttons weren't working once reassembled and so the next step is to leave the buttons off and using a matchstick to press the contacts. Again waste not, want not! We will continue using it until it falls apart completely.

My newly organised fabric stash

I have been publishing the comments and trends on the Latvian population and this week the finalised figures were released. The figures show that 190,000 have left the country in the last 11 years, might not sound a lot over so long a period of time until you realise that is 8% of the population. The overall drop in population was 13% but that is because the death rate is greater than the birth rate these days. Some of the outer regions have seen even more of a drop in population of around 30% in some areas, which is pretty devastating really. The economist from Swedbank added his pennyworth to the discussions on the population figures and said that the Latvians shouldn't be moving abroad they should be moving to the cities. Now why does the phrase "Let them eat cake" come to mind I wonder? How moving to the city will make things better I'm not sure, If there are no jobs, there are no jobs and it is sometimes easier to live in the countryside where at least there is the possibility of growing your own food and housing is cheaper than if you live in the city where housing is expensive and bills for water and heating have to be paid. I know we have to pay for water and heating too, but that is because we live in an apartment with those things supplied, if we lived in our other apartment our heating is wood we cut ourselves and if you live in one of the old houses, wood maybe from your own woods and the water from the well - not an easy life but cheaper.

More snowy pictures

I have a heart for the rural areas too, you may have gathered, if you follow this blog and so the Swedbank economists comments do not sit well with me. The rural areas can be revived and indeed we need them reviving if we are to meet the food needs of the future, Latvia's population maybe decreasing but that is not always the case in the rest of the world. But who am I and what difference can I make? What keeps me doing the course I do in Managing Sustainable Rural development? I mentioned a while ago that I feel almost compelled to do what I do and it is because I believe in a God that can turn whole nations around, he can reverse the degradation of our planet, he can reverse droughts both physical and economic, but he is not a fairy godmother to produce this on a whim. He is shaking trade routes and bringing down the mighty, but we cannot be complacent. I am not sure what the outcome will be, but my trust is not in politicians, banks or businesses for my future or the future of this land or the future of the rural areas, my trust is in God alone. It appears I am not the only one who stake their future on a God who really can change things in a major way and willing to live by that, another person who I greatly admire for stepping out to do things differently, sometimes in a very physical way by walking, he has staked his colours to the mast so to speak and spoken out that he is going to trust God to change the trade routes and follow where that will lead. If you want to read more, here is Steve Lowton's blog, hope it inspires you in the same way it inspires me.

Our kittens are getting big, and cause much consternation
as they charge around the apartment after each other, but
then they look so cute all curled up together on the chairs.

One last thing to mention is a paper I saw published on the internet on the problems of mico-nutrient deficiency. This is a problem in Bangladesh, but it is also a problem in developed countries too. The reasons in developed countries is the awful diet that many have, leading to an overabundance of calories but a lack of essential nutrients. Obviously in places like Bangladesh it is a lack of adequate food generally. Industrialised farming also leads to problems as cows fed solely on grain and not the mixture of grasses of course will produce meat of lower quality and our lack of fresh fruit and veg doesn't help either. The stupid thing is that much research is being done on adding the micro-nutrients to foods such as rice which are just high in carbohydrates, when the answer is so much simpler as the above paper mentions. Eating a range of foods that are available locally and can be grown on a small scale to supplement diets is both cheaper and far more sustainable. Even in cities some foods can be grown to increase nutrient intake, from herbs in pots on windowsills to a few containers outside the back door. The other advantage in growing a range of foods is that if adverse weather hits, some will be more likely to survive than others. So expanding the range of foods grown will not only improve the health of people in Bangladesh, it could improve many local communities health and improve sustainability of whole communities.

Crazy times

2012-01-16T22:07:00.000+02:00

The lilac bushes outside our other apartment

Okay so we are crazy but you love us anyway heh? Can't believe some of the things we get up to. We finally got around to starting to deal with the buckwheat seeds that we harvested over the summer. Of course it was nice and snowy outside so once we had worked out the best setting on my kitchen aid flour grinder just to crack the hulls, we then had to separate them. Now normally a nice breezy day outside would be perfect, but inside? Arrh! So our hallway was transformed, cleared of boots and shoes and rigged up with fan at one end to separate the husks from the seed. Mind you we found out at the end the the easiest way to get buckwheat flour is to grind it to crack the hulls and then grind it again to get flour and the hulls can then be sieved off, with just some ground into the flour to make the more traditional black buckwheat flour. We also found out that it was probably best sieved right at the start to get rid of the grit out of the husks and seeds. Oh well! We'll try again next week.

We have a Father Christmas car again

Talking of harvesting, the deer left a note saying "Thank you very much for the tasty kale, same again next year?" Yep you guessed it we are left with stalks and the swiss chard that was covered with pine branches to deter the deer from eating them so we have spring greens to grow back next year, were also disturbed. Will be interesting to see if we have got any come back up next year. All is not lost though and we can still have tasty kale crisps which we have got rather fond of, because we have some more growing in the greenhouse, so unless the deer work out how to unlatch the door or go through the plastic which is unlikely, then they will be safe, especially now we seem to be on top of the mice problem. We caught six mice altogether in the traps and the poison bait is no longer being removed, so they won't be tucking into kale either.

A winter wonderland

The snow finally came this week and the colder temperatures followed it. We cleared around our greenhouse, which is still up thankfully this year, so that the ground had a chance to freeze. We found last year that a large amount of snow on top of soft ground is really difficult to shift and ends up making a big mess of the ground when digging away the snow. We haven't got as much snow as last year, but it is enough to give everything a good covering and the ski season has started. Our cross country ski run even has floodlights now so that people can ski in the evenings, which we did this evening. We were a bit worried about the floodlights at first as they were on all night, not good for light pollution, but they seem to have sorted out some timing on them now and they went off at 9pm tonight. Still we got a good chance to ski and even some lessons from one of our neighbours, who showed us some of the techniques.

Not a star but the new floodlights to light
our cross country ski run

The cleaning fairy has been in operation most of this week, Ian tidied the office and discovered lots of space that seemed to just appear - not a lot went out so no idea where it all evaporated to, although there were many cardboard boxes taken out. Maybe the wall post on facebook that someone posted is true after all "Cleaning is just putting stuff in less obvious places" (not quite sure who is responsible for that witticism). Along the way a bunch of photos were discovered that we appear to have inherited from the church we used to go to in America, it seems to be a bunch of pictures of a Sunday School trip. Another find was a CD given to us after we had seen the mayor of the village which contained some presentation pictures of activities in the village - nice to be able to recognise some of the folks now and actually put a name to a few (hopeless with names anyway, so just being able to recognise the people and where from is an achievement). It is amazing how much brighter and more space we feel we have now that room is cleared - next week the dump room, weather permitting ie lots of snow to keep him indoors. Our flat appeared to get worse since we started the gardening work in earnest, which has kept us busy, the polytunnel collapsing last winter and the weddings, plus my course work, all conspired to keep us on our toes even through what would normally be the quiet times. I'm still doing my course work but Ian has more time this year. We do struggle to throw things out though as we do re-use lots of things. Old clothes get morphed into bags, quilts etc. Our bedroom curtains are curtains from our Danish house, our office curtain was a shower curtain in a previous life, Ian's jacket was repaired yet agin this week with binding I have inherited from goodness knows where and last year his over trousers, which he managed to burn a hole in, were repaired with fabric that I had in a box. So you see we don't waste a lot. The cardboard boxes will end up as weed barriers, and the polystyrene packaging will reappear somewhere else - not sure about that yet but we can always do with insulating things. You can also guarantee the minute we throw something out will be about five minutes before we discover we did needed it after all.

Bell with her natty purple apron

Our cats were not happy this week as we sent them to be neutered. There are plenty of lovely looking kittens in this village without our cats adding to the number and I am sure the local bird population would agree. Of course our cats were pretty groggy when we got them back and we were highly amused by their attempts to walk, unfortunately Sofie also likes to lick and we ended up having to put an apron on her that the vet had given us to prevent her licking the wound. Bella's was put on at night before we went to bed since she is not so compulsive at keeping clean like Sofie. They did look silly in them, and I think Sofie agreed, because the next morning she was not in it. How she managed to get out of the apron with the strings still tied and in the confined space behind our settee we have absolutely no idea. Could just have understood it if it had been a normal day, but right after her operation, how could she move her limbs enough to slip out of the apron? Houdini cat I suppose.

Sofie with her lovely white apron. Now you tell me
how she got out of that in a confined space?

Latvia to the right. Definitely very Northern, but where is
Eastern? Finland could also be classed as Eastern European.

I have a question for you, so where are you? Our geography doesn't always match up to our feelings. The Brits for instance, if you live in England you are less likely to feel European than if you live in Scotland but that belies the fact that Britain is in Europe, it is sits on the European plate whether we like it or not. Now take Latvia! I hesitated last week at adding the thought about Eastern Europeans and how many in far flung countries are separated from loved ones because I was effectively lumping all those coming from ex-Soviet countries as Eastern Europeans and one of my friends mentioned that Latvians do not always like to be called Eastern Europeans. But take a look at the map! Where is Eastern Europe? Who are the mythical Eastern Europeans? How far west do they come? The Latvians actually now prefer to be thought of as Northern Europeans because that is what they are, not as northerly as their northern neighbours Estonia and then Finland but still way up there. They are, however, not the only ones separated from loved ones, doing the jobs many in Britain do not want to do, the cleaners, the toilet attendants, the potato pickers, the maids and the list goes on and so does the list of countries that contribute valuable services to Britain, the Latvians, Lithuanians, the Poles, the Filipinos, the Indonesians, the Sri Lankans etc. etc. etc. sending back valuable finances to their homeland, targeted aid supporting education, nutrition and goodness knows what else. And if you want to see the effect of these emigrating populations on towns and villages around Latvia, have a look at this video from the BBC about a town called Cesis

Clearing the snow from the roadways to encourage them to
freeze this week to make any subsequent snow clearing easier

I mentioned about two weeks ago that Swedish agricultural companies were starting up Latvian companies to buy farmland expanding the Swedish financial empire. Seems the Swedes haven't bought everything up yet, as this week a Swedish company bought the Latvia's national commercial TV channel. It would not be too bad if the Latvians benefitted from all this "investment" but I am not sure they do, hugely. In my research and the internet stories I read, it states that home grown enterprises are far more likely to add value and jobs to an area than outside massive investment. The problem with the big investments is that profits leave the country, whereas home grown enterprises are more likely to reinvest into the area. They are more likely to support local causes and seek to bring about improvements in their area because they have a big investment in that area, namely their families. Big is not necessarily better, even economies of scale are not always what they seem. Sure a big company can create a lot of stuff and cheaper, but at what cost to the environment and what expense to its workforce? Cheaper loses some of its lustre when it binds people to a life of drudgery because they cannot afford to live well. Swedish companies do not always do much better outside their own nation, in the same ways the Brits are not exactly likely to promote welfare and good practices once outside of the nations control. We are often aware of it at a long distance as in India, China or elsewhere but not so aware when it is within Europe. One rule within a nation, but outside of it? Having said that I have got to give praise where praise is due, Swedbank have written down some of Latvia's debts as a goodwill gesture. Not sure what that means in practice but I think it is a positive move and at least sends out the right kinds of signals. It isn't the first bank to do so though, SEB (another Scandinavian bank) was first and at a lot earlier a stage.

Icicles hanging from the barn roof

A successful week

2012-01-02T22:36:00.001+02:00

Enjoying a cuppa! Not our advanced Mac user, but a user
of the Macs warmth methinks

We have decided our cat is an advanced Mac user. This week Sofie walked across my laptop and up pops a box to choose the language for the keyboard, we had no idea that pressing "cmd" and space bar could do that. I have two options for my keyboard, British and Latvian, so that I can write the extra Latvian letters "ā, ē, ī, ģ, ļ, ņ, ō š" and so it is really useful to have a quick way of changing between the two languages, especially as leaving it in the Latvian keyboard means I end up typing a š instead of an apostrophe s. It has taken four years to find that out and it just takes a 9 month old kitten to walk across my computer! Mac users they maybe but mouse catchers? Hmmm! Despite taking our kittens to the greenhouse to play it did not seem to deter the mice in the caravan which is currently stored in our greenhouse and so just recently we have resorted to traps and then poison. At least we had some success with that and caught 6 mice now and the poison has been eaten - let's hope that sorts it for the time being as we don't really want a family of mice living in our caravan insulation.

A snowy scenes

I have had an amazing response to my request for interviews for my project on wild boar management and the conflict that results over it. Arranging interviews had been an usually protracted process for another project last year and so I was amazed to get a response to my three emails to people at national level within hours and I managed to get all organised for one day this week. All went smoothly with everyone available at the right time and everyone was extremely helpful and generous with their time. The only mishap was nearly sliding off the road in some atrocious slippery conditions on the way there, on the first corner out of our village. I also got some farmer interviews under my belt too this week and so I feel on a roll. Thank goodness! Mind you, one hour of interviews does translate to many hours transcribing them, and I don't think they would transcribe well using transcribing software, not with the accents, mine and theirs.

Ice rinks in the making as our ponds begin to freeze over

It hasn't been a proper winter here yet, but it might have just arrived this week. We have had weeks of snow here, snow gone, snow here, snow gone and it has left us with a rather muddy mess. It started to snow on Saturday and a good few centimetres fell, enough to send most of Britain into complete and utter chaos, but hardly worth mentioning here in Latvia. At least it has covered the muddy mess and, unfortunately for me, it also covered the frozen ice from the melted snow on a car park. The snow was not thick enough to cover the ice with a less slippery surface but enough to hide the ice, and I greeted a friend's New Years greeting by slipping flat onto my back. For a change I had two gallant men to help me up, makes a change from being sniggered at. Time for the Yaktrax methinks. Nothing was hurt beyond a bit of pride, actually I thought it was quite funny as I can think of better ways to return someone's greeting than sliding gracefully to their feet.

Snow covered roads. At least it fills in
some of the potholes

The reason we went out was, because I wanted a joint of pork for the weekend. We had had a lot of vegetarian meals over the week and I just fancied a joint for a change. It was a well timed action as a little later on that morning I had a phone call from a friend who was just about to set off to the near-ish big town to us, from his village some distance away, and was even sat in the car, when he found out the meeting he was intending to go to was called off. Since he was all ready to go somewhere he decided to pay us a visit instead. He had never actually made it to see us, we had always gone to see him, so we got to show him around the land we manage, as well as sit down and talk around the table. Oh we can sure do that and getting much practice just lately as you may have noticed if you follow this blog. In fact while we on our way back into the apartment with our friends, one of our neighbours was sledging with her little one and she stopped to chat a little and she invited us round for a chat another day, which was later was changed to a meal. Oh yes! we can talk and eat at the same time, and the fish supper this evening was superb too and the conversations fascinating.

A disappearing landscape under a blanket of snow

This week the Latvian State Employment Agency announced that unemployment was down 3%, they are still worried that many people are still looking for work though. A 3% drop though is pretty good don't you think? Or is it? There has been a fall of 34, 256 registered unemployed people, but there has also been a fall of around 23,000 in the population - many will have been adults who have left the country this last year. That doesn't make the fall in unemployment quite so spectacular does it! It is also worrying, because some of those may return if employment conditions worsen in other countries and there may still be no jobs for those returning. Having said that, there are some jobs that some companies are having difficulty filling, because those who can do a good job are often the ones that leave and those who are motivated to work hard are sometimes scarce. It would be easy to criticise those left behind as people who are lazy, and perhaps some are, but they are also trying to deal with a legacy of soviet system thinking that does not encourage a motivated workforce. Many battle alcoholism and a sense of hopelessness. Not easy to turn around a whole nation in less than a generation and there is still a long way to go yet, they could have done with some better politicians in the past and some better external advice, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, it is still a young nation and it all takes time.

The hat I knitted for Ian, hopefully it is
warmer than his other one.

The flip side of so many leaving the country is the anguish that one mother feels over the death of her daughter. In an article in the Daily Mail she blames herself for the deteriorating relationship with her daughter brought on by moving away in order to help her family financially. She feels it has lead to her daughter getting into bad habits and in with the wrong crowd, something that she feels may not have happened if they had all moved together. Mind you it is far harder to move with families, when the jobs the Latvians and others like them do are often low paid; it is easier for them to send the money home and live as a single person. So spare a thought for those Eastern Europeans and think of how many families they represent back home who are missing loved ones, missing a father, missing a mother.

Just want to add Happy birthday to Mavis this last week. It has been great getting to know you through this blog and in person over the years. Mavis has followed this blog almost from the beginning and been such a support to me to keep going in the writing and then blessed us even more by coming out to see what we were doing and so it seems only right to send birthday greetings from my blog. If you want to know any more about Mavis then take a trip over here and read more about her adventures at our place here.

Be bold

2011-12-28T00:45:00.001+02:00

2nd January 2010, taken in Australia. What a contrast to
this year

We arrived home safely on Wednesday after having been looked after brilliantly by our son and his new wife, they are indeed excellent hosts and we feel very well cared for and cosseted. We loved the belated gifts we got for Fathers' Day and Mothers' Day and they produced much merriment. As I mentioned last week Ian got a lego tractor which he enjoyed putting together and it is now sat on the bedside cabinet and I got two books for knitting baby hats and snugglers or baby cocoons. I guess I need to get knitting in preparation, although there are no grandchildren on the horizon yet, but I might need to get up to speed, you never know. Our kittens were also well cosseted by our neighbour and her young son who came in to look after them and play with them everyday. They didn't seem to have missed us while we were away.

This is outside our flat in 2009. It has snowed the last
couple of days, but not quite so much. I had a
beautiful picture on my phone taken on New Years Day,
but forgot to save it. Doh!

Our son, his wife, Ian and I squeezed in a trip up north to the midlands before Ian and I left the UK, to see our youngest son and meet his new girlfriend and her daughter. I think his girlfriend was a little nervous of us all at first, but she was lovely and we were all impressed with how imaginative and well behaved her daughter was. Despite mum still being young she demonstrated a lovely gentle patience which was a joy to see. I took a book for the little one but had forgotten how small they are when handling books. I bought Nick Butterworth's "The Treasure Hunt," he writes such beautiful stories for young children and so well illustrated and I loved reading them to my own children and children at playgroup when I used to lead one. The problem is that the book was soft back and big so is already a little torn but I am sure it will still be well used. I was fascinated by the little ones stories as she looked through the book, using the illustrations as a starting point for her own story and later on watching her play with her money from her purse and calling them money beans which she proceeded to plant in the carpet - that kid could go far!

A world away! Last winter in Australia

You know those moments "I'm sure that guy looks familiar?" Well we had one of those at the airport on the way home, as an older chap sat down nearby on the departure lounge . He looked like the kind of guy who loved pop/rock music from the 70s, complete with the 70s hairdo. Later on that day, on the way back from the airport, Ian was standing in the shopping mall waiting for me whilst I was visiting the loo (as you do) and was watching the tv screen, when up pops that familiar face, it was Chris Norman the lead singer in the 70s pop band Smokie, someone we remember as kids and he was playing in Riga with Bonny Tyler, so that's why his face looked kind of familiar, and he really was a rocker from the 70s.

This is the new wardrobe. The black
stripes are black glass and I am really
pleased with how it has turned out as
I came up with the design, and our joiner
friend suggested the sliding doors.

We didn't quite get the peace and quiet on our return. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago we were waiting for a wardrobe from the local delivery firm and sure enough it has finally arrived. I waited in all day again for the wardrobe and it eventually turned up at 9pm. The guys were barely able to stand as they looked so exhausted and so had to return the following day to assemble it. It turns out they had had a large order for doors, an answer to prayer indeed, but entailing so much work to be done in a short period of time. We had chatted a while ago about which way the economy was going, as the guy was really struggling with his company, as so many are in this country, the chat even made my blog late that week talking about all sorts of options and in the end I just said the only thing he could do was to watch for the signs from God. Apparently the next day he was given the opportunity of this big order - well I don't think you can get much clearer than that. I am so pleased as I was praying that he wouldn't have to leave the country and leave his family so that he could support them like so many Latvians are doing.

Another world away, but this time the date is New Years Day
2005

Our New Year was a quiet affair, but I wanted to welcome it with eyes wide open this year. Sometimes we had even gone to bed rather than see the New Year in, after all it is a fairly arbitrary choice for the start of the New Year. Having said that, God does sometimes use our calendars to work with, and this seems to be one of those years I feel and so I wanted to be alert for the beginning of the year. It was amazing to see the stars glinting in the sky on a clearing night sky as the year turned and the fireworks signalled the start. We saw the neighbours children running around the building, torches in hands, enjoying the thrill. I was equally thrilled to receive a text wishing us all the best for the new year from one of our Latvian friends, being greeted in the morning with "A happy New Year" in English by one of our neighbours ( I replied in English and Latvian so I am as proud as he was) and a phone call from another friend later on in the day wishing us all the best for year ahead. We feel much more a part of the community this year, patience and a willing to build relationships seeming to bear fruit. We didn't want shallow friendships, we wanted to be a part of the community and its workings and although there is still some way to go yet I am content with the progress we have made so far and it sure feels like home to us.

This time from our time in Denmark.
January 2004

So what are our reflections on last year? Nothing too profound really. It came as a revelation to us that kale crisps and roasted pumpkin seeds are really tasty and are now a staple part of our diet. I had always thrown sunflower seeds away with a tinge of guilt as I felt sure they would be good to eat, but how to prepare them was something I have only found out recently. Roasting with a little salt and oil till they start popping makes a really tasty and crunchy snack, either shelled or unshelled. Once they have stood around for a day though they need to be shelled but that is easier to do once roasted - unroasted they are far too fiddly. Mind you it is not the sort of snack you would want to eat in a posh restaurant as you crack the shell between your teeth. Another refection on our year was, we were rather busy, it seemed a rush from start to finish and we can't believe how fast the year has gone. We don't like being busy as we are reflective type folks and at least like to pause and think about life. In some ways it will be a pattern for a while, but at least if I complete my Masters this next year, I might get the summer off which will make life easier by far. Don't let our busyness put you off visiting though, many of our jobs can be rearranged and the only times we would really have problems is if the weather has been bad and we have to catch up on jobs such as hay making, but people come first. Mind you, if you fancy a week or two where you get the chance to work on a farm, feed some animals (hopefully get some of those soon), cut some hay, weed the garden then we have plenty of opportunities for that and then there are always the evenings to sit around the table eating food fresh from the garden and chatting away - now we can do that!

Vestvolden, Denmark. A canal that ran down the back of
where we used to live

One of the main bones of contention for us here in Latvia is the fact we cannot own the land we work. I can accept that on one level, as I understand how connected Latvians can be to their land and they fear foreigners coming in and buying up all the land on the cheap; what I do not accept is how foreign firms can create Latvian companies and buy up the land anyway (link here). This is one way a foreign company can pillage the land legitimately and be thought of as heroes and saviours as they "invest" in the land. Unfortunately they siphon off the profits and in return often only offer low paid jobs. In contrast if we owned the land, as much as possible of any profit we make would stay in the area on principle. What I was also astounded to find out is that it is mainly Swedish agricultural companies that own the land via their Latvian subsidiaries. I am beginning to wonder if Sweden has more influence now in Latvia than when Latvia was under the rule of the Swedish empire?

Ducks making the most of an ice free spot
on the Vestvolden canal

And to finish off the blog! I see the leaders in the EU are issuing grim news about this next year - oh great! Something to encourage people then? It would seem that only David Cameron issued anything like a call to encourage people - amazing I should agree with something he said. I wonder if it is just the British media's take on it though. Do they look for where they think there will be changes, so they are ahead of the game? No longer reporting news, but what might be? No agenda per se, but just looking for change, looking for news and maybe creating it along the way by generating a panic here and there? If the news is correct though it is a shame as leaders should be those who lead, inspire and guide. Things may indeed be tough next year, 2011 may indeed have just been a precursor to what is to come, but so what? Focussing on that, will not get us through, and get through it we must. Yes we need to be realistic, but come on, let's face the future with courage and make the adjustments necessary, let's work together for the good of our communities which takes more than money to put right - it takes love and commitment and willingness to help where possible. So in the words of David Cameron, taken out of context "go for it!"

As you may have guessed, I forgot to take photos or forgot to save them and so I thought I might treat you to winters past along our journey to where we are now.

It's Christmas time

2011-12-21T12:03:00.000+02:00

A place to sit and reminisce! This was from last week
when we met up with our long term friends

Well it's Boxing Day and our time in England is nearly up (for my worldwide friends Boxing Day is the day after Christmas day and there are various reasons for calling that, but I'll let you google it) . Our son has done a stirling job of keeping the parents amused and transported us hither and thither. It has been a good time with much reminiscing and many silly jokes. Put Ian and our children together and the jokes start to fly and you have to watch particularly for the low level jokes or you might get hit. The banter can be quite bewildering at times for those not used to it, for instance Happy Christmas became Apple Crumble - naturally! As it does! I think the reminiscing is so important though, in our family, as it binds the family together and reinforces the oral history of the family, bits get added as different members of the family remember different parts of the story until we have a whole story from many different angles. It was lovely to know that the time we spent putting up Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed many years ago was appreciated by at least one member of the family, as our son said it looked magical on Christmas morning. That tradition stopped though as the children got older and the bedtimes later and then they began to do the decorating themselves - well it kept them busy and amused on the day before Christmas.

Ian and his new friend

I mentioned last week that it was a bit of a cultural shock coming to a busy place after the quiet of our home in Latvia, but it has also made me realise how busy life is in the UK generally. Our life might seem busy at times and certainly some of our work has to be done at specific times - if the weather is good in July/August the hay has to be got in, there is no waiting around for a more convenient time, but that does not mean we have to rush about all the time. Life for us now is at a measured pace, we have time to take in the peace of the countryside, the sheer stillness of life in Latvia at times. We can gaze at the numerous stars on a clear cloudless night, because there is so little light pollution and if you are anything like us we find that awe inspiring. We have time to gaze at the pond life in our ponds, time to watch the neighbours children playing outside (so lovely to see children playing around getting fresh air and exercise without being cooped up on a playstation or something similar) and time to marvel at the infinite variety of creation as we sip our drinks. It is funny how modern life with all its labour saving equipment has often sapped the time to gaze and marvel, sapped our times to sit and reminisce and time to enjoy family and friends.

Ian prepared for the 3D film in his special
3D glasses

As I said we have had a lot of time with our son and his wife of just over a year, it has been lovely. We have been out for walks on the Downs and in some nearby villages- sorry forgot to take photos of that, I have been to a Zumba session with my daughter-in-law and I am pleased to say there are definitely no photos of that. For those who have no idea what Zumba is, then it seems to be a bit of a cross between traditional keep fit with a bit of spanish dancing and belly dancing thrown in and so you should be eternally grateful there are no photos of me attempting that. It was good fun though and I was surprised to last a 3/4 hour session and not be too sore the next day. They also took us to see "Puss in Boots" in 3D at the cinema, definitely a film for cat lovers and amazing to watch with the 3D special effects. It was funny to see all those little quirks of cats included in the film and the thoroughly cheesy story line - just right for a bit of fun close to Christmas. The film reminded us of our kittens back home and so it was lovely the day after watching the film to have an email from our cat sitter telling us the kittens were fine and being well looked after.

Such a lovely range of natural colours

We also took the time to go and see an Alpaca farm and they were lovely. The alpacas are curious animals but we were especially privileged to have many of them coming up close and letting us scratch their necks under their chins. One particular alpaca took rather a fancy to Ian though and we joked for the rest of the week about his elevation to the heady heights of being an alpaca pin up. They certainly seem the right sort of animal for us, there were some llamas there too but they kind of towered above me (okay not hard I know), but I think it would take more time to get used to them. The alpacas are quiet, gentle moochy sort of animals and very quiet. It was quite extraordinary to see so many animals and not to hear much noise. We will definitely look at getting three next year and learn how to handle them and find out how to care for them before possibly embarking on breeding them.

Ian's fathers' day present. He enjoyed putting this together

Another thing I have noticed in England is the change in dress sense over the years. Once upon a time if you went to a shop like Marks and Spencers, Debenhams or British Home Stores you could be guaranteed to find some smart clothes for work, instead this time I had to go to quite a large Marks and Spencers store before finding some smart trousers so I can interview people for my project and look smart and professional. The range of clothes tended to be casual rather than smart. The problem is that I am definitely more apple shaped than Latvians and the cut of clothes found in the UK is more likely to suit my style than in Latvia, however, Latvians do know how to dress up. I found this in Denmark too, on the whole the Danes will dress casually but even then it could be very smart casual, not what I would call slouchy casual as in the UK. On special occasions the really smart clothes would come out in Denmark though and I am not sure if that is so much the case now in the UK. I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing really. I think it is a bad thing if your dress sense is what defines you, or if people look down on others for their dress sense, but I think that is also sad that there is a a lack of a sense of occasion and so no reason to dress up. I'm still trying to find the happy medium between the point where special occasions are too fraught because of the necessity to dress correctly and yet special enough to warrant taking some special care to go.

Me prepared for the summer with my anti-mossie net

Watch out for those low flying jokes!! And an Apple Crumble for all my readers.

Time creeps on

2011-12-13T08:49:00.002+02:00

Wow the weeks are speeding by. I'm now sat in England, in my son's house and not in Latvia. The kittens are being cared for by a neighbour and her small son. It did feel very strange to be saying goodbye to them, knowing we are leaving them for a longish time. One of them was especially cute and cuddly in the morning as if she was making us feel bad for going away. Heh ho! A seaside town on the south coast of England is so different to rural Latvia with the seagulls making a racket, so much traffic on the wrong side of the road, and so many houses and shops. It is odd to have culture shock returning to a land we once knew so well, but something we have become accustomed to.

The week has been a time of preparing for going away, making sure we saw people we needed to see, tidying up so we don't come back to a mess and preparing for a wardrobe that never arrived. The wardrobe is a long story indeed and I guess it will be ready for when we get back, well maybe.We have got used to things not quite going to plan in Latvia fortunately. I had wanted a wardrobe for a long time and we looked around in shops and never really saw anything that would work for us and so we ended up arranging for it to be made locally by the firm that made our kitchen, but things have been difficult for him as normal and possible delivery dates have slipped time and time again. Frustrating but in the words of one of our friends "It is what it is" and getting irritated or even angry won't help at all. So for the time being the clothes remain in plastic crates until we get the wardrobe installed.

We landed in England and immediately were taken to a small town for a cup of tea, some food and a meeting with some friends we hadn't seen in quite a while. Our friends are people we knew from our time up north and one of them goes back about 25 years, a long time indeed. Our friends have since moved down south and were visiting relatives in the area where our son lives. It all seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. The time was spent catching up and reminiscing much to the amusement of the cafe owners. We stayed for a long, long time and apologies were even made when our party was leaving for spending so long there, but all was forgiven as we had spent enough money in the process. Phew! Good job really as it was only a small place with eight of us crammed into a cosy nook, taking up probably half the cafe in the process.

Today was spent in the company of my son's niece and nephew, released from school last week for Christmas and needing some entertaining whilst their mum still works. Part of the day was spent in a play place, where scaffolding type constructions are covered in foam and children can get to run around, play hide and seek and slide down the slides. Perfect for running off lots of energy but oh so noisy for people used to the rural way of life, and there were so many people of different shapes and sizes! It was funny watching the little ones toddling around but we are definitely passed that stage in life of running around after our own little ones, well until grandkids come along and then we can pass them back. Watching our son dealing with his niece and nephew made us realise how far we have come from that young family who set off on adventures new to a small rural village in Derbyshire, that our friend who we had met up with again had witnessed, oh so many years ago. At that time we never dreamt that we would end up in a small rural village in Latvia, with our children spaced so far apart.

One of the things I forgot to mention last week was my book prize came and it's huge. I didn't realise it was an epic book of gargantuan proportions. Okay I exaggerate a bit, but it is only a bit. I haven't even had the chance to really sit down and absorb much of it at all, but I did get the chance of making pumpkin pie using one of the recipes; a recipe a little more geared towards the European palate with less sugar in it. It worked well.

I think it is encouraging to see younger people beginning to engage with issues, such as education by the 19 year old last week that I mentioned. This week the youngster hasn't even left school and yet he is engaging with the issue of evidence based medicine. I hope this young man does indeed become a champion for evidence based medicine, it is sorely needed but ...... and it is a big but, that extends to so called conventional medicine too. As conventional medicine is often derived from natural formulations, separated from other components with a greater risk of side effects, then it is not always better for you. Conversely just because it is natural does not mean it is safe. Just because it has been used for years and years does not mean it is effective. The problem is that conventional medicine is not always based on evidence either, as sometimes evidence is tricky to collect ethically, but evidence still needs to be collected somehow. So where am I on this scale of alternative vs conventional? Neither really or stuck straight down the middle. If over processed food is not good for us, then perhaps over processed medicine which ignores a more holistic approach, may possibly not be good for us either. Remembering that many drugs etc are researched by companies aimed at making money, should help us to remember to keep a healthy scepticism of their claims too.

I have to apologise there are no photos this week either. Never mind there will be some cute photos of alpacas next week when we go and see them - hope I remember!

Petulance abounds

2011-12-08T22:38:00.001+02:00

Starting to melt a bit now, but a wintry scene nonetheless

Petulance: Easily annoyed and behaving like a child! And what a petulant week this has been. I think winter has kind of flopped in like a petulant teenager, only appearing because it's supposed to be, but being very grudging about it in the process. It has snowed, albeit the wet, slushy, slippery stuff; give me minus 5C any day rather than this hovering around 0C/1C nonsense during the day. It has meant a shift in the tasks that Ian can undertake from the mainly outdoor jobs to indoor ones. The land is just too wet to do anything with and the trees are covered in snow, so they are not ideal to be felled and moved about. The days are also so short now, just light by 9am and dark just after 3 ish depending on how dark the sky has been. Some days we haven't even turned the lights off.

Our snow covered land

Our heating company has been just as petulant. We had good heat on Friday night and we have had good heat Sunday night, the rest of the week has been cool, sometimes down to around 16C, a wee bit chilly for sitting around in. It is a good job we have our wood burner but not everyone does and ours isn't the house that gets the coldest either. The good news is though, that there are a few of us who are monitoring the temperatures and hopefully the heating company will be taken to task over it this time. More likely they will do what they are supposed to do and provide us with adequate heat, but only because they know that people are watching everything they do and know they are not sticking to the regulations. Apparently the regulations are hung up on the wall in the boiler room, so there is no excuse for water that has not been heated up hot enough, unless of course you think you can get away with it that is!

Snow clinging to the trees

Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, is in petulant mood too - it troubles me and partly because it makes our stay in Latvia precarious if the UK ever did pull out of the EU. I am not sure whether he was right or wrong to do what he did, but I don't think his motives were good or the way he went about it. It is bad enough that the world leaders are, as usual, giving scant disregard to those who will suffer the most i.e. the poor, and it is they who will take the rap for all of us living beyond our means for too long, but to put British business interests at the forefront of the decision making, not just any old business either, but City business, is wrong and to go about it in a petulant manner is even worse. The City has had a huge influence in getting us into the mess we are in and it won't get us out of it. The system is dying and needs to change and propping it up will not help one bit. We can't let the system collapse entirely immediately, I know, as it is needed while new growth springs up, but it needs to be allowed to die gracefully.

A snowy bridge into the forest

We have had another bank scare in Latvia, although this one seems to be based on rumour rather than on substance. People are twitchy about their money, as some people had a lot of problems when they could not get their money out of the recently collapsed Krājbanka. People just cannot afford to have their money locked in banks when they need food to eat and many ATMs ran out of money, although they are being restocked. It is not that long ago when other banks did go under, such as the Parex bank at the beginning of the crisis and after independence some banks folded, so the nervousness of Latvians is very understandable.

On a completely different note I did my first interview for my project this last week. It was a chance to make sure that the questions were okay and it gave me some indication of how long it will take to do each one. I hope to get some more interviews sorted out this week and then really crack on with them in the New Year. The first ones are likely to be the easiest to arrange, as they are people I already know, but after that I then strike out into unknown territory, as I start to try and get people I don't know talking to me, hopefully after referrals from friends though, but even so they will have to trust me to open up! I am looking forward to it though, as I hope to meet lots of new people and hopefully get some new perspectives on living in this place. Who knows where it might lead.

It might be a bit snow covered now but that
is a present from the wild boar that Ian is
standing in. A hole up to his knees

As usual I read the meters and then went online to pay the bill but I was in for rather a rude awakening, our electric had gone through the roof this month. It has been steadily climbing up recently, but we put that down to drying veg, which takes a long time and compared to the costs of running a freezer all year to keep them in or finding the space even to put another freezer, it was fine. Maybe it was drying the clothes this week which we haven't done too efficiently or maybe something else, not sure, but we are on the case though. We don't let that kind of bill happen all the time, just need to isolate the problem. So my daily monitoring of the electric is keeping us on top so far. At least it doesn't appear to be a fault on something as my recent daily checks have not thrown up any excess usage. If we keep this rate up for the rest of the month I will be very happy.

Did anyone else get to see the lunar eclipse? We did! I hadn't really taken much notice about the forthcoming event, but as we were heading out to the other apartment we noticed that only the bottom of the moon was showing and by the time we got up to the other place it was not showing at all. I wasn't sure if it was maybe cloud cover moving in at times, but the moon suddenly made a reappearance before being finally engulfed in snow clouds, so it confirmed we really had seen the eclipse. Shows what being in the right place at the right time can do, you get to see some pretty remarkable things at times.

And just in case you have forgotten what it was like last
week. No snow!

I had to include these thoughts by a 19 year old on education from my trawl through the internet this week. I don't agree with everything he has to say, as he does not agree with teaching children things they may not be interested in. I think there is a place for pushing through on certain things such as mother tongue language, maths and history. However, I do think that maybe if children were allowed to pursue their interests, as suggested, alongside doing some of the necessary bits of learning, then they will be more likely to understand the need for some of the other subjects that they don't feel are so important. Maths can look much more useful when it comes to accounting in a hotel, in the case that is talked about in the blog. Also a child allowed to make a proper construction will also soon learn the value of maths or the project will just not work. I home schooled my children for a period of time and my daughter joined a children's work course that was being run by one of our church members. She found writing up about children's work issues much better than anything I could have asked her to write about, as it was something she was interested in. To me it didn't matter what she wrote about as long as she had a mix of things to write about, and children's work covered story telling as well as report writing and research, so was perfect. She also learnt to do presentations and had to mix with a range of people in different settings, not exactly the kind of socialisation you get in schools and much more stretching. It was a very valuable time in her growing up and so I have to agree with the young man's concluding remarks

If we’re so concerned about building and strengthening the “next generation,” then we should also be doing something about it in the most important area of their young lives: education.

Finally I thought I would post a link to a friend's site here, tales from a couple who have retired to Latvia and settled very nicely into their community. They do a fantastic job of supporting folks in their neck of the woods and loved for it. So stop by and say hello, I'm sure it will be a lovely encouragement to them.

Who's been eating my poridge?

2011-12-03T09:01:00.001+02:00

What! Who Me? Yes you!

The cat, that's who! Our youngest one, Bella, to be more precise. I had just read about how to get creamier porridge by first soaking the oats before cooking and that is what I had been doing. No one explained that leaving it out on the kitchen table whilst soaking was not a good idea did they? Oh no! Ian found Bella busily tucking into the milk and she drank quite a bit of it before she was found. As good feline owners we never give our moggies milk, not good for them so they say. Well our Bella proved them wrong on two accounts, one is she thought it was very good and it didn't have any dire consequences on her digestive system either, thank goodness. She is still not getting milk though.

Tasty looking?

Talking of food, have you seen the BBC article on eating grubs? Well it set me thinking, what about the cockchafer bugs we were pulling out of our composted straw pile earlier on this year? Were they edible? And the answer is ......... yes! I think I was rather hoping they weren't. I mean the thought of throwing away good protein is not what I like to think we do, but we were. Does it make me want to try them? No! Not at the moment anyway, but just in case you do, here is a link, to some tasty recipes. Enjoy! And if you fancy a try and can't find any, I'm sure we could oblige with some specimens for you.

This was taken on 28th November

This was taken today 5th December. It is a pond that never
filled up for most of the year. Whenever it rained it quickly
drained away. Here Ian has added a couple of barrel loads
of clay and silt well mixed with water to try and silt up the
holes. Hopefully that will help us to keep our pond next year

The dreich weather continued this week and our land is getting wetter and wetter, it is also getting more and more damaged by wild boar and worryingly some of the damage was close to our electric fence around the orchard and vegetable garden and also close to our young blueberry bushes. Not good news at all! Our neighbours, however are seeing less damage this year, which is good for them, just wish they weren't migrating over to us. I wonder what will happen when we have alpacas though? Will the presence of the strange animals keep the boar away? Will the electric fence keep them off? Or will the presence of the lynx finally sort the boar out, since that seems to have possibly made a reappearance? Having said that, will the lynx try and catch our alpacas? I wonder if the answer will be in the humongous book we got this week called "The Complete Alpaca Book." It certainly looks very complete and is rather thick, covering everything from the history and predator problems to health and nutrition and more. It is going to take us all winter to read it I think, at least it is something to do whilst we have this rather dreich weather.

It looks quite bright on this picture, but it wasn't really.
It was 10:30am in the morning and I still needed the
lights on.

As for other snippets of information, I won a book and I am now awaiting the delivery of it all the way from Estonia - not too far then! Hopefully I shall be able to discover some Estonian recipes that will expand the range of things to do with vegetables that can be grown locally. I also finally got the results from my presentation for my course. For some reason the email system had swallowed my post, as the tutor did send it in my direction much earlier. At least when I got the results, I was very encouraged with the comments, now I just have to write up my thesis to a good enough standard - the hard part. At least the basis for the proposal was sound anyway. Another snippet actually should have been in last week's blog. I had one of those, "you're not from round here" type moments. At the beginning of the month I got a bill for our water at the other apartment, we are not there that much to really use a whole load of water, and so we only get a bill every now and again. This time the bill seemed to have doubled, when I thought it should have gone down to nil. I took the bill and complained, "not right" I said in Latvian, only to be told that actually the bill meant I had overpaid and I didn't actually owe anything at all. Whoops! Embarrassing really! Should have checked all the words before I went.

Recycled welly (rubber boot). This will keep the water out
of the locks and hopefully stop them from freezing.

Ian has been tootling along this week despite the weather, he has braved the elements on many a day, but he also took some time off to do some "real" work, i.e. work that he got paid for. He went back into Riga to play his consultancy role, at one of the hospitals. (No he's not a doctor! A well qualified lab technician for those new to the blog). Tired him out poor dear, came home and went to sleep! Strange isn't it! He can spend all day out in the fields, or logging trees and he's fine, maybe a little sleep in the evening, a few hours consulting and he's fast asleep by the afternoon. It is not as if the commute is particularly difficult either, compared to what he used to do. It is an hour and a half on mainly empty roads, until he gets close to the hospital, whereas he used to spend an hour commuting into Sheffield with extremely clogged roads at the end of it, requiring an early start to ensure getting a space to park. By the way the "real" is inverted commas, not because I class it as his real job, just in many people's eyes that would be considered his real job, and the rest of the time is not - no money in it. Well not yet anyway but there is a great deal of satisfaction.

While in Riga, Ian also picked up a UPS - uninterruptible power supply unit. The idea is that if our power supply fails then we can keep the pump running on our wood fired oven for 24 hours, hopefully enough time to keep it going until the electric comes back on and not explode our oven in the process due to over heating. What happens if the electric goes off for longer is a problem we will have to think about later. At least we have an emergency back up system for now.

Nine people were sat around this table earlier.
You can just see the Alpaca book on the end
of the table - I said it was thick.

This week we were invited out to eat, but first we had to listen to 2 six minute sermons, which were recorded for a visiting pastor's course. His deadline was due before he got back to the US and so as some of the few native English speakers in the area we were dragged in to help. Dragged in very willingly I may add, after all, it was a fair exchange - 12 minutes of sermons for a roast dinner. Sounded like a fair deal to me. We also invited some other friends over for a meal at our place later on in the week. A group of us have gelled together quite nicely and have similar interests in farming, so we can learn a lot from them and we can throw in some discoveries that we have made along the way usually from the internet. We have a bit of an advantage, as lot of information on the internet on current methods and not so current methods is in English, so we can forward our research results to them to see what they think. We also just enjoy each others company, and each others cooking it is fair to say. As it was our turn to cook, we decided to eat up at our other apartment as we had a table and room enough for nine people there, unfortunately not all the equipment and place settings for nine people were, and so there was a bit of toing and froing in the process of putting the meal together. Still it worked in the end and it was very tasty, especially the cake that one of our guests brought with them. We decided not to eat the turkey that night as that was still fresh, it is now sitting in our freezer waiting for a more convenient time to cook it, or a few more friends to invite around.

So much fun and just an old camera

There have been a few interesting articles on the internet this week. The first was a TED talk done by a guy, Chuck Collins, who admitted to being from the 1%, or at least his family are. If you haven't discovered TED talks yet then check them out, there are some amusing ones, some mundane ones and some very informative ones. This guy who is from the 1% was explaining why those who earn a lot, and even those who don't make so much but make their money from companies that they may have worked very hard to build up, should still pay their taxes and not baulk at it. He explains that all those companies have benefitted from either their own education or the education of their workers through the state system. He believes that we should be building a society that funds education that fosters the entrepreneurial spirit, that nurtures the dreams and beauty. He also believes in funding libraries that support that learning, along with other services that enable rather hold back businesses and that all requires money and usually from the state. He certainly builds a convincing case.

Old hat and oh yes there's that camera
again. Cool tourist

As someone who has studied the development field for the last three years I was very interested in the comment of a leading figure in the field Erik Solheim, Norway's development minister

"The lender should bear responsibility as well as the debtor when a loan goes bad........ – something that may be applicable to countries closer to home in the current eurozone crisis."

Does this mean there are plans to sort out the debts of Latvia and Greece to see what is illegitimate debt? That would send the markets into a panic and yet in many ways is only right. Some debt was taken on and shouldn't be, but some debt was taken on and should never have been lent in the first place - so who has the moral responsibility in these situations? Who will sort out the mess? And who will lead the way?

An old box, a bit of time, a bit of paint and an old cot toy.
Voila! A car for a little boy and hours of fun in the making
and in the playing

My final trawl through the internet found a report that has been published in the UK that suggests that parents think their children will be worse off than they are. Isn't it about time that we started selling the idea that just because our children may have to live their lives with less resources means they will be worse off? They will be so much better off if they discover the delights of growing their own food, even if it is a few herbs on a balcony than be force-fed dreadful food that currently passes for the norm these days. They will be much better off if they discover that community is important, especially when it works together - we need to rediscover the delights of the equivalent of barn raising in today's communities, the coming together of the community to help someone out with a basic need, knowing that come the time they need help that others will rally around them. They will be much better off when they rediscover the delights of playing outside rather than sitting on their playstations for hours on end. Food, friends and family are far more important in this world than having the latest gadgets or the coolest clothes. Someone you can turn to when times are tough are far more important than having hundreds of friends on facebook because it makes you look popular. Our children could be far richer in their lives than we have been in ours if they discover what is really important in life. So if you are now stuck what to give your child that will show them how rich they can be on so little, have a peek at these suggestions from this link from a geek dad no less.

About time too!

2011-11-29T10:49:00.000+02:00

We have a bridge across our stream now. Now no
attempting to jump across, rather tricky for a short person
like myself!

Sorry I'm a bit late this week, yet again but we talked and talked with our unexpected visitor last night and covered all kinds of subjects, mainly the economy and where is it going. We are of course no wiser than the next man, still the economy has so much influence on the decisions we make. It was strange to think than none of us were afraid of a complete collapse of the economy, after all we would work the land we have, but this bounding around up and down, not knowing from one day to the next how it will all turn out makes preparing for the future very difficult. I don't think we are any clearer on where it is going after our long chat, but we do know we will watch all the more closely for the finger of God to point the way.

Winter preparations. Our patent road finder markers for
when it snows!

So back to what I started to write. Over the years we have lived here in Latvia I have discovered that milk can taste different. I have also discovered that unpasteurised milk that has gone off is very different to pasteurised milk that has gone off, it doesn't smell as unpleasant for a start. I did wonder if I was making it up at times and if it was just all in my imagination, but no! I found out this week that it is perfectly correct according to an article in the Guardian. I'm not sure what kind of milk I get mine from, they may be Latvian brown cows or they maybe the standard Fresian, but it tastes good anyway and is probably due to the fact they are grass fed and only housed in the barn over the winter months - which in this harsh climate is perfectly understandable. I very very rarely throw away milk these days as milk which has gone sour is either used to make scones or is used to make a simple cheese with the whey being used in bread making. Butter was another recent revelation, in fact the first time I tasted it I wasn't sure I liked it. It had a very rich taste, which was quite over powering. The butter was made from a mix of sweet cream and sour cream, hence the taste. Once I got over the shock though, I found I quite liked it, unfortunately I have to be up early to make sure I get some and so we don't have get it that often. Makes you wonder what else supermarkets do to food to make it bland and last far longer than is natural.

Our ponds are distinctly full, even the middle one has water
in it, which it hasn't for most of the year.

We spent some more time this week shifting stuff around, such as some well rotted wood chippings to our garden, a yard full of mud cleared away, and a good proportion of a huge pile of sawdust to our land. At least that helps to clear our friends' workshop up a bit, in preparation for their move to new premises and gives us some more mulch for paths and gardens. It's quite an impressive pile of stuff we have now. It also proved what a handy sized tractor we have, as it was able to work in the workshop to collect the sawdust instead of spending the whole day shovelling it by hand. It didn't stop a group of men laughing at our titchy tractor though as we drove past them, little did they know! Besides shifting stuff, Ian has been fettling again, fettling drains to keep our new barn dry, fettling a radio to keep it going for a wee bit longer (it is getting on a bit now the radio, but until it breathes it's last, Ian will keep it going, even if it means pinching two wires together to 'switch' it on) and trying to fettle a leaking pipe. I went up early to the other apartment to warm it through for our traditional bath night and ended up stepping in a puddle that had collected next to the toilet, the small leak had obviously manifested itself into something a little more serious and overflowed the margarine tub used to catch the drips. I was just grateful it was not the toilet itself leaking as I first feared, but it did mean clearing out a lot of pots of paint etc,. that we store in that little room, while the floor dried.

Fettling the damp area outside our barn with yet another
ditch. The wooden planks stretch across the ditch so the
tractor still has access.

It has been a week of change really as the weather has finally deteriorated into normal late autumn weather, wet and windy. In fact we were on the edge of hurricane Berit the other night, and some parts of Latvia had 70mph winds. I don't think we had anything nearly as bad but were still relieved to find the barn and greenhouse intact, even if some parts of the flooring are getting wet through seepage from the sodden ground. Our power went off momentarily a couple of times, but we were surprised that it came back on again quite quickly, much better than in the past. Our internet though gave up later on and so we just tormented the kittens for the rest of the evening. Don't worry there is no need to call out the Latvian equivalent of the RSPCA as they love it, although I have a feeling that the word torment won't translate well.

Ian has been laying a lot of wood chipping paths so we
don't have to walk in mud

Talking of the kittens, besides using them to brush the floor (their game - and it is their game - is to try and catch the brush while we try and sweep the floor, if they catch it, they cling on while they slide across our laminate flooring, it must amuse them some what as they play this game everyday) they are also beginning to charge around the house like a couple of overgrown teenagers and it's getting to the stage where they are big enough to start causing damage. Trying to curb some of their youthful enthusiasm is wearing a bit thin at times, but like kids, it won't be long before they grow up and become more sedate and settle down - I hope! This week it is not just Bella who has been in places where she shouldn't be, but so has Sofie. One day Ian went to lock the outer door before we turned in for the night and the next stage in our nightly routine is to shut the kittens in the living room where they can do least damage and means we don't trip over them, if we get up in the middle of the night; well we could find one kitten but couldn't find the other, until we heard a plaintive meow, which sounded like it was coming from outside, instead it was coming from between our inner and outer door - a distance of about 10cm. Sofie had snook in there while Ian was locking the outer door and he hadn't noticed. Another day Ian went to shut a door and rather unexpectedly grabbed something furry, Sofie was half way up the door hanging onto the side of the door and the handle. Is she beginning to work out door handles? We are in trouble if she has.

But it looks so nice in the sun! Although if you enlarge
the photo you can see the field is flooded. Next year we
will have a raised bed with squash in it, but how to tackle
this for future years we have yet to decide

The changing weather is bringing with it more opportunity to visit folks, when it is wet there is not a lot to do out on the land and socialising is much better than staying indoors cooped up all the time. We have had two opportunities this week for afternoon tea, how civilised and how English! Our first trip was to see the ladies who I taught English, we have all been too busy to really start back on the lessons and we have wanted to see them for ages. We text them to see if we could arrange a time to see them, but I didn't get a reply, so as it has been getting dark early we decided to go and call in and see if they got my text and check out the best time to meet up. We waited and waited outside for ages, having rung the bell and eventually a very surprised young lass opened the door with an equally surprised director behind, but we were ushered in and asked if we wanted tea or coffee and a few minutes later the rest of my English group turned up with a translator and we all settled down for a good long natter with tea and biscuits- well Ian did. I had to make a mad dash back home to help sort out a money issue, wrong money in the wrong account - my fault. Still we all had a great time and I was requested to start back on my teaching in the New Year, "can we go back to the beginning please" was the additional plea - I know the feeling. I think we are almost the same with our Latvian. Our next trip was a wee bit further, actually a lot further but it was good to reconnect with people we haven't seen in a long while and as one of them was English anyway, we were treated to scones with jam, to which we added some cakes from our local bakery, so a rather jolly time was had by all.

A small but deep hole dug by the wild
boar, but worryingly close to our
blueberry bushes

Our land is pretty soggy now due to the change in weather, but also looking a bit worse for wear due to the wild boar. They were back again this week and this time they had dug some much bigger holes and re-dug some that they dug earlier in the year. It is quite disheartening really and means that as soon as it is dry enough in spring, we will have to be out filling in lots of holes and re-seeding the patches. From my research on wild boar I have found there are only two effective methods for keeping them off the land, one is electrified pig fencing which would be horrendously expensive and the next would be hunting. It looks like we will have to chase up the contract with hunters to restrict the damage, otherwise we are wasting our time trying to grow vegetables.

A surprising carpet of green amongst the brown

Not sure how much the problems with Krajbanka is making the news elsewhere, but it is sure creating problems here in Latvia. After all what do you do when your wages are paid into a bank that has ceased trading? Many people have more than one bank account here in Latvia and I can see why. If one bank fails then maybe there is some money in another account. Another reason for the number of accounts is that it costs to transfer money between different banks, quite scandalous really as these costs add up over time and is probably why most of the banks are back in profit so quickly.

Update: I hope the changes of dates haven't confused anyone but for some reason blogger has stopped automatically setting the date for when the post is published and reverted back to the date when I start to write it. Very annoying as I often jot notes down to remind me through the week.

Oh no, not again!

2011-11-28T23:41:00.001+02:00

Yes! It's another apology. A lovely long chat with an unexpected visitor. I was so close to finishing but not near enough and so my blog must wait until tomorrow.

Happy days

2011-11-22T22:31:00.000+02:00

Another reason to be happy, isn't this
sunrise glorious? What a joy to wake up
to scenes like these

Our youngest is now a happy boy, his computer got fixed and best of all they recovered all his data. All he lost was a days work whilst he waited for his computer to be fixed. The nice people at Apple even fixed it for free, because he had had previous problems with his computer. Phew! We were happy too, our glass bowl which we had sent with our friend filled with a meal for her husband, who hadn't joined us for last week's meal, because he had to work, came back with a rather nice dessert in it. No idea what it is, but it tasted good! I also got lots of interesting books to read this week, "Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley," "Conflict and Cooperation in Participating Natural Resource Management" and "Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflicts" - you can spot the theme can't you? These are all books that have either been recommended to me, or came up in my literature research for my Master's thesis and so hopefully they will all be useful in my write up. At least they will help me while away the winter evenings with a little light reading. Our vet wasn't left out too as we bought her a book "Alpaca and Llama Health Management." I know we are not getting alpacas until next year, and we haven't even been to see the guy who we hopefully will be buying the animals from - that's next month - but we need to be laying the groundwork now; it is no good waiting for something to go wrong with our alpacas to then try finding out how to deal with it, and winter is a good time for reading. She seemed happy enough to be getting the book anyway.

Tate Modern here we come! I spent a good afternoon's
work on these objects of great artistry, commonly
known as wrapping trees up for winter to stop the deer
eating them or sharpening their antlers on them.

We finally made it once again to the Farmers' Market in Straupe (link in Latvian), where a brave group of people are endeavouring to create a market for local farmers and businesses and at the same time increase the quality of goods sold. It is hard trying to get the concept going, as it is not as simple as importing the idea from elsewhere, although other examples are useful, but it is working and the market place looked busy while we were there. In fact there are many companies/farmers from further afield who would like to sell their goods at the market. It is difficult to balance the concept of a local initiative with the need to have enough stalls to attract people to come to the market and one that they are still working on. It is also hard trying to work out who is a genuine trader of goods produced by them or their family and those who buy in goods from abroad. Having contact with the organisers of this market, I hope will be useful for our own area when the roads are tarmacked making travel easier for traders and customers alike. I did buy a couple of presents while I was there, and I didn't go for the cheapest, but I bought my goods from a lady who was making the goods while she was there - so I know she produced the things I bought. What are they? Well I can't tell you, I know the recipients will be reading this! We also bought seeds and beans, partly for consumption over the winter but also for plants for next year, as it will be interesting to see how well they do, compared to the beans and seeds I buy in from the UK.

Not so happy to find this! This is the
kind of damage those dear little pigs
can make. I have to admit though that
it is quite incredible the depth of holes
they can dig with their snouts, and
the size of stones they can move.

We also finally made it to a little craft shop that we have passed many times. The owner started out as a stone mason for gravestones but he is a creative soul at heart, so the website says, and so some of the stones ended up as ants and tortoises. The best one I saw was a wild boar shaped stone, complete with wrought iron ears, snout, tail and legs - the best type of wild boar, apart from one on a plate, I think at the moment. Unfortunately it was a lot of money, and rightly so, but I was seriously tempted to erect this as a dire warning to the wild boar that traipse across our land. I bought an angel instead to add to my Christmas decorations from around the world, not that they will be going up again this year, as we are away in England. Probably a good job though, as I think our dear little kittens would have a field day with decorations. Better to wait till next year and they maybe (only maybe) a little calmer.

These are four Capercaillies, which we came across when
we took a detour just for the sake of it. Amazing what
you can see when you get off the main roads.

It has been another amazing week in the news, some of it is just downright depressing, but some of it is quite exhilarating and powerful. I was horrified to see a policeman casually spraying sitting students with pepper spray. I am not quite sure what horrified me the most, the fact that he sprayed obviously non-violent students, or the casual manner in which it was done. However it was amazing to watch how each student present was recording what was happening, no longer can incidents take out the journalist to remove any chance of recording it, all have the opportunity to record an event with the use of phones, video cameras, ipads and computers - many uploading the images as it happened. If that fact was not amazing enough to see people bringing accountability to the situation, it was more impressive to hear the rise of the chant "Shame on you" and the students peacefully but firmly causing the police, armed to the teeth, to fall back. Not a rock was thrown. The police appeared to only have two options, carnage or retreat, and they chose retreat thankfully. When the chancellor of the university, where the students belonged, decided to leave the campus the following evening, despite the presence of many students outside she was treated to a most powerful sit down silent protest that lined the route to the car. There was an atmosphere of restraint and yet somehow there was also the force of an unspoken argument, disapproval that hung in the air. Is this what was meant by the New York Mayor, post Occupy evictions at Zuccotti park, when he said "Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments?" I doubt it, but those students certainly occupied the space in a very powerful way.

"I think I'm stuck again!"
She is up there so often now we are going to have to install
something to stop her walking across the fleece lining,
preferably before it gives way underneath her.

More wood chippings for our garden, as Ian continues to
thin out our forest to provide us with firewood for next year
but also to improve the health of the forest.

Alder oxidises on exposure to air and so
you get these bright orange stumps when
they are cut.

Our raspberry bushes with their fir coats. Looks like they
needed it!

It snowed again this week, not much but still a reminder
that winter is on its way.

Talking stuff and shifting stuff

2011-11-15T21:02:00.000+02:00

Preparing for my Skype conference, thought I had better
check how I looked

Skype has been immensely useful this week and I wonder how I would get on without it. First of all I did a Skype video presentation to my tutor and a colleague on the topic I wish to research for my Masters. It was a very technical experience, as I used two computers - are you impressed? My old laptop, that was repaired, has a bigger screen than my new one and so I could have Skype on and see my tutor and his colleague as they listened to my presentation and have my notes in front of me for the presentation; on my newer laptop (no I'm not greedy, it was just we didn't realise that Apple would repair the computers before I bought a new one) I had my presentation slides, so I could see the slides that were being viewed far away on the Isle of Lewis where my tutor works. There was also the usual chats with children on Skype and the not so usual, the usual how are you doing and the not so usual hope you are okay and help my computers packed in and I haven't backed my stuff up and I'm panicking sort (have to admit to that being a wake up call and I went and backed mine up immediately after that call). We also had the opportunity for a fantastic chat with some old friends from our church back in the UK and one of them even treated us to a bit of ukulele playing. Modern technology can be an invasive experience but for us it has allowed us to do the things we are doing, while still maintaining contact with friends and family. Which is especially good when our daughter had a car accident this week and it was good to know that she was fine.

A lovely sunset after a busy day

Of course it wouldn't be much of a life if we lived it solely online and we have a couple of great opportunities to enjoy good company with some good food this week. A friend of ours and an old friend of his from overseas joined us in the hotel this week, not planned, but one of those lovely impromptu moments that just happen. It was a really pleasant experience chatting about accents and misunderstandings and different experiences that life has thrown our way. Our next meal followed an impromptu invitation to some neighbours of ours who are working hard and one day looked like it was going to be worse than normal; with two little ones in the household I could just picture the evening arriving home and the lack of energy to do much in preparing a meal - I have been there quite a few times when our children were little, at one point we had three children under the age of four and life could get a bit fraught at times. In the morning I had made use of the slow cooker to start a meal off with chicken stock and some borlotti beans, then added some salted beans, barley and beaver sausage and I knew that meal would stretch to a small family with addition of some potatoes and baked squash. An easy meal knowing we would also be busy during the day. In fact they did us a favour by accepting as the bean casserole needed the additions to make it a great meal, the casserole on its own needed toning down with the potatoes and we got to be entertained by the little ones to. Bargain!

The moon added to the show

Our kittens have also been a little surprising this week. They had to go back to the vets for their second injection and it was there that we found out it wasn't just Bella that has surprising agility. Sofie, our usually calm, placid kitten is beginning to show streaks of not being quite so calm or placid and in the vets she was decidedly not happy with the injection and twisted herself around in a way a cat should not be able to and ended up giving the ver some rather nasty scratches. The vet was rather apologetic because she said it was her fault as she was not expecting that reaction at all - neither were we to be honest. This is from a cat that likes tummy tickles and paw massages!!!!! Bella was well and truly pinned down between us though, as we weren't going to have a repeat of that episode. Reminded me of the time I used to help out at a vets as a teenager to find out if I wanted to be a vet or not in later life. The other episode involved Bella, our mischievous one, who managed to get up onto the higher rafters of our greenhouse but was struggling to find a way down. Several times she crossed backwards and forwards looking for a way down, even walking on the fleece that is stapled for shading below the apex - at which point I felt sure she was going to come through it. Ian was just about to head off for the ladders when she decided to make a jump for it, it was rather a long way down but although she looked a little shocked she is none the worse for the event. So far though the kittens have not caught a mouse that we know of but I found one out in our allotment patch and ended up killing it with the spade - not something I enjoy doing but we do need to keep the population down to manageable proportions.

Our new beds with the sawdust path

Most of the week seems to have been spent shifting things around. I had to shift some old manure and compost around the garden to make room for some new manure. Ian used the tractor to shift two loads of manure, one to each garden and two loads of wood chippings, one load to our neighbours garden and one back to our land, plus a car trailer load. Having written that down it doesn't look a lot but it took two days to do, albeit short days due to the shorter days and being dark by 4:30pm. One thing Ian discovered today is that all this transporting things by trailer has improved his ability to reverse them. He had to reverse the tractor trailer with one load of manure quite a distance and managed with just one or two small deviations from the path and today he drove a trailer into a building with a heavy saw on it that needs renovating, not only did he reverse it, he had to turn the trailer into the building to put it where it needed to be put. All I can say, is it is a good job it wasn't me, I am getting better at reversing our truck but it is still tricky as it all has to be done by wing mirrors and not looking over my shoulder. There was more shifting on the land as all those wood chippings needed to be put somewhere as there are still more to come, so I started putting rotted straw down where the vegetable beds should be and then put a good covering of wood chippings on the top. It won't be perfect for vegetables next year as they will need a good lot of compost added to give the roots something to anchor into but the year after it will be great and hopefully easier to manage for weeds. I also began laying the sawdust paths, not sure that they are deep enough to stop the weeds coming through but decided a light going over with a blow torch to any that dares to put its head above the sawdust will do the trick (and no I am not going to set the sawdust alight in the process!!!!! Trust me!)

It was like this all day, on one particular day, the frost lay
on the ground all day, never bothering to shift

I read a lot about sustainability issues and I had to laugh this week when I read an article about building with sand filled water bottles. Comments were made that there was now a worry that the area would run out of sand due to the amount required in the building. It harks back to the idea that if you find a sustainable building method then you multiply it and replicate it lots of times, but that is not sustainable. Sustainability is about applying principles not blueprints, each area needs to find creative solutions bearing in mind the type of area it is. Sustainable solutions will not be mass produced, but small scale. Reliance on single products for the answer to all problems is not an option, that is what got us into the mess we are in now. I suppose that is similar in principle to the Occupy protests at the moment, the world is looking for "one solution fits all" answers from the protest groups, but the groups are not providing answers, they are seeking first the right questions and then looking for principles that can be applied, not blueprints that once applied with help us to live happy ever after - that just won't happen. Sustainable solutions to today's problems will take a lot of time to work out as they are going to take some massive rethinks in how we do business, how we live and how we interact with each other. Interesting times indeed!

Frosted grass

Okay I know you have to tilt your head to see this
it won't turn round. It is correct on my computer but
Picasa won't turn it around. Okay now I have moaned
what you can see is a dusting of snow. Winter is on its way

Passed!

2011-11-07T21:18:00.000+02:00

All finished and in working order

It passed!!!! The horse box passed its technical. Ian was so relieved to get that out of the way, even if he found one of the problems was the wrong type of bulb. The problem with changing the units meant that not all the old bulbs were suitable for the new unit, one needed a double filament for brighter lights when braking. He could kick himself for not realising sooner, but then again if he hadn't put in the wrong bulb, he wouldn't have noticed all the loose connections or corroded wires and they would have gone eventually anyway. Electrics on cars and trailers though are pretty difficult to diagnose, especially without sophisticated equipment. It just needs a nick in a wire, in an out of the way place and it becomes almost impossible to track down. Still it's done now and he can concentrate on other jobs like digging more trenches around the barn to drain all the water away when it rains or eventually from snow melt - well that is if we get snow, it has been so mild this autumn.

A gift from some neighbours

It has been all excitement around here just lately, the other week Ian arrived at one of the petrol stations (gas station) in our village, to find it being roped off. There were people in combat outfits - camouflage trousers (pants), camouflage jackets and big boots - it all looked pretty intimidating. Had there been a robbery? Was the petrol station or the company in trouble for corruption? Who were these guys and what were they doing? The petrol station remained closed all week and under surveillance or at least with security men sat in a van the whole time. We asked around and others seemed as bemused as we were, but eventually someone explained that Ziemelu Nafta, the petrol company, had been repossessed by the bank for non-payment. We eventually also found out on the internet that they have been reported to the "economic police" for unfair practices - I presume that means the fraud squad as we would say in the UK. It is a good job we have another petrol station in the village, otherwise we would face some very long trips to the nearest one.

The very useful fork lift truck that meant we got our
delivery. Not the most up-to-date or modern of machinery
but it was more than up to the job.

We also caused quite a bit of intrigue ourselves this week with the arrival of a shipment from the UK. We have learnt now to expect that we need to organise something to get shipments off the lorries, as none of them seem to carry equipment to get them off the lorry, nor packed in a way that makes them easy to remove. This time we were told beforehand that we needed a crane, well we didn't manage to obtain the use of a crane but a forklift truck that can take up to 5 tonnes did the job. One of our neighbours who owns a firewood processing company has the use of a forklift truck and so we organised for him to help us. The lorry arrived with a tractor trailer, a baler and a tipping box (it goes on the back of the tractor and we will use it to counterbalance the tractor for lifting jobs). Getting the trailer off the lorry was the easy bit, it was assembling the equipment to make it easier for us to take away, that proved a challenge. It wasn't the nicest of days, dreich as the Scots would say, damp, cold and foggy. We used the forklift to lift the trailer high enough to get the wheels on and remove the metal frame and pallets underneath - now that sounds simple, but it wasn't. The little baler which makes small round bales, not the huge monstrosities, that are difficult to move without a tractor, proved to be quite a draw as a number of folks came to ask what it was. The next day it was the turn of the little baler to be assembled which also proved to be an enigma in itself, as inside were packed the wheels, but how to get the wheels out without damaging the baler proved to be beyond all of us. Eventually Ian went home and phoned the company, who we bought it off, and asked them how to release the wheels. Of course it was simple but it did take three of us to do it, one each side to release a catch and one at the front to open up the compartment. It took us all afternoon to get the wheels on the trailer and all the following day to sort out the baler, remove some wood chippings to make cleaning up easier for our friend, as they are moving soon and the place has to be left tidy, and then to take the items back to the land and packed away. It was only supposed to be a short job and I was meant to have an afternoon of peace and quiet doing some reading for my presentation tomorrow (tuesday) for my course, but that didn't happen.

The baler fitted to the tractor to take it to its storage place.
Unfortunately we won't really know how it works for
another 8 months when it is hay cutting season once again.

You all know of course that I'm always right, never wrong - you must have noticed hadn't you? (And if you believe that, you'll believe anything!) The trouble is that in my head I am right and yet I know that is not always helpful. It could be feeling angry at someone for something they did and I know I'm right to feel angry. It could be the feeling that someone has gone off and done something stupid despite your warnings, oh a whole host of things, but sitting there feeling angry or feeling smug is not helpful. Sometimes I have to just lay those things down, put the past behind, and start again. These things happen in marriage, family and even between the closest of friends, but to hold onto the hurt or the anger is not doing anyone any good at all. I had to laugh though when God reminded me of a situation recently and I felt like "but I'm right!" and I felt like God say "and?" At that moment I felt like our youngest kitten, Bella, when she has been caught doing something she shouldn't, who chirrups her protests, while making a hasty exit from whatever trouble she has got herself into, as I muttered under my breath. A couple of my friends had posted the following quote on their facebook walls this week:

Apologizing does not always mean that you are wrong and the other person is right. It just means that you value your relationship more than your ego.

The trailer! A very sturdy piece of kit this and tips as well.

Lots of folks posted their likes, but I didn't. I don't like it! I like being right! I do know though, that in many ways the quote is true, not necessarily always apologising but certainly making amends. Building bridges is important. Not all bridges are meant to be repaired and it takes much more wisdom than I have to know when to build and when to just walk away. Fortunately I think God does give us the time to work through the issues, to come to a point where we can leave the past behind and move on.

On a separate note, it was quite a shock this week to read the recently released provisional figures from this year's census of Latvia. The census came back with the figures of 1.9 million Latvians remaining in Latvia, down from 2.3 million. It is thought that the final figure will be just over 2 million but is still shocking that there has been such a huge loss of people from this land.

Martins Bondars, a former bank chief executive, jokes that “Greeks demonstrate on the streets. Latvians buy a one-way ticket on Air Baltic”.

Very sad, but true in many ways. Latvians do not demonstrate their feelings very much, but get on with life and if that means moving away, then that is what they do. Many families only have one parent at home or even none, with children being brought up by grandparents. Still it is a shocking statistic and incredible to think that 5% of the population has moved away since the crisis descended.

Cute heh! You wouldn't think they had been rolling around
the floor, scratching and biting five minutes earlier would you?

Can't finish the blog on such a down note or without mention of our kittens. I mentioned last week that we have started taking our kittens to the greenhouse with us, hopefully to curb the mouse population that seems to have taken a liking to our greenhouse and particularly the polystyrene in our caravan. Well our youngest kitten enjoys the journeys out so much that when we put our boots on she often goes and sits in the basket in anticipation and is very disgruntled when we don't take her with us. Spoilt or what! The kittens love Ian though, so much in fact that they can't wait till he comes in and then use the litter tray! Aww such love, glad they don't love me that much. And finally! I really mean finally this time, I have found the perfect job for Ian. For anyone who knows him well knows he is serious about cycling, even if it is on a fixed frame in the dump room as we call it (the place where we dump all the stuff that we don't know what to do with just in case you are thinking of something else), just take a look at this site (link here), can't you just picture him on his bike while doing something useful?

These must be the craziest male turkeys ever! They both
patrol around together and make gobbling sounds in unison.
They don't fight but take care of the lady turkeys together.
They are not ours by the way. Maybe next year we will
get some?

This is specially for my friend Pauline. Ian found this stone
amongst the gravel.

Frustrations and joys

2011-10-31T22:27:00.000+02:00

I was asked to measure the holes in this area as they are not
part of the study area. This hole with my stick in it
measured 80cm.

This has been a rather frustrating week really. It didn't start off too well when at least one of our dear little puddy cats got onto the sideboard knocking a glass into their water bowl and then proceeding to traipse water everywhere including Ian's computer. Fortunately the glass did not break, but the computer was not happy and sulked to a stop. Ian needless to say was not a happy bunny once again, to see his computer dying on him for the second time, about a year after the last time. He then spent a fruitless day trying to get the wiring fixed on the horse box. I think I forgot to say that the horse box failed its technical inspection when we bought it, but that was only to be expected on an old trailer and it only needed some new tyres after they had started to perish in storage, which was no big deal. Unfortunately on the way home the cover of the rear light came off and Ian could not find it. So although the new wheels were easy to replace the lights were a different matter. Ian had to buy two completely new units, which weren't expensive, and fitted okay. So far! So good! Problem is that somewhere along the line the wiring seemed to have gone awry and on inspection some of the wires were perished and contacts corroded, one of the original units was also wired in wrong. So Tuesday we spent on the land with Ian fixing the wiring and me periodically doing the checks on which lights were working and which were not. We finished the day with no joy, as the units were still not working properly.

And because I don't have enough photos this week that I
can show you, here is the other half of the rainbow from
the other week

As it was eating out night we decided to check first to see if the hotel had a conference on or not as last week we ended up getting to the bakery just before closing to get a take away. We were in luck this week, no conference and on the way home from checking we saw our new friends who we met last week. Our new friends have to move out of their rented accommodation soon, because the company that owned it went bankrupt, but they were really fortunate to find a flat at the right price. They were so excited about their new home and wanted to show us around. It needs quite a bit of work doing on it, but it's theirs and that mattered much more. After such a frustrating day it was good for our spirits to see the joy on their faces and to realise that our frustrations were minor compared to the threat of not having a roof over their heads. Just for good measure the computer dried out and started working in the evening too. I guess all's well that ends well!

Hopefully safely installed in the greenhouse. At least it is a
bit warmer in there. Just got to make sure the place is
ventilated from time to time so we don't end up with a load
of mould

Ian spent the rest of the week on the trailer and also on Larry the Lada. Our Swedish caped crusader friend came to lend a hand and suggested renewing the wiring on the trailer rather than trying to trace the fault. He helped Ian to sort out the starter motor on the Lada as well, as that was only working when it was not properly fitted, as soon as the bolts were tightened it stopped working. It took an angle grinder to get it sorted - not quite sure what they did but the phrase "if it doesn't fit, make it" springs to mind. I meanwhile toddled around sorting out our plants in the greenhouse and getting them ready for winter or digging up the ones that had finished. I had a shock at one point when I picked up some string and inadvertently picked up a small rodent. Not too sure who got the biggest shock though. I'm not the squeamish sort really, and mice don't freak me out - unless of course I pick one up without realising it and then I kind of jumped and shrieked. Just a little shriek you understand. Larry the Lada took rather longer than anticipated, but at least in the end it was working. We finished off the day by manoeuvring the caravan into the greenhouse to store it over winter (meanwhile praying fervently that the greenhouse does not collapse like last year). That sounds easy but it wasn't. The fit was tight, the ground uneven and slippy and in the end we couldn't use the car to back the caravan into the greenhouse and on our friend's suggestion we got the tractor and pushed it in.

Trying to get a photo of this little one was hard, she is a
bundle of energy

At least we are now a good way on to being prepared for the winter as Ian has got some of the equipment into the barn and I have got most of the plants snuggled under blankets of wood chip. I am trying that instead of conifer branches this year as it is easier to get hold of without cutting the branches off lots of trees. Also means I can leave the wood chip to decay gradually into the ground instead of having to remove the branches somewhere. I will still need to use branches for some shrubs on the land to stop the deer eating them though. I think the next job will be to mark the road way so we can still see it even under snow and then we can relax for the winter! All the planning for next year will then start.

Play time! The kittens using the greenhouse like a climbing
frame

The kittens are doing well and it is funny to see their characters developing. Bella chirrups often, she sound more like a budgie at times than a cat. Sofie, I was shocked to find out by looking at a kitten chart, was seriously underweight for her supposed age, but some good food (yes no more cheap kitten food either after last week's smelly events) and she has put on quite a bit of growth and feels a lot stronger. She now fights back when Bella starts play fighting and can leap about surprisingly well - not quite the calm cat she once was, but she can still be quite timid at times. On Saturday we decided to take the kittens to the greenhouse as we feel sorry for them cooped up in our apartment. It was like taking the kids to one of those indoor amusement play centres and they sure slept well that evening. One reason for taking them is to stop them getting bored with being indoors all the time, there is more space for running around and as it turns out some excellent climbing frames for them, the other reason is the mice or at least small rodents in the greenhouse and we don't want the caravan overrun with them. Sofie did an excellent job, there was a blur of cat and a loud squeaking noise - not sure what it was but there was disgusting smell afterwards that smelt like tom cat, but we think was most likely emanating from a petrified rodent. I couldn't work out whether she actually caught the rodent or it got away in one of the many tunnels they seem to have built in the greenhouse, but at least they might think twice before coming back in.

Sofie hiding in the buckwheat

The finish of the week was no less frustrating for Ian as it would appear the connector from the car to the trailer was also faulty and so he spent another frustrating day locating 7.5 amp fuses - in fact we have probably bought up the whole of the stock in the village now. So rather than sitting in tonight we escaped to a friend's house, as we did not want to be around when trick or treaters called - a fairly recent introduction to Latvia and a very unwelcome one in my estimation. Our evening out, at least was not frustrating, in fact we had a great time with much laughter - always a good tonic for a frustrating week.

So what are we doing here?

2011-10-24T21:47:00.001+03:00

A beautiful rainbow, taken by Ian. I love rainbows!

A story on the BBC about how politicians embellish the truth and a chat with several friends had me wondering about the difference between what we are expected to say about being here in Latvia and what we tell people. We do believe that God sent us here, but for what purpose? To live here! That's it! It would be so easy to embellish the truth, especially as people so often ask why we are here in Latvia. Many know we are Christian and expect us to have plans and projects to "save" the community, and yes we would love people to know Jesus and have a relationship with God - the kindest person I know - but that is not our focus, it's up to God to do the saving (One digs the ground, one plants, one waters, but it is God who makes the plants grow - okay I know it doesn't quite say that in the bible but I get the impression that Paul wasn't a gardener and the digging needs to be done first, but see 1 Corinthinans 3:5 to see where I'm coming from). We love being here, we enjoy what we are doing, we long to see love and hope flourish in the community, but that does not mean giving a three point plan on how to be saved, setting up a meeting on a Sunday or even more radical on a Thursday/Wednesday/Monday (no I don't believe that is radical really) and generally ending in a holy huddle that doesn't really impact the community at all. I long to see transformation of the community as a whole, but not into yet another Westernised community full of greed and self-interest, but into something distinctly Latvian, with Latvian values rediscovered, or for people to find out what being Latvian truly is. To find their destiny and uniqueness and be comfortable expressing that. We love the people and yes we sometimes find them infuriating when they don't do things our way, but more often than not we are relaxed about them doing things differently. It's their country after all!

Wild boar damage can be annoying but you have to admire
their ability to dig up tasty roots and delicately eat them
off whilst leaving the leaves behind, without the use of a
spade, and fingers to help.

It is not just politicians that embellish the truth, so do charities, aid agencies, missionaries etc. We expect them to have a far bigger impact than they do, in a short period of time and therefore they have to write reports that are not exactly lies (or at least I hope not), but carefully worded smokescreens, to hide the fact that making a difference in societies is hard work and long term and doesn't often go the way they would like. Sometimes it is just a cover for when things are not working and they have to justify still being in the place they are, doing the things they are doing. Aid agencies have had to rethink many of their strategies when it finally dawned on them that many of their programmes were not working and in some cases just exacerbating the problems as they did not tackle the underlying power relations in an area that kept the poor, poor. Honesty about the way things really are is crucial in many ways, but it is also crucial for people donating money to realise there are no quick fixes, that things may not work and that situations change. That does not mean that people have wasted the money, it just means that the time was not right, the right people were not in place, it requires a much longer period for something significant to happen or someone got it wrong! And we shouldn't condemn people for getting it wrong, not learning from it yes, but not for just getting it wrong.

So how can anything this cute make such
smells??????

A friend of mine posted a blog on snickelling - going around the city of York using the passageways and alley ways to see York from a different perspective. I think in some ways that might describe our path through life, through Latvia, choosing the less obvious ways to get around and in the process seeing more of life, more of Latvia and more of Latvian life than we would otherwise. So where has our snickelling taken us this week? (At this point while writing my blog you have to picture me with my polo neck pulled up over my nose and making a mental note not to buy the cheap kitten food again as it does not agree with Sofie's digestive system because it results in smelly wind - Eughhh!) Anyway where was I? Oh yes, snickelling! Well actually not much has happened this week, we have just tootled along through this week, part of which was rather wet, making work difficult on the land and in the garden. I dug up some of the hamburg parsley, which is the last crop to get in before the winter for storage, started packing wood chips around plants to snuggle them up for winter and working on my written proposal and presentation for my course. Ian has been busy sorting out the barn again, he's finished off the drainage inside and levelled off the floor now, so it is ready for the equipment to be stored - only it needs to dry out a bit before he can take the stuff down to the barn without causing a mudbath. Next year we need to sort out the road to the barn so we don't have the problem again at this time of the year. Besides taking the kittens to the vets for their jabs and the usual processing food, shopping and fitting in a visit to the bakery that is about it! Just regular life for us here in Latvia! Now! How could I embellish that to make it sound more exciting? Hmmmm!

Our strange visitor

Oh I know the strange incident! One day we were out on the land when in wandered a dog. It wasn't aggressive or anything, but just wandered around a bit and then sat down, as if making itself at home. For a time it sat down with its front paws crossed quite contentedly, but then, for no reason that we could see, it threw its head back and started howling. It sat there howling for a good five minutes before wandering towards the road and howling some more, after that.....? It just took off and we haven't seen it again. No idea where it had come from or where it went. We have had other dog visitors too, one was from the hunt that went through our forest the other day. They aren't supposed to go through our forest as they don't have permission and one guy was even close enough that he said "Sveiki" (greetings), which felt a little bizarre. We could hear the guys whooping and shouting in the forest as they attempted to drive animals towards hunters and it was a bit worrying at times, as I half expected wild boar to come rushing out towards me, in fact we saw a deer making its escape far up the field. On the one hand we are pleased that the hunters are working the land, as it will mean less pig damage, but we would rather they respected boundaries too and we would rather know who they were. So there you have it, the unembellished truth!

The excitement continues

2011-10-18T22:04:00.000+03:00

This is an example of the widespread damage that wild boar
can do to pasture land. That was probably one night's work

Oh yes the excitement continues here in Latvia, yes I am still counting pig holes. Well it is a great excuse to be out in the open, instead of stuck indoors reading more academic papers - that will come of course, as I will need to read more on the subject of wild boar and wildlife conflicts. I've even lost a few more pounds of weight in the process of tramping hither and thither across farmland. I did have a bit of a fright though this week, as I thought I had managed to delete one lot of photos representing over 2 hours of recording. I'm not the emotional sort but I came pretty close that day. Fortunately I did manage to find them, as iPhoto had decided to store them in a different order to the one I thought they would be in. I also found I got some other photos mixed up, because after a while one pig hole can begin to look pretty much like all other pig holes, but I have learnt that I need to take reference pictures to help keep me on track in my counting. There are probably easier ways of doing it but that would probably require expensive equipment.

Yes more damage, but what a glorious day!

Yesterday I came up over the hill to inspect more pig holes on one particular piece of land and was met with a sight of utter chaos, my first thought was "oh my goodness what have the pigs done now?" but something wasn't quite right. The chaos did not consist of tossed around mounds of grass turfs like the pigs often do, in fact it almost looked like huge mole hills but so many of them. Eventually my nose and eyesight clicked into gear and I realised it was manure, the farmer was muck spreading, so for the next three hours I was blessed with some gorgeous autumn weather, clear, bright and dry, sweetly perfumed with the odour of manure - not exactly my idea of a fresh air.

I think this courgette (zucchini) escaped our attention for
a while. Marrow Rum anyone!

Here in rural Latvia it gets very dark at nights, there is not a huge amount of light pollution, that has its advantages, as a clear night sky is a sight to behold with so many stars, but it also has its disadvantages, namely it's dark, very dark! It is law to wear something that reflects for walking at night, which makes perfect sense on the unlit roads, of which there are many. It also necessitates the need for making sure that we have a torch on us in winter and until recently was a necessity just to get from the car to the light switch for the hallway of our stairs leading to our apartment on the third floor (second floor UK). The problem was that to get to the first working light switch, we had to navigate about 6 steps, but now we have lights with sensors and we are no longer left fumbling around in the dark looking for the switch, when we have forgotten our torch yet again. It's only a little thing but it is still bliss (we're easy pleased!) Light sensors also means that we don't have to rush down the stairs at night, just to make sure we get down before they switch off and get plunged into the dark midway. Not easy if you are having a slow day, or carrying something.

Can you believe that these two kittens (Sofie on the left
and Bella on the right) can fit into such a small box
and not long before this were rolling around the floor fighting?

Our kittens have been a delight and great entertainment. It is a bit scary watching them beat seven skittles out of each other when they play chase, but they don't seem to do much damage and often curl up together to go to sleep, so can't be all bad. Of course we have had the various accidents, first while we were teaching Sofie about using a litter tray (fortunately Bella was already toilet trained), but also we have had the protest moves when the tray has not been as clean as they like. Without going into too much detail, we did have one little kitten moving around on the floor like she had worms and there was rather a mess in her wake - let's just say it is not a good idea to eat string!!!! Also thank goodness we walked in the door at just the right moment to deal with the developing situation. Aren't kittens wonderful!!!!! We have now dealt with the fleas and the lice that came with them, and no fleas do not just bite cats, they do like humans too. We have still not got them vaccinated as the vet does not like to do everything at once, and quite right too, so they are back tomorrow for those. At least they have now been wormed and using a tasty paste that you squirt into their mouth rather than those dreadful tablets. You know the ones that you have to shove down their throats, meanwhile stroking the throat and quickly shutting the mouth tightly to prevent them spitting it back out. I did get quite good at that with our cats, but there was one who was ace at pretending to swallow the tablet and spitting it out minutes afterwards.

Our lower pond has lapped over the bank now. Difficult to
believe that earlier on this year we were watching it rapidly
disappear.

The fleas and the lice have not been the only wee beasties to contend with this week. Fortunately just about all the biting things have hit the deck with the colder weather, although sometimes cellars are inundated with mosquitoes as they look for winter quarters. The other wee beasties I had to contend with this week was in a full box of cornmeal. Sometime in the process it had got an infestation of maggots, which does not fill me with a great deal of confidence. I was not terribly happy at finding the little wiggly things in the box when I had plans on making some cakey treats to take with us when we are out and about. Good job I had other options and a good job I spotted it early on before mixing in the ingredients. It is amazing though how such small creatures can cause such misery and changes of plans.

The Stanley family

We have now added to our Stanley family. It has been great to find products that really do last and do what it says, ie in this case flasks that keep tea hot. They are not the light weight carry around everywhere type flasks, but sturdy metal products that bounce. The food flask finally arrived from England and been put to use already, great for these cooler days, also a good way of using up some of the produce we have processed into soups or sauces. Ian though has got into the habit of naming things, maybe he has been spending too much time on his own out on the land and so we now have (from right to left) Stan (1.9 litre flask), Mrs Stan (1 litre flask), son of Stan (insulated cup), and the food flask is Uncle Stan - the strange one in the family and not quite the same!!! Should I be worried do you think?

Even our middle pond now has water, wonder how long this
will last.

The dipping temperatures are certainly a reminder that winter is not far away and we have been making plans for winter storage, not just of the produce but also the farming equipment. The barn still needs a concrete floor and there is no time to lay it, because the ground is too wet now to have deliveries of the sand and the gravel we would need, so that means Ian just has to level the floor as best he can and concrete it next year. He will also lay a drain in the floor to hopefully prevent a quagmire in the barn itself when the snow melts (assuming we get snow of course) and then he can start to put the equipment inside, to get it under cover for the first time since we bought them. We have had them under tarpaulins the last few years. We have also moved kale and swiss chard into the greenhouse so that we have some plants early in the year and maybe even over winter - who knows! We are planning to put the caravan (trailer) in the greenhouse to protect it from the weather, as it will just about fit between the internal posts. We are a bit nervous of doing this as our last greenhouse fell down in the snow of last winter, but we think this one is much more sturdy and maybe we can put planks across the top of the caravan to save it if anything disastrous does happen. It might also mean the caravan will be a little warmer than when it is stood outside, which will be good for sheltering during dinner breaks. We also have two roofing jobs to do as our workshop developed a leak and our wood store at our other apartment is not in a good state either. All jobs clamouring for attention before winter really does set in. Speaking of which we had our first frosts this week.

We are not meant to have a pond here

Fortunately Ian is on the case, digging
ditches. We now have a drain away
that goes all the way into the forest.

Oh yes and for those who missed my weekly blog yesterday, we had a lovely time meeting new friends. Did you know that Rottweiler puppies can be really cute? All seven of them! Don't worry, we won't be succumbing to these cute ones, a Rottweiler in not on our wish list, even though when well trained they do make great family pets and would probably be great at chasing off wild boar.

Heh ho!

2011-10-17T21:18:00.002+03:00

Been to meet some new friends, and as we are never ones to pass up the chance of meeting someone new then off we go and my blog can wait!!!

451 and still counting

2011-10-10T21:39:00.002+03:00

Mushroom in our forest. Not sure what sort,
so if you know I would be happy if you send
me a message or post a comment.

Well 451is how many pig holes or areas of damage that I have counted so far. I have at least finished covering four of the five areas of land, but the biggest area is still to do and I have only covered a small portion of it. At least in our area the hunt has been in the vicinity and so the wild boar have decided to take a vacation for a couple of weeks - well we hope it is at least a couple of weeks. The weather is definitely against me at the moment though, as the temperatures have plummeted and it has been drizzling. Drizzle is okay for just traipsing around fields looking at the damage done by the wild boar, but trying to measure the holes means I get a muddy wet tape measure that sticks after a while, the notebook gets covered in mud too as well as wet and I can't imagine it would do much good for Ian's camera that I am borrowing to take the photos as evidence. I think the next time I am out measuring the holes it will be woolly hat and gloves time, and that won't make things any easier.

Will post a picture in situ next week. Hope
it looks less of a mess where it is though by
then. Things are starting to pile up out there
on our land and look untidy.

We did get the horse box that Ian went to look at and it matches the caravan beautifully as both are in Latvian red and white, and guess what! I forgot to take a photo of it (so you will have to make do with the advertisement picture of it). Next week perhaps! I did get some photos of our cute new kittens though, so yes we did succumb. They are giving us hours of entertainment as they go hurtling around our laminate floors chasing old bean pods, toilet rolls, screwed up tissues, a stuffed old sock and the light from a laser pen. They are also causing us great consternation due to the fleas they both have, but they are getting better now that we found a flea comb.

This is Bella, but don't be fooled by that innocent look.

Bella is the first kitten we got and she is completely hyper. She charges around the house like a cat on a hot tin roof. She was thankfully toilet trained when we got her, but as many kittens do she often bites - gently but still! We have been gradually training her that this is an anti-social habit and she had better desist. She is also the first one into any trouble, most of the time and spends most of the time picking a fight with our other kitten. It is funny how she sort of chirrups when she has been caught doing something she knows she shouldn't.

Sofia, the quieter kitten

Sofia, Sofie or Sofs for short, is a far calmer character. She seemed pretty timid when we brought her home, but that could be because she is a barnyard kitten and not as used to people as Bella was. I first saw her when I was walking around the farm for my wild boar project with the owner of the farm. She was sitting watching two other kittens playing and looked so cute and I guess you could say she was the reason for giving in. We were worried that being a barnyard kitten she might be a bit wild but she is far from it. A gentle creature - unless provoked by guess who! - and perhaps deaf, either that or she has a high tolerance for all sorts of strange noises that freak Bella out. They have adapted now to each others company and show no jealousy over food bowls but definitely both jealous of people's laps. It is not a kitten each but usually they are both sat on Ian's lap (or mine now as I try and type this). Not sure what they will think of us tomorrow though as they will be off to the vets for check ups and injections. Sofia is the smaller of the two kittens but maybe actually quite a bit older than Bella, so not sure if she was just underfed or just a small cat, so we will see what the vet says about that.

One on your lap, both on your lap

Another milestone this week was our Wedding Anniversary. We have now been married 27 years and we have known each other for 29 years. We met the first week of the first term while at uni and got married between our second and third year and so the anniversary of our meeting was two days before our wedding anniversary. It has been an amazing time and if you had told either of us what we would be doing, where we would be and where we go in that time, I am not sure we would have believed you. It has been a great journey and I pray that our kids enjoy the journeys in their married lives as much as we have. Now I wouldn't like to give you the impression it has all been plain sailing because it hasn't. We still have adjustments to make to our new lifestyle and having each other around so much, we have had our ups and downs too, but thankfully not many arguments. Early on I took to writing letters to Ian to tell him about how I felt about certain situations and this allowed me to put my thoughts down in a more considered way, especially as the first draft usually got thrown away.

The village lake has been returned to full
capacity now as the work continues on
the new hydro-electric plant

You can tell it is winding down time as we even found time to go to the bakery for a cup of tea and a pastry, which we haven't done in a while. We have made it to the bakery to get a pastry to sustain us through the day, well a pastry or two if the truth be told, but not had the time to go and walk there. We probably didn't really have the time as it was one of the few dry days this week and I guess there was plenty we could have done, but life doesn't seem quite so urgent as it has been, as we have got done a lot of what we need to do to be prepared for the winter, or at least what we have been able to do. Must mention the fact we needed to go to Jekabpils for some supplies we couldn't get locally and well since we were there we had to have some English style fish and chips at the local Tomato Pica place (thought it might become a regular feature). Despite our times of relaxation there needs to be a final push though to get wild boar holes logged, the last of the veg dug up and then next month it will be putting plants to bed before the real snow and cold arrives. We may get some soon (none forecast yet but you never know) but that usually melts to leave us with a muddy mess.

We were surprised to find our heating came on today. It hasn't been that cold recently, although it was today and it isn't October 15th yet either. The regulations are less than 8C during the day for three days or below freezing at night for three days. This usually means a cold September early October, but the unseasonably high temperatures we have had meant it was just not cold enough for heating and we have only had our wood burning stove on a couple of times. We had planned on lighting it tonight as it was around 4C most of the day and only got up to 6C at its warmest, but there is no need now.

Our barn is now finished, they added the locks today. The
concreting has to wait until next year now though

Our neighbours on the allotment are a bit bewildered as to why we are not out digging the garden over, in fact we put clover seed down as a winter cover crop. Most Latvians have pristine dug plots over winter and then dig it all over again in the spring which destroys the soil structure, it also leaves the soil open to leaching of all the nutrients from it over the winter. By leaving plants intact we risk the pests not being disturbed but then we rotate our crops and so is not as much of a problem and I remain to be convinced that digging brings all the harmful bugs to the surface to be eaten. Another factor for leaving the site covered with vegetation is that we have a sloped site which is sandy and that means that it is more prone to leaching. We are trying a bit of the technique used in the link (Garden of Eden film) I shared the other week of using wood chippings, unfortunately we can't get the chippings with the leaves on our plot (we can do that on our land though), but we can mix it in with compost and manure for a more nutritious topping. We have sourced the wood waste from a local wood mill, which means there is a lot of bigger pieces of wood in, but they will rot down eventually and they had a pile of well rotted stuff as well which we can mix together with the drier stuff. We can also rake up leaves from nearby trees to add to the mixture too. Now we just need to find time to do this and the right weather, although spring time will also work if necessary.

The new hydro-electric station, still
under construction

It has left the river with a lot of sediment. One friend of ours
has lost a swimming area to the silt but has been assured
that it will wash away in the spring floods - we shall see.

A neat little water works station (well at least that is what I
think it is). Beats the dilapidated old building that it replaced

The newly tarmacked road up to the technical
school, it was just a dirt road before which we
have many of.

The new skate park

A catalogue of tales

2011-10-03T20:44:00.001+03:00

Typical open fields of the Latvian countryside, under threat
due to the damage by wild boar

Maybe I should refresh my memory of what I put the week before - sorry I used the same picture two weeks running of me standing in a hole that pigs have dug. It took my very observant husband to point that out to me. So in preparation for this week I have just quickly skimmed through last week's offering and I am sad to say I still haven't got around to photographing those transformations. So what have I been doing all week? Mainly still processing food, stripping beans off bean plants and then depodding them, and measuring pig holes. I have catalogued over 300 places where pigs have dug holes or churned up grassland, some very close to buildings and I'm nowhere near finished yet. Just need for some more fine days to get them done before the weather closes in. Apparently 10-14 days after the geese fly south for the winter it snows here in Latvia or in Estonia, well they were flying last week so it is kind of worrying. It is sad to see how much damage to grassland the pigs have done and they have been through our land again this week and I had another 40 holes or churned patches to measure just on our small patch.

My audience whilst measuring pig holes

Pig holes are not the only thing I have been cataloguing, since it was raining today and not conducive to being outside, I catalogued my jars of produce so I have a record of what we actually have. I had my jars all neatly arranged in rows in alphabetical order all over the floor, so I could write down what I had, when Ian tried to get up out of his chair and in trying to avoid jars of chutney he slid across our laminate floor, pirouetted and neatly landed on his behind. He is fine and so's my chutney! In all I have 172 jars or bags of processed food, from chutneys and ketchups to pickled cucumbers, dried tomatoes and herbs to jars of jam and bottled tomato sauces of various kinds. The worse thing is I'm still not finished! Still got some more jars of beans in tomato sauce to do and no doubt there will be more tomatoes to process depending on whether the basketful we have ripens or not. It does sound a lot but then again it takes a lot of jars of tomato sauce to last through to next year when we have new tomato plants producing tomatoes. If you see those photos of people with a week's worth of food laid out in front of them, you can get an idea of how much you need to process if you want 6 months worth of food. It's a lot! Our big freezer is just about full now, and not much room in our small freezer and so I was really relieved to hear someone had some spare jars, so I could bottle up more food. We had travelled all the way to the big town to get bottles and they had sold out, so we ended up spending a lot of money on lots of other things instead that we needed. It all sounds a bit excessive at times, but the thing is that the more that is bottled up the less we have to spend and the further our money will go. No we are not about to run out, but that's not the point. What is there has to last until we start earning properly.

Not sure if this frog was also watching what I was doing

In one way we are saving money by generating our own food but on the other hand we have been spending in preparation for next year. We are getting our own trailer and small baler, so that we don't have the problems of large bales rolling down our ski hill and we can bale up all our good grass separately from our poor quality stuff that is only good for composting, they are awaiting shipment now from the UK. We have also bought a hay rake from a local company and were able to pick that up ourselves in our trailer (see pictures below) but in preparation for next year and getting alpacas, we also on the look out for a double horse box - I will have to keep you posted on that as Ian is going to look at one tomorrow.

Our autumn hasn't been as hot as in the
UK but it has been rather warm for this
time of year and we have had some
gloriously autumnal days

Most of the time we are quite sensible in our decisions but there are times our hearts rule and at the moment we are not sure whether to listen to our hearts or our heads. There are quite a few kittens around at the moment and some of them are absolutely gorgeous and we have been offered different ones at different times. In short, we are sorely tempted. Is it fair to keep a cat indoors in a third floor apartment? Should we move up to the other apartment? At least that is a ground floor flat. But it is smaller and we struggle with space for the amount of stuff we have now. Should we downsize? Should we get two and then at least they are company for each other, even if they are inside? Decisions, decisions! Can we procrastinate long enough to avoid the decision? Who knows, you will have to look next week and see what we decide.

Our new hay rake. Next problem, how do you get it out
of the trailer with no fork lift truck to hand? Easy one tractor

Some tow ropes and hey presto!

Jobs a good 'un!

Wheels on- sorted!

Hmmm! Interesting!

2011-09-26T22:10:00.000+03:00

A neighbours lake

Our village has been undergoing a certain amount of transformation just lately. A disused building, I think linked to the old water system, has now been dismantled completely instead of just being left to rot, which is encouraging (unfortunately no before pictures). Another building on the main road has had new windows installed after being vacant for quite a while, again not sure, but I seem to think someone told me it was a small cafe at one time. The road up to the technical school has now been tarmacked (asphalted) and about time too. The road up to the high school was fine but just past the high school the tarmac ran out and then it was dirt road, and a pretty lousy dirt road at that, right up to the technical school, which didn't really look good for all those visiting from abroad on european funded exchange type trips. Outside the high school there is also a new skatepark, a request from the youngsters of the village. Finally the lake is returning as well, as they start to finish off the new hydroelectric station, not sure if it is replacing or complementing the old system yet. Unfortunately you are going to have to wait for photos as I haven't got around to photographing any of them yet. It is nice though to see steady improvements to the infrastructure and look of the village, even in these difficult times and my prayer is that people themselves see transformations in their own lives and not just in buildings.

A late flower

It was a birthday week here in our household as Ian turned another year older. As usual we didn't really do much except go to the hotel to eat and Ian ordered steak, which they actually had this time, so he was very pleased indeed. My present to Ian was another addition to the Stanley family. We now have two Stanley flasks 1.1L and 1.9L, a Stanley insulated cup and we now await a Stanley food flask, as soon as our son ships it across to us that is -hint! hint!. They are certainly robust enough as one survived a fall from the car recently, a fate that saw the sad demise of two previous flasks and are certainly great for us out on the land, especially as the weather turns cooler as they really do stay hot - worth the investment with the hammer and use they get in our house. Another reason for going to the hotel though was a lack of electric and water - nice present! We knew the electric was going off as the electric company send out emails and texts to alert us, they even send us an alert 5 minutes after they turn it off - at least we then knew it is the company working on it and not some random fault. Unfortunately, although we knew about it, I am not sure some of our neighbours did. One neighbour was having work done on his water system and the water was turned off and they worked on the water all morning but then the electric went off and so did the noise from the apartment below, next we saw the work van disappearing - no electric - no work - no water! Fortunately the workman did come back once the electric came back on, but that did mean a noisy evening and no water until much later. Good job we have two apartments as it meant it was no problem to get some water from there.

Fieldwork. I am standing in one of the wild boar holes

This week I started chronicling the wild boar damage on different properties around the area for my Masters research project. It has been interesting walking around with the farmers, as they show me where the boundaries of their properties lie and where some of the worst damage is. It is pretty bad! I have recorded holes over 50cm deep and some damage that covered an area of 8m by 8m and seen damage today that covered even larger areas than that, but not got round to actually recording them yet. It is so disheartening to see as we know from experience the repercussions of the damaged areas, where invasive plants get in and good grass doesn't get established. What was once flat areas become difficult to walk across without time consuming remedial work. For us each new patch adds yet more time in Spring flattening it out, adding grass seed and hoping the ground elder doesn't spread into it. For others it represents an area where the hay could become contaminated with soil if the cutter cuts into a hole, or hay cutting equipment breaks, or an area where cattle or goats cannot be fed. One farmer has had to forget about plans to expand as they cannot grow their own feed, the pigs would love that too much.

Damage that covers 8m by 8m

This hole might not be so extensive
but it is deep. My stick is marked off in
5cm graduations. This hole is 45cm deep
and if you can imagine what would happen
if you stepped in it once the grass grows back
or a tractor wheel hits it.

Fresh damage on our own plot, on what
was flat ground

Footprints along the side of a public
road. The wild boar do not seem
to be afraid of travelling on the roads

The frustration with seeing the damage and lack of options to deal with the problem here in Latvia lead to one of our rare arguments. Ian was moaning about the damage and I said that it was one of the reasons that I was doing the research I was doing, he turned to me and said "What good is that going to do? What difference will it make?" I saw red! I was not happy, as he may as well have said that this next year will be a complete and utter waste of time, as no one will listen anyway. In my saner moments I would agree, what difference can I make? Who will bother to listen or read my findings? Who am I to think I can make a difference? I work on the principle though that I have to do something, I cannot sit back and watch it happen and shake my head sadly. Maybe my work won't make a difference, but the next person's might. Maybe my work will change things or be at least part of the answer. I don't know! But I have to hope that there is a reason for all this work. I have to believe that despite the circumstances I can make a difference. As Galdiel said to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

Before you think badly of Ian, he did apologise very quickly and admits he was wrong. It shows though what our neighbours have to live with and have lived with a few years, their frustrations are greater than ours. The general consensus of opinion is that there wasn't a problem 5-7 years ago - depending on which area we are looking at. The huge messes left by the wild boar are recent and not an ancient problem and yet they keep coming up against the attitude, this is their problem and nothing they can do about it. Not helpful for the future of farming in the area.

Grapes, just before they were picked and
eaten. They were tasty.

Just thought I would up date you on the fermented cucumbers, hmmm well we finally tasted them and they are errrrr interesting. They are not awful, but their taste is very different and I can't quite make up my mind if I like it or not. Fermented foods are supposed to be healthy for us and the reduction of such foods in our diet is possibly some of the reasons our bodies don't work like they should. They are also a great way of storing foods for use over a longer period of time. Well it is about 2 hours after eating the cucumbers and I don't feel sick, so maybe they are okay, you will just have to check out my blog next week to see whether we are still okay.

If you have an hour or so to spare then take a look at this film. The guy is a gardener who takes time to talk to God about his garden and with amazing results. I have to say that after this year when everything seemed to be a bit too much, his way of gardening looks so easy and what's more doable. My heart has been asking how did Adam tend the garden of Eden, can we capture some of that connection and ease of gardening? Maybe this guy has got some of the answers and certainly some things we can learn from.

Warning to all arachnophobes, look away at this point, in other words, if you are scared of spiders then the last picture is something you will want to avoid

Had to remove this little guy before he got squashed under
the wheel, took a bit of doing but managed it in the end. He's
gorgeous though, isn't he?

Our special visitor

2011-09-19T21:34:00.001+03:00

Well there has been lots of landscaping going on. Ian's been landscaping around our barn

Starting the process (Picture by Mavis)

Nice and level by the side of the greenhouse in preparation
for the snow in winter

Levelling off the ground by the barn

and the wild boar have been errrr hindering

Not helpful! Right between our raspberries and
currant bushes.

The wild boar have not just been digging up our land, they have been having a good go at the neighbouring properties too.

I know I am small but the photo gives you some idea of the
depth of some of the wild boar digging. If they would just
take off the top layer it would just be annoying but big holes
like this are dangerous for tractors. This hole area was one of
several about the same size.

I started my project this week of monitoring the pig activity and I first need to walk the perimeter of the farms and then log all the activity that looks new, so that I can record any done over the next few weeks or so. The problem is that it is a mammoth task, firstly walking all the way around as they are quite large some of them and then logging the damage, they have been so active just this last week that it is going to take me ages just to log the work they have already done, never mind what they will do over the coming weeks. Never mind! I shall be as fit as a fiddle by Christmas doing this, after the pumpkin weight training programme and the tomato challenge of carrying umpteen kilos up several flights of stairs in recent weeks.

Here we all are at the local hotel. Mavis is in the middle.

Last week, however did get off to a reasonably relaxed start, as we had our special visitor from England. It was quite wet most of the week but that was good in some ways as it just gave us lots of time to chat, and eat and chat and errr eat and chat some more. Mavis has been reading my blog now for over three years and has been such an encouragement, although we have never met in person, and so it was a thrill when she mentioned she would love to come and visit to see what we are doing. You can read Mavis' perspective on the trip on her blog. Besides chatting we also took her to visit our friends on their farms and one of them treated us to home-made pizzas using ingredients from out of the garden and cheese from her own goats, followed by honey cake and I suspect that was home-made too, using honey from our friend's bees. The other friend gave us a guided tour of the barn with all the animals in it and even gave us a milking demonstration, which she does by hand. It was very funny watching the calves being fed the milk afterwards and after they had finished the milk in their buckets they licked each others faces as they were not wasting a single drop of the precious liquid. It looked like they were kissing. Mavis has now got to see our land for real as well as the flats we have renovated over the few years we have been here. She has seen and heard firsthand some of the challenges and seen the joys of living here and hopefully taken away a real flavour of the place. Just a shame that it rained all day on the Friday she flew back and so Riga was more like a flying bus type tour - on your right you will see..... and to your left is ....... - in between mall hopping that is, where we ate and chatted some more, at least we stayed dry. The other shame is that Mavis missed the first tow of the season, as the very next day one of our young neighbours had managed to get stuck at the bottom of the allotments - not really sure what he would be doing there, but he was going nowhere fast if we hadn't helped.

Kissing calves (Photo by Mavis)

This weekend I started stripping the buckwheat seed of the plant, while Ian was busy landscaping. I got half a bucket, but it took me all afternoon, I hope the rest goes a bit quicker. We need some animals then we could just beat the living daylights out of the plants and then let the animals pick over any seeds left, but using the flail does seem to leave a lot of seed on the plants. Or we need one of those engineering types that love tinkering about developing little one off machines, anyone up to the job? At least harvesting the buckwheat will provide a rainy day project, as we can harvest the buckwheat in the greenhouse, even if I can't get out studying wild boar damage and Ian landscaping and digging drains.

The turkeys at our other friends farm (Photo by Mavis).

Looking ahead I finally got our plane tickets sorted for our Christmas trip to the UK, as they had special offers on for the days we were interested in travelling, the problem is that the next day airbaltic decided to announce cuts to staff and flights. It would appear though that the announcements are to do with a spat between the head of the airline and the Latvian Government. Hopefully they will sort it out very soon, instead of being yet one more casuality of brinkmanship between a powerful guy and the Latvian government. The Latvian government are actually the majority shareholder of the airline, but do not have a say in how the airline is run, and want to buy out the minority shareholder who runs the company. Not sure how that happened but doesn't seem to make sense really. The CEO is now back in Germany as he fears being arrested in Latvia for fraud charges. Not sure if the charges are real or trumped up either, but shows some of the challenges Latvians face.

I will just finish off with an excellent article on the effects of austerity on Latvia. The two authors are spot on about the reason for the drop in unemployment here in Latvia, it is mainly down to many people moving away looking for work rather than due to an improvement in the economy. We really need to generate a new economy now, one that does not penalise the poorest for the mistakes of the bankers - they maybe back in profit but the people are hurting.

And there's more!

2011-09-12T22:52:00.000+03:00

Finally we got some Amish Paste tomatoes that are as big
as advertised. I kept the seeds from that really big one, let's
see what we can do next year!

The Pumpkin weight training schedules continued this week as the pumpkins have been moved in and out of the greenhouse several times in order to dry them off in the sun. Hopefully that way they will last a long time. Added to the tomato challenge - lugging several kilos of tomatoes up three flights of stairs, it all has just got to be good for me, if I don't perish in the effort that is. The end is in sight for the harvesting though, all the carrots are now up and in the process of being got ready for long term storage (small ones dried, juiced or added to chutney, large ones to go in baskets with sawdust), and some of the tomatoes got some blight on them so they were pulled up - green tomato chutney anyone? That leaves the Borlotti beans, French beans, runner beans and beetroot to deal with soon, along with the hamburg parsley but there is no rush for that yet, it will stand a little frost. It does feel like a mammoth task at times, as we are stood over the sink sorting the veg out, but it will soon be over. Once those temperatures dip below freezing we will be just about finished for the year - well food wise. We have until the snow comes for me to do some observations and data gathering on wild boar activity for my course and Ian will be sorting out the woodland again, that should keep us busy for just a bit longer.

Sorry the picture is not so good as that is in our barn on
my camera phone. This makeshift shelving holds our larger
carrots

We have had a bit of an exciting time this week. We are in the process of making the access road onto our land legal, which involved one of our neighbours helping us to fill out forms at the office dealing with roads for the area, and then we had to drive the lady in the office to our land to look at the access road and then drive her back to her office - a round trip of 90 km, not exactly a little jaunt. In the process of driving the lady backwards and forwards, we also gave a lift to another neighbour of ours who also had to be in Madona. It all got a little complicated, but it worked out in the end and everybody was happy, including the lady from the office. She didn't speak a lot of English but she declared the siting of the road was "good." The next part of the process is to get it sorted out and accepted by the local council offices but we were a bit too busy to sort that out this week.Okay that might not sound too exciting to you but getting everything legitimate is important to us.

And errr... there's some more, and doesn't
include the bag full of small ones we dried.
juiced and made into chutney. We really
need some animals next year to help us out.

Unfortunately though in the process of doing all that, the gorgeous morning turned into an afternoon of rain which scuppered any chance of getting in some more buckwheat, we had to wait until the next day to do that. We still headed out to the land though after dropping our neighbour off so that we could pick up a spare windscreen wiper, which just happened to be in our workshop out on the land, as the one we were using was driving us mad with the noise it was making. We were only on the land about 10 minutes before driving off, but in the meantime three cars had parked at the bottom of our road. One was a police car, one was a national tv car (LNT) with camera crew and another turned out to be the bomb disposal squad. We had found a grenade with a pin in it and our friend who was visiting us over the weekend helpfully phoned the police for us and told him about it. About an hour later he turned up and saw it and told us he would bring the bomb squad out to get it at a later date but we didn't need to be there. Funnily enough the policeman was dressed very smartly the second time we saw him, unlike the casual attire he was wearing when he came to make his initial inspection. Wonder if it was for the camera crew? They even interviewed me in English, very funny but I hope they didn't really show it.

This weeks's harvest of tomatoes.

Well this is a short and sweet blog this week (do I hear my kids saying "thank goodness for that?") but it has been a busy morning continuing processing tomatoes and getting our home in some semblance of clean for a special visitor. More next week.

And yes there are still more to ripen

Harvest Festival

2011-09-05T22:51:00.001+03:00

It's like our own harvest festival. We didn't plant those big
orange pumpkins or the large green ones, they just grew
in our manure heap up the garden. Guess what the cows
have been eating! Apparently it makes the milk tastier. At
the top are sunflower heads.

Still in harvesting mode this week, another coolbox full of tomatoes which were transformed into jars of tomato sauce, beans in tomato sauce and a tomato, onion and chilli sauce. We had to sit for a whole evening shelling beans for the eight jars of baked beans I made. It would have been easier if I hadn't already got the tomato sauce cooked down as the pods would have been drier and easier to shell. Hopefully the next lot of beans waiting for shelling can wait long enough to dry out. We also have pumpkins harvested and curing, along with lots of other squash as you can see from the picture but the ultimate harvest started today, our field of buckwheat. What a job! Our barn is still not quite ready and so there is not much room to put our buckwheat to dry, so we have some stacked in a corner - all four trailer loads full, on the Latvian style hay rick supports. We also have some on supports in the greenhouse and after an afternoon cutting we are gradually running out of room and nowhere near done yet. A friend of ours even came and collected a boot full to try on their rabbits. It is looking increasingly likely that we will allow some (maybe most) to be killed off by the frost and let it seed itself for next year. That way we can probably collect a harvest off it in maybe June or early July next year.

Our field before harvesting

Our first two stacks. As you can see the barn is not finished yet
we are still waiting for the doors to be done and the frames
are there in the middle

Stack number three in our greenhouse

Stack number four and the start of number
five. We packed in at this stage because
it was getting late and starting to get damp.
The worst thing is that we can't start until
the afternoon as the dew is so heavy in the
mornings now.

All that buckwheat came from this small patch, there is still
a lot more to do!!!!!!

Yes mushroom time again and we live
to tell the tale after a lovely wild
mushroom risotto

All the harvesting has made me think about efficiency. What do we think about when we think about efficiency today? It is usually measured in two ways, the costs of the output versus inputs or the output per person. A modern farm with lots of modern equipment is considered efficient because there is a large output with minimal input from one person due to all the equipment to hand, but is that really efficient? Farming with lots of big equipment can be wasteful. All the harvest has to be at the same stage at the same time to be harvested by machine, or a lot of the harvest will be rejected and wasted. An allotment garden, however, is far less wasteful as the harvest can carry on for a long period of time and less produce is rejected as it can be used in different ways (did you know that more can be produced per acre on an allotment than a farmer could ever hope to harvest?). For instance, we had some blossom end rot in some tomatoes, so I just picked them when they were green and we had them fried. They were perfectly edible with the blossom end cut off but in a modern farm that would have been rejected and thrown away. The farms also have high inputs in terms of capital to buy the equipment, the sprays and fertilisers needed to farm on that scale in a monoculture, and a large oil input in terms of diesel and manufacture of all that equipment. How sustainable is that in the long term? I will leave that one for you to think about.

Some of the not so lovely dwellers in our compost heap.
These are cockchafer grubs and they have a voracious
appetite that can ruin a crop. Ian was just going to move
the composted straw but ended up sifting through it for
these little fellows and there were about four tubs worth.

From my perspective though, we are being as efficient as possible with what we have, weather permitting. The buckwheat this year may get partly wasted as far as collecting seed is concerned but it has done its job of keeping the weeds down and giving us the time to plan for next year. It was also an interesting experiment to see how it grew and what it looked like, as none of our friends and neighbours knew what it would be like. It did prove it is worth growing in this area but there is of course a question of how much can be grown to be harvested using minimal equipment. There must be a better way to harvest it and stack it to dry and that is something we will have to think about. Having said that, if the weather had been a little kinder to us we may have had more time to collect it too. It was too dry to plant any earlier (even if we had found any if you recall the trouble we had finding it in the first place) and is only just ripe enough to harvest now. We may lose out in the end to frosts, unless of course we have another window of good weather before the onslaught of frosts. The rest of our gardening though is usually more efficient as far as trying to harvest all that we have and finding as many different ways to store it for winter use, if we can't use it now. I must say the fermenting cucumbers are interesting to watch and I do hope they turn out well in the end, the book assures me they will be lovely.

Been a beautiful day today

I mentioned last week that weather watching has become really important to us, but the forecasts have let us down badly this week as the rain often came earlier than predicted and instead of a morning of sunshine followed by afternoon rain as predicted, it just rained a lot. That also meant that the hay we cut the other week is now wet. Good job that it was only going to be compost anyway. It also meant that Ian has now started on rainy day projects such as painting radiators in the other apartment. We often joke about rainy day projects, if it is something that is inside and needs doing we jokingly add it to the list, not sure how much of that list will ever get done but we wouldn't want Ian to get bored when it rains and pens him inside the house now would we?

We had our visitors back again this
week. Those wild boar sure know
how to dig.

I think the rain held off just long enough for the return to school this week. Ex-Soviet countries still tend to stick to the September 1st as the date for returning to school after the summer. Much of the returning ceremony here in our village is held outside unfortunately, considering our weather this last week. It is funny to see children dressed up in their best, the boys in shirts and ties instead of the usual more casual attire, and girls in very smart frocks and all carrying flowers for their teacher. Going back to school is certainly a big event here. Can't imagine children all dressed up as if going to a party back in England on their first day back. Where does all the time go though? I started back to work too (I moderate an online chat room for a UK based educational organisation) and yet it doesn't seem that long ago since I broke up for the holidays. This summer has flown by and it hasn't helped that my work for my university course has not really stopped this year either. Hopefully though I shall be ready to get started on putting together the work for my Masters thesis.

Some of our magical messy forest.
This will get a make over later on but
maybe a while before we get to this bit.

Had another nice week chatting with friends again, one evening we got to know a little more about life behind the iron curtain. It is fascinating hearing stories of every day life. This week we found out that expeditions to other countries was very possible. We were always under the illusion that travel for those living in the Soviet Union was limited. The reality was that travel outside of the Soviet Union was limited, even to Poland and East Germany, but travel within the Soviet Union was very possible and that was a huge expanse of land to travel and explore. Our friends told us that they would group together and hire a coach, pack tents to stay in, then travel all over the place just not in a Westerly direction. Sweden was a far off country when you lived behind the iron curtain, despite being just over the other side of the small Baltic Sea, but East was very possible, Ukraine, Russia etc.

Aubergine! We are a little more successful than last year
but not much. One more year to see if we can do better.

Just like to finish with the tale of the Houdini rabbit. We were round at our friends farm and they have lots of little rabbits but one of them keeps escaping. After apprehending the little individual (rather amusing as it was three adults to one small rabbit and he gave us the run around for a good couple of minutes) he was placed back in his pen with lots of other rabbits of a similar age. We couldn't really see anyway he could get out, there were no gaps, but as we stood talking we could hear some scrabbling and the Houdini rabbit scrabbled his way up a 3ft high fence onto a narrow ridge and then squeezed itself around a tiny gap into the pen of some bigger rabbits. The little one then proceeded to get itself into the feed basket from which it attempted another escape - not this time though! I caught him by the scruff of the neck and put him back where he belonged. No sooner than he was back in, he was plotting his next escape. We watched him try again but not quite make it this time. I decided to put a stop to this little one for its own safety of course - that and I'm a spoilsport - by jamming a piece of wood into the crevice through which it was squeezing, unfortunately that didn't sort it. The little fellow has now been imprisoned in a cage after escaping five more times and so far he hasn't managed to find a way out of that yet. What makes this little fellow so determined to get out though, when all the others are content to be fed and watered?

Harvest galore

2011-08-29T20:54:00.001+03:00

Cutting of the last lot of hay

Have I missed something? There is, or rather, was an inflatable Father Christmas in Ogre, just outside of Riga (Ian spotted it on a webcam he checks on to see what the weather is doing just West of us) and I'm dreaming of a White Christmas was on the radio. - whatever next? It makes the year seem all the shorter and it is speeding away fast enough as it is. It definitely feels very autumnal now and harvesting of winter storage vegetables is in full swing around us. You can here the gentle plink plink of the vegetables into the buckets and see the gradual reappearance of bare earth as the plants are dug up. (Just to confuse me even more, this evening in the local supermarket it was possible to buy Easter sweets - how bizarre is that!)

A gift from a neighbour. Now I am going
to find out how to ferment cucumbers as
I already have jars in the fridge. I might
pickle some too.

Never have the forecasts been so important as they have this year- although Ian might argue with that as forecasts were very important to him when he was cycling into work, 13 miles in the rain is not fun. Our lives though seem to be almost run by forecasts at the moment. Our hay cutting was fitted in to catch a spell of good weather, so we could take advantage of getting some good hay baled up in preparation for alpacas next year. Up till this year it didn't matter if the hay got wet, apart from the fact it got heavy, as we were only using it for compost. Most of our land is poor quality meadow as there is far too much ground elder and wild raspberries amongst it, which means it is just not worth the cost of baling it up, the hay on the ski hill, however, is much better quality and it would seem a shame to just continue to compost it. The problem is though that to improve the rest of the meadowland we need to cut it to reduce the invasive weeds and favour the grasses. We don't agree with using chemicals on it and we don't want to dig it up and reseed it, as that would mean losing all the wild flowers that are there - okay it won't produce as much hay as it would if they weren't there but then we wouldn't have orchids. That means we are left with cutting poor quality hay and composting it, which is fine for our veg and it works a treat in the greenhouse to reduce the amount of watering needed.

The third load of six trays of drying
tomatoes. They are great in soups
and stews over the winter or just popped
into a pasta dish.

A couple of days of fine weather meant we got the rest of the grass cut apart from a small area because guess what? If you follow this blog you may have already guessed, there was a distressed corncrake looking for its home where Ian had just cut, those birds are just not smart. He was sat in the tractor for a long time waiting for it to move, in fact long enough to think about getting his phone out which has a camera and find the camera setting, but of course not long enough to actually take a photo. He said the poor little thing kept looking at the grass waiting to be cut and the bit that had just been cut as if it was trying to work out who had demolished its home while it was gone. We need to put up a notice that tells them when they are supposed to have moved out, haven't they got a holiday home to go to? One that's nice and warm?

Been a busy day as this is a bowl of plums microwaving
to make microwave jam.

We have also been busily scanning forecasts to see what night time temperatures are going to be like over the weeks ahead, as our buckwheat is starting to go over, but a frost will kill it. We are trying to give the seed as much time to set as possible before harvesting and yet avoid the frosts. Ideally 60-70% of the seed should have set, much more than that and you lose seed anyway as it shatters when cut, but less than that means not a good harvest. Vegetables on a small family scale are much less exhausting as you just need a dry day to harvest, although a couple of days for digging up root crops like potatoes and carrots is better and you certainly don't want to be gardening in a mud bath.

Our storage tomatoes that should last a while and under
the cover and in the strange arrangement at the top are
beans undergoing a salting process. We shall see what they
turn out like but at least it is possible to put a lot of beans in
a small space

I have talked before about how we are learning about the land we manage, we are not rushing into decisions, but trying to work with what is there. Relocating plants and trees we want to keep, but are perhaps not in a good place and taming dominant weeds like the ground elder through regular cutting to give the grass a chance to fight back. We are learning the names of plants and what they do, learning to identify birds by sight and sometimes by call and learning the names of the trees and learning to distinguish them by bark alone at times. Learning to name nature, learning the contribution it can make, alters how you do things, less ready to uproot it and if it is uprooted it is done with thought. I can therefore relate to Aldo Leopold's words when he says

"Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear what you will do to it, or with it, and I know many pleasant things it will do to you."

These are different tomato seeds all been given the treatment
to separate out the good from the bad seeds and to ensure
we keep the productive ones next year

It makes me wonder if that is how God intended Adam to work the garden of Eden, to learn about the animals and plants in the garden and the place they had. Of learning to tame some and encourage others, to find a place for each plant that was both pleasing to the eye and worked with it for what it could do and was useful for. I am tending more and more to think of the place where we work as a garden and less and less "the land." Ian had cut a path through some trees and it looked so nice and left an area that just seemed to shout to be planted with something useful and so we are thinking of relocating a wild rose and some mint to that place. Might even put some bulbs in too and as I write I am wondering if maybe we could manage to put a seat in nearby. Not sure how often we could sit on it due to the biting insects but there are times it is perfectly possible.

It doesn't look big in this picture but that is a ginormous
bowl with dill seed in it. All ready for adding to various jars
of things and for seed for next year.

Ian hasn't just been cutting our grass, he cut some for our neighbour too. They have finally got access to some buildings they are going to turn back into a working factory producing wood for fuel. The factory has not been in use for 15 years and so is quite neglected and nature has been doing its best to try and reclaim the place. I am so pleased for this young couple with big dreams and such a desire to make a difference to their local community through providing employment and we are proud to call them friends. It is hard work though and dealings in business is not often straightforward in Latvia but they are pushing through and I pray that God will bless what they are doing and bless them for their hearts that desire to do good. Ian used his two wheeled tractor to neaten up the property and make it easier for them to sort out a car park that will take the lorries carrying the wood to and from it to help out. They let us have a flail that was lying around the place. A flail is used for separating seed from plants - not quite sure how to use it but I guess we are going to find out.

I have been following the news about Hurricane Irene, strange isn't it how there is so much news about it hitting America when there was so little news when it has already hit the Caribbean at a far higher force just not the same force of news. I guess the higher population affected has something to do with it and the fact that hurricanes don't often get that far up. I think the BBC coverage though has shown a drop in their standards, this quote was a classic

"You can see why the mayor made the New York subway system shut down, because the subway system is right below the ground level in New York."

A visitor to our land, a bird of prey of some sort but not
sure which as we didn't get a good look at it. We did
get a good look at the eagle that was flying around when
we arrived but typically it flew off before we got the camera
sorted.

Now pray do tell me, where else would you expect to find the New York subway system? Talking of New York it will soon be the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Guardian website was asking what is your story from the event? What do you remember? I suppose it is a bit like the shooting of President Kennedy which was such a startling event that people remember what they were doing at the time, I don't remember that incident but then again I hadn't been born then. I do remember hearing about the 9/11 attacks for the first time though. We had just got back home after Ian had been signed off work with chronic fatigue and our kids were home-schooled and so were busy working in their bedrooms and our middle child came rushing downstairs saying an airplane had just crashed into a skyscraper in New York. At first I wondered if he had misheard and not understood, maybe it was just a radio play or something and I sent him back upstairs to get back on with his work. A few minutes later he came back down stairs and said another plane had flown into the other tower. We didn't have a tv and I can't remember how we started on checking the details, probably the internet, but it was amazingly awful to follow.

Our neighbour helping us rake hay. This method is better
than a tractor as it is kinder to the ground and is still
quite fast and definitely a lot faster than by hand.

On a completely different note I am finding out the joys of heading towards menopause. I have to admit I thought this was something that happened to women in their 50s and so, as I am in my late 40s, I thought I might be starting early. I know there is lots of info on the internet these days but there is not much about what it is actually like to go through it. How do people cope with some of the symptoms? That sort of information is a bit scarcer, unless of course it is a scare story. I haven't got friends around me who I can ask either as I am not in regular contact with those who have just gone through it and not exactly the sort of thing to ask when renewing a contact. Fortunately I am in contact through a forum of some lovely ladies who have been through it and were willing to share some of their stories, bless 'em. Reading about symptoms is all very well and I kind of know what to expect, but there is nothing like hearing stories from real people. So if I appear a little flustered or complaining of the unusually warm winter when it is -20C outside, you will know why.

Phew!

2011-08-22T21:58:00.000+03:00

I won these gorgeous buttons from a lady who does some
beautiful embroidery calle Karen and you can find her
blog here. She does some amazing work and mainly in
white - if I used white it would be multicoloured by the
time I finished.

It has felt a busy week once again. Trips into Riga were timed with visits to the tractor shop - I'm beginning to wonder if that is all part of the experience of visiting us that we have to at least try and go to the tractor shop. We went to pick up a new cutter bar on the way home, which we had reserved on the first trip after collecting our son from the airport. They had a special offer on one that is good for rough ground, with pointy things on the front to stop the cutter bar coming into contact with stones. It was really funny as the sales guy was trying to explain why there was a difference between the cutter bar they had in stock and the one we have and none of us could come up with anything more technical than pointy things. We don't need a new cutter bar, well not yet, but we have come to rely on this piece of equipment for keeping our land in check and to tackle the ground elder through regular cutting - much faster than using a strimmer - which means that if it was to ever break we would be stuck, hence the decision to buy the new one, especially since it cost less than our original one.

Our son driving the big little tractor

Our trips into Riga are a bit of a nightmare at the moment as they are constructing new tarmac roads on just about every route into Riga from our place. It is lovely when they are done and we have some nice level tarmac roads to travel on instead of the dirt roads, but for some reason they do not do a stretch and then move to the next point. Oh no! They have to work on it at several points at once and leave gaps in between where nothing is done - it is very bizarre and means you have no idea at which point you will come into contact with the road works.

Our missing bale of hay. This bale
rolled down the hill onto our neighbours
land and wedged itself in some branches
which saved it a trip into a ditch. Not quite
sure how we are going to get it out yet. We
can't roll it out as it is much too heavy and
there is a steep bank to roll it up to the field.

I still had some studying to do and so it meant that father and son could spend a bit of time together. Our son was very willing to help out when it came to operating machines and so the orchard got mowed with a lawnmower, the area around our currant bushes was mowed with the two-wheel tractor and he even got to do a bit of grass cutting with the big-little tractor. Our cellar is also now virtually clear of wood, not sure if our cellar just got damp through the damp wood being put down there or because there is some water coming in, so we need to give it a bit of time to assess the situation. When the cellar hopefully dries out a bit, we will stack it up with some more dry wood ready for winter. We did take our son out for meals as promised, one to our local hotel for some of their famous chocolate pudding - cake on the outside and it should be runny on the inside but this time it wasn't, still nice though. We also went to Ķirsona Muiža which we have nicknamed the Disney palace and was built by the same company that built the Lido in Riga, which all Brits that I know have to visit when they go to Riga, just to sample a range of Latvian food.

Our monster tomatoes

We also took time to visit our friends and show our son around the farm, looking at lots and errr lots and errr lots of cute baby bunnies. It is hard to look at them and think food but that is what they are being grown for, as the meat is healthy due to being low in fat and of course they breed like rabbits and so that means a lot of meat in a short space of time. We had quite a laugh as our friend's daughter has a knack of getting animals to follow her, usually it is the goats but this time it was chicks and it was hilarious watching the chickens chasing after her with their little legs going nineteen to the dozen. We came home from there with a pot of honey, the last honey of the year as all the bees make from now on is for over the winter and so it is not good to take any later. It is this time of the year the beekeeper also starts to treat the bees for various illnesses and to start feeding them to make sure the reserves are built up. Our son decided honey from the farm was far superior to the stuff from the shops - not bad for a city boy really.

On our misty trip into Riga. This shows one of the many
disused fields turning slowly into forest

Saturday was forecast to be wet and so we decided that we should sweep the chimney at our other apartment. It was a job we were dreading as we have one bad experience of sweeping chimneys. Most of the time back in England, our middle son and Ian would tackle the sweeping together, as we had an awkward fireplace made up of rough hewn stone - not ideal for a good seal. Most times they had a good system going but once it failed with rather catastrophic effects. Soot ended up everywhere and it took me a week to clean that room, including some rather large curtains. This chimney that we were cleaning this week doesn't have a cleaning chamber and has to be virtually dismantled to clean it, which proved a little tricky at first but eventually we got it separated without covering everywhere with soot - an amazing feat in itself. In fact it all ran rather smoothly and we got it all put back together and tested it with a small fire - no problems at all.

It's amazing to watch the guys who stack these hayricks
they are so fast. They do the field in about a day. These
ricks allow the hay to dry out and now they are slowly
being collected in.

I was hoping for a bit of a slow day on Sunday, taking things easy, but I got chatting with a neighbour at our other apartment and she was asking when we were going to dig up our potatoes. I said sometime this week, but couldn't tell her that it was because the weather forecast was looking good for the whole week. She showed me some of the potatoes she was digging up and some looked like they were going rotten, probably from blight and her garden is higher than ours, therefore should be a bit drier. This news got me bit worried and so we had a change of plan and decided to dig up our potatoes that afternoon. Ian went to get the two-wheel tractor as he was planning on cutting someones grass the next day and he had a go with the potato lifter. It was hardwork and we realised that he needed a guide to work towards to keep a fix on where the rows were, but it worked and we know how to use it better next year. Our potatoes were actually quite good from that plot, and no more than half a dozen bad ones, so we were really pleased. Maybe our neighbours put them in the same plot each year, or maybe their potatoes are more susceptible than ours, I don't know, but I will make a point of looking to see where they plant potatoes next year.

This little chap was determined to help out and at times we
had to stop digging because he was in the way. He seemed
to be completely fearless.

By Monday our nice dry week seemed to be evaporating with an increase in forecasts for rain, so after I had picked two buckets of beans plus removed all the weeds from the potato plot and Ian had repaired the clutch on the two-wheeled tractor that seemed to be slipping, we then got cracking with digging up the second plot of potatoes (the shorter rows running across the hill meant it was quicker to resort to the old-fashioned method of digging with a fork and not using the two-wheeled tractor). We have found out that straw definitely helps to suppress the weeds but also benefitted the size and number of potatoes produced, well that and our neighbours sprinkler must have been having an effect too, as our first two rows of potatoes were ginormous, with many big baking potatoes. We just got most of the potatoes in and was gathering up the last ones when the rain started. Phew! Just in time! We will give the plot a week for weed seeds to germinate, dig those in and then scatter some clover seeds over it to hold the ground together over the winter to stop the nutrients leaching out and to give a green manure to dig in in the spring. Well that's the plan anyway and very much depends on the weather. The ground has gone quite soft and so it is going to set our cutting of the last of the hay back. Fortunately we don't want it for feed or anything and will only compost it but if we don't cut it the dominant weeds take over and as we are still trying to improve the grassland it needs to be done.

We took the time for a stop and a cup of tea on the way
home from Riga. The mist had gone and from this point
you can see for miles and miles.

One of the effects of living in an ex-Soviet country is that many of the older people still speak Russian, but we found out this week, it is not just the people, sometimes it extends to the animals too. Our friends have a new horse rescued from an abattoir, well when I say new I mean new to them and they were relating to us the other day how they have been riding it and proving it is not just a horse for pulling carts and agricultural equipment, which is what they have it for. The horse, however, only seems to understand Russian and not necessarily the sort of Russian you learn in school. I get the impression it is not the gentile kind of Russian you use talk to your grandmother either.

There is lots of forest in Latvia

Not had has as much time on the internet as usual (probably a good thing) but one news item that did strike me is that Sweden apologised for a turning a blind eye to post-war Soviet occupation of the Baltic States. I think this is a very good thing as it acknowledges the mistakes of history. The Swedish Prime Minister stated that Sweden had a "debt of honour" to the Baltic States for the way they behaved. I think they still do have a debt of honour for turning a blind eye to the way the Swedish banks have dealt with the Baltic States, using practices not used in their own country, hiding the details of how much interest is paid on loans. Oh yes! I know the poor always end up paying higher rates because they are considered a poor risk, but how many could pay back if they weren't being charged extortionate rates? I know that the Swedish banks are not the only ones to operate dual standards and legal but immoral practices but I still think these things should be acknowledged and promises made to reform dealings. Instead we have the situation where the banks are returning to profit while the nation is weighed down by debt incurred through immoral lending practices.

I shall leave you with a link to a Youtube clip of a young girl aged 10, Ta'Kaiya Blaney from the tribe Silammon, singing about the effects of oil extraction from tar sands, called Shallow Waters. The lines "If we do nothing it will all be gone" really echoes through my mind and makes me more determined to keep going and trying to do what is right.

Oh yes before I forget. Last week Karen asked what did goat taste like? The first meal we had tasted a bit like a cross between a low fat lamb and stewing steak, but that could be how I cooked it. The rib we had today was much more like lamb but without the fat.

Interesting times

2011-08-15T21:52:00.002+03:00

There were a couple of moments this week when I didn't recognise someone, very embarrassing! The first person I didn't recognise as they were waving at me, was due to a radical haircut. It made a huge difference, and that is my excuse and I am sticking to it. The next occasion was when we walked into our local hotel. I saw some people sitting at a table but didn't initially take much notice, and then suddenly I realised I knew two of them and was frantically racking my brain to remember who they were and where did I know them from. Eventually I did work out who there were and they weren't from the village and so it was quite a surprise to see them in our locale, especially as they were from Riga, they are also friends of people we know are away at the moment and so they hadn't come to visit them either. It is odd how we do not recognise people out of context, I guess that tells us something about how our brains are wired. It did mean though that instead of a quiet meal for two as usual, we had lovely evening where we were introduced to someone else who lives in Riga but comes from Lancashire like me. We traded jokes and were able to talk "Northern" and be completely understood, it was great. Just hope I recognise our son when he gets to the airport tomorrow (I am writing this ahead of time so I can spend time with him catching up instead of sat on the computer)

Talking of brains being wired differently, it is funny how our perception of old changes with age. One young lass who translates for us on a frequent basis has found a dictionary that is really old and contains some of the terms that we were struggling with the other week. This very old dictionary was printed in ........ 1968! Old!!!!! That makes us old! That makes us very old!!! We were expecting her to tell us it was from the 1930s, now that's old! Well it is to us, being early 60s children.

Since coming to Latvia we have been eating very well, of course there are the fresh vegetables from the garden and this year we are starting to get gifts from friends, such as lampreys earlier on this year, beavers sausages, goat's cheese, chicken the other week and this week we have got half a goat. The lampreys we have to work our way up to eating, they are good but smell very fishy which we find off-putting, but paired up with some strong tasting vegetables and herbs it works well (still got a packet in the freezer). The beaver sausage we are still working our way through too, as it makes good salami for pizzas or a tasty casserole and it hasn't been casserole weather. The chicken was a free range hen that was past its productive years and so had to be cooked for a long time, but it made a lot of tasty juice for stock and still had a taste itself at the end. It made a lovely chicken and mushroom pie and yes the mushrooms were picked by Ian fresh that day. As for the goat? Well that is in the freezer as we haven't had chance to eat any of it yet, I will let you know what it tastes like when we have eaten some. It does show though that you can live very well, quite cheaply when you live as a community. We have also learnt to make many foods that we took for granted in England, such as cheese, bacon, hams, sausages and found that really they are not hard, just not so instant as opening a packet from the supermarket. I planned on giving our son some home-made bacon sarnies one day while he is here but that meant buying the meat Saturday, adding salt and honey to it in a plastic bag and turning it every day for four/five days so it will be ready Wednesday.

I mentioned last week that Ian keeps saying "winter's coming" well this week it did rather feel like it too as we have had some rather cool, rainy weather, fortunately it seems to have warmed up a lot in time for our son's arrival. Even the trees and vines have started changing colour. The rainy weather has meant that it has been difficult to get into the garden apart from the smash and grab type raids to get some veg from the garden before the next shower and so the weeds which were bad before have increased. Finally on Saturday I got in there and did battle with the weeds, which succumbed reluctantly. There are now three rather large piles of weeds complete with pulled up peas. I managed to rescue enough peas that hadn't been munched by grubs to add to our pie and they were good, just a pity there hadn't been many more of them. I did do some research and found that one of the best deterrents is fleece or fine netting to protect from the moths that lay the eggs, so I think I am going to do an experiment to thwart the beasts, one will be to cover them and another to grow something amongst the peas to confuse the moths, maybe nasturtiums and/or dill. If anyone has any other ideas please feel free to add a comment. I decided against the pheromone traps as they are just too expensive whereas the dill is free as I keep the seed - there's some drying in our bedroom as I write and so are the nasturtiums - if I manage to get some going to seed and the frost doesn't get there first.

One of the good things about winter though is the respite from the garden. There is not much to do in it when it is a metre deep in snow and all there is to do is to plan for the following year. I can really relate to one comment I read on a blog about farming this week

"One thing that has surprised me year after year is that in spite of all the challenges we New Hampshire farmers face every season we all return for the next summer. The winter seems to refresh and completely renew our motivation for growing and doing what we love."

I can really relate to that. I was looking at a plot of land today and planning for next year as I would love to increase the number of blueberries bushes we have and there is a triangle of land that is between paths and is a jungle of ground elder and wild raspberries. By laying a thick layer of cardboard mulch and then straw and pine needles on top by spring there could be a good soil layer for the plants and hopefully no weeds. Winter will do its work too.

Our land is our investment for our future. Often we are making decisions that will not be realised for many years, maybe even after we have gone. We are keeping many of the trees that have seeded themselves, some we remove when they are just plain in the wrong place, but if it can be kept and Ian can still manoeuvre around them with a tractor then they are kept, they will provide shelter for animals and fuel for us in the future. Oaks are something we are particularly keen to encourage and yet we may never see the fruit of those, although I would like to try coppicing them as they can be used for straight oak beams - they only take about 25 years I think! Just in time for our "retirement"? Actually past our official retirement age as that is just less than 20 years away (scary!). We are hopefully going to tread slowly into alpaca keeping next year with just a few to see how they cope with our land and our winters before embarking on rearing. They will still provide us with a few woolly jumpers anyway.

I see these sorts of investments, along with learning how to keep seeds as the best way into our future. Banks used to be thought of as nice safe places to store money and trustworthy places to invest our pensions, now I am not so sure. There are so many question marks over the way the economy is run and how sustainable it is that even the experts really do not know what they are doing, they are guessing too and often just praying that everything will return to normal and it will all go on as before (Delamitri yet again? here and here). The riots in England this last week should be yet more warnings that things cannot go on as before and reverting to authoritarian rhetoric isn't going to help either. I am not going to say much about this as so much has been said already and most excellently on this blog, which talks about the result of investing in the rich and in consumerism that has, like Roger's blog says, meant a lot of unexploded land mines waiting to be triggered. This blog also gives a good account and I especially like Cheryl's comments if you scroll down, where she argues for a return to living together as a society.

As Christians we are told not to store up our treasures on earth but store it up in heaven

Matthew 6 ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Thought you might like a cheery picture to
finish with! A photo of our sunflowers. Sorry
haven't got around to taking any more but
maybe tomorrow I shall post some

But what does that mean in our lives today, we often spiritualise it to oblivion and still don't really tackle what it means. The Lords prayer says "Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." To me that means we are praying for heaven on earth, so invest in that. Again what does that mean in practice? Well I can't give you an definitive answers because it will be different for each one of us, but instead of looking to make an eternal difference, look to make a difference now, here on earth using kingdom principles of equality and fairness, and don't store up the money for the future. It is okay to give it out with the expectation that it could come back to you (and I did say "could", it won't always) and then recirculate it again, using it to build up, encourage and restore.There are plenty of folks that need a hand to get started on a project, so invest time, and money into those places. Get a group together to see about investing in some small projects - that's called spreading the risk. Just do something, don't get sunk in despair or believe it is all going to hell anyway and not do something about it. There is a God in heaven who is in the business of sowing encouragement and love into a hurting world and he is into transformation, so sow into it. Get behind what he is doing.

All baled up

2011-08-08T21:30:00.002+03:00

Our ski hill from the top

Some of the 29 bales of hay we now have. Some of these
have rolled themselves down the hill.

Oh the aches, I should look like Arnold Schwarznegger for the aches in my upper torso from battling the two wheeled tractor the other week and fluffing up the hay this week, but I don't and I am still the same rotund shape and perhaps only a couple of pounds lighter for the trouble. Still it seems worth all the work when we look at the land now and see 29 large bales of hay sat there. We cut the hay and someone came with a tedder to turn the hay and fluff it up, to help it dry. The tedder worked on the flatter areas of our ski hill, but we still had to arrange all the hay on the steep areas into long fluffy lines. Our lovely neighbours organised the tedding (not sure if that is a correct term or not) and the baling for us and we are so grateful for helpful neighbours who know the locals that have the right equipment, it saved a lot of hard work. We thought it would be baled on the Friday but the guy with a new baler said our land was too steep and so an old tractor with an old baler was organised, but we still expected to have to do the really steep parts - remember it used to be a ski hill in Soviet times! We were getting nervous that none of it would be baled in time before the rain, as the old baler broke down, so we were very relieved that they made it in plenty of time and the promised rain did not arrive until today, Monday. We were even more relieved to find that they had baled even the very steepest areas - that must have been hairy! We didn't have time to get out with the camera to take a photo over the weekend, as we had visitors and it rained today, but Ian was taking our trailer back to the land after a neighbour borrowed it and stopped to take some photos especially for all you blog readers out there - isn't he sweet! We weren't expecting 29 bales of hay though, we were expecting 20 and our neighbours were also expecting less from their lands too. One neighbour only had the right money for the normal number of bales she usually gets and another got 58 instead of the usual 40, we thought the grass had done well this year.

Our greenhouse is looking very full now

Besides helping us organise getting the hay done, the young lass who translates for us is learning many new terms in English for farming terms, but so are we. I have a tiny bit of experience with a sheep farm, as my godmother lived on a farm with Herdwick sheep in the Lake District and we used to live in a farming area where I used to take note of the seasons as I walked around and took an interest in what was growing there, but my farming vocabulary is very limited. Ian's isn't much better coming from a mining family. We end up on the internet so much, doing research on equipment, on what to grow, what techniques to use and the list goes on as we learn what we can do. Trying to communicate with our neighbour does make us realise though how inadequate the English lessons are for those living in rural areas, there is a lot of information on the internet that is helpful, but a lot of it is in English and if people do not learn the vocabulary of farming terms, then it is hard to look for the information. English lessons are useful though for when you get lost in a city, apparently!

We have melons growing again this year

In the same way as last year, all to soon the season seems to have turned and the frantic sowing of seeds has more or less stopped, apart from a few catch crops and some sowing in the greenhouse in anticipation of some fresh autumn veg, which I will get round to soon; instead it is replaced by the frantic saving of veg for the winter months. There are times I feel like asking the plants to take a breather so I can catch up, as I pick yet more beans that will need to be frozen. At least I know we will appreciate it in the winter months, especially when I do not have to buy any veg yet again. The other problem with the turning of the year, the cooler nights and shorter days, is that a certain someone in our house - and there are only two of us and it's not me - starts to chime "Winter's coming!" I might swing for someone if they carry on, I mean it's late summer and we still have autumn to go yet and probably still have quite a few more warm days to go (at least I hope so anyway). I might have to let him off though as he has been podding dried peas to keep for over the winter and for next year and it has been a bit of a thankless task due to a large amount of losses caused by pea moth grubs, probably about 80% of the crop was chomped to some extent. In fact we have been finding the wee beasties crawling across the floor of our other apartment where I had left the peas to dry right before we were due to have visitors staying over night. Not what you want! Internet here we come to look for natural deterrents/natural extermination regimes, I think.

We still have a lot of grass to cut but this will wait until
after the corncrakes have gone as it not good hay making
material like our ski hill grass

Over the weekend I got a package of seeds from Agroforestry Research Trust that sell a range of seeds for permaculture. We love the land that we manage and growing bushes and trees that can stay in one place means we don't have to keep digging it up and ruining the soil structure. I was looking for Szechuan pepper seeds first of all, as I fancy growing some seeds that can be used instead of having to buy normal pepper seeds. I was delighted to find that the seeds will stand -20C, which means that they should survive our winters here, even though it can get colder than that, the ground is not usually that cold if it gets a blanket of snow on it and we can always wrap them up for added protection. I started looking for other seeds too that would tolerate cold winters and ended up with quite a list of mainly shrub seeds. Some sound really intriguing like the Chocolate vine with fruit that has pulp which is supposed to taste like chocolate, or rhubarb that tastes of apples and a bush with fruit that tastes of liquorice, as well as one that has fruits that look like blackcurrants but again taste of apples and is ready in June, unlike most berries that are ready in July/August. Hopefully this will all add up to a very tasty hedge around our orchard as well as plants on a steep piece of ground near our greenhouse. I'm looking forward to tasting the fruit of these shrubs but I guess I am going to have to be very, very patient.

I finished this a bit ago but couldn't post it, as it was a
present for my niece. Not sure if she likes it but I posted
it on a craft site the other day and someone said it was
trendy. Can never be sure if it is or not with not living in
the UK for so long

Visitors are like buses here, you don't see any for ages and then three come at once. We haven't had many visitors in while but we have had two lots over the weekend and our son arrives next week. The first visitors we had were some friends who we have known for many years and our children grew up together in the local church we used to attend. We were really excited to hear that they had gone to India to help in a school out there over the last year, but we never got to hear the full story until this weekend. Although they are now back in the UK they still have plans and dreams for further adventures and it was great to listen to them and be able to show them our plans and dreams too, as well as some of the realised plans on our land. We also introduced them to some of our friends, who kindly showed them around their farms so they know who we are talking about when we write our blog and can picture the scenes more easily. As we talked and laughed lots the years rolled away, they were such an encouragement to us to keep going, doing what we are doing, as well as praying for blessing for us.

I knitted this for my nephew and it has cute little hippo
buttons on it. I saw a picture of him in it and was
relieved he hadn't grown out of it in the time it has taken
me to knit the two items and send them off, he also looked
quite cute in it too I thought.

Our second set of friends, we have only just got to know in the last year, but nonetheless we have really gelled and love their company when they come. It is great to be able to talk to friends who understand what it is like to be immersed in another culture, not always understanding what is being said all the time, but still loving the country of Latvia and the generous people who live here. We can talk berries, jams and juices, laughing at the contrasts between the UK and Latvia and generally spending a lot of time talking and eating - the perfect day. Do you ever get the impression I love talking to people? I like solitude, peace and quiet but I also love companions who like to talk about lots of things, as long as it isn't shopping, especially if that is while eating. I would be no good on a holiday where all we got to do was sunbathe, I'd get bored far too easily.

A rainy day project. This wall has
needed plastering for quite a while
but in true style it was left and left.
I may post the finished picture next
week as I have to say, hubby has done
rather a splendid job on it and finished
it just before visitors arrived.

A friend I have met a few times over the years has a blog (worth looking at as she takes some gorgeous photos and then does even more amazing things with photoshop with them), she was relating a small incident with the local air sea rescue and it reminded me of one of my school skiing trips when we went to France. It was nowhere near as dramatic as her incident, but with hindsight it could have been. One afternoon we went a little further afield on a ski tour with our instructor, but unknown to us the weather was about to change and a fog was coming down. The local mountain rescue team were clearing the mountain to prevent incidents and they were leading us off the mountain. I was a timid skier and was nervous of the edge, as it looked pretty steep, and in my nervousness I kept skiing away from the edge and into the banks. I was holding everyone up and in the end the mountain rescue team put me on the stretcher sledge they had with them and after that we progressed much faster. When we nearly reached the bottom and everyone was safe, the team then put on a spurt and we left the rest of my group behind, as we hurtled down towards the cafes and restaurants at the end of the run. Great fun for this rather timid teenager!

Cultural quandaries

2011-08-01T21:35:00.001+03:00

Our village is getting a new hydroelectric
plant - not sure if it replaces the old one or is
in addition to it but the river has been
dredged in preparation. Before it was
dredged I went to get some water mint from
the riverside. I am so pleased I did as the rest
is now under gravel. Wonder what else was
lost under that and did they do an
environmental assessment first?

Culture is a funny thing and cultural expectations are so varied that it is difficult to know what to do sometimes, especially in a different country. Mind you culture and traditions even varies from family to family. In England if someone called in at our house, the first thing we would have done is offered a tea or a coffee and we loved it when people called round unexpectedly, we just loved having visitors. Some people though didn't like unexpected visitors and liked to be phoned beforehand or an appointment arranged. We found it quite hard in Denmark that we had to arrange weeks in advance to see someone, it was rare for a spontaneous event, although I did have one friend who loved unexpected visits, but she had a huge family so she needed to expect the unexpected. Having said that it was usually because families we knew were quite close to relatives and spare time was spent at their homes or having family visit them. In America it was more usual to arrange a meeting at a restaurant, but thankfully I did have a friend who loved to be visited and she lived miles out in the countryside and would always have the kettle on when I arrived.

This is the drained lake, it used to go to the trees and will
do again once they have finished the work on the plant

Here in Latvia, people are lovely but often not very confident and so it has taken us time to get to know people which is fine, I can understand that. It was therefore surprising that one lady we had got to know commented that we passed her house frequently but never stopped for a coffee. We did not expect that we could just drop by, except maybe to ask a question, maybe it is not even very Latvian. The problem is that usually it is just Ian that passes as he travels back from the land, and when it is both of us we can be rather tired, hot and sweaty - not the kind of state where you want to drop by and take a coffee, even if someone says it is okay. However the offer was made and so we decided one evening to call in and spent a lovely evening chatting and drinking tea outside on the patio. I sure think we shall be doing that again sometime soon.

This is the funnel through which the water
will flow

Other things that vary are superstitions. Here in Latvia you cannot give a gift of something that grows, you have to accept payment or it won't grow according to superstition. Shaking hands across a threshold is also to be avoided. It does make you wonder where such superstitions arise from. I remember in England there was a guy who had come to take a look at the house, I can't remember if it was pricing it up to sell or rent and after taking a look around inside we went out the back door and he had a look up the garden, but he would not leave the premises by walking around the house, he insisted on coming back in and leaving by the same door he had entered in by - he said it was bad luck otherwise. I hadn't noticed this work of bad luck personally and would hardly even take notice if I left by a different door to the one we entered. Neither had I noticed that things died that I had been given and I have been given many plants in my time that seem to have thrived even though they were gifts, okay I probably killed one or two in the process but the majority survived. I have to say there is one superstition that I am always hesitant to break and that is walking under a ladder, but to me that is plain common sense, as I always check to see if there is anyone up there before deciding whether to walk around it or under it.

A view from the tractor of our cutting

We have been highly entertained this week with the antics of the young boys who live in the other apartments. They have been having a whale of a time (where does that phrase come from to mean having a fantastic time?) in the sand pit, as they have had the delivery of more sand and they have been digging big holes and filling it up with water, first carried from the pond which must have been hard work, and then from the drain pipe from the roof during a very heavy shower. It was one of those moments when you can see the fun they are having and thinking "thank goodness they are not mine as they are going to need a lot of washing by the time they have finished." I know what it is like to have to clean up after a youngster who has mixed sand and water together. We had a sand pit in our front garden and I had put out a washing up bowl for our youngest to wash himself off before he came in after playing in the sand pit. It was obviously too much of a temptation as he poured the whole lot into the sand pit and plodged away to his hearts content, he had a great time. I had to laugh but oh the mess, he was covered up to his knees in a thick layer of sand. I had to retrieve the washing up bowl and pour water all over him before he could come in.

An eagle looking for an easy meal

Well besides watching the neighbours kids and drinking tea we have been quite busy this week. We had a few days rain and so we took the opportunity to get on with some indoor projects. We have ordered a wardrobe from the local joinery firm, the one who made our kitchen, and I asked him the other day when it might be ready, expecting him to say a couple of months, "Oh about 3 weeks he said." The problem is that we wanted the floor redoing before we got the wardrobe as our bedroom is the only room in the house not to have had the old vinyl taking up and replaced with laminate. Once the wardrobe is in it won't be moving in a hurry, it will be dismantable but not easily at is 150cm wide and 210cm high. It concentrated our minds somewhat and so we got the flooring and laid it this last week - it's looking really nice. Ian also replastered a wall in the hallway that we just haven't got around to finishing off. We could be in serious danger of actually finishing the apartment we live in - well nearly, perhaps! Is it only us who actually finish jobs that need doing just before moving?

Still flying around!

We have also started cutting hay this week as we are expecting a week of no rain or only short showers. We decided to start cutting the hay on the old ski hill as there are no corncrakes there- Ha! That's what we thought anyway. It is better to cut into the middle of a field and then work outwards if there are corncrakes but that is really hard on the ski hill as it is a difficult area to cut anyway and besides we have never heard corncrakes in that area. Yesterday Ian started off with the two wheel tractor cutting a steep part while I got on with some other jobs which included stacking two big piles of hay that has been laying on the ground for far too long. After lunch I started cutting another steep section, if cutting is what you call it. The grass is much longer this year, obviously the hot dry June has benefitted the grass and it has grown well, in fact it is higher than me and I felt like I was fighting the tractor the whole time to get it cut. I am sure the guy cutting the hill at the top on the neighbouring property was having a laugh as there were a few times he came near and would have seen me hanging over the tractor exhausted. Ian meantime used the little big tractor (bigger than a two wheeled tractor but still not what you would call big) to start on the rest of the hill. At about 6pm we called it a day even though there was a small section that still needed cutting right at the top of the hill, but with a big black cloud rolling in and rumbles of thunder the last thing I wanted to do was to be caught in a thunderstorm at the top of the hill with a piece of equipment I couldn't run with. Ian went back today to finish off cutting with the little big tractor and was just finishing cutting a section when the hay rustled and out popped a young corncrake - they get everywhere! Consequently we have a small refuge in the middle of our ski hill for the young bird, rather than make it fend for itself against the huge number of storks that were following behind Ian waiting for a meal.

Storks are also interested in an easy meal

I was interested to read this week an article by Polly Toynbee on the need for collaboration in the health services rather than an atmosphere of competition. Collaboration works well in many spheres not just the health service if the aim is to help others. Here in Latvia many firms would benefit from collaboration so that they could fulfil bigger orders for export but they are often wary of working with others, usually due to a lack of trust, settling for less rather than working with others. In some ways this is a hangover from the Soviet times where co-operatives were not run for people's benefit but for state decided initiatives but it is also a hangover from the early years of independence when some forms of collaboration were milked by a few to the detriment of many. Collaboration which seeks to make a profit at the expense of people is obviously not desirable as in the case of cartels but some forms need to be encouraged. I for one will be glad to see the back of the need for competition in a profit motivated society. Competition to provide the best service, or the best product or a good price is to be encouraged. I say a good price and not the best price as a good price should be one that reflects the true cost of the product, not paid for by slave labour and yet is also fair to the customer. Hopefully one day companies here in Latvia will see the benefit of working together, each contributing their own expertise at a fair price to the customer. I can live in hope!

Glutton for punishment

2011-07-25T22:57:00.002+03:00

Our buckwheat field is flowering. That is going to be a lot
of buckwheat seed. Help!

We are definitely heading into the season of gluts. One day I am dealing with the blueberries which we were kindly given, next it was half a bucket of blackcurrants - which might not seem much of a glut until you realise that you cannot eat a half bucket of blackcurrants before they go off and so they have to be dealt with. At least they could just be washed and frozen so that wasn't too much hassle. Our next glut was gooseberries. As the currant bushes haven't been so prolific this year we didn't expect much from our gooseberry bushes ...... until we went to start picking them that is. We picked a full bucket of gooseberries from two gooseberry bushes and thought we had finished, but on standing up we spotted another bush of gooseberries also loaded with the little hairy fruits (they had to wait as we only had one bucket with us). You can tell we are not sure what we have yet can't you! We have three separate plots that we manage and we kind of forget from time to time what is where. We also had the lurking courgette, the one that kind of blends into the background until is of monster proportions. Happens every year but fortunately so far they haven't been that prolific and so wasn't too much of a hassle... give them another week or two and it will be courgette this and courgette that even with just three plants.

Theatre at the outdoor stage at our annual celebrations

I am beginning to get the hang of what to do with fruits though, especially of the berry kind. De-stalking or topping and tailing is as you can imagine, if you haven't done it before, is really boring and very tedious and so any form of mechanical processing is a major time saver (for the uninitiated who haven't a clue what I am going on about, de-stalking means taking all the stalks off the berries as they get stuck in your teeth otherwise and topping and tailing is taking the flower remains off one end of a gooseberry and the stalk off the other - which is the top and which is the tail is for you to decide). For half the berries I have used a gadget that goes on my Kitchen Aid mixer and separates the pulp from leaves, stalks, skins and seeds and saves a lot of time sorting it all out, I froze that in ice-cube trays for ease of use later. The other half complete with stray leaves and stalks I have steamed using a natty device that allows you to collect the steamed juice, and from that bottled two 1 litre jars of juice and three jars of jam from the remains which were then put through the strainer. Have to say that the juice is a little sharp so not quite sure what we will do with it - may have to mix it with something else later or let Ian drink it all as he can take sharp tastes including rhubarb without sugar (Bleh!). I also found a recipe for gooseberry vinegar so giving that a go - might just end up with a mouldy mess though.

A dyeing workshop

Time seems to fly by and I am left wondering at times what exactly have I done. I seem to spend a lot of time processing food, so that we have plenty for over the winter. I also spend some time in the garden weeding, but perhaps not as much as I should judging by the amount of taming I had to do today. I gave quite a few plants a hair cut to tidy them up but decided to leave the marjoram that is lying about all over the place as there are rather too many bees on them to start wading in there. If I am not processing food I am processing plants for their seeds, as we are trying to learn the art of saving seeds for growing the following year, sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is not. Trying to stop seeds going mouldy can be quite hard. I did manage to finish reading all my academic papers about wild boar or conflicts between wildlife and people, so at least I can start the process of writing up a proposal for my thesis. I even came up with a title which I am going to run past my tutor, "Wild boar: Friend or Foe?" I have also spent a lot of time chatting with our youngest on Skype, in fact once I had to given him a big hint that even if he is finished for the summer hols and is getting bored, I haven't and I was struggling with interruptions, (so son, if you are reading this, I have finished reading the papers now) just typical that he hasn't been on for days, obviously found something else to do. I have also finally managed to finish some knitting for my nephew and niece, what's the bet that by the time they get it my little nephew will have grown to big for his cardi? (No pictures yet until they have seen them first though)

Wild boar numbers in Latvia. As you can see they have
increased rather rapidly in the last 15 years

Going back to the wild boar, the numbers have finally been released by the Latvian Statistics Office and it is estimated that the numbers decreased this last winter, which is only to be expected really, as there was a lot of snow - not that they decreased much mind as you can see from the graph. After the severe winter the numbers fell by 300 ie from about 67,200 to 66,900. How accurate these numbers are is difficult to say as the statistics have to rely on information from hunters, as the forestry personnel cannot collate all the information necessary. The smaller numbers will not be of particular encouragement to farmers though when their land is dug up. We are pleased that so far the damage has not been in any new areas and in out of the way places on the whole. We do not want to spend lots of time filling in pig holes or ploughing up areas to level them.

The referendum took place this Saturday to decide whether to dissolve the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) and the result was overwhelming, 95% of those who voted decided to oust the current government. If that doesn't give a hearty signal that the Latvian people are fed up with corrupt politicians I don't know what will. A friend of mine though did voice the quandary that it was all well and good to vote this time to say "enough is enough" but in the election to elect a new government will anything change? Will there be enough untainted politicians to vote for? Will the parliamentarians act with integrity once they are elected? Time will tell, but the Latvian people have spoken very loudly and very clearly - they don't like corruption.

All natural dyes and the labels are all written on pieces of
birch

The referendum was not the only event in our village this weekend, there was also the annual celebrations. As is normal in Latvia, most things happen around an outdoor stage and involves lots of singing, dancing and acting. It was quite amazing to see a guy from the local garage acting, one of our neighbours, a man in his early 20s, dancing, and the local owner of a joinery company singing in the choir. In the UK it is not often you come across young men who do folk dancing and to be honest they would often be laughed at by their mates, but here in Latvia it is not unusual and nothing to be ashamed of and rightly so too. Good for the Latvians I say. There was a troop of older ladies dancing too, the only complaint was not the fact they were dancing and at least keeping fit and enjoying themselves, but the youngsters who followed them were getting rather cold waiting for their turn. I would show you a video but of course I turned the phone on its side and was too far away to get a good picture, another time perhaps! This year the event highlighted the local businesses in the area, a local tv personality interviewed the business owners to find out what they do and so one of our friends explained about the company she had set up exporting firewood and another of our friends talked about making goats cheese and the rabbits she raises, she even sold out of all the cheese she had made. So many folks were surprised to hear of the local businesses and took business cards away, let's hope that is the start of a robust local economy.

Can you spot the blueberry dyed wool?

There was also a workshop on natural dyeing at the celebrations and it showed what wonderful colours can be generated from local weeds. Fat hen gives a gorgeous clear green and is a frequent weed in our garden, the blueberries give a stunning purple and dyer's chamomile can give an intense yellow or orange. The amount of skills in the area in terms of dyeing, weaving and spinning is astounding and certainly bodes well when we get the alpacas. I am looking forward to seeing what products we can make between us. Latvians can be so creative and have not lost many of what we could consider old skills, the knowledge is actively used and so people really know what they are doing, which also means there is great scope for holidays learning about these old skills in some lovely Latvian countryside.

Translation: Wood colours

Unfortunately while we were enjoying the celebrations others were not having a good time; this weekend has had its fair share of shocking news. The young talented Amy Whitehouse succumbs to her addictions, such a waste of a life, such a lack of hope. The news from Norway was shocking not just from the sheer scale of the atrocity but the unexpectedness of it. It kind of feels like there is nowhere safe today, even when things are bad elsewhere there is a hope that there are places that are not accustomed to such horrors, but this illusion was shattered over the weekend. I have to admire the response though from the Norwegians where the voice of reason arose strong and clear, that they will not give in to fear, that they will refuse to be a hostage to it, but will continue to live their lives with openness and transparency. I do pray that they can indeed live up to that call. And then there is Somalia, people dying once again due to famine. This is not just about a lack of water causing a drought, this has to do with how the powers who control the areas deal with the issue. Famines need not happen these days, bad weather, yes, food shortages, yes, but famines no! It is the lack of political will and power mongering that causes famines. I at least learnt that on my development management course.