Now where shall I begin?

Herkules

For anyone expecting some outstanding news with a title like that, sorry! A fairly mundane week this week really. I have been mainly writing an academic paper, but the end is in sight, partly because the deadline happens to be the middle of this week. No sweat! Well maybe a bit. I just need to cull about a hundred words and then we are set. It has taken up much of the week and into the evenings on a few occasions as it has also had to go to a proofreader and my supervisor for revisions. I did manage to fit in a little bit of cutting out for some sewing projects and learning to macrame with the alpaca wool while waiting for replies though.

Herkules in a moody shot

Rather early signs of spring - well early for here

It has been a week of snow showers and so Ian took the drum carder out to the land to card Veronica's fleece. Normally he is out and about and does the carding at home, but since he was stuck in the caravan he decided to make use of his time instead. Carding the fleece, basically means combing it ready for spinning and the drum carder is basically a big comb on a roller that is operated by turning a handle (you can see it here)

Nearly a year to the day since Ian first
started taking Brencis out for a walk.
He has grown a lot in the meantime.
You can see him in the first year here

Ian has at least managed to take the alpacas out for walks in between the snow showers. He even started taking Mari and she has been doing very well. Last year he took her out once and then she refused, but this year she has been much better. This will be helpful as it is one of our advertised activities and the more animals we have available the better. It is also useful that they are trained as it makes it easier for Ian if there is something he needs to do to them while I'm away.

Here is our little fella who we nursed for the first few days
of his life. He needs no extra bottles now, although he is
the smallest of them all

The lambs got a taste of freedom this week as the weather was better than expected at the beginning of the week. There has been one day they were kept locked up all day, as were the alpacas but the rest of the time they have been allowed out. Ian has been locking them up at night because we know there has been a lynx prowling about and a lamb will make a tasty little morsel for them. It also means that they get used to Ian and being moved, unlike the lambs last year, who would go every direction except the one we wanted them to go in. We have also decided to castrate the youngest lamb. He is quite friendly and we think we will keep him after all, as long as he behaves when he gets bigger. I'm sure there are a few of you who are sighing with relief now.

He has a very cute face

While I skied in the snow, the alpaca girls love to roll in it

I did get the chance to ski a bit this week. Although it snowed quite heavily yesterday it is unlikely I will get skiing again as it is turning quite slushy. We'll see. I only went for a couple of rounds on our land, as the snow was quite icy and the cross-country skis are very narrow and not very responsive on the packed snow. In fact in places I barely left a mark it was that icy. I'm not a confident skier at the best of times but still I made it round without falling over. Probably helped that I decided to side-step down the steeper parts. After all the type of skis I have are more designed for a sort of Nordic Walk type action, not swishing down the hilly bits - although the more accomplished ones do without any bother of course. The frozen ground on that particular day did mean that we could get the tractor out and shift hay out of the barn. Most days it has been slushy. At least we know we have at least a month's worth of hay close to the boys and the sheep. The girls are closer to the barn, so that is easier.

The two females having a good chase about

Aggie is not in pain really! She is actually also enjoying a
good roll around

Aggie got her last injection of antibiotic this week and now we have to just wait and see how it turns out. She seems well enough in herself and the lump has certainly not got any bigger, so we are hoping she has recovered If it turns out she hasn't fully recovered, it will probably mean Ian taking her up to Tartu to get her seen by the vets at the university hospital up there. We are hoping it doesn't come to that as I am going to the UK to see grandchildren soon.

The little male looks quite scrawny and not as robust as the
females though

At least someone behaves themselves, sticking close to
Mum

Sometimes at this time of the year the animals start getting into fights, like Brencis and Mr. P. a couple of weeks ago. The cats have also been scrapping and they have had some right ding-dong battles. Mainly it is Eyre trying to boss Sofie the older cat around. Up to this week she has been getting the upper hand, but finally Sofie had had enough and put her in her place in no uncertain terms and so they have now quietened down a bit. Sofie is quite a gentle soul really and will tolerate quite a bit, but once her boundaries are crossed you don't mess with her.

Growing up fast on mother's milk

Tellus along with Herkules and Turbjørn were our first
alpacas. Tellus and Herkules are gentle souls and easy to
look after. Tubjørn not so laid back and too intelligent for
his own good. 

Ian had a surprise phone call today from the gentleman in Sweden who sold us our first alpacas. He is still in the process of selling up, so if you want some alpacas we know a guy who has some and that is not as dodgy as it sounds, he does have some good quality as well as pet quality ones. Anyway, Ian and he chatted away for three-quarters of an hour, catching up on the goings on on the farm about the highs and the lows. He told him about all the things we have been planning to do with the alpacas and how far we have got, which is sort of far and sort of not. 

Brencis is a gentle soul like his father, Tellus. He is also
very sociable and likes a good neck rub.

It is sort of far because we now at least have more concrete plans but sort of not because we are having a bit of a frustrating time trying to sort out applications for EU subsidies and applying for grants. We thought we had some help, but either she has been too busy, or she has been dealing with a sick child or maybe we are too much hard work. Not sure really. I'm sure we will sort it out one way or another. Every little helps as the saying goes.

They are all getting quite fluffy now and so we are hoping
for some good long fleece on them all

We are not sure if our apartments might be quite busy with folks coming and going over the summer this year or not. We've had a few enquiries about staying but nothing concrete yet. If everyone comes who wants to then we are going to have to make a booking chart to keep up-to-date. I would hate to double-book someone. So if you want to pay a visit over the summer, get your booking in quick. We will be out in the caravan at least.

Lambing time

He doesn't look so mucky in this photo, but it certainly is
not as white as snow (see a video of him here link)

Ian had a little lamb
It’s fleece was mucky grey
And everywhere that Ian went
The lamb got in the way
It followed him down to the shed each day
To strengthen his little muscles
And even paid a visit
   to some very bemused alpacas
Now he spends his days
Suckling on his mother
Now our days are over
Of standing in for mum

Mother looking somewhat bemused, or maybe more like
wondering where her grain is while she puts up with the
little one

Okay it doesn’t perhaps scan as well as the original but it has been amusing watching the little lamb following Ian about the apartment, with an accompanying clip, clop, clip of his tiny little hooves on the laminate flooring. Of course apartments are not the ideal place for a little lamb but there wasn’t much option for a lamb that wasn’t getting much milk from its mother, especially when she was jumping over the bales of hay to get away from him and with the temperatures dipping to -24C one night. So we weathered the puddles on the laminate flooring (never realised how long a lamb can wee for), old towels to the ready and Ian trundled the little fella backwards and forwards each day in a big blue box. At first he could be safely confined in the box, but as he got bigger and stronger it was harder to keep him in. Each day, Ian would take the lamb down to his mother and make sure she fed him by keeping her in place. One day he had a brainwave and took some grain down and every time the little fella fed, she got a few grains at a time to keep her still. Ian’s patience paid off and with a wooden gate in place she stayed with her lamb. Last night we decided to try and leave him overnight and of course it was a worry that she wouldn’t feed him. We gave him a bottle at 7pm and left him to it, the temperatures only dipping down to -8C overnight, but he was in a reasonably sheltered shed.

Alpacas are rather agile and they make me laugh at their contortions

The last of the lambs to be born and she is already bigger
than our little fella

The next morning the little fella took another bottle and our friend from the nearby sheep farm came to take a look. He also came because finally our last ewe gave birth to a female. This ewe we half expected she would have babies in December. This is because she didn’t manage to rear her lambs last year, as she wouldn’t feed them and they got chilled in the first rains after the drought and died later. Thankfully this year she has paid attention to her lamb and is feeding her and all seems fine. It is odd I suppose, but we are grateful that two of the ewes only gave birth to single lambs and so they should be fine in the winter weather. Our little fella was the smallest of the two lambs his mother gave birth to, but the only one to survive. It is a good job only one survived though as she only has one working teat and would have struggled with twins anyway. Our friend suggested we should continue to take the little fella home and he had a big wooden crate he could lend us, well that was the plan up to mid-afternoon. Our plans changed when the little fella refused a bottle of milk and his mother seemed much more attentive to him. It would seem Ian’s patience had paid off, as they were finally beginning to bond.

This one has a different fleece to the other two, much fluffier

A happier looking Aggie

Aggie continues to be given her penicillin injections and she is certainly looking brighter than she did a few weeks ago. We are not sure if the swelling is going down or not, she still has an obvious lump on her face and maybe she always will, but at least it is not growing and she has stopped moaning. Alpacas moan by humming, they also hum to each other when something is going on, but often they are quiet unless they are upset. They also make a noise when they are having a fight like the two young lads this morning. Brencis got put in the sin bin today for quarter of an hour to calm down after a fight with Mr. P. Ian says it is almost as if all the lessons he learnt with our three children are now being put to use on the animals, he had a good chat with Brencis about his behaviour and I understand he behaved himself afterwards. Probably just needed the time out.

Such a smiley face

Still lots of snow here and we even saw the sunshine

We found out this week that the hens will have to be kept indoors or at least in one place until July due to Avian bird flu. We can’t keep them in the greenhouse till then of course as they will cook. Their arks will need making completely wild bird proof and we won’t be able to move them daily, which could pose health issues and so we need to devise a deep bed system outside that we can put their arks on for the duration of time. If we keep adding bedding then it should be okay, like we do over winter in the greenhouse. The only thing is that we will have to prepare the spots where they are going to be so they don't get contaminated by bird droppings when the snow goes.

Mr. P. looks like he's having a laugh. I wonder if that was after
Brencis got put away for being naughty? 

Peek-a-boo

I had a phone call this week from a friend about a belt for our winnower. We have a one hundred year old winnower (or at least that is what someone estimated it to be) but the belt is getting rather worn (you can read more about it here). We tried to get a belt for it before but weren't successful, at least now we should be able to get what we should be asking for in Latvian so that we can try again.

A damp westerly wind meant the trees got covered in frost

Cats and lamb getting warm in the caravan. The cats don't
quite know what to make of him

Having a baby lamb at home has meant we have been confined to the land or home and we have even been going to bed early because we, or to be more precise mainly Ian, have been getting up at night. Ian’s hearing is better than mine and that’s my excuse and besides I got up for our three when they needed feeding in the night many years ago, it’s Ian’s turn now. He got away lightly though since he slept through the last two nights he was at home.

The snow is lovely when it shines

Apart from feeding a lamb and helping Ian with Aggie’s penicillin injections my days have been spent either writing or sorting out our apartment again. We have far too much stuff or it has just got far too disorganised and I’m not quite sure which at times, probably both. We now have a hallway with electrical items that need to go to the place where electrical items go to be recycled and the huge box full of paper that will be shredded eventually has been added to. At least all the paperwork has been sorted out and I have sorted papers for crafts (whenever I get the chance to do something that is) as well as the important papers kept from times before computers, that have sentimental value. It has been fun reading through the prayer diary of an anxious young mother. Nearly forgot to mention, I also got a couple of sessions of cross country skiing in, it is a bit icy underneath but managed not to go end over end anyway, probably going too slow.

The paths are getting a bit slick though

I also found some books that can read in the mornings to get me back into a more contemplative frame of mind. Years ago I read Joyce Huggett's book "Listening to God" and I found it really helpful in taking time to meditate in a creative way. In it she warned of a time when life would get busy and it become more difficult to set aside time, especially when schedules get chaotic. I am glad I read that years ago, as that has definitely been the case more recently. I know I have to work out a way to get into a rhythm that works in the new routines, especially over the summer when I have to be up and out of bed so we can put the bed away during the day in the caravan, usually I find that is the best time to have a quiet time. I certainly need it at the moment with the chaos of the world around. I remember reading a cartoon that stated "My desire to stay informed is at odd with my desire to stay sane" and that is exactly how I feel at times.

Veronica nibbling the snow on the gate

A little side note: I mentioned last week that the bus drivers call out the numbers of pre-purchased tickets and I always wondered why they started at number 3, well I found out through a friend that the bus seats No 1 and 2 were traditionally reserved for somebody with special needs or for a mother with a baby in the times when buses were pretty crowded and families used them. So a relic from the days when buses were used more frequently than they are now, although they still can get a bit full sometimes. 

It's good to talk

There was only one lamb after all. Last year this ewe had
two, but didn't look after them very well. She is doing a
better job this time around.

I planned on writing the blog yesterday while I was travelling, since I didn't get the chance on Monday night, but I spent the time doing some work for my course which was urgently needed to be done instead. I thought I would get the chance today after tea (dinner) but Ian called as I was heading to the shops, saying "I can't come back just yet, one of the sheep is giving birth." The ewe managed to giver birth on her own with no problems and Ian managed to get the lamb and mother into the chicken house and then came to fetch me. Well we waited and waited for lamb number two and then Ian called our friend, who has infinitely more experience than we do to see what's next. So while they are taking a look, I'm spending a few minutes typing up last week's blog.

The swelling around Aggie's eye has gone down at least

Once we started Aggie on antibiotics, both our days were tied up. I had to help Ian with holding Aggie while he gave the injections. She definitely fell out with me. I am not her best friend to say the least. After the third day, the swelling around her eye started to recede, she also started to pick up. The day before she looked unwell and didn't seem to be eating properly, we were concerned at this, but since then, she has seemed much brighter in herself.

And she is eating at least

We had some visitors again this weekend. This time one of them could speak excellent English and they phoned beforehand to let us know they were coming. We gave them the spiel and they took lots of pictures. The lady could understand okay, but she had trouble speaking English, so a little translation was needed every now and again, but she definitely fell in love with the alpacas. They found our place through the website and so it seems like the combination of website, Facebook and local municipality advertising seems to be helping to send visitors our way, even at this time of the year, which is rather surprising.

Any food? 

This weekend I had to travel up to Tartu for my annual evaluation. Strictly speaking I should have finished my PhD but many people struggle to finish within the timeframe due to the criteria of having to have three papers published in academic journals, of which, two have to be in papers of a sufficient quality and the third to at least acceptance stage. I only have one so far. I have a four or five short articles published but they don't count. No one was particularly worried, I had at least got them well on in the draft stage, so if I get to the review stage I should at least have a chance of finishing this year sometime. At least the evaluation went okay.

The girls are not so keen to go out these days

I was a tad annoyed to find out that one of the buses I was relying on to get me to Tartu didn't run on a Sunday. I am not sure if this is a recent thing or not, it has been a while since I travelled on that day. I thought I had checked. Obviously not. What was even more irritating was finding out that my supervisor had actually been in the area close by on that day and was even passing through the town where I got delayed at the time I had hoped to catch the bus. If I had known I could perhaps had saved myself such an early start to the day. Oh well! The reason he was in the area was to do some skiing. We still have plenty of snow around us, but as I headed to the west and then north the snow gradually disappeared and there was some strange green stuff instead, I think they call it grass. At least the paths were not icy either.

Instead they stay in and eat from the feeders

It was not just a long day travelling up, it was a long day the following day. It started with my evaluation just after 9am, then I spent about an hour chatting with another PhD student about some of my ideas and he was so encouraging and suggested that he thought the ideas would even be useful in somewhere like India, where he comes from and had I ever thought about going. Errr! Well no! Not before. Not sure how that could come about, but you never know.  We'll see.

The boys go out more, especially Brencis, but then he has
got a very good dense coat on him

After seeing my supervisor and outlining some urgent tasks that needed to be finished by the end of the week I went onto have lunch with a friend of mine. I normally stay with her but this time took advantage of another friend being away and being allowed to stay in her flat. It made a nice change of scenery, not that I got to spend very long there, because once I had finished having lunch with my friend we both walked up towards the university, where we parted company and I went off to the veterinary school. No I haven't changed courses and no I am not finally becoming a vet - something I had wanted to do as a kid and had even applied to but didn't get in. Good job! Otherwise I would never have met Ian.

What is it about Mr. P and his food?

Anyway, this time I was having a chat about Aggie. I chatted with the one of the few vets at the university who has treated alpacas but mainly for skin problems and it was good to be able to share knowledge. Of course she has the more general animal health knowledge and I had the knowledge from mainly chatting with Ian rather than the hands on day to day knowledge he has. It was funny that when we had finished she said it was nice to chat with someone so enthusiastic, but then she hasn't met Ian yet! I also made sure that she knew that the university was welcome to visit and work with us and our friends up in Estonia to improve their knowledge on alpacas and alpaca handling. They might need that knowledge in the future if herds increase. She did suggest a change in Aggie's medication, it was fine for a week but not for longer since she was pregnant, something Ian and I had already discussed - some advantages to our previous degrees means at least we can discuss this type of thing and work somethings out for ourselves, but it is nice to find we were thinking in the right direction.

Looking rather portly

Mr. Tellus has been eating the snow again

Next stop was the university to download some papers before rounding off the day with another visit to my Indian friend and his lovely wife and daughter for yet more chatting and something to eat. I don't think I stopped chatting from around 9am to 8pm, apart from the twenty minute walk down to my friend's house and that is why the blog was late initially. The range of topics I covered over the course of the day was fairly wide, from my course, alpacas, family, the situation regarding the ban on Muslims in America - and as my Indian friend pointed out earlier on in the day actually meant one of our colleagues who also had her evaluation at the same time, a lovely lady from Iran, would not be allowed in and he wonders if he would be discriminated against due to the colour of his skin. Not a pleasant thought. We chatted about the EU and how the problems affected us both and on and on and on. As for the other two days since, well that is a subject for next week's blog.

Nine years down the line

The snow is still on the ground, but it is currently supposed
to be a balmy 1C. Certainly a lot warmer than a couple of
weeks ago

My first blog was on the 18th January 2008, as I started the blog before setting off from sunny Colorado on our latest adventure. So nine years down the line and our situation is very different to then. It is hard to believe all the changes, some rather scary political changes and some very amazing personal ones. I would never have thought I would be studying towards a PhD and hopefully should finish that this year sometime. We would never have thought we would have a farm and attracting visitors, even in the middle of winter. We most certainly have never of thought of alpacas and I am not sure we would have even had more than a vague sense of what an alpaca is, pretty much like most of our visitors really. Neither would we have thought we would be running felting courses for international visitors. But here we are!

We've had ice rain

Which of course coated everything

So let's start off with Aggie. After the pretty devastating news last week that she could have osteosarcoma or bone cancer, we have been thrown a lifeline by the top camelid vet in the UK who says it looks like an infection after all. Ian sent her the x-rays after contacting the alpaca farm where he went on a shearing course and they suggested sending them to her. The vet also sent us some articles to look at (along with the recommendation for her alpaca health course) and we compared the pictures and there were distinct similarities. So it looks like we will be going down the antibiotic route, but hopefully the one she suggests which is given as an intramuscular injection every other day, if we can get that particular one here in Latvia that is.

Including the trees. Some branches have come down with
the weight of the ice, but not many

Aggie looking quite perky considering

Aggie doesn't like me again after the performance of trying irrigate her mouth the week before and she only took my offerings of the medicine on some feed very grudgingly this morning while Ian was on an errand, so she is going to really hate me after this, as I will have to go and help Ian by holding her. Up until now, giving her her medicine has actually been quite easy for Ian anyway, mainly because it has come on slices of apples and then on a few pellets of feed. Ian thinks she has actually been happier this week and not in as much pain, but her lump keeps growing, so we will see what happens next week.

But that worrying lump is still growing on her cheek

The ice rain has meant a hard, crisp, shiny layer on the ice

The errand Ian was on this morning was to sort out forestry forms that have to be filled in each year and the renewal of the certificate that allows him to legally cut down trees over 12cm in diameter. He doesn't cut down many of them because he is just gradually thinning out the forest to make it healthier and so we have wood for firewood, but the law's the law and we need the certificate. The certificate has to be renewed every three years. He was planning on going to get the form and then get some help from friends to fill in, before returning it. Instead the lady at the office helped him by filling in the forms and so he doesn't have to return and she even leant him a pair of glasses so he could fill in some of the details. At least that is a journey saved.

Mr.P modelling the latest fashion once again, his food!

Herkules, not to be outdone 

I've been pretty much tied up with my studies. I just about got the first draft of a paper together now and just need to go through this again to tidy it up before it goes through to my supervisor to look at. I also got an abstract off to a conference, which starts me on the track of putting my studies into context. I have been studying development in rural areas but there was still the nagging feeling of "that's nice, but what does it matter in resource scarce days?" After all, the numbers in rural communities are dwindling and this puts an increasing strain on resources for fewer and fewer people. I finally feel I have an answer to that and it is because without healthy rural communities, food production could suffer as young families stay away and do not return to farming. And this is indeed happening. Countries cannot rely on distant markets for their food all the time, it makes them vulnerable, they need a mix of near and some further away in case of local catastrophes, such as abnormal weather events. Well that is it in a nutshell anyway. There are of course other reasons but I hope it is a compelling one.

Herkules over a year ago was causing us
some worry about his skin and he needed
regular treatment to calm his skin down
and stop it crusting. Although not perfect
at least his fleece has grown back in most
places and no where near as crusty as it
was.

Tellus demonstrating his winsome smile

I mentioned at the beginning that we never thought we would have a farm that attracted visitors and we had more visitors this weekend. For Ian it was a milestone as he sort of understood what was said even though the conversation was in Latvian. There was a bit of a mix up on time, he thought she said she would arrive about 2pm, but it turned out it was about two hours after she phoned. Still they were very happy and did lots of posing with the very well behaved and cooperative alpacas (if only they were like that every time, but animals are animals).

Enjoying the sunshine

Mari 

So that's about it this week. Making sure Aggie gets her medication, kind of curtails much activity and I've been at home for a change and not gallivanting off. We did manage to get up to see our friends again and we were chatting about animals. They lost one recently who was a favourite and had a prolapsed uterus and so they were commiserating with Ian, who is obviously finding it harder as he is the one dealing with the animals.

Chanel just loves to roll in the snow. Here she is tapping the
ground

Down she goes on the ground

Starting to roll

Onto her back

Over she goes

Done!