One of those days!

Ginger Tom

It's been one of those days and yet that's okay. It hasn't been a disaster, our animals are doing okay, no one is ill, it was just work. Online meetings are fantastic in one way, until they're not. They are a handy way of connecting with colleagues from around the world. I'm even trying to set up a meeting with someone in Brazil to tell my students about what is happening there. It might not happen, but just the sheer thought that it is possible is quite amazing really. This morning I was trying to use Microsoft Teams to check a connection today for a meeting tomorrow. I've used it before so it shouldn't have been an issue, but which account? Tried one, no, tried another, no. One account lets me access the EU based seminar, but I can't use it due to work not using Microsoft Teams, or something like that. The other one wasn't registered as an EU account, sigh! Anyway it's sorted. I'm just being added as a guest. It was just an hour of my life, that's all.....

Yay! Nearly all gone! (5th March)

Or maybe not! (7th March)

Nearly finished. Not so happy about the top
but we'll see what we can do. 

Brexit reared its ugly head again this week too. I got a text from my mobile phone company reminding me that calls to the UK are no longer at EU rates. Oh yes! I had forgotten. I phoned last month to a company to arrange for a delivery to my father for his birthday and over the weekend I had phoned my parents to sort out a present for one of the grandson's. Last month's calls were listed and it was rather more than my more local calls. The one to my parents was longer, so going to be a bit expensive. No I'm not very good at phone calls and really neither are they and that's why we hadn't realised before now. 

Turbjørn still wearing his coat. He's still loosing 
some weight but Ian and he have come to an 
arrangement at putting away time. He's not daft.
He comes alongside Ian while the others are all
racing into the alpaca house to get ready for
their trays to be put down for them to eat from.
Ian surreptitiously feeds Turbjørn a few mouthfuls
in peace without the competition from the rest.

Christmas trees are still being enjoyed, apart from
Freddie who has seen something.

Mind you, I only really use my mobile phone for the internet anyway, I hardly phone anyone and hardly anyone phones me, except in an emergency. A phone call can almost induce a momentary feeling of panic because of this. Not that I'm a panicky sort but just might need to steel myself to take the call. If someone from work phones, it is because there is an urgent request, we normally arrange a meeting to talk or email. So of course my phone had to go off during a meeting with an organisation this week, just as I was about to introduce myself. If it had been five minutes later it would have been fine. Oh well! No harm done, I guess.

Antonia is starting to look very fluffy.

They tried their best to eat all the snow, but they
weren't fast enough in the end.

Christmas trees are just so yummy

It is kind of weird though that due to the strange times we are in, I am more connected to people in different countries than I am to the people who live across the hallway of our apartment block. I've mentioned my chat to someone in Brazil, but also there have been chats with folks in Germany, Slovenia, Portugal, France, Belgium. I've been arranging a virtual visit with a university in the UK, chats with my daughter in Australia and so on, It is winter here though and so people do tend to hibernate anyway and the brief spring-like weather we had last week didn't last and now we are almost back to where we started, knee-deep in snow - well maybe that is a slight exaggeration but not far off. By the time people emerge from hibernation, we've usually made the move out to our land.

Amanda looks so weary. I hope she is going to 
be a good mum.

The sun looks so warm but do not be deceived

I know Ian is moaning about the return of the 
snow, but it is so pretty

The vaccine roll-out here in Latvia has been slow and I'm not quite sure what's behind it yet. I know there have been some difficulties with supply but I gather there is more to it than that. At least now they seem to be ramping up the vaccination rate from a pitiful number to something that is more reasonable, but still at this rate everyone will be needing further rounds of vaccinations before anything like herd immunity is possible. In Estonia they are seeing rapid rises in cases, but fortunately not many of my colleagues have been affected. I think one of the reasons is that the Rector of the university was once a veterinarian and he seems to have ensured that the university responds in a very fast and robust manner to keep infections down. Thank goodness.

There are some amazing ice structure

Just a frosted plant really

And it twinkles and shines

Hailstones across the snow looks like
a moonscape

So not much mulling went on this last week, too many meetings for that. Still there are times to plough on ahead and times to sit and take in the scenery. So I will leave you with a poem I wrote a while ago. I may have even posted it on here before but not for a while anyway.

Winter’s last stand

The swelling buds speak of times to come

Peeking out from their furry coats

The soft wind whispers, “Soon”

The love-struck birds chirp in echo, “Soon”

The warming rays embrace the earth and murmurs sleepily, “Soon”

Winter screams back “Never!”

Covering the earth once more 

In a blanket of white.

But already his power is spent

He recedes

Thrashing into the waters of the raging river.

Losing his grip on the earth once more

Spring rises drowsily from her long sleep

Then racing with abandon

Lights the ground with a creeping verdant layer

Trees rush to embrace the warmth

Bursting with wavering branches, unfurling flags of the brightest green

Eager to pronounce the coming season.

Spring has come!

Soon!

Not quite the smooth snowy landscape of before

These two are fastened into the box to eat their
food. It used to be to stop them from snaffling 
Eyre's food but since Eyre is gone it is more to
stop them following Ian up to the alpaca houses
while he's trying to put the alpacas away at night.

A bit weird with all those little hailstones on the
snow

It was a bit vicious in the wind.

A title?

So what do you think Aggie? Have you got an opinion? Yes!
Aggie does have opinions and usually it is "What are you
doing here?" When she sees me. I guess she was relieved
today that I was not putting cream on her feet. She's doing
pretty well this year.

How do you title a week like last week? From the minutiae of daily life to potentially life-changing events over which I have no control. Life has been full of the little things and one of the extraordinarily large ones. Little things like we now have a working electric smart meter. I no longer have to make sure that Ian gives me the reading from our land to send to the electric company, it updates our records automatically. That won't stop Ian from checking on a regular basis though - Mr. Excel-man. If it's measurable, it's in an excel sheet somewhere.

Frosty mornings

Ilvija. Baby alpacas are cute. She looks like she is going to
be much darker on the top of her head than her mum.

There are also the little things like having to put my magic cream on the legs of two of our alpacas. Lady V must be starting to feel the immune-suppressing gloom we have had just lately, as this is the first time I've had to put cream on her in ages. Freddie, unfortunately has inherited his mother's over reactive skin problems and it is starting to spread, so he is a regular for my cream. Little Ilvija has started eating out of Ian's hand and so it gives him the opportunity to start the training to accept a halter. First he gets to tickle her under the chin and then stroke her face. The more used to touch the better as we do not want another spitty alpaca that hates any form of contact and lets everyone know about it within a 2 metre range, like her mother. Don't get me wrong, her mother is a lovely alpaca, just not when you have to try and put cream on her, or give her an injection or at shearing time and so on.

Lady V in contemplative mood

Freddie, the other recipient of the magic cream

Eyre, not Sofie. Eyre is the one usually in trouble, but not
this time

There are also the little thing challenges of having a cat, who is determined to get out. We had been keeping Sofie in our greenhouse to stop her going up to our neighbours, but she clawed her way through the plastic when she couldn't get out of the hole in the back of the greenhouse that she dug out years ago and Ian had blocked up. Ian taped up the hole she had made at the weekend, only today she tried to go through again in two separate attempts. This was despite the fact that the hole was unblocked and Ian showed her that she could go through after the first attempt. Not happy was he!

It's a good job she will be darker on her head than Chanel. It
will be difficult to tell them apart otherwise in years to come.

Ilvija is still feeding but Chanel is not giving her enough
to keep up with a growing alpaca, so it is nice that she is
now eating the feed like the others. She gets her own tray now

Ian finished off the repairs to one of the chicken arks that had sat outside in the rain until recently. We had managed to collect it one frosty morning and take it down to the barn where he could work on it. It needed a new base as the old one had rotted through. As the ark was in two pieces we could easily slot the components through the gaps beside the caravan and set it up in situ. Finally we could bring the last group of chickens inside the greenhouse. The last few days they have enjoyed not being rained on or sitting huddled in their hutch all day. We even got a blue egg today. The hen that lays the blue eggs hasn't given us an egg in ages. Unless of course she's been eating them. I wouldn't feel too sorry for them though, the stupid chickens quite often refused to go in and would sit up on top of the ark, in the rain and even the snow, rather than go in, or even sit underneath the ark where there was shelter. It has also been relatively mild, but it is nice to get them inside before the real winter weather hits.

Has someone been sitting down?

The alpaca pruned Christmas tree

Not the same Christmas tree. Ian cuts down Christmas trees
for the alpacas to eat. Plenty of vitamins. These are the weed
ones that need taking out to let the grass grow, or other
trees to thrive

Snow clouds gathering over the girls' alpaca house

Talking of weather, the snow has come and gone again this week. Now we are just back to gloom and wet soggy land. Ian even had to get the tractor out to sort out the roadway and create a run off to take the water away as it was just getting more and more boggy. This of course made a right mess, but hopefully in the long run it will improve. He now has the water running into the ditches the road company made. At least the rain means the water table is high and hopefully soaking its way into the underground stores, keeping the pressure high in the springs and water bearing sections of our land. 150 litres of water went into our well yesterday and once again it is close to the top. This represents quite a force to keep the water at near ground level on a slope. The actual water bearing layer is about 2 metres down.

A gloomy day, but not as gloomy as today after the snow has
melted

Hello Mr. Tellus, how are you today? Good? 

We took a trip into Riga this week. I planned to visit the Latvian Aquatic Ecology centre to see someone I had met in Helsinki. Ian took me in so that he could get some tyres for the car. Here in the sticks he would have had to order them from one place, then organise to get them fitted at our local garage. In Riga we can just go in and get them fitted quickly, without waiting weeks, but of course it costs in fuel and time to get it done. At least this way it was an opportunity for me to visit without an early start or having to hang around for buses. So while he was getting the tyres fitted I had a tour of the small centre. Despite its size, the centre had a range of labs for testing numerous aspects of the Baltic Sea. Heavy metals, toxicology experiments, algae experiments, nutrient load etc. I think there were about 8 or so small labs. It was fascinating to see the work that up until then I had only been reading about.

Hmmmm! Sunshine. Mr. P doing a bit of winter sunbathing

Minimalist headgear worn by Josefs.

The people in the centre were also a lovely bunch. I'm not sure they get many visitors and so they were quite keen to show me around and tell me about what they are doing. I got to talk about pharmacology and the issues with pharmaceuticals in the water with people who understand the issues. In our EU project that I'm working on, I'm the only one with any pharmaceutical knowledge and my knowledge is a bit antiquated. At least I understand the concepts and the risks and so it was nice to talk with people who shared my concerns and to confirm that I wasn't way off base in my thinking. Meanwhile Ian arrived back and talked to some of them about alpacas, as you do.

All attention on a little, teeny, tiny cat!

Jakobs often looks like he's wearing make up

At least this was on a day when I needed a bit of a distraction. It was election day in the UK. Up until recently I only kept a distant interest in the ins and outs of the UK elections since leaving. I didn't think it was fair to inflict my choices on those who still live in the UK. Now it feels unfair to have choices inflicted on me with no say. I left the UK over 16 years ago. After 15 years I have no opportunity to vote, whether it affects me or not. The saddest thing I saw was a lady who had worked on behalf of the UK government for over 20 years being denied a vote that would mean her job disappeared. She was settled in Belgium, her children were there. Now! Who knows and who in the UK government even cares.

That is a serious eyebrow work there, but maybe a bit hasty
with the lipstick.

George, Jakobs half brother is not into the make up though.
He's more into the natural look

It was with a degree of schadenfreude that I saw Anne Widecombe was denied a seat in Parliament. She will shortly be leaving the EU Parliament, where she and the rest of Farage's team only seemed to offer stupid comments. At least she and Farage will not be able to walk into another parliament to utter further ridiculous pronouncements. I doubt they will suffer the heartache that many will feel who will now also be losing their jobs for certain in all the EU agencies. All those jobs rested on being from an EU member state. About the only bright point is the uncertainty will end, but not the negotiations. Finished by December 2020. I think not! Democratic decision? No way! How can a democratic decision be made when over 80% of the output consists of lies? What kind of democracy is that? Something is definitely broken in the politics of the UK. I hope and pray that this galvanises a rise from the grassroots level to put it right. Meanwhile I will be looking at learning Latvian to see about Latvian citizenship. I pray my brain will cope.

Soaking up the sun

Jakobs mum

Antonia also looks like she likes a bit of make up. More the
Egyptian eyeliner look though

Going to be a frosty night

These next three photos look like they have had a filter put on them, but this was the colour in the sunset. So weird. These were taken about 13 days ago when we had more snow.

It came, it went

A magical Narnia like scene once again

I guess it has been that kind of a coming and going week in more ways than one. The Brexit deadline came and went and the UK is still in the EU for now. March came and went. The snow came and went. It is frightening how fast this year seems to be speeding by. We even moved out of the apartment and into the caravan for the summer on Sunday. Although it snowed last week, the days since have been sunny, which makes staying in the caravan okay. It is still in the greenhouse protected from the wind and therefore has some insulation of sorts and soon heats up with an electric radiator.

The snow then headed to the land and this is Ian's photo
just as it was arriving

The day after was a glorious but cold day

I do feel a bit responsible for the snow. I did say in last weeks blog that it would snow because I had planted some seeds outside, so lo and behold it did. It didn't last long though and now the snow is only lingering in the shadiest of places like the forest. The grass is beginning to show some small signs of recovery and the weeds are racing to get ahead. It meant I was able to forage enough leafy stuff to add to a meat soup. It makes a change from squash and onions anyway.

Dear, sweet little Freddie. He had his splint taken off
on Friday and so far he is doing well and his leg looks
good.

The young men of the group. Soon to be joined by two
little ones

Talking of Brexit, I got an email from the Estonian authorities outlining what will happen as a British citizen in Estonia after Brexit either with a deal or without. It was reassuring on the basis that they will issue British Nationals with the relevant ID and there will be no hurry. They will also allow me to return to the country, which is a relief. There is so much unknown, especially with the MPs in the UK Parliamentarians still discussing the issue at this time in the process. As the MEP Guy Verhofstadt said, please can the Parliamentarians vote "for" something and not just vote "no" all the time.  Such a shambles!

Oh Mr. P. You do need your teeth cutting.
Couldn't you have waited until shearing
time?

A stork visiting our pond

Anyway leaving politics aside for now, we've also had some comings and goings on the farm. The storks have come back from their long jaunt and visitors have been arriving to see us and the alpacas. The first group consisted of one of our local friends from the nearby sheep farm and camp and a guy from England who manages a large walled garden. I remember many years ago watching the Victorian Kitchen Garden that was set in a derelict walled garden and I always loved the idea of having a sun soaking walled garden. I did use to do some gardening for a friend at one time in the old walled garden on her farm, but that wasn't quite so grand as our visitors' 4 acre plot. We had a good time though talking about some of the ideas we use here on our farm and thinking how we could incorporate a no-till garden into the set up at the sheep farm with a demonstration plot too. This will be Ian's part-time job to develop over time with probably a bit of input and moral support from me.

Up close!

Brencis looking very stately and calm here. He's lovely
really and will come up and allow you to stroke his
neck - well most of the time and if you have food.

We also had another three groups who had come to see the alpacas. One group arrived as we were walking Josefs and so they were thrilled to see us walking across with him on a lead, but I don't think Josefs was that thrilled as were were just on our way back to his mum when we spotted the group. He was fine though and we soon wandered over to take him back. The next group were an international group, a Dutch guy with his Russian wife and two children now living in Riga. They came for the tour and then walked two of our alpacas. We took Tellus, who is a steady plodding sort of alpaca and Mr. P because Brencis is getting a little more unpredictable. He is just coming into full adulthood and I am sure he will calm down a bit later, but he's too big for young children to take for a walk. We hold on too while youngsters walk the alpacas but we still need the alpacas to be calm and sensible all the time.

George and Freddie, sill best buddies

You could even call them drinking buddies

The last group were an interesting group. They had come from the north of Latgale (East Latvia) and so north east of where we are. They have lots of animals, ostriches, emus, horses, goats and so on. They are another mini-zoo and had bought three alpacas last year from Lithuania. They had a good tour around and fortunately organised for a young woman to come and translate for them, so they could find out a lot of information. They also went away with some of the special alpaca food, lots of advice and we also got another booking for shearing. In addition to all that going on we got our first enquiry online for the felting course we will be having in August. All in all it definitely feels like we are heading into summer.

Turbjørn

Tellus looking like a wise old sage

What are you guys looking at?

Oh so that's who you've seen. Some female red deer

They stayed around long enough for Ian to run back to
get me and then back again to get his camera with the
long lens on. Not the best photos but as you can see from
the photo of the boys' the sun was going down. It's sights
like these that makes putting up with the cramped and
sometimes cold conditions of living in a caravan all
worth while.