Finally!

The scenery is stunning in winter when the sun
comes out and sparkles like so many diamonds
strewn carelessly across the landscape.

I've been looking at all this lovely snow and wishing I could go skiing. The problem is that out on the land it has been too cold to spend long in the caravan. Neither do we like running the car backwards and forwards as it is using fuel for little reason, as well as being more wear and tear on the car. The caravan is alright for short breaks like Ian does during the day, but not for sitting and working on a computer all day, so I stay at the apartment. The other issue is that out on the land there are very few flat areas to ski on and I'm a little wobbly on the hilly bits. I usually fall over at some point. I have only hurt myself badly once before but not something I would want to repeat and risk needing a trip to the hospital and tying up precious hospital resources in these times. Well it all got a bit too much and I decided to swallow my pride of looking an idiot out on the ski tracks that are right outside our apartment and I asked Ian to bring my skis and boots back. 

We've had a few frosty mornings
this week as the weather has warmed
up a bit to all of -10C during the day

I can only tell this is Chanel these days because 
of her curly mop. Ilvija is so like her mother it is
easy to confuse them. If Ilvija was to go curly too
on top then we would be in trouble, the only way
we would know the difference is Chanel is the 
spitty one. 

This afternoon about lunchtime the sun came out and glinted on the snow. I got my skis, gave them a quick wax, put on ski pants and a winter ski jacket and headed out. I didn't head for the nearest bit of the ski track as it is a bit hilly for me, but walked down the road to the flat section. There were only two other people skiing - another lady who was doing Nordic skiing the same as I do and a chap who was doing skate-skiing, which is faster and harder to do. I managed about three rounds of the track in half an hour, so not too bad - it was bigger than I thought. The chap who was skate-skiing passed me about four or five times, but I just kept plodding on. At least I didn't embarrass myself by falling over and I got a reasonably good work out. Hopefully I can do the same tomorrow.

There are plenty of icicles hanging
off the roofs

Ginger Tom out for a walk in the sunshine

This week we haven't had any major disasters either. We did lose one of the chicks, but to be honest they have done remarkably well as we haven't had any losses up till now. It's sad but a factor we live with when raising chicks. At least all the rest seem to have coped with the cold night time temperatures and will be reasonably warm when they all huddle together in their box at night and snuggled in the hay. Daytime temperatures in the little greenhouse have been very good and even the kittens go and spend the day in there. They have a bit of a warm up in the caravan in the morning and then follow Ian to the greenhouse when he goes to check on the chickens to see if the hens have laid any eggs and give them some extra feed. The kittens then stay there until it's time for them to be fed at night. 

Rocket Ron sunning himself in the
greenhouse

Well the snow is cold! So a perch on 
a large wellie is a good place to be

Hard to believe it is so cold with the light
from the sun glowing on the snow

My phone went off tonight but I couldn't work out why it was ringing, Eventually I worked out it was my son ringing on WhatsApp. You can tell I don't often get phone calls on that then. In fact there was a brief bit of concern as to why he was ringing anyway, was there a problem? Did he need something? Nope! He'd just rung to chat. Awwww! It's a long time since someone just rang to have a chat. So we had a bit of a chat about this and that and finished off with a general video chat with the whole family. I love that one of my granddaughters wants to be either a doctor, a palaeontologist or an astronaut. Brilliant! I look forward to seeing her adventures on the road to where she wants to go. My grandson wants to design lego so I guess he'll have fun doing that. The little one is not so sure yet. 

It's been cold enough for Ian to be wearing his
mega-mittens - two sets at the same time.

Frosted oak leaves

Latvia was a poster child for handling the Corona virus in spring of 2020 but unfortunately it has really struggled to get it under control this time around. Gradually, gradually though the numbers are coming down and in our area we are the only region with no current recorded cases whatsoever. I'm glad they got the blip that occurred a few weeks ago here under control, just a shame that hasn't happened across the country. 

I'm not coming out until spring!

George likes to be out though at times

So apart from work, not much as been happening and that's the way I like it at the moment. I said I would take a few weeks of boring. I have been preparing for a course that starts this week and did have a minor panic this afternoon when students finally told me they couldn't access the course notes. They found out last week but didn't tell me. At least that is sorted, thank goodness. I've also been continuing with my Latvian lessons and in preparation for eventually taking the naturalisation exam I've been learning the Latvian anthem that I have to know perfectly. It's not long or hard, so every morning I've been singing it. It makes me giggle to think of doing this, I would never dream of singing the British national anthem every morning. 

So when is the warmer weather coming?

And the tastiest piece of hay is where?

One lesson last week I taught my Latvian teacher a new Latvian word. I told her the Latvian word for parsnip that we have grown in our garden. It's not a regular vegetable to grow in Latvia due to being a long season vegetable and so not one she had grown up with. In return, a Latvian friend of mine taught me a new English word, squinch! I thought it was a spelling mistake but it turns out it is really a word. In fact it has several meanings, as a noun it means "a straight or arched structure across an interior angle of a square tower to carry a superstructure such as a dome." I thought she had meant squint which has a similar meaning to the verb squinch, which means "to tense up the muscles of (one's eyes or face)". Funny what you learn about in your own language from those for who it is a second language. 

Narnia?

Ice encrusted spruce

The bottom part of the fence has disappeared

A snowy roof for our sign

It's a good job we have a 4x4

Larry the Lada is not going anywhere these days

A frosted orchard

A sample of Ilvija's fleece to test how well it felts.
It is not as silky as her father's fortunately but not
sure if it will felt completely, it still has a bit of
movement in it. I even put it in Ian's trouser pocket
and stuck it in the wash and it didn't shrink in the 
wash.

I think Mr. P has been having a snow
wash. Well it is supposed to be good
for cleaning blankets I guess.

Weirdness continues

It snowed

Well we follow a weird year with a.... another weird year. It has only just begun and we all watched with astonishment as people invaded the capitol building in Washington DC. I'm not quite sure what was the more shocking, that people actually desecrated what is considered a sacred space for American democracy or the fact that they didn't seem prepared for that to happen. For me it was the latter. I'm even more shocked when I hear of people who still believe Trump is actually good at heart and this was not his fault. I don't get the impression he cares one bit. All he seems to care about is that people think he's wonderful no matter how much he disregards their well-being. It was a relief to read an article by Ed Stetzer (dean and professor at Wheaton College and a leader at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center) that suggests the leaders of the evangelical church need to take a long, hard look at the whole episode and consider what sort of repentance is needed to have followed Trump so gullibly. Character does matter!

Ginger Tom is obviously into ice-lollies. 

Snow outside the apartment. 

The weird year also continues with lockdowns and rising Covid numbers in much of Europe. We have had our weekend curfew nights extended here in Latvia until the end of the month and the hospitals are struggling to cope. My heart was torn by one medic friend of mine who posted a notice to show that staff were being called into a hospital in Northern Ireland to deal with an emergency situation and bluntly said, forget your conspiracy theories, wash your hands and stay home, your actions are killing people. What drives a kind and caring young medic to say such things so bluntly? Another friend of mine is a nurse in an ICU and she told me how sad it is to see so many just gasping for air. These friends of mine are not heroes they are just ordinary people but doing extraordinary things.

Brencis does like to sit in the doorway, rain or shine
or in this case snow.

After a day of fine snow with more to come
over the next few days.

Heroes are expected to do super-human things but these folks are not super-human. They would be the first to admit to being flawed human beings like the rest of us. Someone to look up to but not idolise. So I won't call them heroes because that does them a massive disservice. It puts them on a pedestal that is easy to fall off because they do get angry or irritable with people from time to time, like we all do. They don't need us to clap them, they just need us to do the extraordinary thing of staying home until this situation can be got under control, so that they can continue to do the extraordinary things of caring for whoever comes through the door, whether they believe that Covid19 is a real threat or not, whether they wore a mask or not, whether they agree to take the vaccine or not. 

We hear of many alpacas that would choose to 
stay outside no matter what the weather. Our lazy
lot choose to stay inside. Sensible, I agree, but
there isn't much to do except eat hay inside and 
put weight on.

Frosted patterns on the greenhouse plastic. 
Nature is quite an artist!

I've not been out to the land recently. I've been home still sorting through stuff. I finally got around to actually doing some sewing and that was chugging along nicely until my sewing machine snagged and then it kept on snagging. I was beginning to wish I had never bought the super-duper all singing, all dancing quilting machine - okay it's not that grand but it is still a bit grander than your cheap and cheerful machine. I've had issues of it snagging so easily, which has driven me mad. It doesn't like old thread because it's too fluffy apparently - but that would be such a waste and besides this is a quilting machine, it's supposed to be used for making quilts from old fabrics isn't it? So old thread shouldn't be an issue? I walked away from it and pottered around the house. I sorted out half a bag of potatoes for a friend since we have so many and then looked up the issue on the internet. 

We have a few options for clearing
snow

A good job really

There's been quite a bit of drifting and so the 
snow is building up in places

I found a video that described the steps to sorting out a jammed machine. Half of it seemed a bit over the top, but I followed the steps and the last part involved changing the sewing machine needle. It was at this point that I remembered that changing the needle should be the first thing you try. Doh! So now I've ordered a lot of needles so that I can make those lovely patchwork dresses for my grandkids that I mentioned last week and not jam my machine. After sorting out the machine, I finally managed to finish the seams on some t-shirts that were too big for me. I need some new t-shirts ready for next year and many of mine have now got holes in them. 

Pathways get difficult to see 

It's a good job that the ground was still soft so
that Ian can put the electric posts in. The wire
is not electrified but works on the principle
that deer have poor depth vision. They are
happy to jump high but not cross two wires. This
is to stop them chewing the bark on the fruit
trees.

This week has been a week of breaking things and it makes me so nervous with my new computer. Every time I close it I check and double check that nothing, absolutely nothing is in the way. At least the sewing machine wasn't really broken but I had a few hours of thinking it was. Unfortunately for Ian the camera that is supposed to work with his microscope really is broken. This was another of those bits of kit we wonder if we made a mistake in buying. He already had to have the camera replaced shortly after he got the microscope and he hasn't had much use out of it. He has a windows computer from our son-in-law specifically to work with the camera. Normally he doesn't need it because he can see that there are only a few parasite eggs in our alpaca poo samples, but just occasionally there is something on the slide that he can't identify. The idea is that he takes a photo of it and sends it to the lady who taught him the techniques for doing parasite testing on alpacas, only now he can't and we really need to know what it is that he has seen. This episode did at least lead to a solution and Ian found he could use the camera on his phone to take a photo down the eyepiece. Phew!

There is a roadway there somewhere, down to the
barn.

This was taken in mid-December but you can see
the problem with her legs to some extent. They
also bend inwards making it difficult to walk.
You can also see on our Facebook page in this
video (link here)

The test he was doing was on a sample from Veronica or Lady V. Just recently her health has been suffering. She is pretty hungry, losing weight and her legs are getting more and more bent. It could be parasites, it could be her teeth that are often a problem in old alpacas or it could be rickets despite the Vitamin D injections. Ian has set up a hoist to help him get her up every morning, because I'm not out there in winter time. Once she's up, she's fine and stays up for quite a long time. Unfortunately, this is not a good time of the year for an alpaca to be down. It snowed most of today and will continue on and off , but mainly on for another day, before the temperature takes quite a dip to around -18C. We were nervous of the repercussions for her over winter with her bad legs already before she started losing weight. Oh the joys of owning geriatric alpacas, she is 17 1/2 now, not the oldest alpaca we've had but still getting on a bit.

George is such a handsome chap

A little snow on George's ear

Eyre is such a grumpy looking cat. She's actually
quite grumpy by nature too. She's taken to 
following Ian around the farm and now even
she is not as afraid of the alpacas. 

To add to the frustrations, Ian has been struggling with adding his photos to my old computer. I just copied them across when I upgraded to that machine, but Ian has lots of additional information he wants to copy across too and it won't do it automatically. As you know his photos are precious and it is generally his photos that I use in this blog. He spends ages labelling them all so that he can easily find photos in the future. He finally found some software that would do the conversion from one version of Apple's photo storage software to another, which involved having to leave the computer plugged in for three days. It was tense. His frustrations were added to when he managed to drop a 2 litre glass jar of milk outside the door of the apartment. Not good on a freezing cold and snowy day. It's a bit hard to see shards of broken glass in the light of a head torch against the snow in a pool of milk. Sigh! I guess that's partly the problem of being ecological and reusing glass jars to buy milk from one of our neighbours instead of buying plastic bottles from the supermarket.

The boys' paddock is there somewhere

At least the snow will anchor the plastic down 
over the bales. 

Still, there is no crying over spilt milk as they say. There are more important issues in this world and our troubles are small compared to others'. It is weird though how it is the small and insignificant things that can take on massive proportions in a time of chaos and uncertainty. It is too easy to get angry and annoyed over the slightest thing when there are more important things to get angry about. At least I think we are beginning to find a bit of balance, may be it's the vitamin D, or the fish oil tablets making a difference. Funny how Ian usually begins to start whistling after taking fish oil tablets when he has had a period without them. Not quite sure what the effect is, but they seem to affect his mood in a good way.

We are starting to get eggs again. We have really
appreciated the eggs this year, much better than 
the eggs you can normally buy.

The chicks have adjusted well to their new ark

They are growing well

Who are you looking at?

We were worried about the cold for the chicks
and we still have the cold temperatures to come, 
but I think there is quite a bit of insulation now.
When we bought this greenhouse we bought
the one that would take the biggest snowloads. 
Looks like that might have been a wise choice.

Snow has been building around the shed
too.

A New Year

Hopefully better times ahead Brencis. He looks
happy enough. Gotta love a smiley alpaca.

It's hard to wish everyone a Happy New Year with lockdowns ongoing. But that's the way it is. Our region is beginning to see Covid19 infections rise. Up until now we've been in a very safe place where they have not risen above 5 since the virus first appeared in Latvia, way back in March 2020. There is still a very low level of infection in our area and fairly easy to avoid contact in such a low density area fortunately. Today I had to drive into the plague city as Ian and I call it, where infection levels are much higher, to collect my repaired computer. 

As you can see, we still have some
snow and more than Riga as usual.
It was quite patchy in Riga when I
drove in today. It's not very deep
but it won't be going anywhere soon
as the temperatures are due to tumble.

At a crossroads in life?

Normally a trip into Riga would mean that I would arrange to see people and normally I would take the bus. While the thought of seeing someone for a chat and a coffee is appealing it is not possible nor advisable these days due to restrictions. Sitting on a bus, even with reduced numbers for over 2 hours does not appeal at the moment either - even if I can work on a bus and not when driving. So I literally drove in, picked up my computer and drove all the way back - four hours in total. 

Step by step we're moving forward

My Father and Granny at my
godmother's farm in the Lake
District, UK. How times have
changed, now we have so many
photos of the kids. 

There is definitely something to be said for opting for a New Year starting in March after we hopefully head out of this mess with the help of the vaccine programmes. So hands up all those who want to start New Year on the traditional date of the 25th March on Lady's day? It makes more sense as new life starts to spring up around us- at least in the Northern Hemisphere. It seems fitting rather than in the middle of winter. I can understand the need to celebrate in winter when the world seems so dark, but I like the idea of celebrating when the dark days are over and it is time to look forward to sowing seeds and getting back in the garden - if it isn't still covered in snow that is.

My Grandparent's wedding. I haven't got many 
pictures of this Grandad and only a few more
of the one on my mother's side. 

This is the only other picture I have of my 
Grandad. We used to spend many hours 
just sitting next to each other gazing into
the fire. 

Another use for the masks we have
to wear these days. Some of the work
we do is quite dusty, such as haymaking
and the carding of dusty fleeces.

I've kind of enjoyed my time off. I say kind of because there were times I realised I had allowed myself to get too stressed. There were a few misunderstandings over the holidays and the computer breaking didn't help my mood, but that is in the past now and things are going better. At least I feel more relaxed starting back at work. It's a good job I shall only be working four days a week at the moment, but I can think of better ways to spend a day off than driving into the city. Ian and I have been more creative over the last week. Ian is getting back into the carding and spinning of alpaca wool and I've been sorting out old t-shirts. Some have been tacked to make smaller t-shirts as they were always too large and I need some that fit properly. Some have got holes in and so been upcycled. You'll have to wait and see what they look like as I haven't finished them yet. It's been nice in an evening to just sit and stitch though.

The cats are out and about, the alpacas not so
much. One of the few sunny days we had

We finally got around to doing teeth work on some of the alpacas. Poor Mr.P often needs his teeth trimming as they grow too fast and at the wrong angle. The younger boys needed fighting teeth checks. George's teeth needed some work as we don't want him causing injuries to the other boys as they play fight at the beginning of spring. Another job ticked off the list was to move the chicks into the new ark that Ian has made. I hope they'll be okay as they will have to keep each other warm in their hay lined box and the weather is forecast to get quite a bit colder this next week. I saw news reports that by mid-January we might be seeing lower than -20C. So far the forecast is for around -5C/-6C so we'll see. They are getting quite big now and there are 11 of them. It is surprising how warm a hay filled box can be. I made sure that one section had hay stuffed in the roof too, so they can huddle in a smaller area. We also have the option of using fleece to add another insulating layer over the whole ark too if need be.

What is this stuff? Can you eat it?

I've now at least sorted out most of my cupboards and shelving. I can now get to everything, which means I'm more likely to actually do something with it. I was delighted to find a lovely patchwork dress pattern online that will work for some of our granddaughters. It will use up some of those fabrics that have been waiting for a project. I've also done some research and made plans to make my own trousers in the future instead of continuing to buy jeans. They won't be a complete patchwork, but using patchwork inserts. I may as well put that fabric to use. It was an Indian site with some simple but interesting ways of using different fabrics. Watch this space - but not too closely as I have to do them first 😂

Little one meet big one! Rocket Ron seems 
quite adventurous. Our older two cats were not
so happy with the alpacas getting this close.

It was a quiet New Year's Eve for many people and was much quieter here than normal. We don't often stay up these days as Ian at least has to get up to see to the animals. Most years though we are woken at twelve by the fireworks. This year there were a few fireworks but they were set off before a curfew of 10pm. Our curfew was 10pm-5am over the holiday weekend and to be repeated this next weekend for the Orthodox Christmas holidays.

I just love the way that Ginger Tom's fur glows in
the sun. He's quite the handsome chap.

Some years I've gone with Ian out to the land to see the alpacas and some years I haven't. It depends upon what needs doing. This year Ian went out and I stayed behind to potter about the apartment. Pottering apparently is very good for you and it certainly helped just to be doing something creative or doing some organising that helped me to feel more organised in my own life. The clutter was definitely getting to me. Not that we are much less cluttered but I'm not falling over it any more. I definitely am not buying any more clothing or things until it is shifted. It's not that we have lots but obviously too much in a small apartment. 

So in these rather bizarre times, I wish you all the best in the next year. I'm sure better times are ahead, but for now stay safe and look out for each other - we'll get through this and we'll be better for it.