Home alone

The dahlias have been wonderful this year. I only have red
ones unfortunately, but they are a very nice one to have
survived two years in our cellar

I was going to do wonders this last week while Ian was away, but it was not to be. The cold I had at the beginning of the week hung around for most of it, it wasn't much, but enough to make me feel muddle headed as I mentioned last week. I did manage to get the dratted paper resent after a very kind friend of mine had proofread it for me. So at least that was one thing out of the way. I would have been better to call it quits and go outside into the garden but I tried to get more work done on paper two instead and so didn't accomplish much.

A full basket of green tomatoes, some
 of whichwill go towards green tomato
chutney, as my stocks are low. A small
bowl for the chickens, a tray of
cucamelon tubers which will be
replanted next year. One third
of a basket of nearly ripe or ripe
tomatoes. 

I did have spurts of getting things done and so an asparagus bed was prepped, and some sawdust laid down on a path. Some pathetic parsnips were dug up, I cut down some mustard and cress that had gone to seed, put tomatoes and cucamelons in the freezer and picked the rest of the short beans. Today I pulled up the tomatoes, another of those markers in our year. It means that the greenhouse can be prepared for the chickens to come in and then the caravan moved in too. It is perhaps a good job as I noticed the geese are flying south now, well south-ish and that is usually a sign the weather will turn soon.

Starting to look empty now. The "weeds"
to the left are sheep sorrel and so are
never got rid of totally. They are some
times some of the first green shoots of the
year and are nice and tasty.

Geese heading south

First frost of the season

We also had the first frost of the year. It is a good job I felt it turning cold and covered peppers and autumn raspberries. The forecast was not for frosts, but being a little higher than the nearest large town for which the forecast is given, it is normal for our temperatures to be at least a degree or two lower, so I was prepared. One night in the caravan the temperature was 3C, a tad chilly, but at least the heater can quickly warm the place through, without even having to get out from under the nice warm duvet. Hot flushes also have their uses sometimes.

The spaghetti squash succumbed to the frost. At least we
actually did get some squashes of these two plants, even
though it didn't look like we would have any sometimes
due to our cool nights over summer

A little mouldy heart on a bean pod

I actually stayed out every night in the caravan, as it was easier to nip back to our village and pick up the milk that is delivered twice a week and then do jobs like the washing and picking beans at our allotment plot, before heading back to the land to put animals away. I haven't even been to the shop all week, as I don't get through as much bread as Ian does and I baked a couple of small batches of buns, which was enough for me.

Much of the week it has been lovely
weather and our grapes have been
ripening nicely

The only day it rained, of course, was on the day I was home
and wanted to do the washing. In the end I put some of it up
in the greenhouse

It was a good job I spent much of the time out in the caravan, as our neighbour has a problem with water leaking into his house every time we are there. We know he had a problem earlier this year, but it was decided that actually it was water from the roof. This week he turned up with his son, who spoke very good English and I showed him our pipes. He could see that there is no way the water was actually leaking from our pipes, we would be the first to know, as it would come into our home before leaking through the floor. Even the sewage pipe area is dry. The fact is though, that every time I went home, to have a shower, do the washing and wash up - he got a leak. Finally it was decided that the leak was in the main stack pipe between our place and his and so not our problem exactly. Hope he finds the source of it soon, I feel guilty now if we go and use the water.

Brencis behaved for me though

Although the alpacas started out being well behaved, it didn't last. Aggie escaped twice and I had to resort to putting the electric on for the fence. Normally they don't need it, but an occasional reminder is necessary. In fact the boys also had to have a reminder too, well Mr. Herk who likes to eat over the fence needed a reminder. The girls have been fairly well behaved about going in, only Veronica, who really does not like me (as I usually mean something nasty is about to happen like injections or treatment of some kind) was a little reluctant one particular night to go away, but she soon made her way into the alpaca house when she realised that I was going to move her out of the field. The boys, however....... they got worse and worse at coming in. The first time they misbehaved, it was just a matter of moving them into the paddock area and then they went in, the next night took two attempts and on the night I had to go and collect Ian, Mr. Tellus was nearly locked out all night. I decided to make one more attempt, because I had heard dogs in the forest earlier on in the day and so I knew he had to go away. The little tinkers though, have been as good as gold for Ian since he got back.

He was very interested in my camera

The one that got away. She can sure fly far when she needs
to. This chicken is a bit of a loner, she always has been. She
is also an intelligent bird, which is not always a good thing,
as that means she can be difficult to catch by us. She is the
last remaining chicken from the ark she lives in,
occasionally she will join the others in the chicken house
but more often than not, she prefers her own space and
walking with the alpaca girls.

Sergeant Wilson, our cockerel had another go at me during the week, but since then I haven't had a problem. It might have been partly down to the fact that I saved the chickens from another fox attack. I heard the commotion and ran down to find out what the matter was. I saw flying chickens and the chicken we call, Big bird, running; behind her was what looked like a youngish fox. Fortunately the fox turned tail and ran off. I counted all the chickens and none were missing so I then put them away or at least tried to. Most of them went away no problem, but the younger brown chicken was not going anywhere near the forest, which is where their accommodation is. I ended up catching her in a fishing net and then hurling her into the chicken house (that actually sounds worse than it was, but I had to be quick so the others did not get out and she flew down to the floor with the others).

Ripe carrot seed

Autumnal blackberry leaves

Granda and Granddaughter enjoying a meal out

Ian had a lovely time in the UK with the grandchildren. They are both happy, smiley children, especially for Granda. He also helped to plasterboard the new house that my son-in-law and daughter are renovating. He did come back with a wish list though of a laser level and an electric, compound mitre saw. He was enthusing about how much easier the jobs are with them. Just hope they come in useful for building our house and not just the new alpaca houses though.

Our youngest grandchild. Such a happy smiley little chap
and looks like Ian when he was a baby apparently

Our little granddaughter in pensive mood

Don't go Granda!

Some of Ian's shopping

Ian also had a trip up to Northumberland to see his brothers and their families. The brothers actually had a chance to have a really good chat together on their own. Not sure when that last happened. They had seen each other when Ian travelled up to see his mother, but rarely did he see them together and even rarer to be on their own. Another day trip was to see some alpacas and the timing couldn't have been better, because they are having an auction of some of their stock in about eight weeks time and so quite happy to sell us some at a lower price than normal. They are converting to a mini-zoo and so need room for other animals. Of course there are details that are needed to be sorted and a new alpaca house to build.

The sheep needed moving when Ian got back, but at least
they stayed inside the fence while he was away. The only
incident we had was when we tried to pen them in before
moving. One of them stuck its head through the poultry
netting and got itself stuck, not just once but twice. 

Ghostly apparitions in the greenhouse. Grapes, peppers,
chillies and basil all wrapped up against the coming cold
night.

The news this week has been far from cheery. It does not fill me with a lot of enthusiasm to hear that Latvia has been declared one of the least welcoming for the Syrian refugees and it is quite worrying if that turned into something more about foreigners in general. It is so easy to feel despondent with it all, but then I read an article about someone who took a bike ride around what used to be the Berlin wall, something that didn't seem possible just 25 years ago.

The paved path sliced through the dense forest with an unseasonably cool summer wind bringing goose bumps to our skin. “Hard to believe this was once one of the most militarised borders in the world, right?” Möllering asked.
He was right. I couldn’t imagine pedalling the Pakistan-India border where they take pride in their militarisation with daily rituals between the two armies; nor could I fathom going for a two-wheeled jaunt through the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. It all seems like a complete impossibility – just as it would have to any Berliner if you suggested cycling the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.

The impossible is now possible and that gives me hope. What can seem like an impossible situation of war and mayhem, can seemingly overnight be over. People can rise up and show care and compassion as if from nowhere.  Dictatorships can fall. I very much pray that there will be a revolution, but a peaceful one. I very much hope that people can join hands together against seemingly impossible odds and overcome the oppressor, much like in the Baltic Way 26 years ago.

Reboot Spring please!

The scene this afternoon

Will whoever turned off Spring and re-inserted Winter please stop it! I mean, we have had some lovely Spring like weather and now we are all white again! Heh ho! The joys of living in a northerly latitude. At least I don't feel too bad being stuck inside doing my writing, and yes I finally did get started on the actual writing phase. It was a good job that nobody visited me today, I had bits of paper all over the floor trying to organise my thoughts. It was only after I had printed out all the quotes to help guide my thoughts that I thought of a way that would be less paper intensive. I am sure I will get to test out my theory soon. I have plenty more writing projects to do yet.

Pieces of paper all over the floor
#oldschool

The beach at Tūja

It hasn't all been reading and writing though, I actually got to do some more interviews this last week. I headed off at the crack of dawn to rendezvous with my Masters student and we headed up the coast to a little village called Tūja. It is very popular in summer but rather deserted this time of the year and rather miserable in the rain, but we still managed to find some wonderful folks who agreed to be interviewed and tell us about themselves and the place where they live, even if we did nearly freeze to death in the process. The cup of coffee and biezpiena cake offered by one lady was most welcome. The place certainly has a few different issues to the ones I have come across elsewhere, but that is more due to its location on the coast compared to more inland rural places that I have studied before. At least that proves one of my points that each village will have its own particular issues and so there are no one-size-fits-all solutions beloved by the developers and policy makers.

A beach famous for its large rocks. 

A happy big brother with his lovely little
sister

It wasn't the only excitement this week, we became grandparents for the fourth time to a lovely little girl. She has been given the middle name of Lolly after her recently departed Great-grandmother, which I think is rather lovely and one that she would have appreciated. Our granddaughter's big brother is paying her lots of loving attention and reminds me of when we brought home our second child, his big sister enjoyed her role immensely and loved having a cuddle. We were alerted to our granddaughter's imminent arrival by text at 11:22pm and were awoken by repeated texts at around 5am to say she had arrived- oh the wonders of modern technology. It would have been even better if I had a smart phone, as my son tried to send a photo, but that phone packed up in the summer and I am back to a phone that Ian had in the States; so rather ancient by today's standards and certainly not capable of receiving picture texts.

Love the atmosphere in this shot. Ian can certainly take a
good photo

I am trying to be good and rest my brain properly for a couple of days a week. One of the days off  is on a sunny day of the week and so it varies. This week we took off to the nearest big town, as the car needed to go for its technical. We were hoping that it would fail so that we could bump the test to the following month. It is difficult if anything goes wrong for Ian to work on the car in the cold weather. Instead the car passed, but even better, for some reason we don't quite understand we got an extra few weeks anyway and it won't be due for the next test until April 22nd 2016 (yes we did double check that it wasn't for 2015). It was quite a productive day, as we managed to find a replacement printer at a reasonable price, bought food for the alpacas, got Ian's passport photo done and found some more Sodium Hydroxide for soap making, all that and even managed to stop for some pizza at our favourite Italian pizzeria - the real thing, made by an Italian.

Ian drawing pretty pictures with his plough. We are trying
out another experiment to reduce the water flow down the
hill, which causes flooding in the bottom half and washes
away nutrients and ungerminated seeds if planted at the
wrong time. Ian has roughly followed the contours of the
slopes with plough lines to give the water somewhere to
run into and then seep into the soil. 

The other day off is usually a Sunday when we head up to the other apartment for bath night and to watch a DVD. It also keeps the place heated, so pipes don't freeze. Before I went I made two scarves using a darker base material to felt onto (nuno felting if you want to look it up). It seems to work, sorry no photos yet. I also attempted to decant some liquid soap that I had made into a bottle. I wanted a soap base that I could use for hand soap and ended up with something the consistency of thick snot. I only intended to make about three litres, but by the time I have added enough water to it to make it liquid enough to pour, it is more like 6 litres. Those manufacturers sure know what they are doing when they sell hand soap for such a huge sum of money compared to a bar of soap, when so much of it is water. Only approximately 1 litre is oil with about 125g of Sodium hydroxide to turn it into soap. It should keep us in hand soap for a while anyway. I just need to play around with scent combinations now.

Frog spawn

There has been a short film by a 12 year old American girl of Latvian descent doing the rounds just lately on facebook. I watched the film, which is about the Baltic Way and wept. There are evocative scenes of so many people standing hand in hand against Soviet oppression, with nothing but a sense of determination on their faces and dreams in their hearts. I didn't weep for the image I saw of those people, I wept for the broken dreams. I wept because some on the video who spoke about that time with such emotion, used their freedom to leave. I don't blame them, I really don't, it is just that freedom has been so hard. I see those who stayed here who work and work and work to do the best they can to keep this country alive, buried under a layer of exhaustion. I see those who found the adjustment hard and are slowly drinking themselves to death. I see those who are trying to work out their painful past and not quite figuring out how they fit in today. I see those who had dreams in their hearts which turned to sawdust in the reality of a cold market place and wondering what they have to do to earn a living? I see neighbours not trusting each other and seeing a building fall apart because no one wants to take on the responsibility of doing something when all they get is aggravation for their troubles.

A sign of Spring, can you see it? Okay I know, I
have to learn to zoom in with my iPad, but I was
in a rush and it was cold when we opened the
window to take this shot. The stork arrived back
this morning, just in time for the snow. 

But I also see a beautiful country with signs of spring after a long winter, even despite today's snow. I see a people who long to see a better world and trying to figure out how that happens. I see the potential for those dreams to reawaken and grow like a pruned bush in warmth of the early spring sun. I have hope in a group of people that can appreciate a herb tea, picked by their own hands at the height of summer because they know which herbs are good to pick and which are good for health. I have hope in a group of people who know how to raise a garden of vegetables and think it is the most natural thing in the world to do. I have hope in those who struggle on despite the setbacks to reach for that dream of something better that cannot be bought with money. Putin maybe causing us worries from time to time and the American army might be over here to "reassure us" whatever that might mean, but I still have hope for the future.