Got a handle on this?

Updated link that wasn't working

The door handle! Are you impressed?

Before I start I have to set something straight, I inadvertently forgot to mention a momentous event that happened last week in our home. Ian ..... wait for it!!!!!!! put a handle on the inside door. Why is this momentous? Because it has taken him nearly four years to get around to doing it. For the past four years our inner door was opened by sticking our finger into a hole and pulling, not too bad when you know that and not too bad until winter time when gloved hands get a bit too big and then it gets awkward. So I'm glad I put that straight and now I shall get around to the news from this week.

The stuff of life! It is in this temperature.

This week hasn't been as cold as the week before, still low at around -25C (-13F) at night and up to even -6C (21F) one day in the sun. This was certainly an improvement on sub -30's (-22F) the week before and lucky if we saw it below -20C (-4F) for most of the day. Our apartment heating, however, did not improve much this week, it has been up and down all week, no consistency at all. I was even surprised that there wasn't a huge improvement during the Latvian Schools Winter Olympics that is held every year here. I wonder how much of that was to do with a much scaled down event this time, it had finished by mid-day on Saturday and so no fireworks. It is sad when the countries economic woes hit events like these, but I guess there is the added expense of the Olympic games in London this year for the Latvian Olympic committee to fund. We had another meeting this week with the mayor and the director of the heating company together and at least it helps us to understand what is going on and how we get our heat and the issues involved. The next step is to carry out some experiments to see what effect the recirculation pump has on the heat we get - gosh somethings are never straightforward, but Ian is in his element helping to devise experiments and looking forward to analysing results.

All in the cause of research of course! It's a
hard life, but here is the hot chocolate
pudding, a bit too runny this time.

We have eaten well this week, part of the reason was that we had invited a young friend of ours so that our translator, who has been helping me to interview local farmers and hunters, could have someone to connect with, who was more his own age and possibly some similar interests. To facilitate that we dug out the free range turkey, we were given by some other friends and laid on a lavish feast. Well any excuse really for a good nosh up. So we had roast turkey, roast spuds, a rice mixture (okay I forgot to check how many spuds we had and we didn't have enough for mash as well; wouldn't mind but we have sackfuls of them but up at the other apartment), some other roast veg and of course Yorkshire puddings, all followed by a red and blackcurrant sponge with Ian's home-made ice-cream. It was rather nice, if I do say so myself! Later on in the week we went to the hotel and had to carry out an experiment - in the interests of science of course! We had to test the chocolate puddings as sometimes they are runny in the centre, which they are supposed to be, and sometimes they are completely set but still make a yummy pudding. I explained this to some students in the student cafe I monitor and one of them asked me how often did they came out right? I guessed that 75% of the time they came out just right but of course I wasn't entirely sure, cue excuse for an experiment. Ian, ever the scientist, said that we had to carry out the experiment at least 20 times to be sure and so we have started on the challenge. Mind you I don't think we really are going to carry out the experiment for 20 times, it will take far too long to get the results and it is the most expensive dessert on the menu (If you want to make it yourself then here is a recipe if you missed it in a previous blog link).

We are not the only ones with wood stores, here are just a
few. 

To top off the week of good eating we finished off with a jar of venison and wild boar which had been produced by one of the ladies who used to attend my English class. Her husband is a hunter and I got to interview him this week for my course and he came with his good lady wife and laden with three jars of a meat product. I say meat product because I can see it has a bay leaf in it and meat, but apart from that I have no idea of the rest of the contents. It was tasty and in some ways reminiscent of a tin of corned beef, but with chunks of meat instead and I guess none of the fillers and nitrates that normal corned beef has. Ian was elated to have found something like corned beef and I have a feeling that the next jar will be reappearing as a meat and potato pie or more likely something resembling a corned beef hash pie. Although we do love the taste of corned beef, the last time we actually had some, we both ended up with sore mouths, as the preservatives used in those kinds of products causes some sort of an adverse reaction now we are not used to foods with chemicals in it - well if you discount salt, fat, oil, vinegar, citric acid and those sort of chemicals which I add to bottled foods.

You can see a wild boar track quite clearly on this picture.
How can we tell it is a wild boar? Wild boar are heavy and
have short legs and hence they leave a wide trail in this
depth of snow. Last year the metre high snow made it
difficult for wild boar to even get around.

The interviews, for my course project, are going well again this week and I have interviewed another farmer who gave us the telephone number for someone else, a local State Forest Service senior forest ranger who is responsible for hunting at the local level and another hunter who is trying to get local hunting organisations to work together and to improve how they work by the creation of a new hunting association. In the last interview of the week I got to see a wild boar face to face but fortunately for me, not the wild boar of course, it was hanging from a ceiling in the process of being butchered. The interview with the hunting association organiser was at a facility which included a place where the hunters can go to butcher the meat they have shot, hence the gruesome scene. I have to say it was a grim satisfactionto see it up there, knowing all the damage they can create in just one night, although it was kind of sad too. After all the wild boar are opportunists and well fed ones at that, and that is why their numbers are increasing - man's fault really. Apparently wild boar won't eat all potatoes though, you can get a spray that will stop them eating them - question is would you eat potatoes that have been sprayed with something that wild boar with their sensitive noses refuse to eat?

Our greenhouse is still up! Yeh! The internal supports
though, no longer rest on their plinths but are about a
centimetre above due to the outside ones rising in
the frozen ground as the ice expands.

So as I said we have eaten well this week, meat with no artificial preservatives, and certainly free range. You can't get much more free range than an animal shot in the wild. Our feasts usually don't cost that much, due to generous friends, but what would happen if we were to buy it? Would it cost a lot? In some ways it should due to the effort gone into obtaining the meat. Even our veg that we have eaten this week has all been won from the land by the sweat of our brows. Good food, however, only appears expensive if it is bought, because we don't see the hidden costs of the cheap food. Tax payers money is often channeled into producing factory farmed meat, that is no good for us or the animal, but since no one actually pays that at the till it makes the food seem cheap. This is a big problem with the system we have, that penalises the small producers for producing good quality products and encourages damaging industrial processes (see here for an article that goes into more depth on the issues).

Cold weather often brings some glorious
sunsets.

I have been a bit bewildered just lately by the differing comments that are all supposed to have emanated from the IMF. On the one hand Latvia is supposed to have emerged stronger than ever from the crisis, not sure how many Latvians would agree with that analysis though. On the other hand the Latvians might agree with the emergence of the fact that the Latvian crisis has exacerbated poverty and fuelled the rise of inequality. So the IMF thinks that Latvia has emerged stronger when inequality has increased and yet according to many reports inequality fuels instability, the more equal a society is the more stable it is - surely the strength of a nation should therefore be measured by its equality? The IMF has also stated the safety net was important to the recovery - what safety net? The one that guarantees a minimum of 40 Lats a month when our heating bill was 40 Lats this last month? Or is it the one that guarantees 40 Lats a month when the minimum amount to live on is 164 Lvls (or is it higher now)? These sort of conflicting reports do not really help nations to move on from a crisis. The measurements of what is a success and what isn't should really rest with the nations inhabitants who have to live with the issues and the consequences and not some dependence on a discredited financial system that has not aided many people to find a satisfying lifestyle, that meets their needs.

There's a river there somewhere! The
continuing cold weather has meant that
most rivers have now frozen over.

Over the duration of my course I have been looking at issues such as resilience and so one article on why some people don't get depressed caught my eye. The article was looking at what makes an individual resilient? But I think that perhaps is the wrong question? It should be what makes a community resilient? Communities are the backbone of life, separated off, isolated individuals with everyone in their place does not breed resilience. A mix of people, the cranky, the friendly, interacting makes a community and breeds resilience. You learn how to deal with people and you can learn from people how to deal with life, people need robust resilient communities to become resilient and to pass on resilience to others.

Confession time

Yes this is Robbie the halogen cooker, cooking pie, chips
and sweetcorn. Still need to fiddle about with the timings
but at least it didn't burn the bottom of the pie like my
ordinary oven - mind you it didn't cook the bottom very well
at all. The top was cooked. I am sure I will get used
to it though.

Okay I have a confession to make, we bought another kitchen gadget. Have we got room for yet another kitchen gadget? No! Do we need another kitchen gadget? Errrr! Welllllll! Yes! Honestly we have a very good reason or two for buying our recent addition to the paraphernalia we have in our kitchen and in our dump room (I said we don't have room). You see, it's like this, all this week our heating has not been sufficient to heat our apartment to sensible temperatures ie it has been between 13C to 15C, as the heating company hasn't been sending warm enough water around our communal heating system. We have resorted to our wood stove rather earlier in the year than we would like, our wood stove is really for when the communal heating is turned off, which is usually before we would turn it off; anyway I think that maybe our neighbour downstairs has probably had to turn his heating up to compensate for all the cold apartments around him as he runs his heating off gas and not the communal heating like most of us, and I wonder if all of us have been turning on the ovens more than usual to provide hot nourishing meals and warm our apartments up in the process, in short our apartment block ran out of gas. Not sure who is responsible for making sure there is enough gas in the apartment gas tanks or if there is a set delivery date but yesterday we went to fry up some fish fingers for fish finger sandwiches (cor more confessions) or should I say gently saute (is that healthier?) and lo and behold there was no gas, in fact there was no gas all day. We had been humming and hahhing over getting a halogen oven, partly so we wouldn't have to buy a cooker for the other apartment and yet folks still be able to cook and also to use ourselves the rest of the time, we had seen one in our local Aladdin's cave shop but decided against it, but when the gas went off and having to rely on a kettle, slow cooker and an ancient microwave we decided that maybe it would be a good investment after all. So please welcome Robbie our new gadget, I don't normally name our gadgets but this one looks so like a robot from the 60s it has to have a name.

The cleared roadway

As is usual for this time of the year our week has been dominated by the snow and clearing it away. Since the fiasco with our tractor window last week our tractor went up to our neighbours so that Ian could do a temporary fix to it before using it to clear an access road to get onto the land to start work on the other fiasco, our collapsed polytunnel. With the piece of plastic from the polytunnel and good old duck tape the hole was sealed and the tractor serviceable again. As a thank you to our neighbours and while he was up there anyway, Ian cleared away the snow from their yard to make it easier for them, something they didn't feel should go unrewarded either and so Ian was treated to a meat feast of a dinner (lunch), three slices of karbonade (for all you who have not visited Latvia it is battered pork in an egg and flour batter and fried -sorry sauteed), and a couple of thick slices of smoked bacon, and I was at home wondering what he had taken to eat!

Not as much as last year but still a lot of snow.

The next job was to try and find the road. Ian had tracked our road and various things on our land, like the polytunnel, barn, orchard and bushes, last year with a hand held GPS (yes I know another gadget) and this meant he was able to roughly retrace his route and mark out a path with his snowshoes which he could then follow with the tractor. Next year I think we mark out the track before it snows with sticks to make things easier as a GPS is only accurate down to about 3-5m which could land us in a hole unless we fill it in, or we could end up running over stones that are on the edge of the road. There is not as much snow as last year but it is much heavier with a distinct layer of ice from an ice storm. Once the road way was cleared it meant we could then get on with the job of clearing snow from the polytunnel. The first clear day was rather chilly at -21C in the morning but it was a beautiful day and a joy to be outside working, well it was for most of the day. Ian used the tractor to clear around the polytunnel and I freed up various parts of the structure with a good old fashioned shovel. The problem is at that temperature it is really important not to stop moving or you freeze. I had on leggings, ski pants and waterproof trousers, a t-shirt, a base layer, thin fleece, outer fleece and my coat but had to take that off when working as I was getting too warm; it is also really important not to sweat or you get into a lot of trouble when that freezes. So I worked steadily and slowly all day, apart from huddling around the fire to have some fried egg sandwiches for lunch, and that worked well, but towards the end of the day I was getting very tired but I didn't dare stop as the temperatures were dipping low again. I was so glad when we decided to call it a day. Fortunately the following day was not as cold so less danger of freezing to death, literally, but it took two days to dig away the snow. Snow and wind stopped any further work until today when we started to dismantle the collapsed pieces to try and salvage what we can. It would appear that the OSB (composite board) joints failed in most places but there were also some solid pieces of timber that had cracked. There won't be any OSB joints when we rebuild that is for sure!

After one windy day this end piece
needed stabilising. 

If you follow this blog you will know that we have been away over Christmas in Australia and our daughter cooked us a lovely Christmas dinner but it didn't feel like Christmas at all as it was 40C outside and not cold like Christmas should be, well at least for a Northern Hemisphere lass. Fortunately our friends saved us a turkey they had reared and they brought it around this week and we decided to have another Christmas dinner complete with fairy lights and a few other decorations. We couldn't have Christmas dinner alone of course and so we invited our friends around too for a traditional English roast and I even bought them some little presents just for the fun of it. It was a great time, even if it still didn't really feel like Christmas - after all they had finished with all the Christmas songs on the radio.

Somewhere under there are current bushes

It has been a topsy turvey time for many of us thanks to the banking crisis of a couple of years ago. We have had a house on the market for over a year and this last week we arranged for another estate agent to have a go at selling it. So if anyone wants a house in Sheffield, England here is the link, the original estate agent is completely flummoxed as to why it has not sold, it is not as if there is anything wrong with it, it is actually quite a nice house. It is incredible to think though that it would seem that the bankers have learnt nothing from the debacle they helped to create. It seems that the bankers just sighed with relief that the worse is over and now carry on as before, they seem to think that's it, nothing else to worry about, but I am afraid they didn't heed the call. The foundations are rotten and I believe there will be more revelations of where their money comes from and the harm it does. I really wished they had changed their greedy ways, they had the perfect opportunity but decided that greed was the better option. How wrong they are!

There was a track there once down to our workshop

It is not just high street banks that are the problem though, it is the whole financial set up from the IMF, who the Latvian Prime Minister describes as the unpredictable partner, to those who lend microloans to the poor. I had my doubts about microloans, and I wrote about them in October 2008, as the interest rates are so high. It would seem that the Institute of Development Studies have reservations too pointing out that loans have a habit of encouraging more debt and loans do nothing to address the imbalance of power that keeps the poor poor. What is even more incredible is they point out that the World Bank endorse microloans as a means of helping the poor out of poverty and yet have not done any follow up research to see if this is really the case. Is this more evidence of the rotten core of the financial powers? The core that puts ideology before the real needs of the poor?

More snow! 

The rotten core of the financial markets have now also turned their eyes to the food markets leading to volatile prices of food, even when there is no cause for it. Speculation hinders proper pricing of foods. So who else thought that the hike in price of wheat was due to Russian wheat shortages? The fact is there is enough wheat in store to ride out a year or even two years of shortages but big grain companies and derivative speculators made a killing from the fear of shortage. There was no shortage of wheat in the grand scheme of things. So what is the answer? One answer is to enable small farmers to move beyond subsistence farming into the marketplace and ending the power of large agro-companies. It is not the large agro-companies that feed the world, small farmers are much better at it than we are lead to believe. And if you believe speculators should be regulated in the food markets then check this link out and maybe sign the e-petition. 

I love the contrast of our neighbours truck with the
white snowy world. A bit of snow doesn't stop him
from getting on with his job.

Check!

Yes more mushrooms, there are loads of them of many sorts
now to get an edible field guide for mushrooms 

*Update - well here are the pictures, finally!
(Sorry no pictures tonight but I will upload them in the morning, otherwise I shall be up until the wee hours trying to get them uploaded.)

Beetroot dug up - check!, Carrots dug up - check! Hamburg Parsley - check! Small plastic greenhouse taken to polytunnel - check! Peppers harvested and dug up and dried- check! Cushion embroidered for the rings for our son's wedding - check! Friends and neighbours recruited to look after our apartments and stuff -check! And so the countdown begins for the big drive across Europe, just as foreign offices are issuing warnings about possible terrorists attacks across Europe. Smart! So does this mean that ferry operators will be on high alert? Wouldn't be surprised! Oh what fun we may have in store. At least we are getting done what we need to get done, even had my haircut again today so that's ready for the wedding. We also have a list as long as your arm for things to bring back, little things like cornflour, vegemite and cutter bars for two wheeled tractors and the list grows daily, Ian is hoping he will still be able to see out the back window. We will also be bringing back some sewing machines for the orphanage due to the fantastic efforts of one of our friends who has single-handedly organised getting the information out to people that we needed sewing machines and organised for them to get down to our son's in time for us to take back to Latvia. It remains to be seen how many we can actually get in the car to take back with us, but at least there is a later shipment where more can be taken.

There is a thornless blackberry plant in there somewhere

This week the Latvians have voted in parliamentary elections and they haven't gone for glamour and empty promises they have gone for integrity. They decided not to trust the old politicians who had rebranded themselves and were telling everyone that they would not follow the IMF guidelines nor would they make savage cuts but not where the money was going to come from. The Prime Minister, however, promised more cuts, more pain and the Latvians acknowledged that is the only way forward by increasing his coalition numbers so that his minority government is now a majority government. That does not mean that I agree with all the cuts, the rich could still do far more to alleviate the pain of the poor in this country, without the indignity of handouts but under the current system we have and the likes of the IMF breathing down their necks there is little choice. I am impressed with the Latvian voters who chose to reject glamour and hype, something many countries could learn from.

Our blueberry bush looking very fiery

On the subject of the IMF there was a small snippet of news where some influential economists wrote an open letter to the IMF demanding that governance is improved. Not much but at least it is a start. Who these "influential" economists are I have no idea and really only recognise two of the institutions that two of them represent but it is a start indeed. If the Western nations are calling on developing governments to show more transparency to counteract corruption then influential organisations like the IMF and the World Bank should be leading the way, not being dragged kicking and screaming into more transparent dealings.

One of only two aubergines we got from loads of very
healthy looking plants. We let this grow big for seeds
and I half expected it to be brown in the middle but it was
still edible, amazingly!

I decided to use a different template for the blog, you may have noticed, as someone commented that my blog was hard to read. Must admit the font wasn't easy on the eye but I couldn't really find another font that I liked and looked okay on the blog so I have gone for a different background design instead. So I hope this makes it easier for everyone to read, wouldn't like anyone to miss out :o) In messing about with the backgrounds though I found one I liked but then it decided to corrupt everything I had written and turned out jibberish; at this point I thought I had lost a whole months blogs before I had a chance to save them. Not happy was I! I tried yet another background and found, much to my relief, the blogs returned back to normal but I am not as keen on this background but I daren't mess around with it again just yet. Another problem I had was with google analytics because we are just plain nosey to know where people come from who read the blog or rather glance through it (well at least I'm honest). Everytime I change the background though it messes with the analytics and I have to try and work out how to correct it. So for my reference and anyone else out there who struggles with this, this is my version of how to do it.

How to add the tracking back to a blog

First get the tracking code from google analytics (this is assuming you have already opened an account)

Click “Edit” (on the same line as your blog address)

Click “Check status” (top right hand side)

copy code from the section "paste this code on your site" (do this exactly, don't copy any extra spaces)

Now go to web page dashboard

Click Design (on the same line as new post)

Click HTML (tab at the top of the page)

Search for  "< /head. 
Done - easy when you know how!!!!!!!

Yes there really is progress on our barn 

We mentioned in my English class last week that Ian had had his birthday earlier in the week and this week when we arrived he was presented with a bunch of flowers - as they do in Latvia - and a cake stand on which was half a dozen apples. It was lovely of them to think of him but it did show the cultural differences between our nations. I don't think I have ever seen men being presented with flowers and a cake stand before in the UK and certainly not something I would think of doing, but here flowers are normal and an accepted part of celebrations, from the flowers given to teachers on the first and last day of school, no matter what gender the teacher is, to birthday and name day celebrations, a new house or a first visit to someone's house, the occasions are numerous where flowers are the appropriate gift to give. Just in case you are wondering what a name day celebration is, it is a specific day when all those with the same name celebrate and there are calendars you can buy with a list of names by each day showing who is celebrating their name day. Today Francis, Modra and Zaigonis celebrate their name days, and just so you don't get mixed up Francis and Zaigonis are men's names and Modra is a woman's name, men's names end in "s" and women's in "a" or "e". You can see a list of name days for Latvia here

A gingko biloba tree. This 7 year old tree will eventually
reach 20m tall, honest! Also gingkos grows in Siberia

I read an excellent article this week on the subject sadness and it asked if in the lifting of the stigma of depression we have lost the importance of just feeling sad? The article makes the distinction between the range of emotions that we go through, the way we go through ups and downs and how this is perfectly normal so why not embrace it, learn from it, but don't get bogged down in it or you may end up truly depressed. The article managed to do this though without diminishing the need for empathy with those who are depressed or even just sad, in fact it even argues that we should allow people more room to be sad, rather than hiding it and pushing it down. I find it very helpful to acknowledge that changes in life, even positive ones, can bring on a period of grief for the loss of something. I allow myself a period of mourning if you like but I also see it as a transitory phase, not one that will last. I think we so often push away sadness because we fear it and therein lies the danger to our mental wellbeing. Life is not all a bed of roses and sooner or later we are going to encounter down days and we may as well acknowledge them and acknowledge the grief we feel because the sooner we do so the more likely the down days will pass and sunnier times come around once again.

The spots of death

Ian and I were sad today as we went around marking trees which would be eventually removed from a portion of our forest. Some are easy as they are not looking healthy but some trees look perfectly healthy, they are just growing too close together and so we had to make a decision as to which ones to remove and which ones are to be saved. If we left them all then the forest would eventually lose vitality as the trees compete for space and so is a necessary operation to undertake for the sake of the health of the whole forest but sad as we don't like cutting down trees. Some trees are not so valuable commercially as others but then to remove all of them would also diminish the variety of life in the forest and so we have tried to maintain a healthy mix of trees, knowing that some will last many years like the oaks and the maples and some will not last as long such as the alder, a pioneer species that after 25 years or so gets diseased and dies off leaving the hardier species like oak to carry on. In one small section though we have found aspen, maple, oak, alder, hazel, spruce, willow, silver birch and rowan, not a bad mix of trees I think. As well as earmarking trees for the chop though we have planted some more, a gingko biloba tree and a cherry tree. Both trees have been planted in our orchard and importantly inside our electric fence for the time being. The cherry tree will stay in our orchard but we haven't decided on the gingko tree yet as it grows very tall. The gingko tree takes thirty years to fruit, so only 23 years more for this 7 year old tree, just in time for us reaching our 70s, how about that for forward planning. We have also planted a thornless blackberry type plant, not entirely sure if it is just a blackberry or some other cross, our Latvian is not that good, a red bilberry and a citronlianas or magnolia vine (apparently an excellent source of vitamin C and gives you lots of energy so we are told and not to be eaten just before bedtime). Trying to decide where to plant things is a bit complicated as we try and visualise what we want to do with the land and how big trees will reach that we are leaving and spaces where they will be removed but we are getting there.

Creative moments

This picture of Riga was from 2004 but then my photos
were not so good that I took this year. Not a good idea to
take photos in a travelling car.

We visited a textile exhibition this last week in Riga which was well worth the trip, just a shame that the main reason for our trip was to pick up Ian's powerbook which couldn't be fixed. He's not a happy bunny! I have to say though, that creativity in others excites me and inspires me, I can't wait to get out the paints and the fabrics and get creating again. I just now have to find some time. Creativity also reminds me what an exuberant, creative God we have, as he did not settle for one tree for example with one colour but such a range of trees, such shapes, such colours, such uses, it's breathtaking. The joy of creating something helps me to identify with our creative God and the sheer joy he must have put in to creating the universe, I wonder how much experimenting and tinkering he did before he got the creation just right. I know some folks think that he spoke and that was that, but since his creation reflects him and artists have as much joy in the creating as the creation I am sure God must have had such fun creating stuff, the sheer pizzazz of creation speaks of it - well it does to me! The sheer abundance of ideas he had for each piece of his creation amazing, I can almost imagine him going "well what do you think blue or white butterflies? Spots or plain? All of them? Good! Just what I was thinking. Now what else can I do with this model?" Now if you don't believe me, take a look at this site to see the process of creating ideas for artwork and look through the sketchbook projects. One idea leads to another creating spin offs and rabbit trails of ideas, now if God didn't do something similar how come we ended up with duck-billed platypuses and the range of butterflies we have? 

Our Amish tomatoes were looking a little sad
and not likely to produce much more so they
were uprooted and some autumn veg put in.
Lettuces, swiss chard, mustard greens,
cabbages, not shown are beetroot and calabrese.
This is a bit of a trial to see how far into autumn/
winter we can grow stuff in the polytunnel.

Isn't it just typical! Not all of creation has a happy ending. The first time I can recall seeing a thrush in Latvia was a dead one after it broke its neck flying into our window. We threw the last bird, that died after flying into our window, over the balcony expecting a cat to pick it up in the night but instead one of the little chaps from downstairs picked it up and was carrying it about the next day. Whoops! Didn't think of that. Where is a hungry cat when you need one? Talking of typical it was also typical that I dropped a full litre bottle of milk on the step outside the only family in our block ie the one with little chappie that picks up dead birds, the family where the kids regularly go outside without shoes (not because they haven't got any but because they want to), the only family in our block that has a dog that they let in and out without supervision and so is often outside their door, also the ground floor (first floor) step and we live on the second floor (third floor - confused! We were when you realise that most folks count from the ground floor as first) and so I had to dash upstairs to get suitable implements to deal with it, hoping that someone didn't walk in it in the meantime. I wouldn't have minded quite so much but I had forgot to put out a milk bottle the night before and so had only just hurriedly got dressed to put out the milk bottle for our milk lady before she disappeared off and pick up the milk that had already been put out. Emotiocons at this point would be wonderful to express the exasperation of that morning. Definitely one of those mornings when you just want to crawl back into bed and start again. Why is it that dropping a bottle of milk always seems such a tragedy? It's not the expense that's for sure. 

Barn foundations. Unfortunately those trees nearby are not
big enough for our barn supports. By the way, how far is the
forest from the barn? Where would you measure too? We
found out the other day it should be 4m away, but they
didn't tell us that before and goodness only knows if there
is a definition of the forest edge to measure too.

For anyone following our long running sagas to get things built we now know why there is not enough wood in the country of Latvia, exports have increased by 43.1%. So if you are in Sweden, Germany or Britain could you send a little of it back so that we can get our barn built? We may have found a possible solution in our friend who has recently started up a firewood business as he has a large saw, no not the one Ian brought back for him last week but another one - it's huge. Now all we have to do is source enough trees to cut down to build a barn - easy peasy heh? Somehow think not. At least the foundations will be well settled in. We did get a demonstration of the saw that Ian brought back last week though, it is an amazing piece of equipment, cuts the logs to length and then it has a log splitter, which makes cutting firewood a whole lot easier than by hand (should have had a video clip here I think, my words don't conjure up the ease of the whole thing) and the power of the log splitter. Scary! It is a good job it is so easy as last weekend he cut up 54 pallets worth of wood, and that is a lot of wood as a pallet is about a metre cubed. Ian ended up helping him out again this week by taking 3 pallets of wood to a collection point to make up a delivery load. Our neighbour's wife expressed thanks to us for helping them out again when they needed it and yet they have been such a blessing to us too, so how can we not help out? We would also be daft to pass up the chance of being connected to some Latvians and getting to know them a bit better, it's also good to hear the language being spoken. All good practice! It is nice to be appreciated though, even if we are only doing what is asked of us and sharing our resources - that's what we are supposed to do, right? 

One ripe melon

It has been a good week of getting to know our neighbours better. The neighbours to the land jokingly said that we should invite them to a melon fest once our melons ripened in return for the bbq we had with them. Well our melons ripened and so the invite was duly extended and we hosted our friends for a meal. Trying to decide what to eat was a struggle, what would give them a taste of English cooking, well my version of it? Do I go for the roast? How English do I go? Well in the end I decide to make a mince and onion pie, only with minced (ground) pork instead of beef since that is hard to get, teamed with Mediterranean roast veg since we had loads of peppers and our first aubergine and a good way of using up those dratted errr I mean wonderful patty squash, potatoes and broccoli. We would have had beans too but forgot to get them out of the pan. Duh! Dessert was coffee cake, melon (of course) and apple (with grated patty squash, but don't tell anyone) crumble. So we had a great time talking about food again, and life in Latvia and England, showing them where we lived on the map and getting to see photos of their life too. It's fascinating seeing the photos of them collecting hay by horse and cart and seeing how they stack it on their Latvian style hayricks and all of this in the last 13 years. In fact the family are thinking of getting another horse to help on the farm as it is cheaper than a tractor. A horse is certainly tempting from our point of view (well maybe more mine than Ian's- can't think why!) as it doesn't make as much of a mess on wet ground as a tractor, the big downside though is that you can't park a horse up over the winter and sort of forget about it and that at the moment is important. We know that once we have animals it won't be as easy to travel and so we are holding off on that for a while longer, after all we have just booked our tickets to Australia to see our daughter getting married this winter (well summer, err winter, well you know what I mean!). 

We have had a number of big thunderstorms
over the summer this year. This is one brewing

Going back to the melons it has been interesting raising them, seeing how they grow and try to take over the world in the process requiring several hackings to keep them under control; I think they sulked and rewarded us with just one melon per plant instead of 5 that we were expecting. It does mean we still have a lot of melons but judging when they are ready is really hard. I thought it was when they were soft at the end, but how soft is soft? I hadn't realised that one type of melon goes yellow when it's ready and we ate one a bit early as it seemed soft enough, it tasted alright but nothing to write home about and we were a bit disappointed. A quick look at the seed packet later though, which fortunately I kept, revealed the truth that we should have waited till it changed colour. Well we waited and we waited and the melons just sat there looking very green for ages and then suddenly quite a few of them all turned yellow in the space of a few days and caught us by surprise. Some of them, however, exploded! Not a pretty site, or a particularly nice smell. Not sure if a certain little visitor to our polytunnel is responsible for some of it by nibbling some of them and encouraging the rot. He or she had better beware as the traps are set!!!! 

I love stormy clouds!

I found a surprising fact about Latvia this week, technically it is the only European country to retain the death penalty although in practice no one has actually been executed since 1996, thank goodness. Still, I did find it strange that it has not been struck off the statute books yet, especially as they have now joined the EU which is abolitionist as regards the death penalty. The death penalty now only remains for murder in wartime or treason in Latvia and so is not likely to be enacted, fortunately or at least I hope not.

The corncrakes packed their bags last week, or at least we
hope so as we have now removed their summer residence
and cut all the grass in the main field now.

As many of you know Latvia has undergone radical cuts prompted by the global crisis which hit this nation particularly hard and resulted in Latvia having to take out a loan from the IMF. The new cuddly IMF apparently does not "dictate" to countries that they "help" as they have done in the past, which is widely reported to have resulted in wrecked economies where the rich get richer and the poor suffer badly, all for their own good of course! They just have to understand that they are undergoing a "bit of pain" so that their country gets better. Yeah right! A slight case of death by starvation or illness you can't afford to treat is okay then to pay off the loan incurred under a despotic regime? Anyway off my rant and back to what the cuddly IMF has being saying recently "Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania should make sure wages do not rise faster than productivity, that business is not taxed excessively, that public finances are kept tight and that prices do not rise faster at home than abroad." Well that's okay then, after all they only said that is what they should be doing and included Estonia and Lithuania who do not have loans with the IMF, so it is only an opinion right? The fact that once again the poor should be kept on a tight rein and the rich businesses should not suffer unduly is okay? That if Latvia chooses not to follow this advice they won't get any further installments of their loan, is okay isn't it? That's not pressure or dictating to after all! Yet the most equal countries in the world such as Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden all tax their businesses and the rich heavily and have generous benefits for the poor which most of the people accept is the right way to do things (well they do in theory, I know the practice is not quite as squeaky clean as they would like you to believe but people are people!) and their economies are doing fine but of course they are exceptions to the rule. Perhaps!

And the game is ....spot Ian! You would think he would find
a better hiding place than that at his age.

Talking of all things cuddly, cuddly Monsanto and DuPont, the saviours of the world - well so they seem to think and like to let everyone know it, are up to old tricks by touting the benefits of drought resistant corn that yields up to 13% greater yield than non-drought resistant corn in times of drought (doesn't say how it compares in years when there isn't a drought). Roedale has been piloting trials in organic methods of raising corn and in drought years their methods produce 31% more than using conventional growing methods. I know which option I would prefer. It also makes a lie that choosing organic methods always leads to a loss of production. 

Our baby oak grove.

Processes

I love the clouds in this photo

We started off this week with injections for tic-bourne encephalitis. The lovely little tics can be found whilst tramping around forests and long grass, which of course when you have land you get to do lots of. Now before I put you off ever visiting Latvia, you have to remember that tics are not just the delightful, little, blood-sucking insects that you only find in Latvia, these sorts that pass on this rather nasty illness, can be found from Alsace-Lorraine in the west to Vladivostok and north-eastern regions of China in the east, and from Scandanavia to Italy, Greece and Crimea in the south, so they are kind of extensive. At least now we can be a little more confident that we shouldn't get a nasty illness from them, well at least in a few days time we can. Apparently you have to make absolutely sure that you do not get a tic bite for the first ten days, when it would be even worse than not having the injection in the first place - something Ian remembered only after he had been making his way through the forest one day and had to strip off to make sure he hadn't got any of the wee beasties. I have also read that if you do remove them within a few hours then there is much less chance of getting an infection from them, so worth remembering even in the UK where there is the delight of Lyme's disease from tics and I don't think there is a vaccination for that yet.

Wood anemone in our forest

There has been lots of processes started off this week from getting lots of lovely manure for the garden, finally finding out how to get milk directly from the farmer, to seeing a man who wants to lay some electricity cables along the edge of our land to starting off the process of getting our barn built. The electricity cables are to connect a biogas unit that is being built to the local substation and we are on that route. It is actually  a good thing as that means we will have a new cable, carrying three phase electric along the edge of our land which should make getting a transformer easier for us when the whole thing gets connected and hopefully the electric supply should be more reliable than the electric in nearby areas. The biogas unit I have also found out will be using grass and we could at a later stage write out a contract with the company to supply them with grass, the only problem is that I am now trying to find out if this is grass that is cut at the same time as silage grass or the end of year meadow grass, if it is green grass that could mean that the local corncrake could come under more pressure in our area. I somehow don't think it will be corncrake friendly grass they will want as that probably won't provide as much biogas unless something is added to it. Swings and roundabouts with trying to think green.

Pied Wagtail with a thing for our car, which it decorates in
its own inimitable style. 

The barn process we are hoping will not become another saga like the polytunnel but we are not holding our breath. We went to see the architect - the same one who gave us permission to have the stove put in. We did wonder if she wanted to see where it was going to be built but she didn't, good job really as we knew she wouldn't be prepared for traipsing across the land by having a suitable pair of shoes or clothes (previous experience told us that). We were a little worried to see her leave the building at around the time we were due to meet her and wondered if we should stop her, problem is we know she doesn't speak English and our translator hadn't arrived, fortunately she didn't take the car so we knew she wouldn't be far away. We were assured though that we could have the technical details by May 15th - I will believe it when I see it though. And as for that polytunnel - we are still waiting. For some reason not known to us they finished off a kiddies playground which has been on the go about as long as our polytunnel and installed it at the kindergarten, at least someone has a finished project!!!! Maybe next week (I could do with an emoticon right now that issues a long sigh)

Working hard in the allotments. Reminds of us of Pat and Mat

It snowed again this week after a lovely few days too. Still it was not totally unexpected as that happened last year as well but the biggggg difference this year is we still have heat (or we did, I think the radiator is cold as I write this for the first time this winter). Last year we were sat shivering under blankets trying to keep warm with just oil-fired radiators to keep warm for much of April after they turned the communal heating off at the end of March. This year we were panicking a bit because we don't have a huge amount of wood left to heat our apartment if they did turn the heat off early so have been really relieved not to need it. Hopefully it means that our neighbours were paying their bills over winter this year, which must be easier to do since the heating bills are so much lower, despite the massive drops in salaries but I still wonder. 

Birthday flowers

It was my birthday this last week and I got flowers galore, a sweet little pink potted rose from a family and bunches from my English class with a vase and a bunch from another friend. My friend bought me a lovely sunny yellow bunch of chrysanthemums because she said the sun had disappeared and so wanted something to remind me of the sun. That made me smile a lot. I did get a DVD from one of my children, one forgot as usual and one tried valiantly to get something to me but I think was defeated by the volcano which shut down Latvian airspace too. Oh well at least I know it is on its way, err as long as it doesn't get lost on route that is. My presents from Ian are usually a long time in arriving, mainly because I decide what I like and then spend absolutely ages trying to find something that fits my criteria. It took months before I found a handbag (American = purse) that I liked. Many bags seem to have way too much bling for my liking. 


After a meal out at our restaurant I sat down to the computer to investigate toilets, composting toilets to be exact and why may you ask would I be doing such a thing, because someone thought I might know about that sort of thing. Well I have looked into it from time to time and I had even had a very interesting site bookmarked where you can learn lots of fascinating things about composting toilets, about toilets in the developing world, how to build a toilet of various sorts and what to do with all that errr compostable material :o), for instance why not dig a pit, build a loo over it and then when it is full, move the loo and plant a tree in the hole or even tomatoes. Smells? No problem, use a ventilation pipe and plenty of sawdust and it's sorted. No wonder he thought to ring me and ask me. 

Ian praying our polytunnel will be finished!
Actually it is a gadget to support the roof
whilst nailing on slips of wood to hold down
the plastic but it does look rather like a crucifix.

Despite the snow we now have returned to some lovely spring like weather. It would put me in mind for some more spring cleaning but I need to get my studying done so no chance. What I might get chance to do is some spring cleaning for the soul though. Spring cleaning for the soul is an idea from the Timber Butte site that I follow and talks about getting rid of the clutter from our souls such as unedifying or even painful thoughts. Clearing out does not mean ignoring them or pretending that they didn't happen but facing them and sorting out the ties surrounding issues, such as what needs to be forgiven? what is an unresolved issue that needs resolving? what is important? what is better to be let go? But like a spring clean it can leave you feeling clean and prepared for what lies ahead. 

A Sunday spent gathering the thatch  Ian has
harrowed up with his tractor instead of gazing at a
computer studying. A brain rest with some much needed
physical work for me.

A very interesting turn around for the IMF this week as they suggest taxing banks - does that mean theirs too? This surprising move has taken analysts by surprise too but reading between the lines it sounds like the IMF are hoping to benefit from such a move and suggesting it goes into their own coffers. Unless the IMF become much more transparent and accountable in their dealings then I think that would be a very bad move indeed. The IMF seem to have gained rather too much power in this crisis, power that only a couple of years ago seemed to be on the wane.

If anyone can identify this weird cup shaped fungi, I would
be most grateful

I mentioned last week that people were beginning to think of a world without planes and this is beginning to happen. It appears to have given fresh impetus to a high speed rail link between Helsinki and Berlin (all that needs to happen now is for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to stop quibbling over it and it could become a reality) only hope that with trains travelling at 300km/hr (186 mph) they do something about the numerous level crossings in Latvia, I somehow don't think the combination will work without a lot of heartache, hopefully they will build bridges over them. It would also be nice to think there is a realistic alternative to air travel, especially as I vowed never ever to travel with Ryanair after the head's ridiculous comments this week. He seems to think that encouraging people to travel on cheap tickets is somehow doing them a favour when the reality is that if they travel with Ryanair and get into problems then Ryanair will not care two hoots about them and believe they should be able to fend for themselves, fine if they have the money for that but the reason that people use Ryanair is because it is cheap. So it seems they are really encouraging reckless behaviour that could leave people stranded. Well not me!

Sunshine rules! Ok!

Well it was 7 years this week since we left England and it is amazing how far we have travelled in the meantime. It is so hard to believe where we started and what we have done. I was a housewife with three kids at home 7 years ago, now I am a student again with no children at home. One child is now in Australia, another planning his wedding and another at Uni. Ian and I have moved three times internationally and visited many more countries as well. When I think of all God has accomplished in those 7 years, it makes me excited for the next 7 years; I'm up for a challenge!

So the start of the next 7 years saw us in Cyprus again. I said Ian had had a call to help out on a Friday and on Monday we had booked the tickets to travel, by Sunday we were in Cyprus where we spent a good week, Ian working hard in a lab and me studying hard sat outside in the garden (hard life isn't it?). In the Bible it talks about a Jubilee year as a time when you don't reap or sow but live off what grows naturally from the land, well we sort of did that in our first year of being in Latvia by living off our savings, the year after Jubilee is a time to sow and the third year is the time to reap what you sowed the year before. Last year new relationships were formed by Ian and old ones re-established meaning he spent two weeks working in Cyprus last year, this year has been the fruit of that. I also needed the sunshine and the fresh vegetables to boost my immune system, I finally shook off the cough I had had for weeks so worth the trip out there for me. Don't get too jealous though, we arrived back to even more snow than when we left even though we expected it to have been melting while we were away.

In travelling backwards and forwards to Cyprus we have discovered a really good airline, Czech airlines. The food is not bad for an airline, they even have metal cutlery, they describe one meal as a light snack but it is a whole baguette with ham, cream cheese and roasted red pepper which is included in the price, a rarity these days and their main meals are pretty edible too. It is just a very pleasant experience and would be even more so if the times of flights from Prague to Cyprus leg weren't so awful, we arrived at 2:30am and left at 3:15am. One of the best parts is the discovery of a brilliant animation Pat and Mat which is made in the Czech republic but it is classic slapstick stuff, we always look forward to seeing them on the in flight entertainment and you don't need to know Czech to understand it. Talking of food and airlines, I had to laugh at one bit of news out from United Airlines (an American airline) that they are going to introduce an organic option to their snack box range, does this mean that finally there is something in the box that is more edible than the box itself? Believe me their snack boxes are awful normally, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

I was spitting feathers at one particular news story about IMF's Mark Allen called out of retirement to come and sort Latvia out, the sense of smugness he has about the job he has done and the sense of rightness that the guy has left me astounded. The fact is that if he has been operating for the last 40 years he has not been doing a very good job. His experience is useless and is still putting the pain of adjustments onto the poorest segments of the population something the Icelandic people decided was not something they were willing to do in their nation judging by their referendum this week. If the IMF did proper assessments of the job they do across the whole of society and found their systems work then I would acquiesce to their knowledge but the only criteria they have is that the country pays back their debts and they believe the pain that is inflicted is fine because the poor will benefit in the end, something that is not borne out by experience, the poor suffer and continue to suffer even after the economy is supposed to be on an even footing. The pain is also only worth it when you are sat in your ivory tower and don't have to watch your child dying through lack of medical help or food because your suddenly expected to pay for it. At least in Latvia people are not dying for want of medical help (well not that I know of) but they do end up with big bills as one of our neighbours has and without the means to pay it.

Not sure if I am happy about the fact that the World Bank has agreed a loan for providing a social security net in Latvia. I agree with the fact that the poor do need additional support and there are plenty around judging by the numbers there are clearing paths in our village. Clearing paths is a job creation scheme for those without work, helpful when it has been very snowy but sad that there are so many needing the money. The problem is that a loan is a debt that needs repaying at the end of the day and is only necessary because of the bad debts that Latvia has got into and the stupidity of bankers greed in lending the money in the first place, the children of this nation have been mortgaged to the hilt now and it will be a long time before they will be free of it.

On a lighter note I was quite entertained by an article on a citizen's initiative in Naples. Claudio Agrelli set up an online community whose citizens never jump red lights, and they always use the pedestrian crossings in other words they always follow the rules, not something that Naples or Italy is renowned for. He is seeking to establish a community where people respect rules and actively participate in discussions on those things they believe would be good for the community which is brilliant really, anything that moves people to becoming active citizens with an interest in other people is to be applauded. Good citizens of the world unite

Photos
Photo 1 My spot by the pool under the palm trees
Photo 2 A lemon tree in the garden of course, not many of those in the UK or Latvia
Photo 3, 4 and 5 my more sheltered spot for windy moments
Photo 6 It wasn't warm all the time so nothing better than a seat by the fire to carry on doing some reading.