Eventually

The beach at Beadnell, Northumberland

Well it has been quite a start to the New Year. It seems so long ago now since I welcomed the New Year in at my daughter's house in the UK. I'm back home in Latvia now and getting into the normal work routine groove - well as near normal as I can get.

George looking dapper

It hasn't been the best of weather during my stay, but this
day was glorious. 

The New Year's party was quite entertaining, with 7 adults and 9 relatively small children. They did pretty well, even if one of them was a bit over wrought and spent the count down with a bucket in case he was sick. I joined in a virtual reality game, which involved virtually swinging light sabres at virtual boxes with arrows on. I think it was more entertaining for those watching and apparently I looked more like I was dancing, than swinging a light sabre. Good fun anyway.

Brencis practising his singing again

Ian and I had a lovely walk along the beach and then back
along the tops of the dunes. 

On New Year's day I headed back down to my son, who had the surprise 30th birthday party the week before. My older son took me down and dropped me off, as he was heading home with his family. We were a bit late arriving and so as soon as I arrived, I was off to another surprise party. It wasn't a surprise to everyone else, it was a surprise to me, as I didn't know I was heading off to a New Year's Day party. At least I knew everyone there and so not a problem. It was a lovely afternoon in fact.

A beautiful frosty moring out on the land.

Peekaboo! Amanda peeking out

We got to visit a few different places, like a city farm near the end of Birmingham airport runway. It is possible to watch the airplanes coming into land from the park nearby. Unfortunately they were coming in from the opposite end that day and so not as impressive, but that was okay as I got to spend quite a bit of time chatting to my granddaughter as we sauntered around the park. I also felted some fingerless gloves with her from the wool I gave her for Christmas.

The cattail rushes look kind of odd just sticking out of the
centre of the pond. One of the problems with the pond drying
up the year before is the rather large amount of vegetation
that grew there.

Northumberland has some great beaches, just a tad cold
from time to time.

One of the reasons for not posting until now is trying to be available to my family and spend time with them as well as fit in my work. I can only be so flexible. Another reason was a change from my planned itinerary. Ian phoned me to tell me that his brother was back in hospital and wasn't expected to live more than two weeks. Ian was already struggling with me being away, the dark and miserable weather and the alpacas not being pregnant and so not a good start to the New Year for him.

A snow bath

There is snow on them thar' hills. They are also a long way
a way. The area has a large waterbird population that nest
there in the summer months. There are also lots of geese
around in winter too.

I transferred some money so Ian could book flights and then started working out a plan to get us up to see his brother. Our kids also swung into action and between us we organised where everyone was staying and travel plans. Gratefully we all managed to say our goodbyes to Ian's oldest brother, before he passed away last week. Despite the sad reason for us being together and having the pain of saying goodbye, it was actually mostly a pleasant time. We got to spend time with Ian's next older brother (Ian is the youngest of three) and Ian's niece, who our oldest son was staying with. We promised the next gathering of the clans will not be for such a sad occasion.

Antonia glowing in the light

The ubiquitous windmills in the distance. Can't think why
they would have them there :D

After the few days up in Northumberland, we dropped Ian off at my daughter's so he could be taken to the airport in the afternoon and I travelled with our oldest son to his home. Home for him is now a caravan. He and his family got sick of being shunted around whilst renting. They are making a good go of raising three kids in a caravan and they seem to be enjoying the experience for the most part. It was always going to be a challenge to share a caravan in January, but they bought a little pop up tent to put in their awning. It worked - I'm used to caravan life and life on the road now, so not so much of a problem, apart from when Storm Brendan swept in. We stayed up late waiting for the wind to die down before I headed to bed in the awning. Unfortunately the wind picked up in the middle of the night, so there were a few sleepless hours listening to the wind. I was snug in my little tent though and the awning survived, even if my son and I had to nip out in the evening to re-fasten one of the storm straps.

A glorious sunset on the land

We had lunch in the conservatory looking out at the dunes.
It is a holiday cottage owned by one of our nieces and Ian's
brother works as a caretaker for them. So while he worked
we relaxed. 

After an eventful time with family, I headed home to Latvia. I sat next to two young women, who seemed to be trying to figure out how to get to their accommodation in Riga. I explained how to get bus tickets and how to recognise where to go. I had hoped to get the 3pm bus from the city centre but our plane arrived late, so no chance for that, especially as I had to wait for my luggage. My travelling companions went off to get tickets and I waited by the carousel. I was watching as one lady with two small children struggled with them, a buggy and a large suitcase. In the end I went over and offered to help, I couldn't bear it any more and no one closer was helping. I walked with her suitcase out to the taxi stand and we chatted a bit. She promised to come and visit our alpaca farm in the future - not sure if she will or not, but at least she seemed happier than when I first saw her, she even called me an angel.

Ilvija wearing her dinner

A cheery face while I do a bit of work.

I caught up with my travelling companions and so we got the bus together into town. I helped them get orientated and waved goodbye. I had a couple of hours to kill in the bus station but time passed quickly enough, especially watching the security guys who were moving on the drunk homeless guys. I have to give them credit for doing that in a respectful way and not in a heavy-handed manner. Mind you, they were big guys and not the sort to mess with. I felt sorry for the homeless guys though, often they just wanted to sleep and one had such bad legs he couldn't have walked well, even if he wasn't drunk.

Ian has been busy fulfilling orders for
yarn. He cleans, cards and spins it himself

Mr. P. in his snowcoat. You can see the problem he has with
his teeth. At least they are not sticking out tonight

On Sunday and Monday morning I caught up with some work. Ian had some bank issues to sort out and so went to the big town but picked me up before he headed back to the land. The aim was to cut Mr. P's teeth as they had got far too long. He can eat hay fine but grasses in spring would be an issue. Once we sorted that out we went for a wander around our land and returned to the greenhouse to puzzle over the disappearing chicken saga. Over the last two nights one chicken has disappeared. It didn't help that not all of them have been going into their arks at night. There are gaps under the arks but we couldn't see how an animal could have dragged out a chicken and there weren't that many feathers left. Anyway, tonight, I climbed into two of the arks and physically made sure all chickens were in, since there were a few of them not going in. Ian got the ones in the other ark as I couldn't reach. Hopefully tonight they are all safe and sound and whatever has been pinching our chickens will give up.

Brencis with a peachy sheen to his coat

A photo of a photo. This is Ian's father at 65 years old. He
died in 2007 at the age of 80. Ian's next brother looks fairly
similar as he heads towards 65 and Ian is beginning to look
more and more like his brother, so I guess this is what Ian
will look like at 65.

So there you are, that's what I've been up to since the last time I blogged.

Welcome to 2019

Let us out! Please! There were a couple of days of wet snow
and so they all got kept in, so they didn't get soaked before a
freeze.

Welcome to 2019. I must remember that as I have already managed to sign something with the date 2018. It was interesting to welcome in the New Year with friends this time. Quite often we have gone to bed before midnight. We decided to back out of the ramble beforehand, as we weren't quite sure what we would be getting ourselves into and it was quite a long time before the party, not easy on Ian who may have been outside most of the day anyway. I also realised that I didn't actually have the right kind of footwear for that kind of thing either. I have wellies for the land and I have hiking boots but not for cold and possibly damp conditions. Anyway, the party was good and the people friendly, so that worked well.

Please! Please! Let me out!

Brencis looking pretty dapper I think

At midnight we went outside and climbed a hill. It was surprisingly steep. I have no idea why I have never noticed this particular knoll in our village before. I guess it is mainly due to living on the other side and only really walking out by our land. We celebrated the New Year with a glass of champagne and a mixture of being wished "Laimīgu Jauno gadu" and a "Happy New Year" by fellow partygoers. The hill turned out to be an excellent spot to watch the fireworks before clambering down the hill, without managing to kill myself in the process (yes it was that steep) and rejoining the party in the old railway station.

Even old Lady V, is looking good

And of course Jakobs is just looking sweet

Later on in the week the friend who helped me with the felting workshop before Christmas came to help me make some slippers. We were both interested to see how it would work with alpaca. Due to the snowy conditions we had to collect her from her parent's farm where she is living at the moment. It turned out to be a very interesting journey there as the snow was quite thick out that way and we had only travelled that way for the first time in the dark the week before. The only way we found the road to her house, was to follow the sticks her father had put in to show where the road was. It was even more tricky on the way back as it had snowed some more during the day.

Finally time to run off some energy

Snow dunes in the garden

The slipper production went well. She worked on one slipper and I followed what she was doing on the other one. We even managed to get them to be about the same, which kind of surprised me. We made the slippers from Herkues fleece. As I mentioned last week, it is not the best for nice scarves, but worked well for the base for Ian's welly inserts last week and worked very well for the slippers this time, as it made a very solid finished product with a satisfying "thwock" sound. My friend left me some leather for the bases and waxed sewing thread. I was quite pleased with them, especially as they certainly kept my feet warm and toasty. Now we just have to see how hardwearing they are.

Sunrise in winter

The deer have been visiting the land. We weren't too
concerned as they don't dig up the land like the pigs, but
now they are starting to find our orchard and eat the trees
there. That we are not so happy about. They don't normally
come so close to the greenhouse area.

Most of the time has been spent doing academic work, so I decided to go out with Ian one day to help with giving Vitamin D injections to the girls, tablets for the boys and do some skiing. The skiing didn't happen. I went out to pick the Brussel sprouts I had grown, even though they were tiny, and on the way back my eyes were aching due to the northerly wind that was blowing. I decided that skiing was not a good activity for the day, so instead I sorted out our seed order for the year. This year we needed a lot of seeds to replace older ones and I haven't managed to do much in the way of seed saving anyway. I also want to ensure I have my seed order for the next few years due to Brexit when I may have to source my seeds from a mainland European country and not the UK. Latvian seeds don't always seem to be very good, although I might start looking around to see if there are other companies.

They maybe didn't get soaked but still a little dusting of snow
one day

Travelling up to Tartu by bus. This is Valka station

The following day I thought I had better stop in before heading up to Tartu and get my packing done. I thought I would finish off a piece of felting but then realised it was already felted enough and so started on a tunic instead - as you do! I didn't finish it and so ended up taking it with me to my friend's in Tartu. At least I got it as far as a stable enough fabric to move, even if it did mean I was weighed down with lots of bags to carry.

I then walk over the border into Estonia. The
little sentry box still stands to mark the border,
but of course there are no border checks here
nowadays. Over the border is Valga

Sofie, who is now on holiday

Our cat hasn't turned up to our greenhouse when Ian goes in the morning for a few days. We found out that she is on holiday at our neighbour's farm. I needed to order some milk from her and asked if she had seen her and she had. We were relieved she was up there, but we hadn't realised she was living the life of Reilly, as we say. Our neighbour's car had broken down and so her son rang us and asked for a lift home. Ian went to pick them up and as they got chatting he found out the life she is now leading. Apparently she is sitting next to the grain to eat the mice that come by, so at least she is earning her keep too. She is also being fed sausage and gets some milk, fresh from the cow, so not sure if she will ever want to come back home, maybe in Spring.

On the bus in Estonia

An old Soviet era train near the Valga train station

Recently I have been reading Wendell Berry's "Unsettling of America" in the mornings, one of a set of books some friends bought for me. His arguments are a little circuitous and hard to follow at times, but still there is much to ponder. I can appreciate the philosophical ponderings that overlap being on a farm and academia. He suffered the frustration of academic thought that gets locked in silos in the universities of his day- thank goodness that has moved on somewhat since his book was written, but it still exists to some extent and frustrates me at times too. Ideas and concepts can look good on paper but in the real messy world there are barriers to spreading the "pure" knowledge and rightly so. So my musings have centred on the issue of the distance between the cities and the countryside and the impact that has on society today.

George might be growing up, but he is still cuddly

Frosted hay

Cities seem to behave as if life in the countryside is unimportant. This is because those living in the cities have often lost the connection to the land and the food produced from it. They have also lost the connection to the concept of stewardship in the process, as land and people are consumed and not cared for. Food is consumed without thought of where it comes from and how it got there - until something goes wrong of course. Then it is the fault of the supplier or the farmer but not the supermarket or consumers for abdicating their responsibilities in the first place for sourcing their food in an ethical manner. Ethical to the people and the earth we live on.

Vanessa's crew's paddock surrounded by frosted trees

I love the look of these frosted oak leaves. Such potential for
some design work

The rise in veganism and the eat organic movement shows people want to care but not necessarily how to care. It is after all hard to do when the processes are so little understood. How can those in the cities understand the natural cycles on which their food supply relies unless they reconnect with the land in some way? How can this vast disconnected society be turned around? Who wants to work in the fields anyway? And yet maybe we should. We mock the totalitarian regimes that sends the workers into the fields - such a waste of talent we might think, such backwardness.

Someone else looks like she wants to get out.

I do not advocate enforcing people to go into the fields for planting, weeding and harvesting, but what happens if we re-value this kind of work? Physically getting our hands in the dirt as a communal activity once again? Many of the interviews that have been conducted in my research in Latvia and Estonia recall the times of communal activity that finished in a celebration, such as haymaking, potato harvesting and apple picking and processing. It was hard physical work, but done together, in connection with the land and the seasonal cycles that produces the food they need to nourish their bodies. Some still enjoy those activities with friends and family, but many also yearn to at least see some of that kind of activity again. Maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all.

Another year over and a new one just begun

Yes the clouds did part and the sun did shine for a short while
out on the land

Well after consultation with the ancient texts we were able to confirm that the glowing ball in the sky today was actually the sun. This resulted in so much joy and jubilation in our household that I turned the light off. In other words, it has been pretty dreich here. A great Scottish word to encompass the damp, dismal, drizzly, dark days that also has an effect on mood, especially sun loving Ian, who was not in the happiest frame of mind anyway, with the worry over Aggie, the mud to contend with and the rain that stops just about all outdoor activities and saps his energy to do much else. The joy lasted all morning, until it started snowing that is ....and then all wood chopping had to cease.

The view from the apartment in our village, where the sun
also shone

Aggie now has a mucky mark on her face from the cream that
the vet gave him to rub in

The vet came out to see Aggie earlier this week and she tried to drain the lump on her face, but there didn't seem to be anything to drain. Instead it is a hard lump. It is quite possible it is something to do with a new set of teeth coming through. We won't know that for certain though until we have another vet come out with a portable x-ray machine. Something we will try and arrange once the vet opens again tomorrow. I remember a friend of ours a few years ago speaking about farming and animals and she said "It's easy, no animals, no problems". Well she was right there!

Alpaca hoof prints

There won't be much skiing at the moment on the ski hill.
The snow has come and gone and come again

I have spent most of this week on and off, finishing off the details for our first felting course of the year in June. We are limiting the places so that people can have a good experience with more personal tuition and it also means we get to see how it all works. Consequently we are nearly full already. This is a great start for us.  (If you would like to see Heather's perspective of her time with us in Latvia planning the felting workshops that I mentioned last week then you can see her blog here. It is highly recommended as some of her photos were superb and I think she captures this country beautifully)

Still eating Christmas trees

It was a tad breezy some days

If you know anyone who would like to join us then do send them over to our website Griezītes Alpakas, you will find a programme and details there. It has been hard work trying to sort out the specifics, but we now have a programme that we are happy with that has a good balance between excursions to see the local area, a tour of Riga and workshops too of course. If we get more interest we will run at least another one of these sort later on in the year. We are also nearly sorted for some shorter workshops too, but we need to just work on the details for that some more.

But the plants are a little confused with the cold spells followed
by the warmer weather

A bit brighter today and at least the rain stopped

It has been a bit of a slog trying to work everything out because I also came down with a cold. Trying to plan a new venture with brain fog is not advisable. It is a good job I am not often ill or for very long. There was only really one day when I truly felt awful and I felt that I could have traced the whole of my lymphatics system by tracking the aches and pains, after that it was just a matter of waiting for it to clear up. I began to feel a bit overwhelmed again though with the work I needed to do and trying to adjust to my new computer. I don't like my MacBook Air at all. It is the first time I have felt that I am taking a truly retrograde step in computing, as it does not seem as near intuitive as I expect from a Mac nor does it have some of the functionality of previous operating systems. There has been much huffing and puffing.

A chance for a stroll in the sun

A little sunbathing for some alarmingly fat sheep. We just
feel they are waiting until the worst weather to give birth

At least now I feel I am beginning to get down the list of things to do, although most of the things I have accomplished seem to have been fairly short and quick things to do, which still leaves some major work to get done over the next few weeks. Hopefully I can start to whittle away at those before my time whittles away.

More sunshine

A reflective Brencis

I decided this year to actually stay awake and welcome in the New Year. I didn't last year and Ian didn't again this year, so it was just me. That was fine. I just felt I needed to be awake for what lies ahead this year. This year has been quite a struggle for us in many ways. The loss of two of our adult animals, a cria and some lambs. The hot dry start to our growing season and then the ongoing wet summer that meant our hay was still being cut in September. and a lot less of it than normal Trying to get work done for my course and so on. These seem to drown out the good points at times, such as the fact we had over 300 visitors to the farm and we actually made enough money to cover the feed of the alpacas. The fact that despite the lack of income over the years, we are still managing to get by here in Latvia and love this place and call it our home. What will next year be like? I'm not sure, but I do know I want to be awake to see what it will look like.

Finally the light is just right to be able to capture the curls
in Mr. P's fleece and the fact he does like to wear his food

The boys taking advantage that the rain has stopped

Now I have to mention something that I have so far neglected, my youngest son. It has taken a week of messages backwards and forwards until we managed to find a time when we were both online and free to chat at the same time as Ian was home too. Apparently the mention of only talking with two of my children in the blog last week was taken as a subtle hint to my youngest that he had been remiss in so far not chatting to me- good I am glad there was a tad bit of guilt in there and yes I have left this until last so you have to read down the whole blog to find mention of the fact we Skyped today, son. Only joking. It was good to chat with hm and his family today. We were a bit silly at times, we watched the cat attacking them over the top of the computer, which was resting on her scratching post anyway and we generally chatted about this and that. As the old phone advert used to say "It's good to talk". Now I just have to catch up with my Mum.

The ice has receded for now, but it won't be for long. The
forecast is for some sharp drops in temperatures soon/