Still waiting

Early morning sunshine

Gosh it has been busy this week. I half expected a Masters thesis to land in my lap to mark, so to speak and sure enough it did. There was not much time to mark it as it was just one more thing to add to the numerous things that needed doing this week. I did spend quite a bit of time on it though, because it was only fair to the person who had put so much effort into putting it together. I had to put off marking an exam for the course I tutored, as I knew I couldn't do both and the Masters student's work had a deadline for marking and a defence this week.

Morning mist

I also managed to get our apartment sorted into some sort of shape for a family to live in over the summer.  They are safely installed now, only they are coming and going, which has actually been a boon for us as we had someone help us cull two of our sheep this week and we needed to prepare them for the freezer. This was much easier in the apartment and being nice and tidy, it was lovely just to get on and sort it. Still took us until midnight before we were back in our caravan.

Aggie looking unusually alert in the cool misty morning.
Normally she just looks tired

The sheep were noisy, demanding things. We were half considering giving them away to a charity that wanted animals for work experience for ex-offenders but we couldn't give them these particular animals. It would not have been fair. Since they have gone the other ewe and the two lambs that were born earlier this year have just got on eating and not made much of a noise. There was no chorus at around 7pm demanding their grain. Actually chorus is too kind a description. The three that are left  just ran up tonight and followed me inside, good as gold. I even had the lambs eating out of my hand. This is preparation for moving them further away from the area they are in now. They need to be able to follow the food.

The alpacas are there somewhere

The week feels a bit of a blur and it is hard to remember what happened. I had time to Skype with my daughter and her three. The two oldest ones read me books, the eldest has memorised most of the books, but the nearly two year old just babbled along - most amusing. He still calls me MAM-MA at the top of his voice. I got a bit more done on my analysing of work to be done for a paper that needs to be re-written and I was so close to finishing that before the thesis landed on me.

A white rainbow

So other random things? We had another coach party. We had a visit from our neighbours who haven't been around for a while, in fact they haven't been around for a couple of year, so nice to see them again. I have planted tomatoes, but still have loads more to do. I have planted herb seeds. I have sorted out restaurants, car hire, invoices, helped Ian move the chicken arks outside onto the grass and done lots of weeding. It doesn't look like I've done lots of weeding, but I have honest!

Griezites-henge

Ian has been trying to get the place shipshape and looking good. He has mowed grass, but of course with warmth and rain it needs doing again. He has moved the tractor equipment away from in front of the girls paddock to near the forest. He fixed the toilet that was sinking in one corner and he started building the next alpaca house, or maybe workshop, shop, barn - whatever it is needed for basically.

Working hard

Impressive he can still get in that t-shirt. You would be
shocked how old it is. 

We both saw a baby moose with its mother. Ian saw it being chased by dogs and I saw them later. I wondered why I saw them in the day time and the baby was behind the mother. I stopped the car as I felt it was panicking the little one but it decided to go down the bank towards the river. I had no idea what to do, I couldn't go and check to see if it was okay, because a moose mum is not something to be messed with. I stood on the car runner and listened and I couldn't hear any distress calls from an animal in the water and decided the best thing was probably to hope it had found a safe place and let it's mum find it.

Looking rather skinny now after shearing. Mind you, Brencis
looks bigger than we thought he would. He's getting a big
chap now. He also decided to act up before shearing and so
he took quite a bit of convincing 

I don't normally mention what happens on Tuesday in a late blog as that is the beginning of a blog week (if that makes sense), but I will this week as it is destined to be busy again as our first felting course of the year starts next Monday. So today I nipped back into our village, picked up the milk, transferred some towels to our other apartment, picked up a big pot for making stock out of bones, kept my eye on some new chicks we have and so far we have ten, we have got the boys sheared, I planted fodder beets, beetroot, carrots, peas and then put the animals away - since Ian is back at the apartment mincing up the bits of mutton, finishing off the stock after our hot plate stopped working and getting a shower.

Still waiting to hear if he is the father of a girl or boy

So all of that and we are still waiting for cria to be born. We half expected one to go into labour today, especially since we planned to do some shearing, but no. Maybe next week.

This picture amuses me because the shadow looks almost
the same as Mr. P

How elegant! Having a roll in the dirt after shearing

Look what you did to me!

Now the flies can get a bit nearer! (Look carefully to the left)
One of the downsides of shearing

Sunbathing without the fur coat. 

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/ 

To do lists

On Sofie's to-do-list is sleep. Actually she does do a very
good job of keeping the vole and mice population in check
and away from our animal feed. Here she is sleeping on the job

An eclectic week as usual with a long list of to dos that described the variety. Two presentations to prepare with online groups from varying countries, reading for courses, writing of papers, advertising for our summer felting workshop, gardening jobs, car technical and so on. There were nights I have to confess to feeling pretty tired, but I at least felt I was getting somewhere as I worked down the lists. I wish I didn't have to do the courses now, but they are useful and just at the right time in other ways.

A damp looking alpaca. We are not quite sure what happened
the other day, but Tellus got out from the electric fence and
since then the boys have been a bit on edge. They wouldn't
even go in one night

Advertising for our farm and felting workshop was a top priority to sort out. Some parts required translation and when I got the translation through I had to add the translation to the poster I had designed, which required some jiggling around of the set out. Felt in Latvian is a longer word and so I had to move pictures to fit it in. Most of it worked the same though. I have also sorted out business cards for Ian and if all goes to plan we should have those and some posters in Latvian ready tomorrow.

Mr. P. having a bad hair day

Both the courses I have been doing recently required online presentations to be prepared. It is quite a challenge when people come from different circumstances with different access to the internet and different works schedules. In the end I set up a Facebook group for both of them  just so we can discuss the things we need to do without having to stick to trying to arrange Skype calls that not all of us can make at the same time. It did amuse me that I would do that as the oldest one in the group, but then perhaps the younger members would have suggested something different to do the same thing. The main thing is that we got there in the end and the presentations, worked well enough.

How could anyone resist a picture of an alpaca when they are
as cute as Mari? It is a good job she is cute though, she is
proving a bit of a handful for eating through fences, which
does not do the fence much good. That and her mountain
goat impressions inside the alpaca house when she wants
some hay. She has a sweet temperament though

Friday was my birthday and we had a day off, well kind of. Ian got a day away from the alpacas and I got a day away from academic work. Just to celebrate we went to the big town to take the car for its technical. We were a little surprised that it actually passed and so the work we know will need doing on it is not so urgent that it has to be done immediately and can be fitted in with our schedule better. The prices though for technicals and road tax (which has to be paid at the same time) have gone up with quite a jump over the last 8 years.

Any suggestions for a caption for this picture of Chanel?

We also had a meeting with a lady at the museum in the town, she was acting as translator for an older lady who wanted to book a trip to our farm. We wanted to meet to make sure about the arrangements. The older lady who was doing the booking was a very lively lady who gave me a handful of forsythia, a very spring-like gift. She didn't even know it was my birthday. She loved the pictures of our alpacas that Ian showed her on the computer and she had with her the article from the newspaper that featured us last year. We now have a booking for 54 seniors to visit in May. If they are all as lively as she is we will have a busy old time keeping up with them.

Hopefully Lady V is enjoying her year off from being pregnant

We rounded off the day with a late lunch at our local hotel and then got ready to spend time out in the caravan. We are slowly getting more organised for this and although the mornings have been on the cool side, even though the caravan is still in the greenhouse, we have slept well. Ian is often disturbed by our neighbours who are early risers when we are in the apartment - not that they are particularly noisy it is just he hears them moving around. I don't, but then I am as deaf as a doorpost really. It does mean though that we get up later out in the caravan, but still early enough to let the alpacas out at a reasonable time and I don't think we would get to sleep in much later with the cockerel in an ark right outside the caravan.

but is Estelle pregnant? We are still not sure, some days she
looks like she is and some days she doesn't

Since we are out on the land so much now, it means that when it is dry I can get out and do some gardening. I can plan my day around the rather too frequent showers. If it is due to rain in the afternoon, I will do some gardening in the morning and then reading or writing in the afternoon and even into the evening, if need be. If it is dry all day (not many of those just lately) I can do my reading and writing interspersed with a bit of time off in the garden. The chickens are loving the buckets of weeds though and I hope that their eggs will be turning bright orange with all the greenery. At least I have now planted up the broad beans outside, along with sorting out the Jerusalem artichoke bed. I have extended it as we plan to have quite a few beds of those so the chickens can eat them over the winter. We didn't have enough of them to give them on a very regular basis. The alpacas can have them from time to time too. Actually so can we.

Aggie is changing and is now at the stage where she is ready
for mating. Our first alpaca to be born on the land, now
possibly ready for having babies of her own

Ian of course has been doing much more land work than I have. He has moved a wood pile that was in the way for fencing off the next section of garden where we will be planting vegetables. Once that was moved he could then shift the manure heap around with the tractor to make some raised beds. The manure is well rotted - at least most of it is anyway and that means we can plant into it and not have to do a lot of digging and rotavating. We left some rows for rotatvating because the cabbages and such like will not like being planted into the manure even if it is well rotted. We will mulch them with hay to add bulk to the soil. It is nice to see how our orchard plot is beginning to turn from a sandy colour to black from the amount of chippings, hay and compost that we have added over the years.

One of Ian's jobs. Moving the manure into heaps with the
tractor. Now they are in place he can fence the garden areas.
The beds that were made last week weren't straight and so the
first job was to straighten then up and then put the remaining
manure in the second plot. Eventually we will have four plots
that we can rotate so the sheep are not on the same plot
each winter and the chickens move from plot to plot too.

In between moving fences, showing visitors around, fixing the car, piling up wood and rotavating the field ready for planting, Ian has also been carding wool. At least it is something he can do when it rains. The drum carder is doing a nice job of cleaning the wool of the vegetable debris that our alpacas love to accumulate by rolling around in the hay and is a lot faster than hand carding of course. It needs at least two passes through the carder to get a relatively clean product and possibly three to really get it clean, but since it is relative quick to do, that isn't a problem. As I said Ian has also been showing visitors around and every weekend we have had a group or family turn up. It will be much nicer though on a warm day, it got rather chilly when we were chatting to our last group of visitors and one little girl decided that it was too cold and went and sat in the car. Her mum was fascinated though with the alpacas. I guess we must print out the brochures for the workshop so they can take one. We are not getting them professionally printed because they are too expensive just for the workshop, we will get them printed for general purposes though.

Rotavated fields in the background. She will need moving soon
but the grass is only growing slowly in the cooler weather 
this week

A friend of mine has been the source of a good few contacts, more recently via Facebook. I got chatting with one chap about development and we realised that our interests and thoughts were on the same wavelength. On my birthday we had a Skype conversation where we chatted about encouraging people to get involved and how problematic that can be, both getting people involved and then sometimes expecting too much from people who have lives to live. We both found it very encouraging from a professional point of view. It was funny though to hear how he felt I was the only academic doing the kind of work I do in the whole of Latvia. Scary thought too.

Green grass! Yum!

Just to finish off with something that caught my attention on the BBC, a Greek granny hosting several Syrian refugees on a meagre budget. I often see posts where the Prime Minister of Hungary is talking about Europe being a Christian country and therefore should not accept refugees but I feel that the Greek granny displays more of what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 25:37-40

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

The bible encourages us to care for the sick, the orphan and the alien amongst us. Aliens means not the same as us. There are no excuses for not caring for people in need and fear of the one who might cause us harm is no excuse for ignoring the plight of the rest. The Greek granny and others like her who reach out to the refugees and offer hope are my heroes.

Conversing with academics and chickens

A typical Latvian rural scene, complete with obligatory
stork's nest, pond, orchard and old buildings. Wonderfully
photoshopped by wonderful youngest son to remove the
car. I wanted this for a paper that needs to be in by Friday
and he spent about five minutes of his lunch break on it.

It has been a bit of a strange week for me. I’m home alone with the alpacas and not Ian for a change. He is off in England learning more about taking care of alpacas and then tomorrow he will be learning about shearing them. On Tuesday of last week, I went out to our land to find out how to take care of our alpacas and their routine, then on Wednesday, my birthday, I was up early and heading out of the door to travel up to Tallinn for a conference. I did at least get cake as they had some refreshments during the registration, albeit rather small but nice pieces of cake. It was just not a big slab of moist chocolate cake that I rather like. Oh well! I’m sure my waistline is better for it.

The woods are starting to green up now and is
carpeted in flowers

A closer look at the woods

I had to do a presentation at the conference and mine was the first one in the first session. At least it meant it was over and done with straight away. The title was Dare to Dream? – well that wasn’t the complete title, the full title was “Dare to Dream? Role of inspiration and participation in moving towards a more hopeful future in landscape governance.” Trips off the tongue doesn't it? Basically I was looking at the role of inspirational leaders in helping to change communities into more optimistic places ready to take on the challenges of the future. It seemed to go down well and some people described it as inspiring, so that’s positive. In my talk I suggested that there is a real need to bring story-tellers, scientists and therapeutic professions, conservationists and policymakers, the public and experts into a conversation to help generate images of a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, connected to the landscape and the environment in which people live – to quote from my presentation notes.

Closer still. Wood anemones - unfortunately not edible
as they are a member of the buttercup family

More flowers. These are under the oak tree

As many of the people at the conference were educators teaching either children or teaching those who teach children about sustainable education, it was not a boring conference and many of the presenters at least had colourful slides that did not contain a huge amount of text – there were some which were a little tedious, but thankfully few and far between. There was one lady who gave a presentation on teaching undergraduates sustainable education, but since the university did not really value the topic there was little time allocated to it. She still came up with an interesting and thought provoking programme for her students though. She made them empty their bags and then she chose an item from it for them to research. They had to find out such things as where and how it was made and the life cycle of the item. It made them think a little more critically about the things they buy – it’s a start anyway. One lady demonstrated how she taught children to use shadow puppets for plays and one main speaker was particularly entertaining as he was not just a theology tutor at a university but used to be a theatre director, so obviously a dramatic delivery. I had to smile though as he struggled to get through his talk due to time constraints. It is one of the reasons I write mine down and read them. Not the best way, but it keeps me on time and on track - not taking off on another trajectory. Fortunately I used to read books to children, so reading text isn't an issue.

These are strange looking plants. If anyone
knows their name then feel free to comment.
Unfortunately I haven't got a lot of time
to do the research tonight

A field full of the flowers above

Just as in any conference there is a dinner and this one had a rather nice menu. There was goat’s cheese from a local farm and organic beef – of course for a sustainable education conference. It was held in the Seaplane Harbour Museum in Tallinn and it was very atmospheric sitting amongst all the ships close to a submarine. I and another lady were just a little anti-social by this time though and we sat at the edge of the group of tables and chatted between ourselves. We were rather tired by then and so it was nice just to talk, especially since neither of us were specialists in the field that many were in. We were both fascinated though by what each other had been doing, so plenty to chat about. Unfortunately you will have to wait for the photos, as Ian now has my camera and I didn't get the chance to download the photos.

These flowers are quite delicate looking.

A view from our ski hill. If you are eagle eyed, you might
just see our alpacas in the distance

After the conference I headed to Riga to stay overnight with my young crazy friend. She had a dress that she had bought from a second hand shop and it had a little tear in it. She wondered if I might be able to do something with it, so I repaired it with some embroidered flowers while we chatted, bit of a difference to talking at a conference. The next morning I headed to the airport to meet Ian and we spent an hour together before he went off to his course and I headed to the car to wend my way home. If you are wondering why I didn't go home first, the bus timetable didn't allow me to attend the whole conference and get back home, but I could get a bus to Riga.

Further up the ski hill and looking towards a neighbours land

My charges this week

So for the last two days or so, I have been taking care of the animals. This has involved having deep meaningful chats with our free range cockerels – along the lines of “invade my personal space one more time and you will be heading for a rendezvous with an axe.” I think they got the message as I chatted to them whilst they were tucked under my arm to reinforce the point. I was of course invading their personal space, as I was at the entrance to their abodes, to either feed them or let them out, but they need to realise that they had better be cool with that in order that we can co-exist side by side and they get fed and tucked away safely at night. The alpacas fortunately have been fine. There was a point when I wondered if the girls were going to disappear off before I had the chance to shut the door, but fortunately they turned around and went back in. I had fleeting visions of spending the night chasing them around the paddock. Lady V did demonstrate her disgust with me at one point by stomping her foot, but nothing too serious. The boys though have been very well behaved and very orderly. Turbjørn our slightly jumpy one has even allowed me to feed him from the tray and come to drink from the bucket of water I was carrying. Well someone kind of trusts me. One of our cockerels in the arks has booked his appointment with the axe though, he scratched me deliberately - this is nothing personal as he has gone for Ian before too. Wouldn't mind so much but I was feeding the chickens in his ark at the time, you would think he would be grateful.

Ian was busy this week before he went away. He has chain
harrowed the land to flatten the mole hills that always
appear over winter and some of the ruts the wild boar
have made

I forgot to mention last week that I was skyping with my two year old granddaughter and I was showing her the chicks. I picked one up in my hand to show her and she kept putting her hand out, she wanted to hold them too. So cute! She just couldn't get why she couldn't take them. I bet they are pleased she wasn't really in the room, not sure how gentle she will be with them. 

He has also rotavated this piece that had been ploughed
previously. We just need to collect the oats now to seed it.
Or maybe it is buckwheat going in there, can't remember now

More rotavating has been done and barley sown. Ian has
experimented, firstly with raking it in - which was rather
hard work for what looked like not much result and then
he used the rotavator on a section to turn the seed in. He
will see what the difference is. I guess it might need some
rain though. It has been a bit dry since it was sown

I was rather concerned this week to read the increase in the number of walls being erected on national borders. I will always remember the sight of the one in Nicosia with the pock-marked buildings slowly decaying in no mans land. It was a truly saddening sight. It was nice one day to see that the wall had actually been taken down in one place on our last visit. In fact we nearly inadvertently crossed over the border without realising it - not a good thing with no passport in our possession at the time. Fortunately it dawned on us where we were just in time. I think the last paragraph of the article in the Independent is very true though and should give us pause to think.

Still, don’t good fences at least make good neighbours? Not according to European integration expert Kalypso Nicolaidis. She says that in all the three main cases – in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Poland – governments are guilty of making decisions effective only in the short term. “People don’t really understand that it’s really about what’s happening at the source. Deal with Russia, deal with the problems that cause people to travel up from the Middle East and Africa – that’s much more effective,” she says. “But in citizens’ imaginations, walls have an imaginative quality which politicians tend to pander to. They seem like the easier solution.”

It concerns me to think that some of these barriers are to keep out the Russians, which really won't make much difference should they ever decide to invade anyway. All barriers do is breed distrust, just as the article states. Let's hope for a few more moments like when the Berlin Wall came down instead.

One of those places that is always wet
in Spring. Not sure if this is a spring or
drains. It's wet anyway

One last update and then I'm heading for bed. We had a house meeting this week and there is still not a unanimous decision to come off the district heating supply yet. There was an improvement to previous years- now it is 50/50 of those that want to come off and those that want to stay on. Unfortunately communication with two of the apartment owners is not very good due to some rather difficult issues that have been rumbling on for a while, so their opinion is not known. I do wish the defences would come down in this situation though and neighbours could get on better.