Oh so quiet!

Our sign went back up today with a new roof to hopefully
stop it from discolouring as much this year. You can see the
alpacas out on the grass behind.

I feel slightly disorientated today. I have now been at home two days and out on the land for both of them. It has been ever so quiet, except when our very loud and demanding sheep get going. The weather has been lovely and so I have got some gardening done on the first day, but the second day I had to get some accounts prepared for the accountants, as well as get some marking done. It was nice to get outside and in the sun though and even though I had to do the accounts, I could take a walk every now and again and see what Ian was up to.

How on earth caught me in this pose, I have no idea. It looks
like I'm dancing when I am actually trying to break off the
old Jerusalem Artichoke stems

At least here I look like I'm gardening

It had been a hard day!

Anyway back to the previous week. I have enjoyed helping my daughter and her family while they adjust to the newborn. It has been busy and, as you may have guessed, loud. My little nearly two year old grandson is a lovely, huggy little chap, but he has only one volume and only just occasionally is he getting the point that actually he could turn it down a bit. It was funny though to hear him shout Ma-mar at the top of his voice and sometimes he would also run up to me and throw his arms around me and give me the most wonderful hugs. My granddaughter being a daddy's girl was not always so huggy, in fact the morning I had to get her breakfast because her daddy was away was the day she told me that she didn't want me. Oh boy! A good start to the day, but she came round and we had a nice quiet time before everyone was up later.

The older dynamo

The smaller but louder dynamo

A thoughtful little chap and usually quite peaceful once the
ordeal of the nappy change is over

I had lots of cuddles with the little one too, but generally because he is a baby who needed cuddling and was a bit colicky at times. Poor little soul also got a cold, which fortunately didn't last long. He loves his baths but hates the process of being undressed and dressed, so during the bath time he is so content that he falls asleep, but before and after he is screaming the place down. He reminds me of my youngest who also hated the process of nappy changing for the first six weeks of his life. Oh well! Two down, four more to go and then he will probably be fine. He is already better than he was. Still I couldn't complain at having plenty of excuses for cuddles.

Full of cheek and here is his special photogenic
smile

The view from my daughter's house

I did do a bit of gardening too. At least got rid of the dead
stuff out of the beds. After the building work though, it is
going to need some hardwork

The last week seemed to fly by in a whirl of preparing young ones for trips out to take the oldest to pre-school and swimming or all of them for mother and toddler groups. I did manage to fit in some time to sew some more waistcoats but had to bring back two to finish off. I also got to see a friend who I haven't seen in quite a few years now and we had a great catch up. She even bought some lovely flowers for my daughter and a little toy for the youngest. We also talked about assignments since we are both studying even though we are mature students.

On the way to the airport I had lunch with the family at a
place where we used to take the children on a fairly regular
basis. Not McDonalds for us but Caudwell Mill, where they
serve some rather nice cakes.

An eerie day with some weird cloud formations

I also had a meeting with an academic from Nottingham University who is researching the effects of ageing in the farming community, she was in the town where I was staying to connect with those who go to the agricultural centre. It is quite a sensitive topic and it is difficult for families in isolated areas to cope, especially as support networks have decreased over time. It was interesting to hear of the various overlaps of our research and interesting to find some of the areas where it diverges. After talking with little children for quite a large proportion of the week, it was nice to have a more academic chat too.

Errr! I thought it was spring! A dumping of 8cm of snow on
31st March

Not much grass in the paddock

So back to the land, we are hoping the lambs have inherited their father's more demure tones and not their mother's demanding ones. I have been around sheep for a large part of my life, either visiting my Godmother up on her hill farm in the Lake district or going for daily walks through the sheep fields around where I used to live in Derbyshire, but never in all those years have I known such noisy sheep as these. It is not just the volume or the length of time they make a racquet but the tone, which almost sounds aggressive. They want to be out on the grass of course and whereas we have started letting the alpacas out, the sheep are far harder on what little grass there is since they eat twice as much as the alpacas, which means they would do irreparable damage. So for the time being they have to continue to eat hay but what they really want besides the grass is the sheep grain, which they get each evening. So until the grass gets going we have to put up with it, or rather Ian does. Methinks there are some heading for the freezer later in the year.

A rush to get out on the little bit of grass

Mari looking very fluffy

There have been a few visitors again this week, some before I got back and some after. The first couple of visitors booked for a walk with Brencis and he performed admirably. Ian tried to take Mr. P as well but he was more reluctant. This is the first time we have had a request for a walk and been able to let them. The first couple who asked, we had to refuse as the conditions were too slippery. Hopefully they plan to come back again. The other couple happened to see the alpacas and stopped to have a look at the strange animals.

The boys, especially Turbjørn, knew what Ian was doing and
were queuing up at the gate in anticipation

In a rush they are through

Ian's week has been an eclectic one from chipping small branches from trees he cut over winter (which will be used on the road way) to fixing our halogen oven with a thermostat I brought back from the UK. He also managed to chain harrow the grass, which is like giving the grass a good combing after the winter to take off some of the dead thatch. It isn't necessary every year and last year he didn't manage as it was too wet and then the grass grew too long. In between dumpings of snow, there has been enough dry days this year for the ground to firm up, so he can get the tractor out to do those kinds of jobs.

Veronica

Hopefully Chanel's fleece is as good this year. I wonder
what colour her baby will be though. She should be due at
the end of May or beginning of June

Whilst I have been away he has also been processing Chanel's fleece, which seems to be another super warm type similar to Veronica's, so it will be interesting to know how it knits up. There is less time to process fleece in the evenings now though because he is spending more and more time out on the land as the days get longer. Soon it will be time to transition to living in the caravan again and our days will be spent trying to prepare the land for planting and all the other spring and then summer tasks. And so the cycle starts again!

The lizard's are appearing and we have seen fish and
frogspawn in the ponds

The birds of prey are also coming back and we have heard
the cranes starting their very loud mating calls. The storks
too have returned

Just a typical week really!

Not quite sure why the picture is cropped the way it has, but
never mind, I love the cloud scene anyway

What a range of visitors we have had this week, from India to Liverpool. The reason for the lateness of this blog was an unexpected visit from some folks from what we jokingly call Northernshire in our family, in other words from the Northern parts of England. It is bizarre to meet people here in the middle of rural Latvia who come from near where I lived as a child and close to where my parents now live. There were a couple who were from Blackburn and Preston who were house sitting for a young chap who has a house nearby and is a regular visitor to our farm now. They came with a friend who had come to visit for a few days, who was from Liverpool. Well we extended a typical northern welcome and invited them for some tea and cake, which they graciously accepted.

A marshmallow plant

I'm afraid that sometimes the offer of tea and cake can send some folks on their way for some reason. Not sure if it is my cakes - they're not bad really, ask Ian - or just not used to being invited for a cup of tea or they really do have to be on their way. Still it was nice they accepted and we had a great time chatting. They were really open about where they are at in life and we talked about our journeys. It is exciting to hear of some young folks who are willing to be different and experiment in life, but sadly as they say, they have nothing to lose these days.

A soggy unshorn sheep. We need some dry weather again

They appreciated my feelings that I feel my generation have let them down by taking so much and expecting so much from them too. It annoys me that rents and university fees are so high, when our generation benefitted from much better provision for the future. We were thrilled too that they felt inspired while chatting to carry on pursuing what is on their hearts. We were all amazed how time flew and by the time they left it was time to make our evening meal and then I had chanterelles and some boletes mushrooms to sort out for drying and they couldn't wait or I would have wasted the hour or so that it took for me to pick them. Not forgetting that I also had chickens to feed and put away for the night.

Lots of mowing done

Grapes ripening

As usual in July my supervisor and his wife come to visit us, or our alpacas really. This time they brought a fellow PhD student, his wife and their little four year old, who are originally from India (we are clocking up an amazing array visitors from many different countries now). The little one was a bright spark, who spoke good English and presumably Hindi, but not absolutely sure and a little Estonian, but on this day she was adamant she was speaking English. Being Indian but spending most of her time in first Edinburgh and then Tartu, she was not familiar with some of the plants we have here on the land and unfortunately discovered nettles. I had to show her what they looked like so she could avoid them and I also had to get out my spray for itchy spots and bites, which fortunately worked well on her, although she looked very dubious about it before she let me spray the area that she had stung. We were amused to hear her talking about the "sting rays" afterwards.

More early morning sunshine, but don't be deceived it clouded
over later.

Starting to get a regular supply of tomatoes now at last

At one point she asked me why we had buckets under the caravan and I explained it was to catch the rain water. With absolute logic she stated they should be put out on the grass away from the caravan so they could catch more rain. I could not convince her that all the water from the roof of the caravan trickled down at these points into the buckets and would collect more water that way. She was quite insistent that they should not be there. I wonder if one of our own granddaughters would display the same forthright opinions on such matters when she comes, I could imagine she will.

It would have been nice to share some of the photos from
the visit, but we haven't seen any yet and we are too busy
showing people around to take photos normally

We also had a coach party in this week again. We were told it was going to be a group of about 30 with special needs but weren't given much in the way of details. We thought that meant 30 total with some who had special needs, not necessarily 30 with special needs plus about 20 helpers. When the bus turned up, we realised it was going to be a few more than 30. Fortunately most were mobile with only three in wheelchairs. Much as we would like to be accessible, we are not entirely and the only reason we were was because the ground at the time was still relatively dry and Ian had been able to mow the grass around the girls' paddock area to make things easier. If it had been today, it might have been a bit of a struggle with the wheelchairs, as it has got very muddy with the very wet weather we have had over the last few days.

A sunflower in the brief spell of sunshine we had this morning

We gave them the talk, with one of the ladies from the group translating, about what we do with the alpacas and many of them were really engaged and were asking questions afterwards. One young guy was really lovely and went onto tell us that his uncle uses a horse in their garden and he combs the mane of the horse. Those with special needs are not well integrated into society here and people tend to look down on them, however, we have had experience over the years and love working with them. They were a really warm and friendly group. We explained that if they were calm and quiet the alpacas would be more likely to come to them, and bless them they really were very gentle with the animals. We gave them carrots to feed the alpacas and let them into the girls' paddock.

The soggy barley has been mulched

We brought two of our young males across too, as we didn't think it would work to take them across to the boys' paddock as that was a bit too challenging with the wheelchairs. Ian made sure that those in the wheelchairs got to feel the soft coat of our youngest alpaca, Brencis and the smiles on their faces was priceless. When it was time to go we walked down the road with Brencis and Ian gave one end of the leading rope to the young chap who told us about his uncle's horse. There was a cluster of young boys as well who also wanted to hold the rope. I don't think they really wanted to go. There were lots of happy faces and cheery waves as they left in the coach. If all coach parties were that easy, it would be lovely.

At least we have some squashes ripening

Of course there were other visitors too, who were all just passing and had noticed the alpacas in the field. There was a group of four cyclists who Ian spotted in our field taking a look, he had quite a chat with them as they were really interested in what we were doing. I had to cut short chatting with them as another couple came on. I could tell by the way the lady was talking that she was more business orientated as she was asking about the marketing of the place and I explained about using Facebook and how word of mouth seems to be quite effective. Later on she asked if we believed in God and I explained how we felt we should care for this wonderful world he gave us. They couldn't stop long but they asked if they could pray for us, which was really nice and to cap it all they wrote a lovely piece about our place on Facebook.

A soggy Mr. P.

There was another group of three who were also just passing but we had a problem with the language. They still enjoyed the visit and the young chap was on the phone to someone telling them about the llamas, to which his mother corrected him and told him they weren't llamas, they were alpacas, which amused me. At least someone got it! We often have to correct people who think they are llamas. Close but not quite.

Rain clouds gathering

Our other animals were also up to antics this last week. Our youngest cat is getting to be quite a pest for cleaning up after we have finished a meal. She hardly even waits for us to leave before she is up on the table investigating. We have lost cake and bread in our forgetfulness. We now have tins on the table ready to put that kind of thing in. She also tried to bring a live mouse into the greenhouse. Not helpful at all. I ended up fatally injuring the poor thing, as we can't afford to have a mouse loose in there. Ian ended up evicting both cat and mouse.

Early morning sunshine though

One of our chickens went broody on us and I had to put her in a box last week to stop her from hogging the nesting box and stopping the other two from laying. It appears though that putting the chicks in seems to have helped as she has now adopted them. Not sure if they appreciate this fact, although one night I opened the nesting box a bit later than normal, as I had forgotten to check for eggs and found the previously broody hen surrounded by all the chicks. I guess they appreciate her some of the time though. It is amusing to see her clucking away to let the chicks know where the food is.

Our forest and the wood pile where we are growing
the squashes

Last but not least we had a visit to the accountants to chat through some ideas of ways forward. We were relieved to find that we don't have to have a signature on all the receipts for money that people give us for tours around the place. We just need to write it down in the book and give one of the copies to the accountants. That makes us feel a lot better, as most people are just leaving and thrust some money in our direction as a thank you, they don't want to spend the next ten minutes while we fill out the receipt book with name, address, number etc. What we do need to do though is to investigate if it would be beneficial to have an association or non-profit at the moment, while we build the business. I was thinking that it might make it easier for others too, as it would then be possible to make donations to enable more visits from those with special needs and maybe at some stage we can work on how to make our hilly piece of land that bit more accessible for wheelchairs and those with reduced mobility. Maybe a golf-cart or something similar- now there's an idea!