Such fun.....

Do you see that! Blue sky! Shame it
arrived too late to actually see the sun.
Cold tonight I guess

We had a great New Year's Eve singing carols. We should have been doing that on the Saturday but the two daughters or our host were rather sick the night before and so it got delayed a few days. We don't often sing carols now, especially in English and certainly not ones we are particularly familiar with. Although we sang carols in English in America, they weren't the ones we used to sing regularly. There were only 7 adults and various children, but we all sang with gusto and it wasn't bad at all. It did help that one of our number has a particularly good singing voice with which she could belt out the melodies to keep us all in line. The greatest fun though was trying to explain some of the weird and wonderful lyrics we sing. Carols sung with a Latvian really makes you question the wordings of some of them though, trying explaining "deck the halls with boughs of holly" to someone who may have never have seen holly and why is it pronounced"bow" and not "buff" and what is a bough anyway? "Don the gay apparel" - my how language has changed, it even needed explaining to one of the younger English speaking participants (just in case you are wondering and it doesn't translate well in google translate don= put on, gay = bright, cheerful and apparel = clothes). We also never realised that you have to sing parts of that particular carol with a southern English accent and some with a northern English accent. I mean you can't sing "Fast away the old year passes" with northern tones, it just doesn't fit and "lads and lassies," has definitely got to be sung with a northern twang don't you think? I'm not quite sure the young man got the banter between the southern English and the northern English at times. And finally as for Good King Wenseleslas "tidings of great joy," oh boy the explanations went on and on but it was so much fun fa la la la la.

A common sight here, a logging lorry. These double trailer
vehicles are quite scary at times, especially if you meet
them on a narrow snowy road

Our presents have been arriving in dribs and drabs, we were still receiving presents and cards this week. My Mum sent me the full Victorian Farm collection, part of which is the series "Tales from the Green Valley" which was a series where archaeologists and historians recreated life in 1620s. It was fascinating and funny at the same time. It was funny how they had to explain that chickens don't produce all the year round, and in September the number of eggs reduces as they start to moult. So much knowledge is getting lost with time, as just about everyone would have known this at one time. We also laughed when they spoke about life being weather dependent. For all the mod cons we have now, life on a farm is still weather dependent to some degree, admittedly not as weather dependent as it was in the 1620s, but you can't hold back the seasons, you have to work with it. In our case, over the weekend the thaw finally finished and we were faced with icy, slippy conditions again, but it did mean that Ian could get the trailer off the land and as they had ploughed a lane through the snow down to our woodshed at last, we took the opportunity to shift some wood about. Ian brought a trailer load of wet wood from the land to put in the woodstore and we took a trailer load up from the woodstore to put in the cellar. Something that can't be done when there is mud on the ground or the snow too deep, in other words we are still very weather dependent.

Our shyest alpaca, Turbjørn. Well
when I say shy, I mean to humans,
anything else and he is first to
have a look

Our alpacas are getting bolder, at least with Ian who feeds them, even the shyest of them comes up close for feed time now. I think it has something to do with the fact that Ian holds the bowl for him, so the others can't nick his food. They are also animals with a lot of curiosity. Ian was chipping away at the ice outside their abode as the snow has been melting all week and he was using the mattock to chip away at it and all three alpacas stood around watching what he was doing. They often come to have a look when he is working nearby, I think they must be afraid of missing out on something. Rather like our cats who used to follow us on our walks, just in case there was something to see of interest, almost like a dog.

The road around the back of our apartment block, sheer ice

With the slippy conditions this week the local workmen have been out gritting roads Latvian style. The main roads are now gritted with a real gritting lorry and sand, the side roads are a different matter though. They are often gritted with ash, from the local heating company presumably, fair enough! However, to save the poor souls from walking the slippy roads and manually spreading the ash, which is obviously very dangerous, they sit in the back of a van with the doors open and spread it from there, with the van slowly driving up and down the road. Elf and Safety?

My task today, to tidy this room, it
is tidy honest! Well tidier than it was
before.

Eurospan finally got around to replying I'm glad to say. Still waiting for the book to be in stock though, wish they had put that rather than processing on the original email. And the Book Depository have already reimbursed me for the book with loose pages - how's that for service! I do use them a lot though as they deliver free worldwide and so it works out cheaper than dealing with Amazon directly, despite it being the same company now anyway. It is quite a dilemma really dealing with Amazon, on the one hand it has a good reputation and enables some smaller companies to increase their trade but it also dominates the market which is never ultimately very healthy.

One of our cockerels. He didn't develop as quickly as the
other one, but still looking a fine handsome bird.

There has been some rather interesting articles and quotes on the internet this week. After reading one article I wondered if I am called to be a fungus. Not many people aspire to be a fungus, but it is not a bad calling really.

“There’s a particular type of fungus, known as mycorrhizae, that is one of the most extraordinary living things on this planet.  It forms in undisturbed soils and builds vast networks between the various elements that make up a forest, holding the soils together, increasing the plants’ abilities to scavenge nutrients, hold onto water, recycle debris, restore degraded soils.  It allows the various plants to send messages to each other, such as to warn about the arrival of pests and diseases." (Rob Hopkins: Transition Culture)

In other words this humble organism brings nourishment and deals with the bad things in life bringing restoration, it also communicates important messages. So are you called to be a fungus? It is a pretty important role if you are.

One of our egg layers. Yes we have at least two layers now,
as we have been having two eggs a day for the past three
days.

This week the papers and internet news sites finally seemed to have got the message, that the pain in Latvia over the crisis was too much. The unemployment rate is not necessarily down because of a string of new jobs, it is that people continue to emigrate. Declaring that the crisis is over is premature, the pain still reverberates around the country and people only quietly moan, or at least don't moan much to foreign newspapers. We now live in a more unequal society than ever before - hardly progress! And as Rob Hopkins also said in a talk about the next 10 years said, there is no cavalry to come to the rescue which seems a rather bleak start for a talk. Fortunately he then went onto list several uplifting scenarios of things that were happening now, and I know there are now two transition groups working in Latvia to help build resilience in the local community. Something very badly needed here, so let's hope that transformation is about to happen.

Ian has been letting out the chickens an ark at a time, to
roam around the greenhouse and peck at the weeds growing
there and scratch through the soil and straw. When let out
the first thing, or nearly the first thing the ladies did was
to have a long dust bath

Ian passed on a link to me this week from Spain about the Pamplona locksmiths who have voted not to work with the banks to change locks on foreclosed homes. A brave move as it affects 10% of their earnings, but they did not feel they could continue to be on the side of the banks and how they dealt with their reckless lending practices in the cases where it had gone wrong. They could not face being part of the cause of putting any more people out on the streets. As they pointed out, they may have lost some income, but they have recovered their honour and dignity. I have great admiration for their decision and the brave move by the locksmith that initiated the vote.

And just to see how funny they look, here

is a video of the chickens bathing

Another inspiring internet link comes from a talk by Sir Ken Robinson, an international leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. He is an entertaining speaker but he also has some radical things to say on education. He blames the current model for stifling many people, rather than releasing them. He also says how sad it is that so many people endure their lives rather than love what they do, such wasted talent, such wasted creativity and he blames that on their educational upbringing. It would be interesting to see what could change if people were truly educated in the way that releases them, instead of instilling them with a list of things they cannot do or don't enjoy. Maybe if the education of our children really could draw out of them their talents and gifts they would fully understand the statement by the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard "My message is there's only one you. Everything else in life, at the end of the day, no matter how precious, can be replaced." This was said in response to the wild fires in Tasmania as she urged people to take safety seriously, but it applies to many aspects of life. You are precious, you are unique, there's only one of you, you cannot be replaced and the world would be a poorer place without you, the world needs your gifts and talents. Stay safe and take care of yourself, but also live life to the full.

Happy days

Another reason to be happy, isn't this
sunrise glorious? What a joy to wake up
to scenes like these

Our youngest is now a happy boy, his computer got fixed and best of all they recovered all his data. All he lost was a days work whilst he waited for his computer to be fixed. The nice people at Apple even fixed it for free, because he had had previous problems with his computer. Phew! We were happy too, our glass bowl which we had sent with our friend filled with a meal for her husband, who hadn't joined us for last week's meal, because he had to work, came back with a rather nice dessert in it. No idea what it is, but it tasted good! I also got lots of interesting books to read this week, "Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley," "Conflict and Cooperation in Participating Natural Resource Management" and "Resolving Human-Wildlife Conflicts" - you can spot the theme can't you? These are all books that have either been recommended to me, or came up in my literature research for my Master's thesis and so hopefully they will all be useful in my write up. At least they will help me while away the winter evenings with a little light reading. Our vet wasn't left out too as we bought her a book "Alpaca and Llama Health Management." I know we are not getting alpacas until next year, and we haven't even been to see the guy who we hopefully will be buying the animals from - that's next month - but we need to be laying the groundwork now; it is no good waiting for something to go wrong with our alpacas to then try finding out how to deal with it, and winter is a good time for reading. She seemed happy enough to be getting the book anyway.

Tate Modern here we come! I spent a good afternoon's
work on these objects of great artistry, commonly
known as wrapping trees up for winter to stop the deer
eating them or sharpening their antlers on them.

We finally made it once again to the Farmers' Market in Straupe (link in Latvian), where a brave group of people are endeavouring to create a market for local farmers and businesses and at the same time increase the quality of goods sold. It is hard trying to get the concept going, as it is not as simple as importing the idea from elsewhere, although other examples are useful, but it is working and the market place looked busy while we were there. In fact there are many companies/farmers from further afield who would like to sell their goods at the market. It is difficult to balance the concept of a local initiative with the need to have enough stalls to attract people to come to the market and one that they are still working on. It is also hard trying to work out who is a genuine trader of goods produced by them or their family and those who buy in goods from abroad. Having contact with the organisers of this market, I hope will be useful for our own area when the roads are tarmacked making travel easier for traders and customers alike. I did buy a couple of presents while I was there, and I didn't go for the cheapest, but I bought my goods from a lady who was making the goods while she was there - so I know she produced the things I bought. What are they? Well I can't tell you, I know the recipients will be reading this! We also bought seeds and beans, partly for consumption over the winter but also for plants for next year, as it will be interesting to see how well they do, compared to the beans and seeds I buy in from the UK.

Not so happy to find this! This is the
kind of damage those dear little pigs
can make. I have to admit though that
it is quite incredible the depth of holes
they can dig with their snouts, and
the size of stones they can move. 

We also finally made it to a little craft shop that we have passed many times. The owner started out as a stone mason for gravestones but he is a creative soul at heart, so the website says,  and so some of the stones ended up as ants and tortoises. The best one I saw was a wild boar shaped stone, complete with wrought iron ears, snout, tail and legs - the best type of wild boar, apart from one on a plate, I think at the moment. Unfortunately it was a lot of money, and rightly so, but I was seriously tempted to erect this as a dire warning to the wild boar that traipse across our land. I bought an angel instead to add to my Christmas decorations from around the world, not that they will be going up again this year, as we are away in England. Probably a good job though, as I think our dear little kittens would have a field day with decorations. Better to wait till next year and they maybe (only maybe) a little calmer.

These are four Capercaillies, which we came across when
we took a detour just for the sake of it. Amazing what
you can see when you get off the main roads.

It has been another amazing week in the news, some of it is just downright depressing, but some of it is quite exhilarating and powerful. I was horrified to see a policeman casually spraying sitting students with pepper spray. I am not quite sure what horrified me the most, the fact that he sprayed obviously non-violent students, or the casual manner in which it was done. However it was amazing to watch how each student present was recording what was happening, no longer can incidents take out the journalist to remove any chance of recording it, all have the opportunity to record an event with the use of phones, video cameras, ipads and computers - many uploading the images as it happened. If that fact was not amazing enough to see people bringing accountability to the situation, it was more impressive to hear the rise of the chant "Shame on you" and the students peacefully but firmly causing the police, armed to the teeth, to fall back. Not a rock was thrown. The police appeared to only have two options, carnage or retreat, and they chose retreat thankfully. When the chancellor of the university, where the students belonged, decided to leave the campus the following evening, despite the presence of many students outside she was treated to a most powerful sit down silent protest that lined the route to the car. There was an atmosphere of restraint and yet somehow there was also the force of an unspoken argument, disapproval that hung in the air. Is this what was meant by the New York Mayor, post Occupy evictions at Zuccotti park, when he said "Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments?" I doubt it, but those students certainly occupied the space in a very powerful way.

"I think I'm stuck again!"
She is up there so often now we are going to have to install
something to stop her walking across the fleece lining,
preferably before it gives way underneath her.

More wood chippings for our garden, as Ian continues to
thin out our forest to provide us with firewood for next year
but also to improve the health of the forest.

Alder oxidises on exposure to air and so
you get these bright orange stumps when
they are cut.

Our raspberry bushes with their fir coats. Looks like they
needed it!

It snowed again this week, not much but still a reminder
that winter is on its way.