There and back again

The stream is melting and water
beginning to flow off the land into it

I am back to lectures this week and fortunately it is my last compulsory course. It is funny that the lecturer comes from Boulder, Colorado just 55 miles away from where I used to live in Fort Collins in the US, he even sounds like one of my friends from there. He managed to make part of the lecture entertaining by getting us to devise a rapid experiment to practice setting and testing a hypothesis. I felt it was a little basic, but at least we didn't have to sit for two hours and it made the point pretty well. In fact I think, with a longer time frame, it would work very well with even high school students, at least with a bit more support along the way in setting up the test hypothesis. We had to devise an experiment and hypothesis in 15 minutes, so no Einstein type of experiments here. One young chap came up with the idea of testing if it was quicker to go downstairs than to go up the stairs. So for the next half an hour five of us sauntered up and down four flights of stairs, we walked normally up and downstairs and then lastly we took the stairs at speed; only I had to repeat two of the experiments because on one I had managed to turn off my stopwatch and on the second a woman beat me to the door which ruined the experiment and being the conscientious sort, I repeated it. And the result of our experiment? It is quicker to go down the stairs in sauntering and normal mode, but in a rush it is quicker to go up than down! You can draw your own conclusions on that one.

Our winter barley is looking a little worse for the wear after
the winter. Not sure if it will survive or not due to the freeze
without much snow cover and now being swamped

These three are in bad books, they have been escaping, after
discovering finally the electric fence wasn't actually
switched on due to the cold. It is ON now though.
Downright ungrateful if you ask me, after all that effort of
making their pen better by covering all the poo with straw

The week didn't go quite to plan though, as there was a miscommunication with the mapping training I wanted to do - this is not a compulsory course, but one I feel will be useful to my research. I got to the computer room on Tuesday afternoon just as four people were finishing off some maps and no teacher. Apparently it was dropped on for that period because the week before only one person turned up. That means I have had to travel up to Tartu on Sunday again to do the course on Monday morning. At least it is only three or four sessions, although at the rate I'm going it will be more as I learn how to use a dratted Windows computer and mouse. Even failed on turning it on, but that is partly because I have never used a computer with a separate screen before and a long time since I have used a mouse and not a trackpad! Rather basic I know. I'll get there though and I'm sure I will speed up. It only took me for the polygon I was drawing, to disappear on me three times, before I found out the shortcut to extend a drawing, so I didn't have to keep getting nearly to the end of my drawing and then it disappear, I could part draw it, save it and then extend it!

Snowdrop showing her portly belly. She has been a little
uncomfortable this week and Ian was wondering if the
baby has been moving around a bit. Seeing the size of her
makes us wonder how our little Alicia managed to carry
Benedikts without showing that much. 

Electric in the barn, finally

I had a pleasant surprise when I got on the bus to travel up to Tartu at the unearthly hour of 7am (okay it is not really that unearthly, except it was a Sunday) my neighbour was driving. I have been travelling on buses from the company he drives for, for over six months now and never met him once. I told him I had a two and a half hour stop before I caught the next bus and so when we got to the end and I was preparing to get off, he told he I didn't have to, as he wasn't going on the next leg of his travels for a half and hour. At least sitting on the bus was warmer than sitting in the un-refurbished station of Cesis. He also told me about a cafe nearby which was open on Sundays, so when he had to go I trotted across the train tracks (as you do here) and headed for the supermarket that I hadn't realised was a supermarket. I also found out they had free toilets and the cafe was quiet, so I managed to get some work done, really pleased about that. I was also grateful as well that the snow, that was coming down quite heavily when we set off, fizzled out to rain and then stopped by the time we got to Cesis. I had had visions of me turning up in Tartu either freezing to death or looking like a snowman and fortunately neither was the case.

And now we have light

And chainsaws have new shelves
because the electric cable runs up
behind them

I have lots of work to do this week and it wasn't helped by a trip to the big town to try and sort out the paperwork on our greenhouse. We mistimed that badly as we arrived 20 minutes before the office was due to close and so she was not best pleased, so much so that she said we needed all sorts of stamps, codes and signatures that actually were there, but she hadn't looked properly. We got sent back to our local office and fortunately when we got back to that office, the guy was just heading out the door as there wasn't much to do and he was less bothered about having to go back. He was bothered though by what he was supposed to do and in the end rang up the lady in the big town and basically asked "what on earth do you really want, it looks fine to me." He added the code that was needed to the front page of our paperwork, so she won't miss it this time, added a stamp and signature and a few scribbles, just for the sake of it I think and we should be okay to get the greenhouse paperwork sorted next time we go back to the big town- more fuel and more time! Arrrggh! This time, mark my words, there will be no prevaricating, she will get it sorted, of that I am sure, otherwise she will be dealing with a very disgruntled foreigner and she won't like that. At least to compensate I managed to do quite a bit of reading on the buses, as I travelled and in the cafe. It did make me realise though why a tablet computer is useful, a laptop on a full bus is a bit of a squish with bags.

We also have running water. Unfortunately
this isn't a permanent feature

Full ponds again

There is a worrying rise of anti-immigrant sentiments across Europe at the moment. I'm an immigrant! I also don't speak the language of the country I live in, or at least not fluently enough to hold a conversation! Two criteria that should mean I'm ostracised, which thankfully I'm not. It is easy to make immigrants a scapegoat. It is easy to blame them for all the violence and crime without looking at the reasons. That is not to say that those who partake in violence are justified in what they do, but some of them are desperate, some of them have been brought up badly, some of them reflect the society that they immersed in, let's face it residents are sometimes no angels either and their behaviour can lead to retaliation too. It won't do any good to point fingers and throw verbal stones. We have to start looking at fairness and justice, both in the countries we live and the countries where the immigrants come from. Sometimes it is economics that make them move, but why? What part has our European nations had in creating the problems? Our corporations are bad enough in our own countries, you don't need to look far to see the lack of taxes paid and diabolical wages whilst they doing nothing to address this state of affairs. How much worse do you think they will be outside of Europe where the restrictions are not the same? Our European history has created unnatural divisions of nations all over the world, our past has not dealt kindly with the nations on other continents and left a legacy of what? Some good and a lot of bad? Can I suggest before reposting news stories that put immigrants in a bad light that we think carefully what it says about us as people? Are we scapegoating by reposting them on our facebook profiles and the like? I shall not get down off my soapbox.

Estelle looking rather mucky, because she has been rolling
in the mud. Goodness only knows what her fleece will be
like to clean after shearing. Hard to think that this time
next year, she will hopefully be pregnant. 

On another note, the EU have introduced one of their not so helpful laws (some of their introductions are I think fair, and some aren't) they are set to lower the limit for benzopyrenes in foods, which sounds good since it is considered a pollutant and carcinogenic, however it is not good news for small local smokeries, using traditional techniques that abound here in Latvia. Smoked food is not eaten in large quantities, but then again they are eaten by children, so there is a dilemma. Cigarettes also contain benzopyrenes but that just means that adults are allowed to kill themselves with the effects of the pollutants. The other sources though are gas roasted meats, over-fried foods and the bbq. The black parts being the worse. Some of our friends were thinking of selling smoked food and so are not happy with the new law. I have done a little research and found an article that says marinating food and adding herbs for their antioxidant properties maybe helpful and so hopefully that might be a solution and make the food healthier into the bargain. I do hope so!

And because I don't know where else to put this, our hens have finally started laying again! Yay! Fresh eggs.

Oooh the excitement!

The train station in Tartu. I have spent many a Tuesday
morning here. The toilets are good! Actually the station
itself has been beautifully done out and retained many
old wooden beams.

Forgot to mention that last week one of my neighbours was on the bus too and we haven't actually seen each other for a while, explains a lot when she is off to Riga all the time and I'm off to Estonia. Anyway we had a lovely chat for a few hours. This week the bus was really quiet, I wondered if the storm yesterday had scared them all off, it certainly wasn't as full as last week, when there was numerous people having to stand. I even managed to get off at the right stop this time, by telling the driver which stop it was I wanted and adding "ludzu," instead of just asking for the next stop like last time (it was in Latvian though, honest!). Despite the storm in the night, the day dawned bright and clear. Unfortunately the bit of snow we had yesterday made for treacherous pathways, but so far I haven't taken a tumble. It was an interesting morning this morning, as I had a slightly frantic phone call from one of my travelling companions whilst I was waiting for them to appear in their car for the second leg of the trip. Something was wrong and our driver was not where he should be! Oh!Oh! Someone else was sent to pick me up, so I wasn't left out in the cold. I was taken to where my travelling companions work - which turned out to be quite nearby and we waited. It turned out that our driver was appearing in a publicity film for the company and even though it was scheduled for the next day, the film crew turned up this morning instead. Fortunately we set off in enough time and we arrived with 15 minutes to spare.

A little bit of freedom, the chicks have
been let out into the greenhouse, from
their arks

The hospital. Ian has added gates onto the pen we built
last year, as it has its first resident. One of our sheep
has not thrived and was laid down on its side last week.
It was quite weak and Ian had to carry it up to the
greenhouse. Our friend, who has raised many sheep
came to give it an injection of vitamins and it will
be wormed next week. Although it has recovered, I'm not
sure if it will be kept all winter, we need them for breeding
and since it hasn't grown well, it might not be good to keep.

That wasn't the only excitement this week, the Prime Minister of Latvia has gone. A man who took on the premiership at the beginning of the economic crisis back in 2009 and was re-elected despite the austerity he and his government imposed. He resigned to take political responsibility for the collapse of the supermarket, since his Government were responsible for cutting jobs in the department for oversight of constructions and, despite the fact that many consider he is generally a man of integrity, corruption still occurs in government departments and hasn't been wiped out under his long - by Latvian standards - tenure. Interesting times indeed, but that wasn't the end of it. I had been surprised by the lack of comments coming out about those who headed the corporations involved, such as the supermarket, developers and construction company and finally Gintaras Jasinskas, chairman of Maxima Latvia (the supermarket), sparked anger by saying: "It is those who feel guilty who resign," commenting on the Prime Ministers resignation, this was swiftly followed by the shareholders of the Lithuanian owned company sacking him for his insensitive comments. 

Behind bars in the hospital

Icy roads

To add to the excitement I took my first lectures at a university this week. In the first I was talking about impressions from different countries we had lived in and at one stage I talked about England of course. I asked the students for their own impressions and one student said we had weird food and when asked what weird food in particular, he said "fish and chips." How is fish and chips weird? Sigh! Overall the lecture didn't go to badly, but I got really tired towards the end and had to cut the last section short or risk repeating myself or getting lost in what I was trying to say. My fiercest critic, my hubby even said I did quite well, that was a relief. One problem though was that I thought it was a two hour lecture, but at the last minute I was told it was actually 3 hours - too short a time to organise some activities to spin it out. I must admit though I did not want it to go on much longer as the roads were pretty icy on the way in, even if I wasn't driving since my dear hubby did, I still didn't fancy a late icy trip back home. Happily the roads had improved on the way back, as the temperatures went up enough and I think they put some grit down.

Ian chopping sticks to start a fire

The second lecture was for the course I am on, where I am learning about higher education teaching. The lecture was not exactly accessed for a mark, but it was necessary to complete in order to pass the course. By contrast this was a mini-lecture of 15 minutes and was supposed to give a flavour of what we would do in a teaching situation and get some feedback from our fellow students. I used an activity where all the students had to hold hands in a circle and then tie themselves up in a knot, I then had three volunteer "experts" come and unravel them. I timed this at 1 minute and 22 seconds. The next task was to do the same exercise without the experts and the task took 15 seconds. This was an activity one of the speakers organised at the summer school in Peyresq (France) and I felt it sent a powerful message to the young experts attending the course, that local knowledge is sometimes more effective. The students that I taught the exercise to also noted that the people were not waiting around for the experts to get them out of the mess, they cooperated with each other to solve the problem. My point was not that experts were irrelevant and no one fortunately took it that way, but they did understand very well that a motivated group of people can be quite adept at sorting out their own problems. I went on to talk about how experts and locals can work together and in an ideal situation is how participatory development works - and that neatly encapsulated what I would teach on. I got some very positive feedback and one or two helpful suggestions for improvements and things to look out for when or if I do ever get to teach again. The students enjoyed the activity that much, that they even suggested that it would be okay to do earlier in a course and not wait until everyone knew each other - must admit I would have been uncomfortable with that. I was uncomfortable with doing the activity myself in Peyresq after a few days of getting to know the other students, but felt it was worth it because it made the point so well.

Freedom might not be all its cracked up
to be though. These are our excess chicks
who have joined the bigger ones out in
the field, where they can free range.

Ian wants a camel and a llama now. To think he was a bit
unsure about having animals at all, apart from cats a
couple of years ago. Now he is developing quite an
affinity with them.

Oh yes! And there's more! What more excitement can there be in one week? Besides the will it, won't it appear comet? It is now declared dead, by the way, in case you missed that piece of information, although it did briefly reappear. No that isn't the news I was going to tell you about, it is the news about the Latvian Camels and Camelid Association. Last year we took my parents on a visit to a camelid farm, partly because we wanted to visit the farm ourselves, as they had alpacas too (alpacas, llamas, camels, vicunas and guanacos are all camelids, just in case you are wondering). In our defence, at least my parents did get a day out and about and not just to the camelid farm. We had been going to phone the farm to visit and talk alpacas, but Ian's had a cold and we were waiting for that to clear, when I got an email from them. What I didn't realise at the time was the trouble they took to get our email address.

One of the ladies who runs the camelid farm (Rakši) remembered our visit last year, but all she could remember was where we lived and we had alpacas. She was talking to a friend of hers who has moved out to our village and she asked if she knew of us, she didn't, but she said, "I will ask my friend." That friend happened to be one of our neighbours who knows we have alpacas and has our email address. The lady from Rakši said it was as if our email address dropped down from heaven - that made us smile. So thanks to a wonderful load of coincidences, we were sat in the first meeting of the Latvian Camels and Camelid Association. As far as the Association is concerned there are only four places in the whole of Latvia that keeps alpacas, ours being one of them, one is quite huge though with over 60, but the others are not so huge. So for the whole afternoon, we talked camelids and ate some great food and then talked some more, all made possible by the fact a friend of ours was also willing to put our animals away for us, allowing us to stay for a good long chat.

The various animals are all concentrating on a dog that is
chasing a stick in the enclosure. This was an exercise to
show how a herd of camelids will react and chase him off.
Not quite sure how ours would react. Sometimes wonder if
they would just keep on eating

Outside the train station in Riga

And just to finish off, we have another snippet of information. While we were away at the association meeting we had a visit to our land to assess if we can get the internet there and it appears we can. Of course it will cost to put up a dish, but at least it is possible. Now what to do about the home line? Hmmm!

Will someone tell this sheep it is not an mountain goat.
They do like to climb though!

Easting the hay stack

Frost on the wire

We're not going out in that!