And Breathe!

Winters can be brutal but definitely stunning

Oh gosh! Another three weeks have gone by and have I been busy? Oh yes! Most nights I've been proofreading reports for an organisation, a prospective business plan or a PhD thesis. Not much then! I have no problems when it comes to trying to help people craft their words into something more readable but dotting the i's and crossing the t's is not quite my idea of fun! Needs must though! By the end of it, I am spotting those full stops that shouldn't be there, at least on the second reading anyway. However, the main aim of ensuring a more readable piece was achieved. Although it wasn't fun finding some of the more mundane mistakes, they have been interesting reading material and I think I've learnt quite a lot in the process too. 

Hopefully that new cover is keeping the snow off
our bales of hay.

A perfectly formed snowflake on
our car

I have a confession to make. A couple of blogs ago I talked about buying only what we need and making do with what we have. I do still stand by that, but it has come to the stage where I need a car and I cannot use the one that we have now, as Ian uses it to get out to the land.  In summer it is not too bad as we are out in the caravan on the land anyway and a few days without a car for Ian is not a problem, In winter that is not an option. For several years I've used public transport and it's been okay. A long day but I've been fine with the travelling. The problem is that due to Covid-19 the travel has become more onerous. I looked at the timetable recently and it was not very convenient at all. I can still get the early bus, but will the cafe I used to use still be open and available to sit in for around 3 hours? I wouldn't know until I got there and sitting in a train station for three hours is not my idea of fun, especially in winter. I can work in the cafe but not so easy on chairs not designed for ease and comfort. 

GT aka Ginger Tom

The boys alpaca house. All is calm

To get to the university I used to travel to Cesis on the early bus and then catch the train to the Estonian border town, cross the platform and then get the Estonian train to Tartu. That meant just one three hour stopover in the cafe I mentioned between the bus and the train. Before that I used to travel up by bus to Cesis, another bus from Cesis to Valmiera, another one from Valmiera to Valka, walk over the border for 20 minutes, have a late lunch and then catch the bus from Valga to Tartu. I looked at all the possible permutations that I can think of and all of them involve several hours somewhere and most of them involve the 20 minute walk across the border. Not much fun in winter at all. I'm due for a pay rise in January and so I've decided that since I need to be up in Tartu more frequently then I need a car. It was decided with a heavy heart though. 

Wonder who is in the stable?

Most of these photos are from over a week
ago when it looked very Christmassy. 

There was another reason that tipped the balance. Our car suffered in the cold again, despite putting the additive into the fuel to stop it waxing out. One morning Ian set off to the land but the car died on the way and he had to get a neighbour to tow him. He got out to the land and fortunately had a new fuel filter. He got back okay, no issues but the following morning, he didn't even get away from the apartment. He had to call the garage out and borrow a friend's car. One without a heater and not ideal for the country roads. Not good when you have animals that need seeing to.

The last bit of fence was taken in last week.
The girls have to remain separated now until 
spring.

The hunting tower didn't
survive a windy day and looks
rather bizarre in the snow

Apparently the additive needs to be put into the diesel before it waxes, which makes sense, but not helpful to find out after the event. It isn't like adding salt to the icy roads that will melt the ice once it freezes (well as long as it isn't below -5C). The additive needs putting in before the temperatures drop to below zero to work. Unusually for early December we had a thick layer of snow and very cold temperatures. A friend of ours in his mid-20s does not recall such cold temperatures so early and his mother only once. 

Almost looks warm in the rosy glow of the sun, 
but do not be deceived

Josef out soaking up a bit of winter sunshine

One of the reasons for the additive problem was also trying to get enough of it. Ian had just a small amount left over from last year and the petrol station ran out of the stuff. Well Ian has now sourced some online and bought enough to last a few winters. People panic buy toilet roll, we panic buy diesel additive. I was meant to be going up to Tartu a few days later, but didn't dare risk getting stranded in the middle of nowhere and there is plenty of that on the journey up. Neither Latvia nor Estonia are densely populated outside of the capitals.  I will not be getting a diesel car for this reason, but I'm aiming for a hybrid. We'll see, I still have to organise the financing of it.

I just love seeing the frosted trees against the 
brilliant blue of a winter sky

Lolly is growing well but still being fed. It does
rather tie Ian to the farm. No going off for a few
hours yet.

With the cold weather we also got snow, quite a thick blanket too. That didn't help our greenhouse situation. It is definitely on its last legs and needs quite an overhaul for next year. Two sections tore and dumped some snow inside the greenhouse and some on the caravan. Ian managed to repair one patch but the other was more problematic. One of our visitors contacted us and offered to help. She came with a friend of hers and he was wonderful. He worked out what to do and organised us to help. It's not easy though repairing a central section of a large greenhouse. Hopefully it will last the rest of the winter. The lady also helped us with Brencis while Ian cut his toe nails and gave him his Vitamin D injection. I held onto Brencis' head and she kind of draped over his back. That is usually enough to keep him steady while he has his toe nails done. I think he even behaved better this time around. He's not bad, just very fidgety, which is not helpful when he is so big.

Not the sort of gaping hole we want to
see in the greenhouse

The caravan gets moved into the greenhouse to
protect it over winter. Not get snowed in.

"How warm is the water?", Lolly asks.

It did warm up again last week and the snow almost disappeared resulting in the usual post-snow muddy mess but now the cold has returned. Not sure if it will dip below -25C again this time though as the forecast is for more like -15C, but the wind is bitter. We've also had little snow flurries and so the ground is covered again, but not deep, more like a dusting - well a Latvian version of a dusting. The cold has meant we had unwelcome visitors to our orchard and some pruning was undertaken. Not quite the pruning we had in mind. At least the muddy weather meant Ian was able to put up the double stranded wire fence around that was enough to keep the deer out of the orchard the last time. Apparently they don't judge distances well and so a double fence works better than a high fence.

Karla has been eating the snow it seems. She is
one unfazed cria. Normally they are more timid,
not this bossy little madam. 

Sort of looks like Lolly is up to her
neck in snow, but not really

Since the cosy blanket of snow went I also decided that my plants needed some protection from the cold and cut down some spruce trees (Christmas trees). They grow like weeds on our land ad so we cut them for our alpacas and the garden. We leave the trees that are better for biodiversity. I also cut one to bring home to decorate for Christmas. Normally Ian would bring one back on Christmas Eve but it was due to snow and since I was cutting trees down anyway, I thought one of them would make a decent decorative indoor tree. 

I won't be getting much veg from the garden
for a while.

I had to laugh the other day when Aggie was
purposefully ignoring me till I offered her food.
She turned to me, snaffled the food and then
ignored me again.

So apart from that, not much else has happened. There are the regular things like putting cream on Aggie's feet as the mites had made her feet sore. It is now improving even with only a weekly slathering of home-made ointment. Unfortunately Chanel is a difficult one as she won't let us get near enough to put cream on as she sits down and all the parts that need cream are underneath her. During the summer we sprayed oil on, but that is not feasible over winter as we cannot direct it to just where it is needed and it means her fleece doesn't repel the water as well - surprisingly. We had to give her a good brush down to fluff her coat up again to protect her from the cold. She has now been started on a course of ivermectin (yes its for mites not Covid). She had one at the weekend and the next will be in about two weeks time. So all in all, plenty to keep me busy but just not so much to write about at the moment. No escaping alpacas, no traipsing to the garden to get veg, to the barn to get milk and then to the kitchen to prepare food. All the preparation of food from the garden has been done and in jars or in the freezer. A waiting time, a pondering time, a planning time.

Chanel is such a sweetie really, as long as you don't
want to put cream on her, cut her toe nails, do 
something to her daughter (who is now a grown 
alpaca and expecting her own baby hopefully) or...

Ilvija, Chanel's daughter, practicing her Christmas
carols

What's this doing here? This is from 
many years ago, when my hair was not
white for a start. I used to teach in 
children's camps in Latvia. This was 
a photo I used in a presentation for a
lecture to talk a little about myself and
some of my experience. A varied 
background for an academic really

Summer time!

Windows open and curtain on the outside of the
half door for ventilation and to stop the cats 
jumping in. Curtain on the inside of the half 
door and the cats jump in.

We finally got the caravan moved out of the greenhouse, just before the heatwave with the hottest nighttime temperatures on record in Latvia. There were red warnings for extreme heat throughout the country with temperatures well over 30C during the day and not dropping much below mid-20s at night. It was also a humid heat and I ended wandering a round with a sweat rag (I know you all wanted to know that!). Even my glasses steamed up outside from time to time. 

Those ears! She almost looks like a llama. The
tips are probably covered by a membrane that has 
bent them at the ends as her ears now look much
more like an alpaca's ears.

Amazing what a bit of warmth and rain does to the
grass. It was not that long ago when it seemed so
short.

Getting the caravan out of the greenhouse was more difficult than previously because we were a month later than usual. We did have to cut back the grapevine a bit and Ian had to mow the grass first - a novelty as normally the grass is only just growing when we move the caravan out. The problem is that the caravan now sits in the sun all day and in the greenhouse the shade would come round to it by evening. To cope with the heat we've had two fans going during the day and we've been going to sleep later with one fan still going through the night. Not ideal but at least we could sleep. We did have one day where we ended up catching up on some sleep when neither of us could make it to lunchtime before the desire to snooze got too strong. 

GT is such a photogenic cat. He's also turning out
to be quite affectionate, which is a bit of a surprise.

Ian cutting grass for hay.

We took advantage of the hot weather to start cutting the first hay of the year. Despite the heat and the fact most of it dried out very well, some of the bales seemed really heavy. Some of the grass was still obviously very moist. Hopefully they will be okay and they are in airy places to continue to dry out. It did mean that it was exhausting work though getting them stacked. We needed the space to get the girls out on to the grass and they would have been in the way of haymaking if we didn't cut the grass first. We don't want them too close to the forest with a little one, especially where we cannot see them so easily. Too many foxes mainly but there are also lynx, wolves and even sightings of bear tracks not very far away recently. 

Some much appreciated shade.

Silla and bump sunbathing

We are still waiting for the June babies to be born. They seem tantalisingly close to giving birth on some days and then the next day all is well and the time drifts on. In the meantime we've started on mating some of the others. We've had to use Tellus though, as he is our most reliable stud male. Mr. P. has too many asthma/hayfever type issues that we want to get to the bottom of before passing on any more of his genetics and the younger boys are generally too immature apparently.  

Aggie getting her nap time in too, but still no baby.

It's a hard life being a cria

Brencis was the father to the first this year's cria but he has such a big fat belly on him he's struggled to mate with another female, Antonia, so we brought in Tellus who managed to mate with her, but she's a crafty one. She seemed to throw Tellus off at strategic moments, so no idea if Tellus was successful or not. Antonia also intimidated the younger males and they obviously have not inherited the sex drive of their fathers and still need at least another year to mature - or at least that is what we hope is the issue. We tried George with a very compliant and flirty female, Ilvija, and he ended up kicking her off, it should be the other way around. At least Valeria was much more compliant with Tellus than she was with Mr. P last year and we just have to wait for 7 days now to see if he was potentially successful - yes the spit-off tests begin. 

It's a hard life being a cria's mum too.

Ilvija at the back with her Mum, Chanel, 
investigating the new arrival.

Ilvija has managed to escape a few times this week from the girls' fenced off area. She started to get a bit adventurous or she was just panicking and looking for her mum. She's a bit unpredictable and so not so easy to catch. Sometimes her mum starts getting stressed looking for her and then gets spitty when trying to usher Ilvija through the gate. At one point, Ilvija alarmingly headed down towards the road with a bit of a gallop. You should have seen me run, or maybe not! I lolloped in her direction and headed her back towards a safer spot, only she was rather interested in the boys and the boys were rather interested in her. Not a great place to be with 8 un-castrated males and one flirty girl and only a fence between them. I managed to get hold of her and Ian and I wrestled her down to the ground. I held her down while Ian got a harness and rope. Not a good time to introduce her to harness training but the first opportunity we've had due to her spitty mother. With a bit of patience and pushing at times we got her into the gate of the paddock without her mother realising and so avoided the spit fest.

Rocket Ron is not so easy to photograph. He is 
turning out to be more of a wanderer that is also
a surprise. Anyway he's keep the mouse population 
down, so earning his keep. He's still reasonably
affectionate though and both are happy to be 
combed with the flea comb. I'm not so happy
they've got fleas though.

Or course haymaking means the storks congregate

We had a minor hiccup with the car this last week. I set off to the bakery to get our weekly order of bread, then to collect a parcel from the pick up point before heading to the apartment to get some water and a few supplies. All good, except when I came to set off from the apartment back to our land, the key would not turn in the ignition. Nothing I tried worked. It was also very hot as I hadn't parked the car in the shade because I only intended to be a few minutes. Ian was busy, so I pottered around the apartment for a bit and kept going back to try the car again. Nothing! In the end I contacted a neighbour and asked for a lift out to our land and to pick up Ian and take him to see if he could get the car going. With some WD40, the spare key and some fiddling around with a screwdriver he managed to sort it. A new ignition might be needed though as it must be pretty worn. At least the car passed its technical today and Ian was able to help out another neighbour when their milking machine broke and they needed to take it in for repair. 

Not sure if one is doing a display for the other or
they are having a disagreement.

A Marsh Orchid

Surprisingly this year I've mainly been able to keep on top of the weeding. Occasionally it seems like it will get away from me but I think the cold start to the year and the dry spell has kept them in check. So it is looking like we should have plenty of beans, onions and garlic, so that's good. The late planted tomatoes are also doing well with their very regular watering. I've also taken some cuttings from the side shoots to increase the numbers of plants, as that is the fastest way of increasing the number of tomatoes we have. We've started eating fresh mangetout style peas, strawberries and garlic scapes. I've noticed that the courgettes have also started, so let the courgette glut begin. 

Yellow Rattle. Apparently not
so good for the grass as it is
parasitic and can become invasive.

One of the reasons we do not have free-range
hens any more, a Western Marsh Harrier.

Ian finally managed to find time to repair one of the chicken arks, one of the first he made and still in reasonable shape after 10 years. He's replaced the roof with a tin one that makes it much lighter to move and repaired some of the base bits that are in contact with the ground. With new handles and door fastenings it is back in use for the hens. We left the cockerel in the old one for dispatching. The hens need a rest from him. I'm hoping that one hen will now get a chance to heal her foot, as she was his favourite. In between pacing backwards and forwards on midwife duty waiting for babies, Ian has also spent lots of time cutting the grass and not just for hay but also for my vegetable garden. It looks much neater now. 

One of the reasons for making sure our arks are 
more secure these days. Ian rang me and told me
to come quickly. I found Ian in the forest and 
pointing into the trees. He had startled a pine
marten and we watched amazed as it jumped
from tree to tree. Agile beasts for sure but also
quite vicious. Ian has seen one eat a hornet's 
nest and probably responsible for breaking into
an ark and dispatching 8 hens.

Early days and still unsteady on her legs.

You cannot have too many cute cria pictures

Karla is finding her feet now and running about.
Last minute avoidance manoeuvres to avoid 
grumpy Auntie Aggie.

All legs

Amanda is a good mum. The right balance between
care and letting her baby be cared for by others.

Karla has put on plenty of weight over the last
week and so we do not need to carry on weighing
her every evening now.

Karla is also starting to eat the hay already. She
looks a bit wet around the face because I've been
putting on fly repellent.

This thrush is a frequent visitor

Mari

More newbies on the farm, baby swallows.

No not steam coming out of the caravan but a
well placed yoghurt pot and stone over a pipe to
stop the rain getting in. It was placed there by 
Ian climbing a metal ladder as a thunderstorm approached

Early morning dew on the grass turns it a pink hue.