We have a horse!

A shaving horse, no not for beards, for shaving bits of wood

Ian walked in one evening and said "We have a horse!" My first thought was that a neighbour's horse had got onto our land or something, the next thought, albeit fleeting, was "What has he done!" Fortunately all was revealed, when he explained that it was a shaving horse. I bought Ian some books on Roundwood Timber Framing and Coppice crafts and together with a book bought many moons ago called Green Woodwork he finally got around to making a contraption that helps him to make various wooden objects. It's quite impressive really and made solely from wood from our forest. Neither is it nailed together, but uses wooden pegs. All it took was some time. For those who don't know what it is, a shaving horse was described as the Black and Decker work bench of its day in "Tales from the Green Valley" (the DVD I was talking about last week).

Now that's what I call a hammer!

Ian has been busy all week making things. Added to the shaving horse is a pole lathe, or rather an adaptation of a pole lathe. The problem with a pole lathe is that it uses a pole which would mean going into the forest to look for a pole, not so easy with the snow and then the pole needs anchoring into the ground - not easy now it is frozen and so that aspect will be used in summer. Ian has been experimenting with different set ups to make the lathe work, using bicycle inner tubes, bungee straps and different ropes and string to experiment with. Each day he has come back with something different to show me, a mug rack - which unfortunately split in the warm house, a spoon and a rudimentary turned piece of wood. He promised me an oak table and high back chairs but I haven't seen them yet. I think they may take a little time to materialise. 

A treadle lathe

Oooh the stress we've had this week! Not only walking on sheet ice to post a letter, but trying to decide on a combination microwave. Now buying a microwave could be quite easy, just look it up on a Which report, see what's available and what suits us and buy it! No chance! The models available in different countries are well..... distinctly different. One microwave we looked at only had information in Russian, another one was available elsewhere and so wasn't too bad to look up. At least the Which report gave two companies that we can find here in Latvia gave the thumbs up for the ability of their microwaves to actually cook- a useful feature I find and so it was narrowed down to a Whirlpool and a Panasonic. In the end we went for a Whirlpool, because its bigger, unfortunately it did not arrive today as expected. Heh ho! Delivery companies! Don't you just love them! I suppose I shall have to ring tomorrow and find out what has happened to my microwave.

The blue rope turned out to be better
than the traditional hemp rope. We
must have the wrong sort as it kept
matting up. You can also see Ian has
started on turning the wood. Not perfect
yet and I think we have a way to go
before I get that table and chairs

Our seed order is completed this year and I managed to narrow that down to just two seed companies this time, instead of four like last year - mainly because I have saved many of our own seeds and I still have seeds leftover from last year. I did a grand stocktake to make sure I knew what I had, which kept me busy on a winter's day. I couldn't purchase solely from one company, MoreVeg, that I have used for a few years now, as they didn't have Sweet Meat squashes, which I am reliably informed can last a whole year and so something we want to try, as it is something to fill in the hungry gap when other things are past their best and before the salady things start coming through. I have used MoreVeg for a few years now, because they are excellent for small packets - I mean who wants 100 cauliflowers? The small packets are often around 50p which means it is possible to try out many different vegetables at relatively little cost and since we are still finding out what works for us, that is very useful. Someone emailed me this week via a post I had made on another blog, because they were struggling to source Sweet Meat pumpkin seeds within Europe, so 
I am making sure I give out the link and for the Styrian pumpkin (which has seeds without the hard coat) as they are a bit scarce too. If you know of anywhere else please feel free to post a link at at the bottom.  Anyway the link for the Chiltern Seeds is as follows 

Sweet Meat - http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item.php?id=1351A
Styrian Pumpkin - http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item.php?id=1362G
Their veg catalogue is a lot of fun too, with some interesting illustrations, their website is quite boring by comparison, but still it does what it has to do and that is provide information about seeds.

Even a three legged stool

We thought we were on a roll with the eggs, as we were getting two a day for a little while but we are mainly down to one a day - from 9 females! Actually coming from one ark only. Not stupendous really, but it is still early in the year and it has gone chilly again, so hopefully soon they will start to produce more soon. It turns out our suspicions were right with one of the birds we weren't sure about, it is a male and he reliably informed Ian of that fact with a cockle-doodle-doo, well kind of, give the guy a break he is a novice at it. Mind you, he just signed his own death warrant with that noise, we have nowhere to keep a single male in these temperatures and he is starting to flex his muscle, which will only lead to fights in the ark eventually. For the time being we will leave him as he adds extra heat, but any fights and he is out of there. The other bird we weren't too sure about has laid the eggs and so we are pleased we were right with her, as she is a lovely looking bird and obviously a good layer as she is the only one to be consistently laying eggs at the moment. So all in all, we didn't do too badly when we separated the chickens out, we were only wrong with one of them. Still miffed at that! It would have been the best layer of the lot.

Just to prove I really did get the skis out

I finally got the skis out this week and made my own track for cross country type skiing out on the land. That way there is no one to watch when I fall down, which fortunately was only once this time. It was only a small track and only took about a minute to get around, but at least I could practice the movements, which is what I was most bothered about. I now have to sweet talk Ian into making me a track maker to make the tracks a little easier to make and then I can make an even bigger track out on the land.

Enjoying the sun

I must be getting emotional in my old age, or it's my hormones at this time of life, but the new song by David Bowie made me cry. It just spoke to me of a world weary from crisis and I just wanted to put my arms around the singer and say "It's going to be okay, there is hope." His singing reminded me of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, a man full of wisdom who explored life to the maximum and yet at the end of it all opted for the simple life.

 

The Final Word. Besides being wise himself, the Quester also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs. The Quester did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth.                           The words of the wise prod us to live well.They’re like nails hammered home, holding life together.                           They are given by God, the one Shepherd.But regarding anything beyond this, dear friend, go easy. There’s no end to the publishing of books, and constant study wears you out so you’re no good for anything else. The last and final word is this:                                          Fear God.                                                                                                         Do what he tells you.                                                                                     And that’s it.                                                                                         Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 The Message) 

The alpacas are much more confident with Ian now. Here is
Hercules eating straw from Ian's hand

David Bowie has lived a life full of variety, never conforming to the norm, an intelligent man who experimented with life, which echoes Solomon's quest for deeper meaning. At the end of the day, it seems both have found some kind of answer in simplicity. Being wise, being the great experimenter, living life to the full for both men was never the answer, both seem weary towards the end of their lives.

Sunday was such a beautiful day

A song came back to me this week from the dim and distant past "Through the barricades" by Spandau Ballet, that talks of love through the barricades in Northern Ireland. On the 13th January 1991 the Latvians built barricades to protect various sites in Riga, a sign to the Russians, "this far and no further". There are times to build those kinds of barricades, to declare "this far and no further!" And there are times to love through those barricades. For many people here in Latvia, they have barricades in their hearts, built through years of suspicion and corruption, barricades of mistrust. No one can blame them for they have been much abused in the past, but I feel it's time for those barricades to come down now and for people to love each other through those barricades. So that is both my prayer and my goal, to help bring down those barricades.

The frost was an inch thick on trees and wires. It's difficult
to select the best pictures of the day

Crazy times

The lilac bushes outside our other apartment

Okay so we are crazy but you love us anyway heh? Can't believe some of the things we get up to. We finally got around to starting to deal with the buckwheat seeds that we harvested over the summer. Of course it was nice and snowy outside so once we had worked out the best setting on my kitchen aid flour grinder just to crack the hulls, we then had to separate them. Now normally a nice breezy day outside would be perfect, but inside? Arrh! So our hallway was transformed, cleared of boots and shoes and rigged up with fan at one end to separate the husks from the seed. Mind you we found out at the end the the easiest way to get buckwheat flour is to grind it to crack the hulls and then grind it again to get flour and the hulls can then be sieved off, with just some ground into the flour to make the more traditional black buckwheat flour. We also found out that it was probably best sieved right at the start to get rid of the grit out of the husks and seeds. Oh well! We'll try again next week.

We have a Father Christmas car again

Talking of harvesting, the deer left a note saying "Thank you very much for the tasty kale, same again next year?" Yep you guessed it we are left with stalks and the swiss chard that was covered with pine branches to deter the deer from eating them so we have spring greens to grow back next year, were also disturbed. Will be interesting to see if we have got any come back up next year. All is not lost though and we can still have tasty kale crisps which we have got rather fond of, because we have some more growing in the greenhouse, so unless the deer work out how to unlatch the door or go through the plastic which is unlikely, then they will be safe, especially now we seem to be on top of the mice problem. We caught six mice altogether in the traps and the poison bait is no longer being removed, so they won't be tucking into kale either.

A winter wonderland

The snow finally came this week and the colder temperatures followed it. We cleared around our greenhouse, which is still up thankfully this year, so that the ground had a chance to freeze. We found last year that a large amount of snow on top of soft ground is really difficult to shift and ends up making a big mess of the ground when digging away the snow. We haven't got as much snow as last year, but it is enough to give everything a good covering and the ski season has started. Our cross country ski run even has floodlights now so that people can ski in the evenings, which we did this evening. We were a bit worried about the floodlights at first as they were on all night, not good for light pollution, but they seem to have sorted out some timing on them now and they went off at 9pm tonight. Still we got a good chance to ski and even some lessons from one of our neighbours, who showed us some of the techniques.

Not a star but the new floodlights to light
our cross country ski run

The cleaning fairy has been in operation most of this week, Ian tidied the office and discovered lots of space that seemed to just appear - not a lot went out so no idea where it all evaporated to, although there were many cardboard boxes taken out. Maybe the wall post on facebook that someone posted is true after all "Cleaning is just putting stuff in less obvious places" (not quite sure who is responsible for that witticism). Along the way a bunch of photos were discovered that we appear to have inherited from the church we used to go to in America, it seems to be a bunch of pictures of a Sunday School trip. Another find was a CD given to us after we had seen the mayor of the village which contained some presentation pictures of activities in the village - nice to be able to recognise some of the folks now and actually put a name to a few (hopeless with names anyway, so just being able to recognise the people and where from is an achievement). It is amazing how much brighter and more space we feel we have now that room is cleared - next week the dump room, weather permitting ie lots of snow to keep him indoors. Our flat appeared to get worse since we started the gardening work in earnest, which has kept us busy, the polytunnel collapsing last winter and the weddings, plus my course work, all conspired to keep us on our toes even through what would normally be the quiet times. I'm still doing my course work but Ian has more time this year. We do struggle to throw things out though as we do re-use lots of things. Old clothes get morphed into bags, quilts etc. Our bedroom curtains are curtains from our Danish house, our office curtain was a shower curtain in a previous life, Ian's jacket was repaired yet agin this week with binding I have inherited from goodness knows where and last year his over trousers, which he managed to burn a hole in, were repaired with fabric that I had in a box. So you see we don't waste a lot. The cardboard boxes will end up as weed barriers, and the polystyrene packaging will reappear somewhere else - not sure about that yet but we can always do with insulating things. You can also guarantee the minute we throw something out will be about five minutes before we discover we did needed it after all.

Bell with her natty purple apron

Our cats were not happy this week as we sent them to be neutered. There are plenty of lovely looking kittens in this village without our cats adding to the number and I am sure the local bird population would agree. Of course our cats were pretty groggy when we got them back and we were highly amused by their attempts to walk, unfortunately Sofie also likes to lick and we ended up having to put an apron on her that the vet had given us to prevent her licking the wound. Bella's was put on at night before we went to bed since she is not so compulsive at keeping clean like Sofie. They did look silly in them, and I think Sofie agreed, because the next morning she was not in it. How she managed to get out of the apron with the strings still tied and in the confined space behind our settee we have absolutely no idea. Could just have understood it if it had been a normal day, but right after her operation, how could she move her limbs enough to slip out of the apron? Houdini cat I suppose.

Sofie with her lovely white apron. Now you tell me
how she got out of that in a confined space?

Latvia to the right. Definitely very Northern, but where is
Eastern? Finland could also be classed as Eastern European.

I have a question for you, so where are you? Our geography doesn't always match up to our feelings. The Brits for instance, if you live in England you are less likely to feel European than if you live in Scotland but that belies the fact that Britain is in Europe, it is sits on the European plate whether we like it or not. Now take Latvia! I hesitated last week at adding the thought about Eastern Europeans and how many in far flung countries are separated from loved ones because I was effectively lumping all those coming from ex-Soviet countries as Eastern Europeans and one of my friends mentioned that Latvians do not always like to be called Eastern Europeans. But take a look at the map! Where is Eastern Europe? Who are the mythical Eastern Europeans? How far west do they come? The Latvians actually now prefer to be thought of as Northern Europeans because that is what they are, not as northerly as their northern neighbours Estonia and then Finland but still way up there. They are, however, not the only ones separated from loved ones, doing the jobs many in Britain do not want to do, the cleaners, the toilet attendants, the potato pickers, the maids and the list goes on and so does the list of countries that contribute valuable services to Britain, the Latvians, Lithuanians, the Poles, the Filipinos, the Indonesians, the Sri Lankans etc. etc. etc. sending back valuable finances to their homeland, targeted aid supporting education, nutrition and goodness knows what else. And if you want to see the effect of these emigrating populations on towns and villages around Latvia, have a look at this video from the BBC about a town called Cesis

Clearing the snow from the roadways to encourage them to
freeze this week to make any subsequent snow clearing easier

I mentioned about two weeks ago that Swedish agricultural companies were starting up Latvian companies to buy farmland expanding the Swedish financial empire. Seems the Swedes haven't bought everything up yet, as this week a Swedish company bought the Latvia's national commercial TV channel. It would not be too bad if the Latvians benefitted from all this "investment" but I am not sure they do, hugely. In my research and the internet stories I read, it states that home grown enterprises are far more likely to add value and jobs to an area than outside massive investment. The problem with the big investments is that profits leave the country, whereas home grown enterprises are more likely to reinvest into the area. They are more likely to support local causes and seek to bring about improvements in their area because they have a big investment in that area, namely their families. Big is not necessarily better, even economies of scale are not always what they seem. Sure a big company can create a lot of stuff and cheaper, but at what cost to the environment and what expense to its workforce? Cheaper loses some of its lustre when it binds people to a life of drudgery because they cannot afford to live well. Swedish companies do not always do much better outside their own nation, in the same ways the Brits are not exactly likely to promote welfare and good practices once outside of the nations control. We are often aware of it at a long distance as in India, China or elsewhere but not so aware when it is within Europe. One rule within  a nation, but outside of it? Having said that I have got to give praise where praise is due, Swedbank have written down some of Latvia's debts as a goodwill gesture. Not sure what that means in practice but I think it is a positive move and at least sends out the right kinds of signals. It isn't the first bank to do so though, SEB (another Scandinavian bank) was first and at a lot earlier a stage.

Icicles hanging from the barn roof