Done! Well some of it!

One bed of Amaranth found amongst
the weeds. Believe it or not there is
another on the right of this picture and
another four beds you cannot see.

It has been a week of a lot done and a lot not done, such is summer time. I managed to finish the paper I have been writing for ages. Hopefully this re-write satisfies everyone. We will see! I didn’t think I would be able to edit it down to the correct word count, but I amazingly managed it. I was very chuffed with myself for that.

Fortunately not all weeds are quite so
large. This was in our small greenhouse
that is more like a storage area and errrr
weed incubator.

Food mill and halters for the alpacas arrived from our good
friends in America. If only this package could talk, it would
be interesting to know why it was sent from Oregon to
Florida (diagonally opposite across the country) then up
north to New York? It took 12 days to leave the US and yet
we were give a delivery date of 6-10days. Oh the efficiency
of the US postal system, I guess. Fortunately after that it was
flown straight to Latvia and took a day to go through
customs before being delivered to our local post office.

Of course there has been much weeding and processing of berries, as usual for this time of the year. I got my new food mill that meant I could process a whole load of berries for the freezer. I decided not to do them all, but wait until later on in the year, when the weather is not so good and process the berries first by steaming to get juice and then through the food mill for jam or berry sauces and that means I can just sling them in the freezer with leaves, stems the lot. I think we have just about finished the strawberry harvest though now - so sad when that happens. We had been really enjoying the strawberries on our porridge for breakfast.

Blackcurrants ripe for picking

The barley is ripening

The season seems to have turned here and it has a definite feel of late summer now. The weeds are slowing down in growth (thank goodness) the leaves on the dandelions and strawberries are going red or mottled and the leaves on the trees are the dull green of the end of the season. Birds are also starting to congregate in preparation for migrating soon – it may still be a few weeks away yet, but the signs are there.

The first cabbage of the season. The cool weather has
favoured the brassicas this year and our cabbages are
looking quite good. We are not necessarily great
cabbage growers usually. Mind you, the snails were
out in force tonight and I had to pick quite a few off and
squish them underfoot.

We are not sure if we should be worried about the
appearance of these bugs on our redcurrants or not. Not
really sure what they are.

We are still getting summer visitors too, which is rather nice. This week the chap who wanted us to meet his German friend the other week and who Ian keeps meeting at the car technical place, came with his wife and young son. They stayed for quite a while chatting. Ian showed the wife around, since she had never been before and I got into a conversation with the chap about hunting. It is funny that I can explain the Latvian system to a Latvian, as I know more about the topic. Still not every Latvian is acquainted with the laws of their land on the topic – they don’t need to be in general and I did spend quite a while studying the ins and outs of hunting in Latvia. We are enjoying it when many visitors come, they bring chocolate - always welcome in our place and we had only just eaten up the last one from a previous group.

These bugs, however are a very welcome sight - ladybird
larvae

Oats all behind an electric fence.

Talking of hunting, our hunter told us he had shot a wild boar on our land the other day. We are pleased as we are starting to have more serious trouble with them and we had to put an electric fence around the oats to try and prevent more damage. Unfortunately the electric energiser we have available to use is not that powerful, but it might make them think twice – it made our kitten think twice when she came into contact with it. A learning experience for any farm cat!

Rather close to the barley field but an area the boars do
dig regularly next to the trees. Apparently boar are not
so fond of barley - probably due to the stiff hairs that
stick out of the head of the barley ears.

You won't see a sight like this very often. It has been nice
and warm but not too hot this week and so a chance to wear
a t-shirt and not a long, sleeved top to keep the sun off.

The reason we knew the hunter had shot an animal was because we had been to our local festival and they were having a grilling competition and he told us that on the menu was the wild boar that he shot at our place. We really wanted to organise taking our alpacas to the festival and show the fleece to people but yet again we didn’t get organised in time, not easy when we need translators for it. Maybe next year (that sounds like the gardeners’ refrain when something doesn’t work)

We have seen more bees this week, which is good news

Eyre, our kitten, obviously under-whelmed by Le Tour!

Our kitten has also been learning other lessons this week. Firstly she has been getting quite good at catching insects, unfortunately she tends to bring them into the caravan to play with, which is not what we really want. Neither was Ian impressed with the dead stinky mouse she brought in and even less impressed with the live one. We are not sure if Sofie, our older cat, had caught the mouse earlier and was trying to train our little one, or whether our little one had actually caught it herself. Either way, Ian made sure she caught it again and then evicted her from the caravan with the mouse in her mouth. She caused us a bit of consternation, just before we are about to leave the land tonight as she went missing Ian looked all over for her. Just as we were about to give up, she turned up.

Venturing out. She often accompanies us on our walks now
but gets very panicky if she cannot see us and we have to
whistle or talk to her so she can find us when we are going
through the long grass.

There are lots of flowers blooming in our meadows at this
time of year in the areas we haven't already cut

Our other visitors this week were friends of our goat farming friend and she brought her friends around to see what we were doing. It was great to hear their ideas on the things we are doing and they asked lots of questions of the sort that you know they know a lot about the topic. They have also used a seed processor before and loved the fact we had one. They reckon that ours is over a hundred years old. We were also told that the old Russian tractors use belts like the processor one and so we should be able to replace it without a problem. They told us there was a screen missing and what it would do and explained that the movable sieves underneath could do with some repair, which we thought might be the case. Other than that it was fine. At least we feel a little more confident that we know what it does and how it should work. We thought we had worked it out, but it is nice to know that from someone who has really used them. It was also nice to get an email from the people who had donated it to us where they mentioned that they think the seed processor is in good hands.

The hemp is growing well

To let more light in when we are
checking over the animals in the
evening, Ian made the back door into
a half door. It helps, but we could still
do with more light in. 

We have been trying to do some planning this week. Sometimes we get so busy we don’t really take time to think ahead, which is not so good. Ian put all my planned trips away into his diary and so he should now know when I am likely not to be around. Basically every month I am away somewhere now until November. Our daughter also asked if Ian would go over to their place to help her husband work on their new house and so that means Ian will be away for part of the time too, leaving me home alone with the animals.

We didn't have much in the way of seed for the sweetcorn and
didn't want to risk it outside anyway - heavenly food for boar
- so we planted it in the greenhouse, which it seems to be enjoying

Cooking the chicken out on our land
means using our halogen oven in the
greenhouse. It was too warm to have it
cooking in the caravan. We call our
halogen oven "Robbie." can't remember
why.

Part of our plans included dispatching three cockerels, since they are not really needed. One was making itself a nuisance by pestering our other free-range cockerel. One was favouring one particular hen and her feathers were coming off on her back, so hopefully she will recover. The other cockerel didn’t have a nice temperament and so we had no wish to keep him any longer. We had the bad tempered one for our evening meal, he was chewy but tasty. The others will definitely be put in the slow cooker.

Are we worried? These are the chicks and not for dispatch-
well not yet anyway. Some will be when we are sure which
are cockerels and which are not.

The grapes are beginning to turn too

Other plans for the future included prioritising new fences for pastures and fields, digging for water, and sorting out a container for winter storage. We started to put a list together of what needed doing when and who we needed to talk to about the plan if needed - or in other words, I got out a paper and pen and wrote it down. It’s a start. We also chatted about all the requirements for a happy and long marriage. Since we have been married for over 30 years, we feel we have some experience in the matter. We decided that deliberate mis-communication, selective deafness, repeated story-telling repeated and of course all that has to be washed down with a liberal dose of humour, otherwise all of that will end in tears. Well it did help the planning to go down a little bit better, or there would have been many a cross word I think.

Brencis is growing up fast. His mum, who
is sat behind him, must be giving him some
good stuff.

Now where am I?

Do you see that browny green stuff
down the path? That's grass! Oh yes!
The snow is gradually going

I had a lovely Skype chat today with my friend in America, who I met at my first academic conference in Florence.  Part of the time my supervisor joined in the chat to talk about academic things to do with my paper that I have been writing for ages, but we also had time for a good old natter. My American friend's first question was "Now where are you at the moment?" Good question! It is only mid-February and I have been up to Estonia three times already this year, as well as back to the UK and off down to the very far South-East of Latvia. Today I am at home! Having said that I have only just got back from Estonia, some of which was planned and some a last minute arrangement.

The ponds are beginning to show themselves too, although
Ian is wondering where all the melt water is going, because
the ponds aren't filling up

I knew there was not much point in booking interviews too far ahead, because from previous experience, that can mean they can get cancelled at the last minute and that is not easy when it takes a day to travel up. As soon as I got back from the UK I started enquiring as to when I could meet up with some "real" Estonians, in other words just ordinary folks not connected with the university and I tried to organise it so that it coincided with the rearranged doctoral seminar (the one that got cancelled and somehow I didn't get to know until the last minute). My answer came on Tuesday afternoon, could I make it up by Wednesday evening. My heart sank, would I be able to make it or not? I consulted with the Estonian bus webiste and it at first did not seem possible, as it looked like there was only one bus a day that connected. I was just about to decline when I decided to look up where I was going on the map and see where the website was routing me. At this point I found out it was routing me with an out of the way place and I could just as easily take my normal route up to Tartu and then catch a bus from there and those buses went about every hour and half - now that was more reasonable.

The castle gates of Põltsamaa. This
suffered a lot of damage during the
Second World War. It also houses the
towns wine cellar. Apparently the town
is the wine capital of Estonia, but not
wine from grapes but Estonian fruit
and berries. The town is also renowned
for its rose gardens

After scrambling around to get ready Tuesday evening, I set off from home on the 7:15am bus the next morning. I met up with the Masters student who is doing most of the interviews in Tartu and then we travelled up together to his home town, Põltsamaa. We were met by his father in a mini bus at 6:15pm and so after eleven hours on the road we were straight off to our first interview. Fortunately the type of interviews I do are more like homely chats and so it was not too hard a job. I just wanted to know what it was like to be an Estonian and a little about the way Estonians think, trying to weigh up along the way what differences I could detect from the average Latvian - whatever that might be. The Masters student's father sat outside for the whole of the hour and a quarter interview, but I guess he is used to that as he is a bus driver who drives his own buses.

Now if I remember the story correctly, this
statue is of a famous musician. He gets
pelted with eggs and flour at the end of
the year and the graduating students then
have to clean it up. At least I think that is
the right way around and why they do this
I'm not quite sure.

This was Lustivere the village where I did the interviews.
They are very proud at having won village of the year last
year and this bench celebrates that

After the interview I stayed overnight at his parents' house and was treated very well. Better than a hotel any day. I had roast chicken, veg and potatoes for the evening meal and in the morning giant pancakes with meat, cheese, pickles, sour cream, jam and some gorgeous honeys, one with blueberries in it and one with the honeycomb (not all together I might add). As our next interview was not until 11am there was a chance to chat with the parents. Of course the pictures of the alpacas came out, since people usually want to know what we are doing in rural Latvia and the pictures of the grandchildren. The mother of the family said I should really come back in summer when it looks much nicer, but I explained that I rarely get to travel about in summer these days, since it is the busiest time of the year on the farm. Still it was nice to have such an invite and it certainly made me feel very welcome.

I was given this rather nice pincushion after one interview

The river in Põltsamaa. I can't remember now how many
bridges there are along the river, but there are a lot of them

After a tour around Põltsamaa I was off down to Tartu in preparation to attend the doctoral seminar the next day. That was fairly uneventful but at least it meant being able to touch bases with both my supervisors - which is a miracle in itself, if not exactly startling news. One asked how I was getting along and how the interviews were going just after the seminar and one with a more general chat over lunch. One of the most annoying parts of the last few days though is that in my rush in the morning to get ready for the bus I forgot my computer charger. It serves me right for being on the internet and losing track of time, but it did mean that it was hard to do much work on my travels. I did at least have my iPad and so I could check my emails and read books but the time dragged much more this time. Such a shame as I really felt like I was getting the hang of utilising my travelling time to get stuff done. I did manage a bit of work on the iPad, but most of what I really needed to get done was still on my computer and not so easy on the iPad.

The old people's home in the former manor house in Lustivere

Hmmm! I think I got the best deal. I got moved in with
four more ladies

As for news down on the farm, we have had chicken chaos this week. Last Monday we decided to do the chicken change around. The young broiler cockerels in Ark 3 were being picked on by the more mature one and we knew they would need changing around soon anyway. It was a little like one of those games where you have to move a piece so that you can move another one and it had to be done in order or it wasn't going to work. First we moved out the cockerel from Ark 2 that was going to be culled into a basket to await his fate. The two young cockerels were moved into to take his place, as they were not as closely related to the hens in there, unlike the one removed who was their brother. Next the cockerel from the ark we call Ark 1 was swapped with the other two from Ark 3, a female broiler hen and the bossy cockerel.

What did you move me for? Life was so peaceful before

The hope was that moving the cockerel and the hen together would make it easier on the hen - it did not. Broiler chickens seem to be more docile and since she hasn't reached egg laying maturity yet, she is not so aggressive as the older laying hens. We are still waiting to see how that move goes, as she is still being picked on. There was a lot of squawking and complaining going on in the Arks even as we culled the male we had removed, until suddenly one of the young broiler chickens crowed for the first time. Suddenly peace descended and we decided it was time to make a move and go home, leaving them to settle down for the evening. Ian had to move one of the young broiler cockerels out though later on in the week, because the absence of the older bossier cockerel meant they both decided to boss around all the hens in Ark 2, so he has been put in with the cockerel from Ark 1 and after a short flurry, they settled their differences. We don't want to cull the other males just yet as they are probably heading for the outdoor free range accommodation, but it is too early yet and they can go out when the snow is gone and we are sure they are surplus to requirements in the Arks.

Sofie finding the warm spots again

Aggie or to give her her proper name Grizītes Agnese

Ian has been training Aggie to the halter this week. She has been really good and doesn't seem to mind the halter at all. He is thinking of getting her out on a rein, once he has found a halter with a good fit. Unfortunately the ones we have are a tad on the large side to be trusted to hold her firmly enough for a walk, plus the paths are still too icy at the moment and Ian doesn't want her slipping and getting freaked out. Although halter training has been going well, Aggie hasn't been a good alpaca all week. One day she tried to playfully butt Ian. Ian had to stamp his authority pretty firmly as he doesn't want her growing up thinking she can do this. He told her no and firmly but gently pushed her away. She seemed to have got the idea she had over stepped the mark and now she takes a little more care at approaching Ian. All good training to ensure she is people friendly but not a nuisance to anyone.

I can't save everyone!

The lobster pot has been up all week and still we haven't
caught anything! Actually it is a contraption to keep the
hens off my cranberries.

My friend up in Tartu, who I stay with when I visit showed me a book with a cartoon dog in it (sorry I can't remember exactly which one it was). One of the cartoons stood out in particular though, it was of the dog out in the rain, he picks up a worm that is drowning and carries it gently to safety. He then looks around and sees another worm, then another and another, finally he howls, "I can't save you all." Outside the uni the following morning there were lots of dried up worms washed down off a bank and that phrase "I can't save you all" goes through my head again - funny how phrases are buzzing around my head once more. Anyway I thought about the work I am researching and how I long for my work to have a positive impact on communities, but I have to be realistic, I need to remember "I can't save them all." Not all of them need saving anyway and some certainly do not want some interfering foreigner telling them what to do, a point relayed to me by a friend this week, by someone who may indeed be disgruntled with my work a couple of years ago on the wild boar management and all the conflict around that. They didn't see the need to change the law on hunting, after all they weren't impacted by the severe effects of too many wild boar digging up their land. Oh well! You can't please everyone and besides, I'll leave the saving of mankind up to God, I think he will do a better job of it than I would.

One problem we had this year was the tarpaulin wasn't
adequate enough to keep the moisture off the hay bales.
Fortunately we have enough, but this is not good and
we are already planning on how to erect shelters for the
hay bales later on in the year.

It feels a bit weird this week to be writing this at home and not planning on going anywhere this week. I get to sort of chill. We are gearing up for Spring planting and I have been putting quite a few seeds in that I know will take a bit of frost yet need the moisture at this time of year to germinate. If they don't come there is still plenty of time to plant more, so I'm not too worried. So I have sowed rocket, beetroot, broad beans, carrots and peas outside along with some onion sets. I also sowed rocket, and radish inside the greenhouse. Some of the seeds are even starting to poke through from the first lot of seeds I planted inside the greenhouse. You'll have to wait until they are a little bit bigger though before you get to see them, not sure they would really show up on a photograph yet.

Spring is here - new frog spawn

Alicia taking advantage of a half finished alpaca house
to shelter in. You can also see the pine trees our alpaca
ladies have been eating. The brush on the right are ones
they have already chewed all the leaves off.

I have also helped Ian a bit this week. We fetched some OSB board for the roof of the alpaca house extension, named APH2b (Alpaca house 2b - because it is an extension of APH2). I helped Ian slide the sheets onto the roof and then acted as roof support to stop them sliding off while Ian screwed them down. It is a role I'm used to, not that we are always putting roofs on alpaca houses, but when Ian does construction jobs or repairs, I'm either gopher or prop. He managed to get a coat of bitumen on the roof and for it to dry a bit before it rained and today he finished off the panelling around the exterior, in between the showers that is. It still needs more bitumen putting on and a door handle on the new door, but apart from that it is usable. He is on a roll this week with getting things done, he even fixed the shower too, so that it doesn't pour with water once the inlet taps are switched on.

APH2 in use

Taken from the inside of the new extension

We decided on a new extension after Benedikts was born to Alicia at the end of January. Even though he didn't survive, it made us realise the importance of having somewhere to separate the mothers with babies and since two of our alpaca ladies are due at the end of May, Ian thought he had better get cracking with the job, now the ground has dried enough to be able to drive across it. We might also use it to separate off the cria when they are around 8 months old, so the mothers can concentrate on developing a new baby, as they will hopefully be pregnant again.

Ian reused some of the wood off the original APH2 and so
the extension is almost the same colour already. Here it is
in its almost completed state with full feeders. That hay at
least is nice and green and not black like the other stuff

I can spend quite a bit of time out on the land now we have electricity and a caravan, as I can work on my laptop. It means I can take a break and wander up to see what Ian is doing, or nip out and plant a few seeds. I am certainly feeling the benefit of the more relaxed schedule. I feel less overwhelmed this week and I guess that is partly because I am not travelling so much and partly because I have got quite a few jobs I needed to do out of the way. My supervisor was happy with the paper I finished off this week for an academic journal and even managed to get rid of over 1200 words to get down to 8000 without seriously affecting what I wanted to say, so I'm very happy too. No doubt I won't have heard the last of it though, as it has to go for peer review, which basically means that two experts in the field will get to look through it and make comments and I will then have to revise it again, but that's normal. It would be unusual not to have to make some changes.

A hard life for the wig on legs

I used to think that those who took their cats to those fancy places for them to have a haircut were silly, but then again, I never had long haired cats. It doesn't help that our long haired cats spend so much time out of doors, but their hair is getting seriously matted. I spent hours today, combing through one of them bit by bit to try and disentangle some of the hair. I had only spent quite a while, a few days ago getting her coat cleared and it is just as bad, if not worse again today. The problem is that even though they are quite small cats, their fur is about four inches long on average, which makes them look like wigs on legs. When Ian goes to see the vet, hopefully he will remember to ask what she recommends.

A double rainbow with our wandering chickens. They
have had their wandering curtailed a bit this week, as
Ian hasn't been letting them out until lunch time.
Surprisingly the number of eggs have been going up! 

I was a little sad this week as I had to dispatch another chick this week, although it could stand on one leg, the other leg was not getting better. I had made a little cage so that it could be with the others and sleep next to them, without getting knocked over in the hectic rush of chick life, but quite often there would be interlopers in the little cage. It took me ages to work out how the little darlings were getting in, but I saw one fly up onto the cage edge and squeeze under the wire that stops them escaping out of their box. There isn't much room but it managed. I managed to keep it separated after that, but the day I had to clean the box out, I put them all in a cardboard box with a towel over the top, so they would all settle down and not run around with the sick chick in there, but at the end when I took the towel off, the sick chick was huddled in a corner and not looking terribly happy and I realised that it wasn't fair to keep it alive after that. I tried! The other ten though are lovely and healthy looking. Some of them are looking distinctly speckled and one is looking jet black. Hopefully at least five of them are female and then we may have hatched them early enough to produce eggs over the winter or at least more most of it anyway.

You can't have rainbows without the rain

A close up of the rainbow taken with a
polarising filter. Ian found out today
that the rainbow is highly polarised
and if you turn the filter the wrong way
the rainbow disappears

My family have been having adventures too this week. My youngest finally managed to pass his driving test this week, second time around and ironic that he hasn't been able to get on with learning to drive because he was so busy learning how to design them. He has also had a successful interview and is doing some training this week to see if he is suitable for a place. It might not be his ideal job and not one connected with design, but at least it is a start. My mother, daughter and granddaughter have also been having adventures of avoiding cyclones. They had hoped to visit the barrier reef, but it was all cancelled shortly after they flew into Cairns. My daughter mentioned a cyclone was the problem but there was no mention of it on the BBC. I checked around and finally found some reference to it in the news and found out it was quite a big one, equivalent to a category 4 hurricane and heading for Cairns, where my family were staying. Fortunately my daughter managed to get them on one of the last planes out of the area and onto Brisbane. Fortunately for the people in the area the cyclone lost much of its power and so the damage wasn't as bad as it was feared. Currently mother, daughter and granddaughter are relaxing in Fiji - or at least that was the last I heard.