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.

Happy Blooming Christmas to all of you!

Huddled together for warmth

Spent lots of money again this week and it was nothing to do with Christmas, but with -23C predicted and Ian out there in the cold, without electric then he needed some warm clothes. We managed to find some thermal wellies rated down to ...... get this ........ -70C. Can't even imagine what that would be like, -32C last year was bad enough. He also got some warm underwear, not sure they are rated down to those temperatures though. Unfortunately we didn't find any good gloves that will take the hammering of handling wood though and so he has had to make do with some cheapies for the time being. Previous years it wasn't too bad as we didn't have any animals out on the land, but this year has meant a change in routine and this early winter has meant our animals are having to put up with some pretty low temperatures rather early in the winter. Our alpacas are putting on quite a bit of fleece now in response and are sensible enough to stay inside their stable when the temperatures are really bad or when it is blowing hard. This week it was the chicken's turn to look a bit miserable, especially the males with their fine tails, which kind of looked sad when they are shivering - mind you it was -17C outside and not much warmer in the greenhouse.

Turn the heat up will you! Our alpacas, expectantly
waiting to see if Ian has brought some more food for them.

The good news is that on the electric front we are close to getting connected, they just have to get a counter in and then we are good to go. Mind you today's weather might not help as it has been blowing. If it blows the snow off the laden trees it might be okay but if it is just the last straw for trees hanging over wires then it will mean the electric guys will be busy again. I'm sure they will be looking forward to a Christmas rest if the weather will let them.

Frankenfeeder 2. Have you noticed how
people have latched onto the Franken concept?
There is now Frankenfish

I was a bit naffed off today as I had made my way twice to the post office this last week to collect a parcel that had arrived on Thursday and the post office was shut. We decided not to rush to get the parcel on the Friday when we got back from our shopping spree as there wasn't long before closing time and I thought that I could collect it on the Saturday instead, wrong! The post office shuts on Saturday, not sure when that happened, could have been a while ago as I haven't tried to go to the post office on Saturday for a long time. I had hoped that it would be open Christmas Eve too but not the case. I wouldn't have tried if I had realised that it was shut but didn't see any sign in the window. I have now been informed that all Latvian calendars give the government days off in red and they usually have the 24th, 25th and the 26th off and the post office follow the government holidays. Hmmph! I will not know until the 27th if the parcel is a present from my Mum, a book for my studies or a book for extending our gardening year or a surprise. So it will be a bit like the 12 days of Christmas in our house I think.

A Russian orthodox church in Jekabpils

Mind you I did get one present through by email, one from Oxfam unwrapped. When our daughter asked what we wanted for Christmas I said that they could take us out for a meal when we visit in April but she sent us a present as well, well a donation on our behalf to the farmers in Timor to learn more sustainable farming practices. It made me smile! Even if our presents haven't got through by post, one got through.

Driving in a winter wonderland

It has been a bit of a mixed week this week. I have just finished a present for our first grandchild due in January (sorry no pictures until they have seen it though). I am still finishing my parents' present. I thought I had nearly finished it, but it didn't look finished and so it needed more work doing on it. So once again the present will be late - not very good at getting presents to people on time any more. I have also still been doing more international trade negotiations. It means I am finding out lots of interesting facts like there isn't that much Ash in Latvia (not that there will be much Ash in other countries with that new disease), probably due to the colder climate. I have also been working on increasing understanding between the two parties of how each group works - that can always be a source of tension when trading partners don't understand the restraints or cultural differences and so just trying to smooth the path for both of them is interesting.

A winter wonderland walk to the shops

We have had more snow this week and so there have been plenty of snow clearing duties, keeps me fit anyway. I have also been doing some extreme gardening! Ian found a box with some garlic bulbs in and garlic seeds in the caravan- I had wondered what I had done with them. Anyway they needed planting now or there would be no point at all. In England it is said that garlic is planted on the shortest day of the year and harvested on the longest, so still time, the only problem was to find the ground to plant them in. Fortunately I knew where the other garlic bulbs were that I had put in earlier, as there was one of our A frame hay ricks standing over the top of them and so it was easy to work out where the bed was and where the paths were. So after digging down about a foot through snow we found the ground, which wasn't too frozen and so with frozen fingers I planted the bulbs and scattered the seed about. We also saw some leftover brussel sprout plants and so pulled them up as the chickens will enjoy them and we even managed to harvest enough for Christmas dinner. Who'd have thought we would be gardening at -15C, not recommended though.

A sunrise winter wonderland outside our home.

Taking apart a large hay bale in these kinds of temperatures is interesting, especially when the hay bale has been sitting around outside for two years. The inner bit is fine, but getting to it is challenging. We prised frozen outer bits off using a fork and a machete. It worked anyway and when we got down to a small enough core we were able to roll it directly into the greenhouse and just used a hay fork for all the loose stuff. At least we have plenty of hay for bedding inside now. We don't want to use the ones we've baled this year for bedding, at least not yet as we don't know how many we are going to get through yet and so we want to save it for food for the alpacas. I suppose we should be grateful that we didn't quite get the -23C forecast, otherwise it would have been even more challenging. At least the weather has been good enough to do some showshoeing around the land and we were able to check to see if there had been any recent damage from wild boar and I'm glad to report we didn't see any. We did see some other interesting tracks though and not too sure what they were. The problem is that the snow is powdery and so doesn't show footprints very well, but it did show an animal that could run and it wasn't a deer and certainly not a boar. It is possible it was a hunting animal of some kind which is a bit worrying now. Obviously we will have to continue to monitor the situation.

Nice of the wind to blow around the stable where the
alpacas sleep and not up against the door. The rest of the
field is knee deep in snow

Our car was in for testing this week too, as it hasn't been starting too well even at -15C. Ian has been taking the precaution of bringing in the battery at night so that at least it is warm. We found out that it was the two of the glow plugs that have stopped working. This is not good news in low temperatures. The glow plugs are heating devices used to aid starting of the diesel engines in cold weather. Not necessary in summer but crucial in winter. The car is running a little better since Ian changed the oil but still not happy in these temperatures first thing. Of course being Christmas it won't get sorted until the new year as they need to order in the parts. Good job the forecast is for warmer temperatures.

A windswept road

I forgot to mention last week that the tower on top of Gaizinkalns, the highest mountain (sorry hill, Latvia doesn't have mountains really) was blown up last week. It was built in the Soviet era to make the hill higher than the rival hill in Estonia which was 6m taller at 318m. The tower was badly built and never really finished and has been unsafe for many years. It does make me wonder though what other tall towers in Latvian life will come down? You can see the action here on this link. There are certainly some towers that need to come down in the area, particularly where people dominate others as if they still lived in the 1990s, just after the Soviet era, before the rule of law really got better established.

The site for our extreme gardening

A comment by someone this week led to one of those weeks where I feel compelled to ask "who am I?" and "what drives and motivates me?" I am a researcher, almost obsessive I guess, the desire to know and understand is deeply ingrained in me. My motive and desire is for truth and justice. I am passionate about truth, I don't mind stories, but I don't like it where a story is dressed up as truth, if it is a story say it is a story, if it is not then fine. Some emails and facebook posts are nothing worse than the old chain letters and should be treated in the same way, binned. There is no excuse for manipulating people to get a message out, it should stand or fall by its own merits and I know that means that some will fail, not because they don't contain truth, but just they get missed somehow. I get sick and tired of lies and half truths passed along with no one questioning of their validity. Why are people content to do this? Why do people not check? It doesn't take long, once you get the hang of it - 5 minutes perhaps!

The bridge across to the forest over the stream

My other passion is justice. I hate to see people labelled, ostracised, picked on. I have been described as a terrier before, a little dog with a fierce loyalty that won't leg go - I suppose they could be right. There are times I won't let go, not because I am always right, but I want to be sure I'm right at the end. I don't mind changing my mind, but convince me to do it first. Prove it to me, that is why I ask questions and lots of them. Asking the awkward questions makes people feel uncomfortable, and sometimes I make no apologies for that. I guess it just makes me the way I am!

One tree down due to the winter weather. Next year's firewood

My friend Mavis was musing on Christmas traditions recently and this week she commented on the tradition of Santa Claus. It reminded me that when one of my children was 5 he asked me if Santa Claus was real, so I asked him what he thought and he really didn't answer. Two weeks later, clearly having thought it through, his answer was "no." I don't believe in telling lies to children in answer to genuine questions and so I admitted the truth, but warned him not to tell anyone at school as it might upset some of them. He managed to upset one of the dinner ladies instead, who thought it was awful that a child of that age didn't believe in Santa Claus. I was somewhat amused. The dinner lady created the myth of Santa Claus to keep her child believing in it for years, even to the extent of putting "reindeer tracks"on the roof one year. It was almost as if her whole Christmas was dependent on her child believing in Santa Claus. No idea what happened when he finally worked it out, poor guy.

A little too large to take home for Christmas! The tale
of the Christmas tree will wait until next week

On the subject of Christmas I have to admit it, we as Christians can be grumpy, particularly around Christmas time, we don't like it if you say holiday and not Christmas, despite the fact that holiday is actually a shortened version of holy day, we don't like leaving the Christ out of Christmas despite the fact that it still leaves the cross, as in Xmas, and don't you dare mess with our nativity, that embellished story of our Lord's birth. We are also touchy on numerous other subjects and believe that we are in the right all the time, of course, well we have God on our side don't we? We want to pray when and where we like, even if it offends you and insist that you pray, even if you in all honesty don't believe. Yep I admit it, we Christians can be pretty bad news to many around us, unwilling to spread peace and goodwill to all men, irrespective of belief, irrespective of culture, irrespective of whether you are being honest enough to say what you do or don't believe. Sorry! So why do I still believe when seeing such grumpy behaviour and animosity to others because of the season? Why do I cling to those old stories as you might call them? Well it is because I look around at an awesome planet that we are in the business of trashing and still see the awesome creative God breaking though, I have walked a path where I have known my God and my Saviour walking by my side and whether I feel it or not, I know he is there and at the end of the day I still trust God to work his way through a lot of horror, evil, stupidity, ignorance and greed to weave a story that speaks of, to quote an old hymn, a guilty world being kissed in love and using a lot of broken people to weave that story.

On that note I, in the words of the immortal Raymond Brigg's Father Christmas, wish you all a Happy Blooming Christmas and on that note I shall now go and put up some Christmas decorations.

Cold times

Weird snow sculptures or one large snowdrift - that was a
road past our orchard once

Sundays don't seem to be a day of rest at the moment. Last week it was a burst water pipe and it meant Ian was busy even on a down day. The burst pipe was not due to ice though, but a pipe that punctured some how. I went to read the meter and as the meter is kind of propped up on some other pipes and so it has to be moved to read it, as I moved it a pipe ruptured and I had to put a finger over the now spurting pipe. I had to shout for Ian to come and do something, so that was him busy for the next few hours while he fixed it. Would have been an easier job if all his tools for the job had been in the house and not out on the land. This week it was drifting snow and having to do the kinds of jobs that just have to be done when you have animals and need to keep on top of the snow to keep them fed and watered. After shifting snow and changing bedding we decided to go and see if it was possible to get two large bales of 2 year old hay from the field to use as bedding in the greenhouse for if the weather gets worse. Can't be too much worse than it was this weekend with drifting snow, but you never know. Well first of all we managed to get the car stuck in a snow drift, then it took Ian a bit of time to sort the tractor out, and just as he arrived the grader clearing the roads pulled up. I think he waited to see if the tractor would get the car out, which fortunately it did and at least it meant we didn't have to try and hold a conversation in Latvian. We then spent the next half hour in the increasing gloom and horizontal snow, shifting the bales one at a time, it is a good job we don't have many more of that size left. We are keeping this years hay back for feed as we don't know yet how far it will go.

Outside our other apartment

Ian on snow clearing duties

It sure has been bitterly cold here, we have had colder temperatures before and that we can cope with, but it's the wind that is making it worse. On one day all of our alpacas were shivering in the morning but we think that is because the wind just happened to be blowing at an angle that was able to blow snow through the smallest of crevices. Fortunately after a good feed they warmed up and looked fine, even Turbjörn, this time though they were all head for the shed in between feeds to get out of the wind. We were also pleased to note that their fleece is definitely thickening up. I wonder if the sudden drop in temperatures has been one of the problems and it just means they haven't had time to grow their fleece thick enough, quickly enough. Our chickens have been fine though and those are the ones that everyone asks about. They are in the greenhouse and their arks are on deep beds, which basically means putting a deep layer of straw down and leaving it in there and then just adding layers on top. The composting manure then serves to increase the heat in the area, apparently it is quite healthy for them. They also go into their wooden boxes at night and they are packed in their with plenty of straw and so keep each other warm.

The windy day tore the protective blue tarpaulin off the side
of the accommodation block for the local school which is
undergoing renovation. I think they were trying to protect
it from the severe cold. 

Disappearing objects, well they would
be if the snow hadn't whorled around them

We are still having problems with the electric and it has been off again this last week. I really feel sorry for the electric guys, especially as we have got to know one of them quite well. The poor guy hasn't had a weekend at home for three weeks and being working many a night too. Part of the problem has been the amount of ice built up and now snow on top of that and many trees have been gradually getting lower and lower which is not so good on top of the ice encrusted wires. It looks very pretty, but just not what we want. The good news is that the papers for our electric has finally come through and means we can get connected up out on the land though. That will be a relief for Ian as it is not much fun at lunchtime as the caravan is just too cold but he needs the energy to keep going and so stopping for lunch is a must. He could come home but that is a lot of fuel in the car and means he can't keep an eye on the alpacas to make sure they are doing okay. It will be so much better when we have a house out there.

I cleared down there!

And there! Not so clear but it was a lot of work you know!

I have been having fun again this week helping to set up international trade links again. It is much easier ringing up on behalf of someone to set up the links than it is to do it for myself. It is also much easier for me to phone an English company than it would be for our neighbour to be talking on the phone in English. Our conversations are full of pauses and arm waving and periods of trying to work out what is meant or what the word is that we are trying to translate and that doesn't quite work by phone. It all sounds grand but really it is just nothing more than chatting to someone on the phone that has previously emailed and just trying to work out what is needed to happen. It's looking a positive link up anyway.

A lot of snow! Could be worse. Heard in Sweden it was
5m high in places.

People keep talking about Christmas and getting ready for it, I can't quite get in the mood somehow. It was nice to hear some choral singing from some church in England on the Latvian classical station as we drove home on that snowy day over the weekend, that felt a bit Christmassy. There are some lights and things out for Christmas but nothing like in England - thank goodness, where Christmas seems to start in September. We did get a Christmas card from our son and his family - that's a first, it was a cute card taken from a painting done by our adopted grandchild, our son's girlfriend's little one of a snowman on a red background. Very sweet. I have also been trying to finish off an embroidery for my parents for their Christmas present, but the nearer I get to the finish, the further away the finish seems. I have more work to do on it to make it look complete. I somehow think it is going to be late. The other preparation for Christmas is to decide what to eat on the day, we are actually spoilt for choice now. I told you that we have some wild boar meat, so we could have that, we could have one of our chickens we culled recently or now we even have the choice of a free range turkey too, which one of our friends blessed us with. Hmmm decisions, decisions!

I think the seeds sprouted inside the squash! Whoops
they were meant for next years plants and it is a bit early
to pot them up.

I also think I ought to get cracking on the knitting front, especially after the little scare this weekend. Our son text us to say he was with his wife in hospital and the baby might be on its way. I must say that if it had been it did not take after his father, who had to be threatened with eviction to get his act together to enter the world. It is still a bit early though as the baby is only due 9th January and fortunately the contractions all died down and she was able to go home, much to our son's relief too as he doesn't do well in hospitals.

Arrrhh! Some sunshine

Will Self had an interesting perspective this week, we have had the slow food movement, the slow travel movement, is now the right time for the slow news movement?

How perverse, therefore, that the contemporary news media keeps to an entirely different beat, an ever-accelerating tempo. The news cycle has been 24-hour since the early 1980s, but the number of updates within each of those hours has steadily grown. Now the letters of the threads that run continuously beneath the live reporting look to me like the cogs of a virtual flywheel, one that spins ever faster as it tries to provide our inertial present with motive force. More events, more comments on those events, still more events provoked by those comments, and in turn, comments on those comment-induced events. The actual is sliced, diced and winched forward, only to tumble off time's assembly-line into the great slag-heap of now.

Ian once had a picture where he saw a giant flywheel where God just put his finger on a switch to stop the frantic turning round. It didn't stop immediately but like a fly wheel when you flip the switch it gradually started to slow down, perhaps God will do that soon for life itself. Wonder what that would look like? All life in the slow lane, time to breathe again.

Disappearing under a blanket of white

Of course it is not really possible to finish off an item like the above without mentioning the horrible events last week where a young gunman entered a school and killed many little children in the US. Certainly an item, sliced, diced and winched forward. I did consider doing what some other bloggers did and not post out of respect, after all what is news about our weather compared to the avalanche of grief the parents, friends and families of those murdered children must be feeling. I can't even start to comprehend what it must be like for them. I decided not to in the end, not out of a lack of respect for them, but out of respect for many other children that are murdered in our violent societies around the world, many of whom will never be mentioned in news bulletins, some of whom will never even be mourned by people in this world. It is a horrible, horrible thing to happen and the grief and the shock is very real and the reason behind it will have to be addressed, but they are not the only ones and so I decided to go ahead and post anyway, my heart still goes out to the parents and families of those little ones and to all those who have lost their children. May we all work towards a better future for our children.

Hog roast

Damage right up to our alpaca fence this week

Eventually this last week we managed to get hold of a hunter to come and hunt on our land. The number we had, was for a hunter who had left the hunting organisation we have a contract with and it took a few texts to eventually get another number. It was sorted in the end and the hunter went out on three nights to our land, with increasing damage being done, but eventually he shot one. If we have the story straight, then it was one of a group of 20-30 individuals, so it was no wonder the place was a mess. It is possible that they had also decided that our land would make an ideal breeding ground. Not good for us, but at least the hunters have committed to continuing the hunt this week too, although of course there hasn't been any damage since one was shot. I remember one of our neighbours telling us that a hunt usually meant that the wild boar would not be back for a fortnight, so at least we get a bit of a reprieve. The snow has continued to fall and it is steadily building up and this restricts the wild boar with their little legs to the forests, so hopefully by the time the boar have forgotten about the killing the snow will be too deep for them.

Ian makes the best use of the barn by hoisting the
trailer up and leaving more floor space. One pulley
a couple of chains and the jobs a goodun'

Our share of the boar meat, bagged up and ready for the
freezer

The great thing is with having hunters out on the land, is that we get a share of the boar meat too and so we ended up with a bucketful of meat. I like the idea that I haven't had to butcher it too, so it seems a fair exchange. It was a fat pig though, with a layer of fat on it over an inch thick, if not thicker. That was one well fed pig! Normally I would be wary of meat with too much fat, but the fat will be good for our chickens, they could do with the extra calories now the temperatures are dropping quite sharply. I will let you know what it tastes like once I have got around to cooking it, I will tell you though that we will enjoy every morsel of it.

A frosty morning

Talking of chickens, we must have killed the wrong one. We have not had a single egg this week. I know it is cold but the light levels have gone up with the snow and so I would have thought we might have had one or two eggs, but no! The cold has been bad for the alpacas, well one in particular, Turbjörn. We are still not sure if the others are being mean to him or he just prefers to stay outside, but he is often shivering during the day. He is fine in the mornings as they have plenty of hay that has been built up quite a bit in the shed and we also have spent one day this week shifting rubbish bales of hay and stacking them against the shed to act as insulation and then put fleece around the outside on the other sides to reduce the draughts. It seems to have made it a better environment overnight despite the continued drop in temperatures. Two guys came around from the nearby sheep farm this week and helped Ian to cut the alpaca toe nails. They were quite excited about helping with the alpacas, being only three of them and not hundreds of sheep was something a little different. One had a bit of a bleed, but nothing serious and the lads had a spray to help, one also had a bit of a limp afterwards but that got better over the next two days. It might have just twisted it a bit as it was having the nails cut, or it might have just been a bit strange after having the nails cut. Anyway it is better now.

Hay bales stacked up against the side - a bit snow encrusted now

Double fleece layers around the sides too

We actually saw the sun one day this week. Not sure when
the last time we saw it. Ian and I just stood by the window
and gazed at the sun coming up, it was such a welcome sight

Sometimes in winter we have a problem with the electric, although we don't have as many power cuts as we used to now, it has gone off twice this week. The first time I was surprised that I didn't have a text from the power company to say that the electric was off. It seems a bit stupid getting a text to say "your power is off" but at least it means I know, they know about it and hopefully working on it. What was even more surprising was that it was off for an hour and a half and it wasn't even snowing at the time. All I can assume is that it might have been due to an ice build up that got worse as the temperatures dropped. The second time the electric went off we got a text, only I wasn't impressed as we had gone to bed early at our other apartment and had only just dropped off. We had also just topped up our fire to last all night and so we then spent an uneasy time wondering if our fire would cause the water to boil and possibly explode - we haven't got around to sorting out the battery for our UPS system (Uninterrupted power supply) which switches to battery power when the electric goes off. Our batteries have been used to charge the electric fence and probably need replacing now. Sigh!

Franken-shifter. A patented snow remover

Snow shifted off the greenhouse with franken-shifter

A frosty tree

Usually I don't mind the snow, but this year I just feel caught out by it. I guess it is partly because we have the animals now and we know that if the snow stays then this will be it until at least March and Ian has been having to spend all day out on the land, without electric, so that he can keep an eye on the animals. The chickens seem happy enough fortunately but due to our shivering alpaca, Ian has upped their feed of concentrate by feeding them midday and making sure that Turbjörn gets his full share. At least it means that Turbjörn, the most reluctant of the alpacas will eat out of a bowl Ian holds, not out of his hand but close. Looking out over the scene from our apartment window though I noticed once again how it hides so much, covering the footprints and on our land I knew it would be covering the hideous mess from the pigs in a white fluffy blanket, that was falling ever so gently from the sky. It made me think that sometimes we need our past covered over like that, hiding the marks we made, rather like grace really.

A golden sunrise

Crystal fairy lights, or ice lit by the sun!

It is finished - no really this time!

Winter arrived! Again!

It is a bit scary really, I wrote last week asking if those who are of the praying type if they would pray for our cable to arrive and it did! In fact the very next morning it arrived. Not a moment too soon either, because as Ian was putting the tractor away after finishing putting the cable in the trench, it began to snow. Talk about cutting it fine. We now have winter back for a second time and the forecast is for it to stay cold. The type of snow we have had has led to some problems with our electric back home, probably due to ice encased electric cables, or snow getting into some vulnerable part of the electric supply and at one point we were off for 40 mins. The snow was mixed with a bit of freezing rain and some trees are looking pretty precarious across some roads and hanging over power lines, not good.

Ice encased washing line on our balcony. The kale and
brussel sprouts were also ready frozen in the same way

The alpacas were not in a rush to come out

Wish I could say that I have definitely finished with my proposal for doing a PhD and it has been accepted, but I can't. I made the amendments no problem and sent it back off, but there was still a query about the vagueness of one of my answers. I responded by explaining that I didn't feel able to make the amendment any clearer as it all depended what my research shows up and what doorways were open to me to pursue. Basically I will undertake some case studies, but how I carry them out, with whom, how I choose them etc. all depends on who will work with me, what I feel is needed and what methods are available or whether I even have to develop a new method to work within the culture of Latvia. I won't know until I set off on the journey. Well that's was my answer and I'm sticking to it, but whether I have to write that into the proposal or not I don't know yet. At least I do know that the actual proposal is still moving in a positive direction and so I'm quite happy with that.

The little egg on the right was our first egg, the large egg
on the left was for comparison.

Our chicken has also been reading my blog too, it crowed three times the next morning but it still took a couple of days to work out which one it was for sure and in fact we have two crowers now. Our confidence in identifying the gender of chickens, however, took a bit of a knock this week. As I mentioned we sent one of our male chickens to another farm, thankfully we have been informed that he has now settled in and crowing. We removed the other cockerel that was also in that ark as it seemed to be a bit of a bully as well as a bit of a late developer compared with some of other cockerels. One chicken we thought we might keep was put into the cockerel-less ark and was promptly well and truly hen-pecked, so we decided to pull him out and put in another cockerel and within five minutes he had his ladies all sorted and under control (no comments fellas), at the same time as adding the cockerel we also introduced one of the chickens we are not sure about, so we can wait and see which way it develops. So if you are still with me, we now had three apparent cockerels that were surplus to requirement, the cowardly one, a speckled one that seemed to be a developing a bit slower and the one from the ark that was a bit of a bully. We dispatched them and took them home to deal with and you can imagine our surprise on cleaning out the innards of one of the chickens to pull out what looked like eggs, lots of them, all at different stages!!!!!!! It wasn't a cockerel at all, it was a bossy female with a very red comb and red wattles!!!!!! To make matters worse, we found an egg the next day and none of the other chickens has laid one since - does that mean we dispatched the only laying female we had? Our one line of defence is that even seasoned hen keepers get it wrong from time to time, at least so far we have only made one mistake.

O.K. Corral! The boards are to stop the alpacas from
damaging the plastic

Our greenhouse now looks like a scene from the O.K. Corral, as we prepare for the worst part of winter when temperatures drop so low that we need the alpacas in with the chickens to stay warm, we can also hopefully by then lay on a bit of heat with a heater if necessary. Ian has also been reducing the places where snow tends to get in through some of the gaps around the windows and doors, not a problem normally but this year it is. Ian being the master at cobbling things together utilised some material from a now defunct gazebo, with the result that it looks like we have arched windows in our greenhouse. Very funny as we said the greenhouse looked a bit like a cathedral when it was being built. Now all we need is to build a steeple and it will look the part and get the neighbours worried.

A bit different from earlier on in the year with tomatoes,
cucumbers, melons and peppers

Our cathedral windows

Franken-draught excluder

Trying to stop water freezing. Hopefully with
polystyrene and straw on top of the bucket
it will not be ice by the morning

Winter wasn't the only thing to strike with a vengeance here this week, overnight the wild boar wreaked havoc on our land. The question is though, are the wild boar likely to succumb first to a possible classical swine fever outbreak or to the hunters gun? Three farms around 200km away have reported infections and two wild boar have also been found with the disease. Classical swine fever severely reduced the wild boar populations throughout Europe in the 1990s and I believe there are one or two farmers around who wouldn't be too upset if it happened again. The irony is that too high a population of wild boar is a recipe for infection and so more likely to spread to our area eventually and cause a big problem in the local population. At least scenes like these below would be rarer if wild boar numbers were lower. These pictures are taken from different sites around our land and are all the result of one nights work of probably a family of pigs.

Close to our alpaca paddock

Also close to our alpaca paddock

All the dark ground is turned over and shows the pathway
they made through our land

This is a close up of the right of the picture above

Moving further up

And round the top of the land, this is where the deepest
damage was done

A close up of the large holes they dug from the picture above