The Winds of Change

One day on the way to do a spot of gardening at our
other apartment I noticed these huge practice
climbing poles looking like huge silver logs. The are
for the aborists to practice climbing trees, but in the
years that have gone by they have changed from
brown to grey and in the morning sun they glistened.

This blog comes to you in instalments, so maybe a bit random at times. Back home the summer is passing by so quickly now and there is a noticeable change in the way the wind rustles through the leaves of the trees. I wonder if the rest of the world hears the change too? The song "The Winds of Change" wormed its way into my brain this week and eventually I looked it up. I could remember the general tune and the title being sung in the chorus, but not much else. I'm terrible at remembering band names or even lyrics properly (no sniggering from my children please!). I had forgotten that it was written around the time of Glasnost and the fall of the Berlin Wall by a German band, The Scorpions. The lyrics speak of change blowing through Europe and dreams ignited in the hearts of the young that change was coming. It also spoke of the tension of the time, as soldiers marched by. Those were heady days when the news was unbelievable. I and many others never imagined that the Iron Curtain would fall so quickly.

Ian prepared to do battle with some
hornets that had decided to take up
residence in our barn. Hornets are bad
enough but if they take up residence in a
tree away from where we mainly operate
we let them stay, but the barn is out of
bounds

So many years down the line and sitting in a country that was sat on the other side of that Iron Curtain to the one I lived in, it is difficult to comprehend how far this country and those like it have come and yet the echoes of that time still rumble from time to time. I sometimes wonder if Europe catapulted itself into a heady hedonism from which it is beginning to wake up. Blindly, naively, rampant capitalism was allowed to take charge and community suffered. People chased a dream that thought stuff would bring them contentment. Are the dreamers waking up? Are hearts stirring for change? Will the markets finally serve the people and not the people serve the markets? Hope is in short supply at times, but it is hope that can bring radical change, just as it has done before. There is always that brief moment in time when the path of history can take several directions, on the one side down to chaos and on the other to a road that leads to freedom. Not freedom to accumulate more but freedom to live simply, in community with others. Even that road can be a rocky one though, but worth the effort of clearing the path through.

Part of the hornets nest. A remarkable feat of engineering,
just not welcome in the barn.

I love gates and there will be a few
more of these. Also on the High Street

So back to the land, the electric fence to stop the wild boar getting in didn’t work. They got in and trampled more barley and so we have perhaps lost half of it now. It doesn’t help that it has been hot here, at least during the day, and so the ground is dry, which doesn’t help the electric fence. There must be a problem with the set up too as it is loosing too much power from the source and as I mentioned before the battery operated sheep fence is giving a better power output. It is so frustrating, the barley was ready, we just hadn’t had the time to get it in. We did get some cut, half of that processed and the other half drying a little closer to the greenhouse where there is not as much pig activity.

The High Street, Aberdeen. Not exactly the hub of trading
these days, but I guess in days of yore then this was the
very centre of the city. I also imagine that come the start
of the University academic year it will be heaving with
students.

I like little alleyways too. Full of mystery

Ian went to find out about the costs of installing a fence, as the nearby sheep farm has started fencing in their land. It is quite a dilemma, because the cost of putting up a fence will run to about €2000, money we could spend on getting new stock, but the chances are that by next year the African Swine Fever will have taken its toll and reduced the numbers of wild boar. The epidemic is building but still no evidence of it being in our immediate area yet. Once it reaches there will be a number of dead animals, but do we put up with the damage now? Even with a few wild boar around it is still possible to get damage and all it takes is one night to lose a large amount of vegetables or grain to even a small herd of boar. The wild boar rarely used to take people’s vegetables as they were quite shy and stayed in the forest, according to the locals, now they are used to being out in the open and I still wonder if that lack of fear will still not change, even if many get sick and die. So once again it is, shall we or shan’t we?

This street is called Wrights and Coopers Place, so it is fairly
easy to assume that the Wheelwrights and the Coopers were
engaged in making wheels in days gone by. 

I decided to practice some biosecurity this trip because I do not want to be responsible for importing African Swine Fever to the UK, especially since we have had so much wild boar damage and so the risk of importing a disease could be high. I washed and sprayed my hiking boots. I have no idea if I am going near any pigs in the UK or how likely it is that I could spread contamination, but I am taking no chances

A formal garden. I ate an ice cream there
because surprisingly it has been very
warm today.

The rest of the week has been gardening or preparing for a presentation for the conference this next week. I now have to switch back into researcher mode and it doesn’t feel easy with the harvest starting to come in now. I have taken up all the winter onions and they are drying in the barn, courgettes have been sliced, sautéed and frozen, sliced blanched and frozen, dried with salt and solar heat or used in cooking. The beans are starting to produce now at last and so I have had to leave instructions with Ian to slice those thinly and dry them in the solar drier, along with the courgettes, because I know he won’t have enough time to blanch them for the freezer and besides the freezer needs some serious sorting.

The more informal edges to the gardens

I also took a trip to the dentist, as I wanted to be sure I wasn’t developing an abscess before I travelled. I think that the bending over to do the weeding in the heat was making the spot where I had the tooth extracted ache, which was a little worrying. Fortunately nothing was wrong and she said I will probably not even feel it by next week. If I hadn’t have been travelling I wouldn’t have gone, but abscesses and flying do not mix – trust me on that! I have experience and not one I wish to repeat.

But sometimes the edges were also very formal. The flowers
were certainly past their best, but still putting in a good
display of colour

At least the trip to the dentist meant that we could sort out the mobile internet while in the big town. We upgraded to a Wifi unit and 50Gb download limit, up from 10Gb. The lower limit was fine for Ian out on the land on his own (unless it was really wet and he started watching too many Youtube videos), but could be a problem if we are both out there a lot and if I was working. It was also cheaper than our home line by about €5 a month. I wrote to cancel the home line and a very nice gentleman rang of course to ask why we were cancelling, his English was good too, which was a plus. I told him that it was easier for us to have a mobile internet, as we needed the access in an area where we couldn’t use a landline. He then offered us unlimited access but downgraded to 5Mb download speed for a third of what we were paying for a supposedly 8Mb line (Ian tests it from time to time and never seen that kind of speed, which I told the young man). Since it is still handy to have the home line we decided to stick with it at that price. At least it does mean that overall we now pay less for our internet and have Wifi out on the land and at home. 

Even the Scottish flag was in flowers

Ian's mother's house sale went through this week. So that keeps us going for a little while longer. It does take rather a long time in the UK normally, but this took even longer due to some minor hiccups. No idea what they were, but just glad that is all done and dusted. 

Cathedral gates

As I am likely to be away a lot in the not too distant future I got myself organised and uploaded the first terms worth of academic lessons ready for the new year for the online educational organisation I work for. Since the lessons are for a GCSE exam course then there are not many lessons left to prepare, which is good news for me. I heard from one of our organisations ex-students this week, he is now going to start organising students at a small international school to use our organisation - shows how long I have been working there when the students are now becoming the teachers. Scary!

The hotel in Riga. The bed was a little
solid, but not the worse I have known,
so I slept okay.

So for the next instalment I’m writing part of this sat in a hotel in Riga. Only after I booked the hotel did I wonder if it was a place of dubious character. It seems alright anyway and it was cheap enough. I think I’m the only person staying. Everyone else is at the Riga Festival in the centre I think, which suits me fine. Annoyingly the Wifi has a password with Latvian characters in it and my computer will not let me enter non-standard letters. No idea why not. My ipad is also not even seeing the signal for the Wifi, so I guess the internet will have to wait until I get to the airport at an unearthly hour of the morning, because the lady on the desk doesn’t speak English and my Latvian will not stretch to working out how to sort out the internet in Latvian. I was hoping to get away without checking in luggage, but with all the paraphernalia for looking reasonably smart that I needed to carry I wasn’t able to, along with the fact it is hot here in Latvia and I’m going to Scotland – which means I need jumpers and rainproof stuff that is too hot to wear here. Fortunately I am flying with SAS and so the luggage is not an extra I have had to pay for, it just means I need to get there early enough to check my luggage in. I only found out today that I couldn’t check in online anyway, because the second leg of the journey is with a different airline – why that should be a problem for some airlines and not others I have no idea.

That ivy must have been there a few years

And so for the final instalment. My conference is in Aberdeen and on the way I met a largish contingent from the Latvian University who are also on their way to the conference. I don't know where in Aberdeen they are staying, but no doubt I shall see them around again. It is hard to keep good contacts with the Latvians, they are not very good at answering emails and perhaps I need to use the phone more, but I think that sometimes adds stress to relationships when people are not confident in the language, especially with a native English speaker. Oh well! I will try and make sure that more contact is kept this time. 

King's College chapel grounds Aberdeen

One of the things I have been completely bowled over with is how friendly the Aberdonians are. Latvians are quite shy and so smiles and politeness are not particularly in evidence most of the time. When you get to know folks, that is different but it takes time and something I have got used to. So it comes as a shock to meet such overt friendliness. It started when I went for the bus. The instructions suggested that I take almost any bus and ask for King's College. The bus I chose did not go that way exactly but it was close, only 5 minutes the driver said. He was very nice about it. A young Romanian lady overheard our conversation and she offered to help me. She had been on the same plane as me so also had luggage. She got me off at the right stop and the bus driver said "Thank you" to me! In Latvia I always say "Paldies" and I am lucky if I get a "Ludzu" out of them, here they were thanking me before I could thank them. It kind of threw me off guard, but in a pleasant kind of way. Next the young lady tried giving me instructions on how to get to the place, it seemed to make sense but I must have looked a bit puzzled as a gentleman stopped and asked if we were lost. He didn't go on his way, until he was certain that one of us knew which way we were going. The bus stop was apparently outside the young lady's house, so she dropped off her luggage and kindly showed me the way to the university and gave me a bit of a guided tour on the way so I could orientate myself. It was so incredibly sweet of her. 

The view of the gates heading out from
my accommodation 

The all important kettle on the table on the right

So my angel left me at the gates to the accommodation and after that it was fairly easy to find my way around. Inside the friendliness continued, as a gentleman directed me to my room, explained the different keys I needed and then made sure I knew to collect a Wifi password at the main entrance after I got settled down. I almost cried when I spotted a kettle in the room, complete with tea-bags. I so badly needed a cup of tea after my rather early start to the day. 

Another week over....

A butterfly on an onion seedhead

Where does the time go to? It has been a hot and sticky week this week. Temperatures up around the 30s and high humidity. The smells and the warmth reminding us of places we have visited that were always strikingly warm for us Brits, such as Cyprus, Pensecola in Florida and Brazil. Even this evening at way past 9pm it is still 23C.

Not quite sure why these Jerusalem
artichokes are so high. The original
ones are as high as the tips of my fingers,
these are another 40-50cm taller

From the enormous to the tiny. These are not what you
might think they are, these are not watermelons, but
cucamelons and are about the size of nail on my little
finger at the moment. Apparently they grow to grape size
and taste of cucumbers with a tang of lime. When they are
ready we will let you know, but they are cute. We also
found out this week, they can be treated like a perennial
if stored in a frost free place over winter - we will be trying
that out

I finally got to the dentists and had a tooth extracted. It seems to have passed without incident and healing okay, although I half wondered today if I was starting with an abscess, but I think it was just a combination of heat, a woman thing and tiredness. Certainly not the kind of thing I want as I head for a conference next week (which reminds me, if I don't post next week, you know I haven't forgotten).

The grapes are suddenly ripening in the heat and we have
even had a few of the sweet ones. These are a picture of the
more sour ones that we are hoping to make some wine out
of this year.

Of course the heat means that some of our squashes have
exploded in size. Much to our relief

The hot days means the farmers around here have been busy because all fields need to be cut by August 15th to receive their EU subsidies and there hasn't been many dry enough days to get it all done since the week we got our hay in at the end of June. Silage was okay, but hay no, that needs heat to get it dry or a good long period without rain. Although we don't get EU subsidies, we have still cut our remaining fields meaning we now have another 102 bales. We haven't gone down the subsidy route yet, because we know there will be certain criteria that needs adhering too, such as cutting down trees that are now growing in the middle of fields. Some can stay for shade, but many need thinning out and it will be too much for Ian to do at once. EU subsidies are not always that generous and Latvia gets some of the lowest, so not really worth it just yet. Plus alpacas do not attract subsidies yet either. Something the Latvian Camelid Association are or were working on.

Cleared!

Forty down, sixty-two more to go!

The hay is not so great, as it is passed its best but it will make good bedding for the alpaca houses. Ian nearly sold a baler the other day, well he could have done if he had the contacts necessary. A gentleman saw Ian baling and stopped the car and asked about the baler. He couldn't speak English, but Ian was able to tell him how much it cost. He was very interested. Our baler may take longer than the huge balers, but the the rewards of manageable bales is invaluable to us and I guess it was for the gentleman who stopped. Well when I say manageable, the bales are manageable if they are not too densely packed as some of the ones were this week. Some I can throw up onto the trailer without too great a difficulty and some I struggle even using a bit of application of mechanics and rolling it up over another bale.

Amaranth, for their seed. It can be used a bit like quinoa

Flowers forming

Damage at the top of our land. You can tell how large an
area by the size of the bale - that they also messed about with

The wild boar piglets have grown recently. How do I know? The damage to the fields has suddenly gone up and so the herds must be on the move and not just solitary animals as we have suspected up until now. They have got into our barley field and made a mess of that, up to a quarter of it was lost and it is so close to being ready to cut. We have put an electric fence around it now which is connected to the mains but the dry weather means it is not very effective, especially at the points where the pigs get in, as that is quite sandy. Ian has contacted the nearby sheep farm to ask about their fencing, they have been busy putting some up in the last few months and I think we are going to have to do the same. We keep contacting the hunter and we even think they visited last night - there was some bread on the floor in one lot of digging and we can't explain its presence in any other way - unless of course the pigs have started carrying around bread to make a sandwich with the things they find at night.

Damage to the barley crop. It is a bit weedy too, but that was
the least of our worries

The fence from the outlet in the barn. It registers 10,000V
inside the barn, but by the time it gets to the orchard plot it
is down to 4000V

By the time it gets down to here it is around 2000V and at
the top of the field it is barely registering. Not good!
Problem is that neither of us really want to test it either.
We have a tester and that is how we know what voltage it is
pumping out. Even the sheep fence, run from a battery, is
currently pumping out 4000V

These are called strawberry sticks. They look interesting,
but not something on the list to keep. The fruits don't
taste of much and the leaves are small and so not much of
a replacement for spinach. We have plenty of other leafy
things that can replace spinach in meals that are far easier
to grow and far more productive

We were in our caravan last night and Ian could hear some squealing (I can't, I'm as deaf as a post. Okay! Not maybe that deaf, but I certainly do not hear well). He thought it sounded like a bird but didn't recognise it. We are now beginning to wonder if it was the pigs, as the mess this morning was pretty bad, fortunately just on grassland and not the crop fields again. We keep wondering when the African Swine Fever will hit the numbers, but the known infections are still just a little way off.

Chenopodium giganteum makes a far better replacement
for spinach. It is productive, grows well and high. It also
is related to quinoa and so the seeds will be edible too.

I didn't think you would want to see pictures of skin
problems and so there is a cute picture of her son Brencis
instead

Veronica our oldest alpaca has been having skin issues again this week. The fly numbers have gone up in the heat and they have been massing on any little sore she has, so much so that she has been gnawing away at her fleece. I have used a liquid with plantain juice in it to calm any itching and we have also applied engine grease to it. Sounds a bit drastic and awful, but we had to do something to keep those flies off and the insect repellants were useless. Apparently, according to one of our farming friends, a sheep consultant had advised her to use it when the sheep get cuts at shearing time, as it is the only thing almost guaranteed to keep the flies away. At least it does seem to be having some effect, but those flies are persistent even when there is no sore to attack, as we know from trying to collect the hay. We also gave her an injection of Ivermectin in case it is mites that is setting off the irritation.

The peas have also come on a lot this last week. They are
likely to go over just as fast in this heat though. Still
looks like a good enough harvest from them now.

As if there isn't enough pictures of cute kittens on the
internet. Eyre is starting to get quite explorative these days.
She also killed a vole today that was around the hay stack

We got the results back from the fibre testing this week. Agnese's fibre quality is acceptable for a first time cut, not excellent but certainly acceptable. So is Estelle's and surprisingly Veronica's, who should have the worst due to her age, was only slightly thicker than Estelle's. What was even nicer about Veronica's fleece is her's didn't change as much through the year, it was fairly constant and has a smaller range of fibre widths - all very good qualities for a fleece animal. Unfortunately, Tellus' fleece, as we suspected, is not as good as we had hoped. Not only that his fleece quality went down over the winter, obviously he is being over fed. We knew he was putting on weight but was surprised that the winter feeding of grain was making his fibre thicker. The amount of grain being fed has been reduced substantially, especially for the boys. There will be no midday winter feeds, either from now on, as they don't need it. At least that should save us some money.

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.