Hello

A small rural station on my travels back from Tartu

I find as I travel about it often doesn't hurt to say "Hello! Where are you from?" especially if someone has an English accent and it is somewhere unusual where you wouldn't necessarily expect an English person. I was sitting in the university café in Tartu when I thought I heard the strains of English floating over towards me. It was hard to tell as the gentleman had his back to me and he was an older gentleman, so not very clear, plus my hearing is not great. Eventually he stood up and turned towards me and spoke more clearly to a young man and so I ventured to ask him where he was from. He replied with the uncertain voice of someone who clearly has trouble with the question of, "Where are you from?"something I can relate to and he told me "England." I replied with a smile, "Oh you can be more specific than that. Where exactly?" "The Lake District!" he answered. We chatted on a little more and I explained that I often had travelled up to the Lake District when I was younger to see my godmother, who lived on a sheep farm there.  He asked what her name was and at first I had to think hard, she was always just Aunty Betty to me and I rarely referred to her by her surname, but it came back to me eventually. It turns out he knew her. How amazing is that? Just before we parted company he asked me to send him an email when I was up in Tartu in February, as his wife would love to meet me. "Let's get together and have a cup of tea or a beer" he said. How English!

They are renovating Cesis station. I often see this station
on my travels, because it is also the bus station, so I either
pass by it track side or catch the bus on the other side of the
building. I was thrown this week when I got there and
found the building shut, as I normally buy my ticket there.
Fortunately they have opened a little ticket office nearby.
It should look much nicer when it is finished, it was a bit
gruesome and uninviting on the inside before.

Sorry about the glare and the mucky windows, but just
a typical scene on my journey

So from that little anecdote you can guess I was up in Tartu again this week. I had travelled up for a doctoral seminar with my fellow colleagues from the department. It was very interesting and very encouraging. My supervisor kept pointing out how my knowledge and research would be quite useful to the guy doing the presentation. I was quite surprised how he kept working that in. Afterwards we went through an email that I sent him with a short summary of what I plan to talk about for a conference in April and was rather surprised again to hear him enthusing over a paragraph I had written about how sustainable education needs to have trust, collaboration and a good state of mental health to be effective. To make changes often requires a level of self-esteem that is willing to take risks and unfortunately self-esteem is lacking in Latvia, particularly in the rural areas. People do not often trust each other and therefore unwilling to collaborate, but this also is linked to the way people feel about themselves. I wasn't expecting such a positive reception to what I had written, particularly as the day prior to the email, I had no idea what I would write and then following a bit of a brainwave I threw some thoughts together and emailed those to him. Maybe, just maybe things are coming together a bit in my head!

Another typical sight along the track. Not sure what this
container would be carrying, but many similar ones would
be carrying oil from Russia.

I love the snowy scenes of winter

Unusually for me, I went out for two evenings that I was in Tartu. The first night was to a sort of Thanksgiving party with just desserts available. There seemed to be every imaginable type there and it was hard making a decision, but I managed to restrict myself to only four. I hasten to add, that was four small portions. The next night was to a ladies evening, where pedicures and manicures were on offer. Ian said I should have a video taken of the pedicure, as he was sure it would go viral. I assured him, I was NOT going to have anyone anywhere near my feet - he knows how ticklish I am. In the end we didn't have pedicures or manicures, we ate tacos and sat around and chatted, well the three older ones sat around and chatted, the younger ladies headed to the sauna.

Winter wonderland

Turbjørn looking comfortable in the cold with his woolly
coat on.

Ian of course was back on the "ranch" taking care of our animals. He emailed me one day and mentioned Sofie had gone missing. Our errant cat returned after a day though, but then took off on another day. She has been known to take off for a week at a time, just never when it is this cold (10F/ -12C). We gave up worrying about her taking off when she seemed to do that on a regular basis, but this time we were concerned, since it was out of character for this time of year. Anyway, you will be glad to know she is back with us again and none the worse for wear.

I don't think the chickens would think it was such a winter
wonderland. They are all huddled in the doorway of the
chicken house and don't wander quite so much these days

The ponds are well and truly frozen

We've been looking back over past Decembers to see what they were like. It seems that we have had snow on the ground in early December on all but one year, but what we can't remember is it being this cold so early. It has never got above freezing for about a week now and not just that, but well below freezing. Even with the hint of sun today, it didn't get above freezing in the greenhouse. The advantage of that is the wild boar cannot dig very much and so we haven't had a lot of damage done this year. They have been rooting around under the oak trees for acorns this week and turned over quite a few leaves. It looks bad from a distance, but when you get up close it is possible to see that nothing is deep and it is only churned up leaves and snow, which might help it all rot down quicker in the spring. If this turns out to be a tough year weather-wise, then the wild boar will be suffering a lot due to the disease that is still spreading around and the fact they are not supposed to be fed to curb the numbers. It could see a very sharp drop in numbers, but then again this is supposed to be one of the furtherest reaches of their range, they are not supposed to be prevalent in places where there can be deep snow. They wouldn't survive in such numbers if it wasn't for the feeding.

More winter sunshine

Sheep shelter completed

A grateful recipient

This one loves a nose rub

Last but not least, a little competition.
Who? Where? Why? Any guesses?

Who am I?

No I don't work with two computers. The old iMac is not
used and will find a new role soon as a dvd player. Too
old for much else but I still love its style

It must be the weather. Dull, dreary and not terribly inspiring that has put me in a philosophical mood. As I sit at home thinking about the stuff I have to do during the day, there is a sinking feeling that the reading part of my studies is done and now I have to sit down and collate the thoughts and impressions from various other authors. Who am I to do such a thing? I don't mind bringing people to the table if you like, to draw out the good in their work, but to critique it, I find that distasteful. I would rather ignore it. Again the question rises, "Who am I?" Who am I to tell others they are wrong or what they say does not apply in all the cases they think it might? It is almost like the bars of a prison clink down one by one and shut down the clear thinking process, the process that is needed to put pen to paper - or rather fingers to keypad, but that doesn't sound so poetic. I then go to my desk with a sinking feeling and try to avoid doing what I know needs to be done. Such is the life of many an academic. Many would happily sit reading papers by others, setting up projects to research, but the writing part can be so hard. It is like putting your baby out there, knowing it will be criticised, vulnerable to re-interpretations that you never intended.

Processing lovely soft fleece for felting

Writing a chatty blog with things we have done is the easy part. Sometimes I wonder if people want to really read the stuff, but I know it is not a life many lead and the differences can be entertaining, but writing about hopes and fears is more vulnerable. In the same way distilling the thoughts of a thousand authors (okay not quite that many, it just feels like that at times) can be fine but trying to arrange my own, original thoughts on the way development could be done seems far more scary and again those thoughts creep in, "Who am I?" I can also hold what might seem opposing thoughts in tandem, because I can see there is more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, which basically means there is not always just one right way of doing things. For instance I think that development should be much more about a relationship between the developers and the people and no one way of doing that will appear, because each person within that process is different and the context is different in each place. I see it as a coming together of a myriad of possibilities, clashing, colliding and reshaping what can be to what will be. How do you distill that in a paper and not be mauled by those who think there is only one way forward? No there has to be diversity.

A bucketful of sunflower seeds

Too many of us do get overwhelmed by the choices we have to make, the work we have to do and the work we feel we want to do. I read a good article this week on how not to be overwhelmed. I love the analogy of the ants that move one grain at a time, seemingly doing nothing but bit by bit, little by little they are building a network of tunnels and living quarters. Apparently writing is often like that, sentence by sentence, word by word until a whole is made. I could go on to say this is not about me, but it is. It is not noble to claim "that it is not about me, but it is all about Jesus and the call on my life" - which folks do say. The truth is that we are all important, it is about me, it is about you, it is about Jesus in each of our lives. It is about seeking a better way forward for me, for you and for our communities. Not in some isolated, inflated ego kind of way, but in open, humble (at least as far as we can, for we are all fallible) joyous living. Living as if all people mattered.

A pot of parsnip seeds processed this week

My lovely red rose

Well I haven't been sat at home contemplating my navel all week. In fact it has contained a few things rather different to the usual routine. First was an evening out - that in itself is rather rare. We attended the opening celebration of a new music therapy room in the local school that a friend of ours has set up. The room was a little boomy and so she asked if I had some wall hangings and I had two that were still under wraps, so she took them to decorate the walls. So by way of a thank you she invited Ian and I to her do and got a public thank you and a lovely red rose. We also got to hear a mini concert and an amazing young saxophonist. It was hard to believe she had only been playing since February.

Still working our way through the apples. Our animals are
enjoying them too

The following morning we had to be up nice and early for school, only not our local one but in the big town. It was time to repay our dues to the English translator, who also happens to be an English teacher. We took four classes of English. The kids seemed interested about our life - good job we are not that egotistical, just we don't do normal I guess. One young man was looking all teenagerish and slumped in his chair and it was most amusing to see him perk up and his mouth open as we said that Latvian people are friendly. Not something that he thought obviously. Latvians are not wildly friendly like we find American or Brazilian people can be, but give them time and they are quietly friendly and as long as you are not in their face, they are also very helpful we find.

Garlic salt and pepper

There was an unexpected pause as one class we were meant to be teaching were actually in a meeting with someone who had been at the beginning of the "Awakening" in the late 1980s just before the collapse of communism. We listened for a little while, but it would have been difficult for a translation as it would have disturbed the lecture, so we slipped out for a cup of coffee. We sat down in the cafeteria whilst the teacher went to look for some coffee and next thing we know we are presented with a bowl of soup. We were a bit stunned as the teacher was nowhere in sight and we thought lunch was going to be after the lessons, but since we have faced situations like this before, if food is presented just say "paldies" or thank you and eat. Next appeared a rice dish with pickled cucumbers and finally a jelly dessert. At this point the teacher returned with the coffee and joined us for lunch. Our talk went down well, so well that we have been invited back to talk to the other classes, including the older ones, they might also arrange an excursion to our land to look at the alpacas in May next year. Oooerrr!

Playing! I haven't finished it yet. This is to tidy up a load
of business cards I have. The detail on the side is actually
a piece of crochet that has been cut up and stuck on to
give a textured effect. I think I will go for a coppery look
in the end.

Another change to our routine this week came with a text about 9pm at night. It was from our neighbours to the land. So after a long stint of no towing, we had our first request. The text basically said her dad had had a weird accident and her brother was at the bus station could we help? Ian went out to pick up the brother and found her dad not far away from home but precariously close to a rather deep ditch. Fortunately nothing was damaged and he was easy to pull out. They tried to pay us, but Ian was not going to take anything, in the end he just said "piens" which means milk, so another few weeks of our extra milk.

Baking cakes. Can you tell that we didn't get any photos
taken outside this week? I ran around the house looking
for inspiration and realised there are a lot of things in the
process of being made or have been processed.

Ian also finally got the chance to do some jobs that have to be done. He bought some pipes for the heating system and connected up all the radiators using a heating tool borrowed from a friend. He then slowly filled the radiators. Next he lit a fire and we ran around bleeding air out of the system. So far so good. All the joints he had done were good and all the connections to the radiators appeared to be sealed. Only we had water coming out. As the pressure increased it caused one of the pipes to start leaking through a crack that must have happened when the system froze. We were disappointed and annoyingly it is a a holiday weekend and so no shops will be open until Wednesday. Still at least everything else seemed okay and so he just has to replace that one pipe - pity it is a little awkward to replace and pity it was a thin pipe as he had plenty of the thicker pipe. Yes they should all be the same size, but this is Latvia.

I mentioned that Ian goes on his bike
regularly but inside to someone who
commented on the blog last week. Well
here it is, the bike inside on rollers

Ian also got on with separating Agnese from her mum to give Snowdrop a chance to put on some weight before the winter. Giving milk to Agnese takes a lot out of an alpaca mum, especially when they are also usually pregnant with the next baby. Agnese and Estelle have been given one half of the alpaca house and Snowdrop and Veronica the other half. The paddock also had to be divided. Estelle though disgraced herself and muscled through the wire fence and broke it. Ian thinks she got a bit of a fright and he thought she wasn't going to go in tonight, but eventually she did. Now he just has to make sure there is a hay feeder in that side and everything is set so that Snowdrop can dry up and concentrate on hopefully feeding next years baby as well as herself. Ian was saying it is now easier to feed Agnese and Snowdrop since they are separated. Snowdrop is greedy and she would go to different bowls, which makes it difficult to actually plan which bowl she will eat from, so not much point in putting down extra for her, Veronica though will not allow her to take her food, so she has to stick to her own bowl. Most of them also will try to muscle in on Agnese and so with just her to concentrate on, Ian can make sure she eats in peace.

Leftovers in our toilet. Ian fixed the
hole that was made after the neighbour
complained we were leaking water into
his basement - which we weren't, it was
a leak from the roof, missing us and
leaking into his apartment beneath us. 

One of the problems that we face as we farm our land - I still hesitate to use that word "farm" because I know we are only dabbling compared to others - is the risks from diseases and infestations. This year we have fought a mite problem nearly all year. Fortunately winter times the little wee beasties tend to die off or find warm places to hibernate in. One of the advantages of not cosseting our animals with heating is the wee beasties have nowhere to hide on our animals without risking a freezing and so our animals get a respite from those and as long as we feed our animals well, they cope well enough with the temperatures. Others though face much more serious diseases like the African Swine Fever where neighbours have had to cull their domestic pigs and hunters have to beware of not trampling the disease into farms that have pigs. I was sad though to hear of a duck farmer who is having to cull his whole flock due to Avian Bird Flu. It looks a big farm and probably run as a very commercial enterprise, there is no information on that, but even so, they are still farmers, it is still their livelihood and what do you do when the whole unit is wiped out overnight? How do you build up your stock again? Or do you give up and go get a job in the city? None of that is reported, no comment on how the farmer is coping or anything like that. Just a matter of fact report that glosses over the impact on a livelihood.