Cooling down

At least here they are just chasing each other
around. It will do some of them some good and
a good work out to warm themselves up.

We had a heavy frost this morning and several, large flocks of geese were making a determined headway southwards. Yes! Winter is creeping up. Not quite here yet, but you can hear its whisper in the cold northerly breeze, or the crunch of the ice underfoot on a frosty morning. Today was one of those glorious late autumn days, crisp in the morning and bright sunshine all day. The boys came out fighting, only Turbjørn didn't join in at all. Something was in the air as they are not normally like that. The younger boys usually get a bit argumentative in the evenings, but never in the mornings. The nip in the air didn't leave all day, but at least it was better than the damp, wet days, which we've had a few too many of just lately.

The physio came out to see Turbjørn this last week.
He had a painful spot on his neck, not just the 
stiffness he normally has these days. She gave him
some laser heat treatment on it and Ian is giving
him regular treatments with the heat pad again. Mind
you, he's not that bad as he's still sitting outside when
it rains. He was so wet one morning that Ian couldn't
use the heat pad - he would have sizzled.

Oh oh! This is looking serious

Sunday morning I cut down the shrivelled remains of the Jerusalem artichokes and started the process of digging up the tubers - at least enough to clear some ground for Ian to dump the alpaca manure and expand the bed widthways. The rain set in for the afternoon, but fortunately I had some proofreading to occupy my time. I also dug up the dahlias that I raised from seed this year. The tubers are drying off in the little greenhouse ready to be taken back to the apartment. I also cleared and mulched another bed and so now nearly all the beds are settled down for their winter sleep. 

Not just the odd flock of geese this time. Lots
of flocks have been flying over. Winter won't 
be long now, so they say!

Wish vegetable gardening was this easy. Just
put the animals out on the grass and let them
eat it down. Not much mowing goes on these
days.

I need to work on the garden for next year, as it has started to get out of hand and take too long to deal with. I'm thinking of a very low maintenance to no veg gardening next year to give me time to get the flower and herb garden sorted and make the veg beds more manageable. It doesn't mean we will have nothing to eat from the garden, there are plenty of herbs. 

There are some gardeners on our land who we 
do not appreciate. The moles have been
working overtime. They are all round the
greenhouse and have even been digging up in our
new greenhouse now. They are in various places
in the fields. They also dug up the ditch and
blocked it so Ian has taken up the small bridges
and has re-dug it. So far they haven't been back-
close but not back yet! 

Such a glorious golden autumn

There are also plenty of wild edible weeds that we eat a lot of in spring and I can sort of cultivate them too. Nettles are really nutritious and if we cut them back they can be harvested later too. I've already put some potatoes in to see if they will be okay over winter. I know I've tried it before and it didn't work but then again the winter was hard that year. We seem to have lots of potatoes that grow up anyway where I haven't planted them and they are cheap to replace, so no big worries. 

...panning round a bit more

Such a profusion of colours, all bathed in a 
golden light

I might also buy some plants instead of trying to raise them myself and put some seeds in that can overwinter. I tried it before with parsnips and that worked really well. Those sorts of veg don't seem to need a lot of work and so can just sort themselves out with a bit of mulching later on. . Once I have the garden under control I could then think about late summer and autumn vegetables as they seem to be doing okay. The garlic is already in too. It is easy to put that kind of thing in after the potatoes have been removed (I say removed rather than dug up as I don't use a spade - no need and a lot fewer losses from spade or fork damage). After the potatoes the bed is clear and just needs a quick raking over and then mulching. 

Then we had the damp squib of a day which
drained the colour and makes the photos look
like a slightly faded one from the 70s. Karla 
and Lolly were wet through this week, but
none the worse for it.

Generally they get on, but sometimes little Lolly
pushes Karla to her limit. Karla is smaller in
height but much stronger than Lolly. But 
Lolly can outrun all the girls I think with her
long legs and boundless energy.

Another aspect I really need to sort out is compost. We have plenty of manure and that, but not a convenient place to compost it all. I need the compost for starting seeds and it seems daft to buy it in when we have so much stuff that could be composted. I could do with doing some hot composting to get rid of weed seeds and then bagging it up, but I just don't seem to get organised enough for the beginning of the year. April and May is just such a busy time, both for the academic and agricultural year, that trying to fit in finding compost, raising seeds, finding sticks for beans and so on, all gets too much. Starting earlier isn't an option either in our short season, as the ground can still be frozen in March and we still risk hard frosts and snow. 

Like miniature stained glass windows.

Looking gorgeous there Mr. P

Ian will have to get cracking with wood chopping, as now we have finally got the wood to the apartment and down in the cellar there, ready for our return in winter. I say we. We both stacked the horse box and Ian did one run to the apartment on his own. I had work to do and there was rain forecast which makes getting the horse box on and off the land tricky, so he made a start. We both went another morning to finish it off. We made it before it rained anyway. It would have been done earlier but we had a problem with a delivery of flour. I get my organic flour online and it was too heavy to use the post box and it had to be sent by courier. Well there are problems with our address since the administrative changes as there are now two places in our larger municipality with the same name and the courier got the wrong one. I always wince when people swear in my language. I'm not the swearing sort and so this just kind of compounds it. I did feel sorry for him though as I know they are on a tight schedule. 

A soggy Brencis

Mr. Tellus with a few glistening jewels

I heard last week that the paper that seems to have gone on for ever has finally been accepted. I sighed a huge sigh of relief but then got a message that they would like a summary of the paper for policymakers and the general public. Oh boy! Just condense 18 months of work into 1000 words please! Don't use anything too technical! Okay but it's one of the most technical papers I've ever written.... so....anyway it's done and sent off to my colleagues to comment on. Work seemed to be piling up this last week but at least I've managed to clear some backlogs in the last two days and can now get back on with the more routine side of things - whatever that is. 

A two-tone George

Golden morning rain with Freddie and Jakobs

A rainbow in our forest

The other end of the rainbow on the hill

Two-tone George on a frosty morning

Josefs and Freddie fighting

Still at it

Josefs taking a breather

Morning jog

Father and son wrestling now.

Now it's Freddie and George's turn. But don't
worry, Ian calmed them down after a while and
no one was hurt.

Ice on the car

A disagreement this time between Freddie and 
Jakobs.

Been and gone

Someone has enjoyed rolling in the snow. Chanel is still
struggling with some skin issues though and it has flared up
again this week.

Winter has been back to visit again, but it can't quite make up its mind whether the season has finished for the year or not. The swans, the cranes and the geese seem to think that winter should have gone,, as they have been arriving back, but winter keeps checking back in. So some days it is white and sometimes it is that after winter brown, complete with mud. So in the spirit of the coming spring season we've been checking the websites for a new greenhouse.

I'm turning into my grandads, yes both of them! One used to
have an allotment and the other used to grow succulents and
cacti. These cups were too cute not to use and I thought they
made great places to grow something small, like these cacti.
I finally got them potted up this week

The view from the oak tree hill

Our large greenhouse needs some serious repairs, so we are looking to get a smaller one that we can work with this summer. I still have a backlog of tomatoes in jars and such like to see us through into next year, so shouldn't be too bad. It also means we can re-think the greenhouse space as a workshop cum events space. We will still have growing spaces, for that greenhouse ambiance, but the main part will be for ......... well whatever we decide to do.

I love the colours of spring starting to show through its
wintry dusting

The new smaller greenhouse will be put in the space where
the chickens were last year and extend past it. It will be
3x8m, so still a good size but not as big as the one we use now
which is 6x18m

The range of options for greenhouses though is mind-boggling. We decided on going for the maximum we can have without planning permission, which coincidentally fits well in a space we have. It means losing a couple of outside growing beds but they were only short beds anyway. It will also be well manured as it is where the chickens were last year. In addition to extra growing space while the greenhouse undergoes repairs we would need somewhere to store the feed for the alpacas but we have enough wood to build something, so that is a good start. That is as far as we got this week, as I'm still ploughing through the websites looking for the best option for us.

To keep the alpaca houses dry, Ian has put in a drain that he
empties. Unfortunately the water used to run into it, so Ian
made this elegant covering for it, l I jest, but it's functional at
least. The only problem is that now the water comes up from
underneath to fill the hole. The water table is so high.

Vanessa always looks toothy

On Thursday it will be the 12 anniversary of our arrival in Latvia. We won't be able to celebrate at the hotel where we first stayed for a week while our stuff was in transit from America, as it has suddenly closed. It has been struggling for a while and this lack of winter hasn't helped. Our area used to be a popular skiing destination, but it isn't possible to ski without snow and definitely not in this horrible wet stuff we have been getting this week. We had one week where it looked promising with a reasonable depth of the right kind of snow, but that was very early in the season and nothing much since then. As I mentioned before the lack of snow also meant the Schools Winter Olympics was cancelled and so that was another nail in the coffin for the hotel. Our problem of nowhere to celebrate is a minor inconvenience compared to the loss of another 32 jobs, in an area that has struggled with providing decent jobs anyway.

Meanwhile Silly Silla is sat outside in the rain and the snow.
Just why?

Oh is it snowing again?

The loss of the hotel has knock on effects for our village as it also means there are less and less opportunities for people to stay and something we have to consider for our felting course. Of course I now need to get on with the advertising for that, so people have a chance to book accommodation. It was something I was working on, but now it is a more urgent task. I don't think it will be possible to organise cabins before then, as that requires more cash than we have at the moment. Still it might figure in our reckoning on what we need in the future. We certainly cannot rely on there being a hotel for guests now.

When I saw the snow covered ice on the pond, it reminded me
of the painting, The Scream!

When Ian looks at it, he sees Australia.

Vanessa and Antonia are sensibly inside

Ian had some help at the weekend. One of our young neighbours wanted something to do, so Ian agreed to let him help on our land as long as he was up by 7:30am, as that is when Ian sets off. I was impressed, as he was up and ready. He helped Ian by shifting logs and branches so they are ready to pick up when the weather improves enough to drive a tractor on the land (which looks like it might be a while yet). He won't be helping with the animals though, at least not yet. He wasn't sure about the alpacas at all, in fact he was so unsure he was a few metres away from the fence, not even up close to the fence. It looks like he might need a bit of time to gain confidence around them. Oh well! At least he got done what needed to be done.

The sun is rising further round and the days lengthen. It will
soon be time to move out to the caravan again.

Mr. P. was the first to alarm us.

It isn't just the weather that has been on and off this week, my plans too have been on and off too. There is a seminar that I wanted to attend up in Tartu tomorrow morning, but it is only 90 minutes long and takes me a day to travel up and I could just would have just about been able get back after the seminar by bus and train. I was humming and hahhing over it, when two of our alpacas were sick on consecutive days. First Mr. P was ill. Ian rang me to ask if I was doing anything and if not would I come out and take a look at Mr. P. Typically of course, by the time I had got out there, he was improved, but still a concern.

Josefs is such a cutie, even if he does carry around a light
snack to keep him going

Herkules at his usual spot by the feeder. It is hard to believe
that he has lost so much weight over winter and yet he eats
well and normally is quite healthy looking these days, at
least for a nearly 16 year old alpaca.

On Saturday, Ian walked through the door and asked if tea was ready. Well it was, so we sat down to eat, but he explained that Herk was now sick and wouldn't get up to eat that evening. So as soon as we ate, we trekked back out to the land. This time there was no improvement. Herk was still sat on the floor and wouldn't get up when we tried to move him. Brencis then decided that something was wrong and maybe we needed protecting- oh that alpaca! I'm sure his heart is in the right place, but being so big he creates us real problems. Brencis tried to sit on Herk, which as you can imagine is not what we really wanted. We managed to get Brencis off and shunted him through to the other side of the alpaca house and shut the gate.

Josefs is very submissive to Brencis, but Brencis is not so
keen on the adulation

Turbjørn kept Herkules company in the night when he was
sick. Not that Turbjørn had any choice in the matter, but
at least we could trust him not to sit on Herkules

Now as you are probably aware, animals and children are never ill at convenient times, and that day was such a case. We tried to get hold of our vet, but she wasn't responding. We tried other options, but didn't get anywhere. Our vet eventually text us back, but she was in a theatre in Riga, so wasn't much help. Our neighbour also eventually got our messages and phoned back, they had been watching tv at the back of the house and so didn't hear me knocking. I went to pick our neighbour up and her son, she used to be a vet and works with cows and her son could translate. By the time we arrived, Herk was at least up and about and Ian had managed to swap Brencis and Herk around so that Herk was in a safer place, but still with Turbjørn for company.

Ilvija has been rolling in the snow like her mum

Mari looking happy with herself

After examining Herk, our neighbour decided he seemed cold compared to the others and his stomach seemed to be slow. He also seemed a bit gassy, so maybe that was part of the pain. We wondered if he and Mr. P. had found something in the hay that had given them some mild poisoning. It seemed to fit with the symptoms we could find in the alpaca book. She gave us some peppermint, wormwood and valerian drops, that is good for the stomach. Valerian is also a calming herb. Herk wasn't so sure about the drops on his food at first, but he ate it. We had to give him some more later and he seemed a bit more keen. The next morning he was very keen on the food. Phew! Emergency over. It is a good job we ate when Ian came back home as it was after 10pm before we got to our apartment that night.

Our winter wonderland.

The signs of spring are still there though

The following day I went out with Ian and we had a slow day pottering about and discussing greenhouses, as I mentioned earlier. We even opened the greenhouse door to enjoy the view outside, as the sun was out. It was still too cold to sit outside with a hot cup of coffee as there was a chill wind blowing, but Ian has managed a few times just lately - he's made of sterner stuff these days. It used to be him that felt the cold, now it is me.

A walk in the forest. Our forest will look
a bit different this next year as one of
our neighbours will be doing some more
cutting. Sigh!

A moody sky

Someone's sunbathing in the snow.