400th post

I realise now I should have turned this around, it looks like
rather a large amount of potatoes and not much else. This is
Ian's plate and he needs the carbs. On the right though are
squash, carrot and mushroom burgers that tasted surprisingly
meaty, with a salad of mizuna, rocket, dandelion and lettuce
leaves, with fresh tomatoes (if you can call them fresh as they
were picked a few months ago, but they are storage type) and
the last fresh pepper.

Wow, not sure I ever thought I would make it this far, but I did. 400 posts and nearly 7 years worth of blogs. I have even managed to just about blog once a week, no matter where I was in the world. I can be very organised, or maybe I should say, I used to be very organised, but not very disciplined and never have been. I waver, I get bored, I think of a zillion other things to do and so I stop doing something, not because I planned to, but just because..... I also like short term projects, things I can get my teeth into and then move onto something else. I need new challenges to keep me going. That doesn't mean though I gad about and flit from one thing to another, after all I have been working towards a PhD for the last six years and that isn't possible if I flit around too much, but within that process I have found new challenges to keep me going and I do stick at something until its done if I have to. Aren't we all full of inconsistencies? Anyway I'm here and still going on the old blog.

The fire in the woodstore

Last week I posted this picture and someone on facebook asked "Why does Ian have a fire in the wood store?" Good point! It is not really necessary to have a fire in the wood store as the air circulation should dry out the wood. The reason for the stove though is to have a place to heat water for the animals in the winter. When it snows they often eat the snow and that is sometimes better for them as they don't get as wet trying to get water. Getting wet means a chance of freezing, whereas snow brushes off in very cold temperatures. Sometimes though, temperatures dip before the snow and we are left with frozen ponds and no way to get water easily for our animals. We then have to start bringing it from home and that is a lot of weight to cart up and down three flights of stairs. Our caravan does have electric and gas, but they cost, our wood is free to us, well apart from the petrol used in chopping down the trees with the chainsaw, so being able to heat water or melt ice using a woodstove makes sense for us. It will also give Ian an additional place to warm up, especially if the electric fails and it will also help dry the other wood out and herbs and beans in the autumn. So lots of positives for having heat in our wood store.

New wood cut and stacked to complete the walls. Shame
the chimney is outside for now. Improvements I am sure
will be made in the future

Aggie's (aka Agnese) our little baby alpaca or cria, as I should really call her, has learnt a new party trick besides escaping the fence on a regular basis. She can eat a whole apple from Ian's hand. Not in one go mind, but bite by bite as he turns it around for her. It is quite cute really and she prefers to eat it from Ian's hands than the chunks he cuts up for her. The ladies are fine with eating the chunks though. Ian is supplementing their feed more and more, as the grass nutrition will be declining as the year goes on. It is still quite green as the frosts have still not returned, but the number of daylight hours has declined and it is often dull and miserable. We are surprised that some of the chickens are still laying occasionally, even one of old ladies.

There is a door in there somewhere. Helps if you are short
like me. You can see how dull a day it has been, with the
flash reflecting off the tarp

I said the daylight hours is declining and we found out this week what is worse than waking up in the dark, it is waking up in the dark without electricity. No porridge for me then, as I usually use the microwave. No tea until we went out to the land, where at least the electric was on. The radiators were also cold with no pump, but fortunately it is still mild and we are used to cool mornings. There was also no internet to keep us in touch with the outside world - although maybe that is a good thing. Using the loo in the morning was also done by candlelight, since we have a toilet without a window - good job we have emergency lighting on hand in there just in case of being plunged into darkness at an inopportune moment.

Bottle carrots and home-made bread. All the small carrots
won't last long without some kind of processing and so
to save freezer space I bottled these ones.

My trips out to the land are not so frequent now either and very weather dependent. I look at the weather for the weekend and decide which day to go and if none of them look promising I might take a Friday off or a Monday. I am so pleased I don't have a regular 9-5 job for that reason. This week though the forecast let me down. I went out to the land on a Saturday expecting nice weather and it rained, the following day was lovely and I was stuck inside prepping carrots for storage. Still I managed to get the beetroot picked that had been under fleece. Due to the weird weather this year though, some were still quite small but there was still a whole large crateful of beetroot that were a decent size to pack away (it is layered with sawdust so not maybe as many as you might imagine at this point). The rest the sheep can eat when they get put into their winter quarters, which at the rate the grass is disappearing, might not be long.

The rest of the week was spent reading academic papers and writing up Sociology lessons. All this was made possible because last week I found a desk under a pile of papers - in other words I managed to tidy up and find some space to work. I do work much better at a desk, even though the chair is too high and I have to sit with my feet up on a little stool. One day I may get a chair that will be easier to cope with the height and a desk that moves up and down, so I can stand or sit at the desk.

Ian has been fixing up shelves and sorting out his table
where he prepares the food for the alpacas. His chopping
block is the triangular piece of wood and the knife is tucked
in behind. The roll of paper is supported on a thick piece
of electrical cable - because that is what was lying around

Ian went back into Jekabpils this week to take the car back for the timing belt to be changed. The glow plugs were also changed to make sure the car starts on those cold mornings and with our record for having work done just before a cold snap, we wonder what the weather will hold for the next month. The fuel filter was put in for free after being given the wrong one last week and a few other bits and bobs that go along with major service on the car were also done. All in all the total was €600 and Ian got the car back for 2pm. If you say it quickly it doesn't sound toooooo bad, does it?

Mild chilli peppers, basil with a rogue tomato plant in it

and a cowberry plant that was rescued before the alpacas

were put to graze around the current bushes. The cowberry

plant has never really thrived where it was put and we don't

think it would have survived the onslaught of the alpacas.

The car being ready for 2pm wouldn't have been so bad, but Ian had rung me earlier in the day to say it might not be finished in time and so could I go out to the land to put the animals away, as he might not be back on time. Sure, so I took the 1:50pm bus, as that was the only one that would get me there before dark at 4:30pm, in the rain. I got dropped off at the stop I knew to ask for and then realised that perhaps I would have been better to get the name of the next stop as it would be nearer and I could possibly get the driver to stop where I wanted me to. So I had a soggy walk to the land, and coming over the hill I nearly freaked the alpaca girls out, but fortunately they eventually realised who I was and I tried chatting to them to reassure them. I did wonder how frightening their look of intense curiosity would be to a stranger though, especially when Estelle started moving forward. At least I knew her stance was not aggressive, just curious. Ian rang just as I got off the bus to say the car was ready and he would be back in time, so I didn't need to go out there after all.

As a blogger there are always things that you write about and then somethings that do not appear in the blog, because it would not be good and is private. No one wants to mention the ins and outs of relationships in detail, although I might mention a few things to keep things real. I have also mentioned some things about neighbours, but I do not identify who they are or where I am exactly. I live in rural Latvia and that's enough for anyone to know on this blog. I might mention things in vague terms where there has been a problem, but again there is always that check, should I or shouldn't I. Well I thought I would share this incident. It did kind of shake me up a bit and worries me. I went to talk to a neighbour yesterday and inadvertently ended up in the middle of a row of which I understood very little, but what I did understand was that there was a real danger someone was going to get hit if I didn't stay and somehow intervene. At one point I physically stood between a gentleman and a child on a swing, rather than allow him to make the child get off. Like I said, I could not follow the argument but one thing was sure, the children were not going to be hurt in the process nor was I going to stand by and watch physical contact occur between adults. I even gently took the elbow of one of the women involved to stop her kind of fighting with the other woman over holding the swing that another child was on. They knew enough english for me to be able to express my concern about the children and they tried to argue back, but they could not really explain as there english was not good enough. I think that was a blessing as I could not then be drawn into the argument and without physically hitting me, nothing was going to make me move or allow them to force the children of the swings. After much verbal stuff and accusations of someone's mental state, the man and woman walked off. I spent the rest of the day wondering what on earth is feeding this hatred. It is stupid to make children pay for the arguments between parents.

Reappearing things

The remains of the polytunnel and our reappearing tractor
equipment

Good job I make notes from time to time about the things I will blog about, I had forgotten most of what happened this week as I have been doing my assignment for my course allllllllllll week. I think the problem was that I couldn't really get my head around the essay question which made it really hard, but at least I think I have done enough to pass so that should be okay - I hope! I really have to say I admire those who do the course I am doing but work as well, as I am not sure I could manage it. I certainly couldn't manage two units per semester and stay sane at the end, if I was working too.

We think one of the neighbours dogs is on heat and so we
have lots of local dogs wondering about, fortunately they
are not aggressive and as you can see, this one was soaking
up the sun

A neighbour called around one evening to talk some more about a project to make clothes and accessories from local materials and as soon as she walked in she remarked how peaceful it is in our apartment. I guess it helps that we no longer have three small children running around since our children have all flitted the nest now, and hers are still so young, but it is funny what atmospheres people pick up on and I think it is lovely she finds it so restful in our home. We had a great time surfing the net looking for possible machinery to help in producing fabrics for the project, from felting machines to looms. Do you have any idea how many different types of weaving looms there are? I didn't! Neither did I realise that I would have to learn a whole new vocabulary, never mind my friend who struggles with English sometimes. I love all things crafty and seeing the long pieces of felt that can be made on one machine had me hankering to get some more craft projects done, all I need now is a free day!

Returning swans

Poor Ian hasn't been able to get out as much this week, not because the weather has been bad but because it has been so nice and spring like, which means the snow is melting away quite fast now and making everywhere quite muddy. It is really strange to stand in the kitchen hearing the water gushing down the drainpipes while the sun is shining, just doesn't seem right somehow. I'm not complaining though, because I have been busy and Ian hasn't had a lot to do on the land, he has been cooking some of the meals and cleaning the house. I could get quite used to it I think, but I've been told it won't last, as soon as the land dries out a bit Ian is out there. Still it made a wonderful change to come home from studying at the other apartment to be greeted by wafts of cooking and a lovely cleaned hallway. And before anyone feels too bad for Ian, he hasn't been totally confined to the house, cooking and cleaning, he has taken the time to build some nesting boxes to encourage even more small birds into our forest near our ponds (the more birds the less mosquitoes, I hope!) and he has also been out on the land  a little bit and one day while he was there he saw many migrating birds starting to return and in one morning he saw geese, swans and the storks coming back. Our own storks that nest opposite our other apartment, that we can watch from the kitchen window, have also returned and we saw them heading up that way whilst sitting eating our evening meal. It is such a thrill to see them return as you then know then that spring is definitely on its way, well that and all the other birds chirping away.

This scene was similar to the one I wanted to take last week
just before we had another four inches of snow dumped on
it. More and more grass is beginning to show

Ian was out on our allotment opposite our apartment to see how deep the snow was and if any of the things we had left in had started to reappear and met another of our neighbours out there. I was quite proud of Ian as he asked our neighbour in Latvian about his greenhouse (siltumnica in Latvian) as we can see that it seems to have suffered a bit in the snow as the plastic is flapping about, to which he replied so so - or the equivalent of that anyway, he then presented Ian with a small smoked fish that was still warm from the bucket he had in his hands. It would seem he must have a smoker out in his greenhouse and he was smoking the results of his ice-fishing expeditions. Yes people are really still ice fishing here, even though there is a thin film of water on top of the ice. I know the ice must still be quite thick really, but I must admit I wouldn't trust it.

With the disappearing snow comes the puddles

We were quite relieved that this year our car passed its technical (MOT for Brits) without a hitch. Last year we suspect the mechanic checking our car was so brutal with it that he shook the front suspension enough for it to fail the technical - a bit odd for a two year old car. Anyway this year the mechanic was much more thorough in checking the car, even checking seat belts which we haven't seen before, but he didn't shake it to bits. The poor guy though had to put up his hood while checking under the car as there are still bits of ice melting off it. The problem in the winter here is that there gets to be quite a build up of ice underneath that may never melt off until spring - not good for the fuel economy.

Reappearing ponds too 

I mentioned two weeks ago that our English lessons were finishing early for the summer as one of our ladies was going to Ireland to see her husband for two months. I was so pleased when it got to Thursday and I was still doing my essay that I hadn't got any English to prepare, but it was amazing that this week we bumped into a local headmistress that we got to know late last year and she asked us if we would help out in school with preparing the oldest class for exams with some conversational English. Such good timing! Good from the point of view we haven't got our other English lessons and good timing as we don't normally go to the hotel to eat on Mondays, but went tonight as I couldn't really face cooking as I am so tired after last week's marathon essay write (I hasten to add that I wasn't writing the whole time I was doing some writing, lots of reading and lots and lots of thinking). It will also give me a chance to find out where our village is in relation to development, to see what is happening and what is not happening here.

Reappearing geese

As you can imagine I haven't been on the net much for anything other than studying and unless you want to know about the World Bank then there is not much I can tell you but I did find one interesting piece in my trawl and that is the work done by the daughter of a Nazi soldier. Her father died a hero of the Nazi regime and was a part of the terror that happened but interestingly she sees it is important to confront the past and to help in educating the school children that these things did happen and they shouldn't happen again. I somehow think something like this needs to happen here in Latvia, for people to honestly confront the past. Some bad things happened and some good things happened in the past, both in the far past and in some of the recent past, truth and reconciliation would be very healing here. Mind you, wonder how much healing many of us would experience if we confronted some of the things in our own personal past.

Reappearing roads. This one is outside our apartment
as you can see we have been driving on several inches
of ice all winter. 

One nest box awaiting new owners

These bushes were barely visible
earlier on this year.