Oh so quiet!

Always the nosy one. Brencis first and then Freddie. Mind
you, at least Freddie doesn't barge in like Brencis, he just
comes up very shyly with a sweet, inquisitive look on his
face.

So a whole week with no noise from grandchildren playing, no noise of traffic, not much noise from anything really and even then I wouldn't hear so much. My coughing has just about subsided but my hearing is still bad. One ear refuses to pop, although it is giving mini pops now so hopefully it will clear soon. Ian has to face me so I can see his lips moving for me to be certain what he has said. Good job I can lip read -well in a good light and if people speak clearly. Oh the joys! Not as if it is the joys of getting old, because I've always had hearing issues and borderline needing a hearing aid for ages. No point in sorting that out yet though until my hearing is back to normal - well normal to me. Hahaha!

Hmmm! Now is that Amanda or Valeria? I'm never quite sure.
Ian tells me after consulting his photo album that it is Valeria.
Even he can't tell them apart all the time. He is better up close
now though

George looking rather weird after the rain. He looks so
different without his mop of hair.

It has been a weird week trying to find all of our stuff and gradually moving more things back from the greenhouse and caravan into the already cramped apartment. I'm getting there slowly and been sorting some things out along the way. Another weird thing is getting used to the heat. Last year we were lucky if the apartment got above 16C most of the winter, but with our own heating it has been much warmer without even really trying. We have a woodstove that I light about 4pm. We keep it going as low as we can but even so we get rather warm. We do not let it run much past 10 pm and it is still hovering around 17C during the day. Admittedly it is a relatively warm November, but the walls are retaining the heat nicely.

This is Silla, still obviously enjoying the grass and looks like
she's having a good chat about it in the process.

Silla in more contemplative mood. She is a feisty one though

Brencis looking suave with his savvy hair do

I have also been making some scarves. I have been experimenting with using Veronica's raw fleece for two of them and her carded fleece for the other two. One of the reasons it was the last of that particular year's fleece and there was lots of bits in it, which will took a lot of cleaning, so I thought it would be easier to card it first for the second two scarves. Cleaning it was just taking me ages. It is amazing to see how they perform. The raw fleece gives an interesting texture but the carded fleece is smoother. I still have some work to do on them but it's getting there.

Is that George looking for an escape route? Or more grass.
The grass is getting pretty brown now and they are starting
to attack the hay. George has stopped his escape routine
now though, a little electric obviously worked wonders

I have also been getting back to academic work. I looked again through the reviews of the rejected paper and some of the comments are fair enough and can be fairly easily rectified, but some of them I do not agree with at all. It is interesting to see that one reviewer liked to see all the quotes and the other reviewer most certainly did not. I have also been asked to do a presentation at the University and so need to get myself up to Tartu for that.

The welcome and not so welcome visitors. The couple
walking the alpacas were very welcome and we enjoyed
their visit as much as they seemed to. The disturbed ground
shows the not so welcome visitors - the wild boar have been
back again.

We had some fantastic visitors the other day. They emailed the day before to ask if they could take a couple of alpacas for a walk. I decided to tag along. They earned the title of the alpaca visitors who have stayed the longest, we even had to put the light on to keep talking and they joined us for a cuppa to warm up. They said they were going to come back in the spring before they are sheared, which is rather sweet.

They've made quite a mess

And more damage here

Before they came we managed to get the new girls' toe nails cut. It went better than we anticipated but it gave us a sense of who are the feisty ones - the smallest one of course! We are having difficulty what to call the group, as it seems silly to keep calling them the new girls when most of them are older than the other group. We think it will probably be Vanessa's lot and Veronica's lot, since they are the matriarchs of those groups.

This is Josefs looking unusually lazy. Normally he's haring
around like in the video below

We heard about the costs of the chimney and it seems like a reasonable price, so that's good. At least the quote was slightly lower than he said, but we still expect there to be some additional costs in there and budgeting for that - or rather anticipating that, rather than budgeting for it.

The video shows Josefs and Jakobs playfighting. It is best to click on enter full screen to see it properly.   Well that is just about it on this rather quiet week. I'm probably working my way up to some pondering as there is a lot swirling around in my head at the moment.

Countdown to winter

A winking Aggie and Josefs

I know, I know. Summer has only just finished about a week ago and now I'm talking about winter. The trouble is once the chill sets in there is a limited amount of time and a lot to do. I wish I could say all the potatoes are in, especially since the middle of my upper back is protesting slightly, but they are not. The ache in my back is nothing too bad, just stiff and I can't quite get comfy. Still only another row left to do and the weather was glorious today - if a tad cool at times. The squashes were all picked this week too, as were the tall beans and some of the short beans. Slowly, step by step the garden is being wrapped up for winter. I even got some more herbs in to dry. Normally that would have been finished ages ago but it has been a funny year, weather wise. My lavender is flowering now, when usually I would expect it to have gone over long ago.

I tried some new corn this year. They are glass gem
corn and there is a bit of a story behind it. You can see
it here - link. Quite different.

My beans were new too and I was a little surprised to find out
they were blue spotted beans. I was expecting them to be purple

Not many carrots germinated this
year due to the drought, but the
ones that did are huge. Some have
suffered with splitting though but
I'm surprised to get this much.

On a mission. That's me in the background. The beds in front
had squashes in

I have done other winter preparation jobs too this week. I sorted out the greenhouse, so that it is nearly ready for the chickens to go in. They have to go in this next week before I go away to the UK, otherwise they would be out there until November in the cold and damp and Ian wouldn't be able to move them on his own. At least in the greenhouse they will be on a deep bed of hay or something like that. We are gradually moving them nearer to the greenhouse so we don't have as far to cart them when the time comes for them to go in. Not long ago I shifted a wood pile into the horse box that Ian had chopped and stacked for drying earlier in the year. This week we re-stacked it in the basement at the apartment and the rest of it in the outside wood store we have there, ready for the winter heating season.

That's a lot of squash plants.

Still on a mission. I am clearing out the old cardboard and
laying it down on the beds that will have alpaca manure piled
on it over winter to make our new potato beds for next year.
Despite the drought the manured beds worked a treat. The
potatoes grew well in it, but not as well under the straw. On
one bed we didn't have time to put manure down and so I
used straw. That bed was weedier and I got one bucket out
of the first 2/3rds of the bed and one bucket from the remaining
third where there was manure.

The wood stack is now empty and waiting for the next load to
be chopped and stacked over winter

So the new shelves are on the top with the sacks of fleece.
Now Ian can get to the shelves underneath

Ian meanwhile has spent much of the time in the barn, constructing shelves to store wood and generally tidying up. The problem has been that we have had that much stored in there that we can't get to, that it didn't get used. Now it is much more organised. Along with solving the storage issue he has been finishing of the newest alpaca house by making and hanging some doors ready for the new girls coming from Sweden later on this week.

More shelves on this side too

We had some rough weather over this last week, so we
covered the horse box as best we could. It is amazing what
can be achieved with tarpaulins, baler twine and towing straps.
Mind you, the place looks a bit like a junk yard. 

I even had time to do some writing. Well actually it was a case of I had to do some writing to finish off the paper that I had to unexpectedly re-submit. I mentioned it last week in the blog. The good news is that it is now re-submitted so I hope I don't have to wait absolutely ages to find out the result of that re-submission. While I was on a roll I also started on an abstract for a conference. I have to do two before the end of the month but would like to get them out of the way this week. The problem is that potato picking got in the way, so it is not finished. I was quite pleased with the title "The dirt under my fingernails and a cup of tea: A story of relationship and embeddedness." Well my supervisor loved the story, but didn't think it was entirely suitable and had some comments on the content. I shall get back to that soon as I think with a bit of tweaking I can allay his worries about it. Maybe!

It doens't help with this around. This is our replacement
vehicle. Our car is in the garage for bodywork repairs. 

Major excitement! We had a puddle in our pond. It didn't last
though

These ones lasted though. It's a good job we relocated the
fish though.

These are our enormous cranberries. The small one at the
bottom is actually a reasonable size cranberry under normal
conditions. The other ones are like little crab apple size.

Gradually I have also been getting my thesis sorted, at least the notes, to start the actual writing process. Once I have all the notes written, then I will do my usual trick of printing it all out, cutting it up into short paragraphs and then rearranging it on the floor. Not the most eco-friendly way of doing it, but it is the only way I can visualise it and get it to make sense. It means I can group bits together better as it is only by seeing the whole of it that the structure comes together.

I'm sure Aggie is having a laugh

Josefs has such long eyebrow hairs

So little by little we are getting ready. There was a bit of a scare earlier on in the week when we thought we might have heard geese flying overhead, but if it was, it was only a small group and not the huge numbers we see when we know that winter is definitely on the way. We keep seeing some swans and still the occasional flock of cranes, but geese - no!. Phew! So winter is not arriving very soon.

Mari in contemplative mood

A curious Jakobs

The boys on their well eaten paddock. Probably do them some
good, some of them got quite portly.

So pleased to see that Herkules is finally well again. His skin
has all healed up.

Tellus 

George

Freddie - he always looks like he needs a good hug

Glorious colours

The raspberries are still hanging on in there after the frosts
but haven't got around to picking any just lately

The mallow is still flowering away

First time we actually have hops

Michaelmas daisies

Bergamot

Reminds me of the colours in Botswana Agate

Quite an amazing skyscape.

Oh Sweet Rain!

We have seen clouds that look like they might rain and some
we could see were raining but passed us by. We are so
grateful to hear the rain on the caravan roof right now.

We actually sat down and just watched the rain. There wasn't much else to do really, except maybe tidy the greenhouse, but since we had just baled and stacked 36 bales of hay and shifted another 20 or thereabouts,  I think we deserved a rest. We badly needed the rain though. It is only early June and already plants are struggling with the heat and lack of water. Since early April we have had very little rain at all and I think we have only had about three showers since I got back from the UK in mid-April. Many of the days have been hot and sunny, further increasing the stress on the plants and animals alike.

A very pregnant Aggie having a sunbathe

An airy cover for the chickens. Two have escaped or nearly
escaped from the enclosure this week though. Hopefully
we have sorted it now. Unfortunately it was after one of them
reduced the number of carrots by scratching through one of
my veg beds. Wouldn't have minded so much but not many
had germinated in the first place. Grrrr!

Last week I was going to write my blog as usual when I discovered an email that told me that a meeting in Slovakia was cancelled. I had heard that there wasn't a huge amount of interest, not that surprising as it seemed to be arranged last minute like a lot of these things, but it was supposed to be going ahead regardless. Rather annoyingly someone had had a change of mind, as I had put a lot of effort into finding out how to get there and so I then had to put a lot of effort into cancelling everything on a week when I was particularly busy too. At least I got my money back on the flights from the meeting organisers- well at least most of it, as I am waiting for AirBaltic to get their act together and send me my taxes back. They said they would in the expensive phone call to them 52c a minute.

At least the cool nights have meant the grass still got some
moisture but it was beginning to struggle and in some places
dried to a crisp. I was beginning to worry that Jani - the
midsummer festival with bonfires was possibly going to cause
havoc and a wildfire.

Ian has been clearing a mound to make way for a root cellar.
Both these heaps will be used to cover the old chicken shed.
Details are still to be worked on

At least the rain gives me a chance to write the blog. It is after all, too wet to do any weeding and  there isn't that much to do anyway as I haven't put many seeds in yet because it has been so dry. We also need to wait for the cut grass to dry out again, so no more baling for now (don't worry there isn't that much cut and it will be fine, there is more hot weather forecast).  So what's been happening over the last two weeks? Well first of all we had a visit from a mother and daughter who live close by and had just bought some alpacas. They asked lots of questions and Ian gave them lots of advice, we also agreed to shear their two animals that still needed doing. We were concerned that they might get too hot in the high temperatures we have been having.

A grateful addition to the greenhouse. A side door for ventilation

A chance to try out the feltability of the fleeces from these
little chaps. We found George's felts incredibly well
whereas Frederiks takes a bit more work.

It was not the best plan, but we ended up shearing the following day. One of the problems was that we still had jobs to do to get ready for our felting tutor's arrival that evening. Animal welfare though was uppermost and since the family had important commitments the rest of the week like finishing off degree courses, we decided just to get on with it. We started off with an enjoyable short tour around their property while we collected their animals from the field. I was worried at first that the animals were not already rounded up, but the family seemed to have sorted out the walk from the field to the barn and it wasn't an issue. Getting the animals in for shearing itself was a little more problematic, but we got done and showed them one or two tricks for improving compliance with the animals - some of the things learnt from experience the hard way.

Poor Mr. P has been bothered by the flies. They really annoy him

Cow parsley makes such pretty pictures, but it is a pain in
the field as the alpacas do not eat it

There was one point where we used a rope to corral one of the animals so we could check its teeth. Unfortunately another of the animals managed to get entangled in the rope and then set off at full pelt around the paddock with the rope dangling from its body. I managed to grab the rope and slowly haul it in, to get the rope off, whilst Ian was dealing with the other animal. After we had finished the shearing and checking on the animals we were treated to cold Latvian soup - the ideal sort of food on a hot day. It was nice to be able to do all that and still be home mid-afternoon, since it is much nearer than most other places where we do shearing.

The grapes are starting to swell and the leaves provide a nice
bit of shade

Pine cones forming

I still had time to get the apartment we have moved into presentable for our felting tutor before we went to collect her in the evening - presentable in the loosest sense of the word. The next few days were then spent finishing off the greenhouse to transform it from a dumping ground into a workshop for the following week. Now the barn looks like a dumping ground and so does the little greenhouse structure outside, but its progress of sorts. While Heather our tutor and I were clearing the greenhouse out, Ian was having fun, I mean working hard digging out one of the ponds. It had dried out quite a lot and so it was the ideal opportunity to try and tackle the problems we have of it draining away and deepen it. Ian found more clay drain pipes, so now they have been plugged and our pond is filling - very, very slowly due to the drought, but at least it is filling and not emptying. I don't think the fish were terribly happy about it all, as the pond got a bit shallow in the process, but we reckon there are still at least four of them left of the 8 put in and they are getting quite big. I'm sure they will appreciate more room later on in the year, as the pond fills though.

Pied wagtail

Small in number but we had great fun

Our Latvian Alpaca Adventure didn't get the numbers we were hoping for and it was really difficult to get time to really push the advertising of it, so we decided to run it with just the one participant to try and work out some different ways of running it in the future. We had hoped to visit a Latvian felter, but unfortunately she pulled out just before the event and so all our plans ended up changing anyway. It was very frustrating. Especially as I had taken quite a bit of time trying to help them understand how to work with the international folks on the course and provide reassurance. On the plus side though, our participant was lovely, she thoroughly enjoyed the week and made some good suggestions for the future.

We ate a lot of fresh bread that I
baked and pastries from the bakeries
 in the village. I'm really pleased to find
that vine leaves make great replacements
for baking sheets.

Just pointing out that a rain cloud was on
the way.

One suggestion was to build some pods for people to stay out on the land rather than at the hotel, which has some potential and maybe a step forward - although when I've checked on prices, small cabins would work out cheaper. The hotel is nice and we get a good deal on it, but it does mean I have to organise transporting people backwards and forwards, which can be an issue sometimes when there are still jobs to do on the farm. It is also a way of reducing the costs of the holiday.

Felting with George's fleece. The rings are to work out how
much shrinkage occurs during the felting process. I still have to
finish this one off.

Doing some eco-printing. I use that term loosely as I don't
like the use of so much plastic, despite not using strong
chemical dyes. I did find out that leaving the fabrics that
had been soaked in rusty water with the leaves overnight
made a blue or purple dye. Those steamed right away were
blacker. 

Another aspect of the pod idea is that we could also offer some sort of retreat, whether that is a craft retreat, an academic retreat or just a retreat away from it all. We could even use them for artists in residence where felters, painters or any artist comes to spend time using the resources we have on our land, such as our fleeces, natural materials, landscape etc. The possibilities are endless I'm sure. Heather will be using the rest of her time here on our land getting to know more about the alpaca fleece and how it differs from sheep fleeces as our first artist in residence. She has already made a truly gorgeous scarf using some of George's fleece and some of Aggie's. Alpaca fleece can be wonderfully soft, but it is still a pretty unknown quantity in the felting world and even has a bad reputation at times. Obviously something we would like to change and there is no better way than to have someone experiment with it to find out what its strengths and weaknesses are.

Teamwork!

There are so many pictures from these last two weeks that I will post some more later.