In clover

Veronica. Unusually nosy for her!

It has been an intense week this week. Although we often do lots of different activities, the pace we go at is usually fairly relaxed, but not this week. First of all Ian moved the sheep from where they have been all spring to somewhere nearer to what they would consider civilisation (being herd animals and only three of them, I think they miss the company). The poor things were so hot, but we did make sure their feeding ground include trees for shelter, but did they use it – no of course not! They had to sit in the hottest spot next to the gate.

The sheep were over this hill behind Ian taking the photo.
He then moved them all the way over to a spot to the
left of the greenhouse. They were very good and didn't
scamper off at all. I think it was just too hot

If you don't examine them too carefully, they look much
better today. Still, if they could, they would change their
hairdresser

The reason for moving them nearer to civilisation was to bring them closer to an electric point so we could shear them using the mains electric and not a generator. It went so well at first, we managed to stop any of them escaping first of all and we then tied their legs together to stop them running off while we sheared. Before you think we were being cruel, you have to remember these are animals that cleared a four foot wooden fence by scrabbling over it. If these sheep did not get sheared that day, they weren't going to get sheared for quite a while and in the heat we had this week, it was the less cruel option. Unfortunately Ian has not been on a sheep shearing course and the finish was not very professional, in fact they looked a proper dog’s breakfast - if you get what I mean. Still they fairly skipped around in the rain yesterday. Better than the big wool coat they were wearing.

Brencis looking gorgeous

Brencis' fleece. You can see it is definitely not pure white

The instrument of torture ..errr I mean
the hoist. We need to find a wider belt
for it, but at least the principle worked.
It was funny holding Snowdrop
because she would audibly sigh as she
was being milked. I think it was a relief

Although Snowdrop lost her baby last week, she was quite full of milk. Rather than waste it and because we know that she is likely to have problems feeding a baby in the future, it is always good to have spare so we milked her. That is now in the freezer – not much but at least it is something - a feed's worth. It may contain colostrum, but I'm not sure if colostrum is always the first lot of milk or whether it is only within 24 hours. We did try to milk her while she was pinned down for shearing but it didn't work. We then tried it while she was standing up, but she kept cushing (the alpaca term for sitting down with their legs underneath them, which of course means it is impossible to milk her like that. In the end Ian made a hoist to stop her cushing. I'm glad to say it worked well.

Wheat and Poppies - not red ones though

Amaranth. These have been competing
well with the weeds and Ian has been
able to keep just ahead with these.

We have also got quite a bit of weeding done, but there is not much to show for it, although I did find some carrots and dill, not many, but they are at least there. Of course at this time of year, if you don't keep on top of the weeding, the weeds tend to take over. We had some old seed and a bad year for germination and that hasn't helped. I have some carrots going to seed in the greenhouse, so that should give us plenty of carrot seed for next year and I shall buy some fresh seed from a seed company, so that we have a good genetic mix of carrots. I let enough carrots go to seed for our own use, but not enough to make sure they provide us with healthy plants genetically in the future.

Lots of wonderful flowers at this time of the year and until
Monday was blissfully relatively free of biting insects.
Monday the really large horse flies suddenly appeared.
They look like something out of a horror movie, but
fortunately they are so loud, you can hear them coming
and be prepared. It is the pesky small ones that are harder
to get.

Because we haven't got any chick pictures
this week, here is one of Eyre looking
sleepy. She has been ever so good at going
to sleep in the toilet area of the caravan when
we have been sleeping in it. She is quiet until
we wake up.

Talking of genetics, we are have bred some lovely looking chickens, with gorgeous black or grey feathers, unfortunately we seem to have bred out any sign of intelligence at the same time. All our other chickens have only taken about three days maximum to get the idea that when food is put in the back of the ark, that means it is time to go away for the night. The food is an incentive to go into the box to be fastened up. However, this lot have been chased around the ark lots of times to catch them. It would be the most awkward ark too. It was designed as a small ark for chicks to go on the floor, but then we extended it upwards to give them more room and there isn't as much access for humans. At least they are finally getting the idea, apart from one and even that one is finally getting it. It tends to look around as if to say, "where has everyone gone?" before the penny drops and into the box it goes, a good minute after the others. I do hope the folks that got their siblings are not having the same bother.

Sour dough bread buns freshly baked for
lunch

The sweetcorn is doing well in the greenhouse

Apart from all that it was an intense hay cutting, baling and shifting week. We reckon we may have shifted about 4 ½ tonnes and I have certainly walked miles behind tractor. The good news is that it would seem the UK got our heatwave and we only had to put up with temperatures around 28C (82) and not over 30C (86F) like we normally do. I certainly felt the benefit. I don't even feel particularly sore, just like I have done a lot of work.

Some of the cuttings from one of the grapevines in the
greenhouse seems to have taken. We aim to plant these
ones outside and see how they will do there.

The rain on Monday battered some of our oats. Not sure if
we will get anything out of this bit. It maybe okay. It is
not as if we need to harvest it with a combine harvester.
We might just use the scythe 

One of the first things we had to do was shift some of last years hay that we still had in our neighbours barn down to our place to make room for the new hay. While we were doing that our neighbour came into the barn carrying two freshly baked goodies, straight out of the oven. She was supplying the camp nearby with things like cinamon rolls, biezpiena rolls (kind of like a cross between cottage cheese and curd cheese in a sweet roll) and pizzas. They were absolutely gorgeous and much appreciated. She does look after us.

Tomatoes are starting to form on our plants now

Looking down from the top of the ski hill at the area
we cut, baled and cleared

This is to the left of the picture above

A remnant from the Soviet era. The signage
on this electric pole is in Russian

It was close but we managed to get all of this year's hay into the barn and stacked in the space we were allowed. I think we could have only got one or two more bales in. We had around 70 bales leftover from last year, and over 180 new ones. That will be more than enough and means we do not have to worry about trying to bale and stack any more from the land. We needed more in past years because we didn't have any where to stack it to keep it dry and ended up throwing a lot of it away. It feels very nice to know that won't be as much of a problem this time around.

Not the strawberries I picked after the hay stacking but ones
I cut up to dry. The strawberries are huge and tasty this year
and we have been having them on our breakfast all week.
Such a hard life!

I feel like a true farmer this year. We knew some rain was coming, so got all the hay collected and stacked and since the rain was imminent Ian went and baled hay we had cut around the side of our greenhouse that had been re-seeded a year or so ago and was lush and tall not like most of the hay this year. I also went and collected all the ripe strawberries because the expected rain was due to be heavy and I didn’t want to waste them. We just finished those jobs as the first few spots of rain began to fall, at that point we finally went and ate and then slept for an hour or so. I don't even feel that bad today. I thought I would have been quite stiff, but I just feel like I have over done it yesterday and need to take it easy today. So not bad, must be getting stronger each year, or not as drained in the lower temperatures maybe.

These four bales of hay came from the side and rear of the
greenhouse

Three bales from this section and one from behind

The uncut patch is to keep everyone guessing what we are
up to :) or the other explanation is to allow the clover (the
purple splodge in the middle that you can see) to go to
seed and spread around that area. The grass in that area is
rather thin and so hopefully the clover will add some
fertility

We have found that the hay every year is very different due to the growing conditions.  Often the grass is tall, but the cool, dry spring meant this year's hay was on the short side and not so dense. What we have noticed though is a huge increase in clover. I have identified at least three sorts, possibly four. There was also vetches and lady’s bedstaw in abundance. So the hay will be very scented and possibly rather fattening with all the leguminous plants– so not much grain supplement will be needed for our boys this next year, they are fat enough as it is.

Whose my mummy?

So here is Agnese in front, we know this is Agnese because
we named her, but who is it behind? Is it Veronica or
Snowdrop? We call her Snowdrop and she is not the mum
of Agnese. The lady facing into the wall is Agnese's mum
but is she really called Snowdrop or is it Veronica as we
have been calling her? Hmmm!

We had a bit of a shock this week, we might have got the lady alpacas mixed up. We bought three alpaca ladies and were given another alpaca for free, because she was old, back in October of last year. The old lady we had put down in May of this year, because she never really recovered from unexpectedly giving birth in January. Unfortunately baby died five days after being born. We then knew that two of the ladies were pregnant and they gave birth in May, one baby survived and the other did not. We decided to microchip the baby Agnese and so the vet came round to have a look at our animals, particularly one of the boys who is struggling with a skin problem and the mum of the baby to check her udder, as it is a bit swollen. Before microchipping the baby, she checked where the chips were put in the ladies. She couldn't find Estelle's chip, but she found Veronica's and Snowdrop's, only there was a problem. The names we had been calling the ladies, didn't match with the chip numbers, they were the other way around.  Now Ian is trying desperately to remember why he thought they were named the way they were. The old lady was easy to identify, as she was black in colour. Estelle was easy too, she was the youngest by far and not pregnant. Now this wouldn't matter too much, but we have got a young alpaca that needs to have a correct breeding line identified. We know who the father is for definite, but is her mother really called Veronica or is it Snowdrop? Not sure how we sort that one out yet.

This tomato was big enough to feed five of us on our
ham sandwiches

The dishwasher, aka  Joanna! (I only found out this week
that aka is actually an acronym for also known as. I just
thought it was a word. You live and learn!)

Another surprise, although not quite such a shock, was some American friends coming to our village. We knew they would probably be coming, but weren't entirely sure when and so were surprised to have contact asking if they could stay that night and then for the following week. We were able to accommodate them on the first night, but the next night we already had a request for a young family to stay who had a one year old and they didn't want to stay in a tent for a conference that was happening in the camp nearby to our land. As we had been really busy, a group of three folks came and cleaned up some of the rooms in the apartment, such as kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, so it was at least liveable in, prior to our friend's request to stay. Which worked out rather nicely I think. So our friends stayed one night and just slung a sheet over the bed to keep it clean and then we directed the young family to the apartment for the next night. We kind of got talking and it was midnight before we got to our own bed that night, but the young couple were so intrigued about what we were doing and seeing the alpacas, they organised to come and see us the following morning out on the land.

A humongous caterpillar. I think it might be an elephant
hawk moth. Certainly big enough

We have found that the addition of the new extension to
the alpaca house has resulted in rain running off the roof
and into the alpaca house, causing the bedding to become
saturated. Ian has now dug a trench around to try and take
the water away and it is getting its first test tonight.

The next morning our American friends came to help us shift bales of hay - the last load of good or at least reasonable hay, up to our neighbours barn for storage and just as we were finishing the young couple came for their tour of our land. Their little fella loved all the animals, but was completely fascinated with the chickens. It was quite amusing to see how captivated with the chickens he was, he was obviously not aware that chickens can be seen in many places, but he won't often get to see alpacas in Latvia - well not at the minute anyway.

We found the cranberries this week. Not ripe yet, but still
safe inside our giant lobster pot. Surprisingly enough no lobsters yet! 

The barley was chopped up in a garden shredder and it
seemed to do a good job of separating the seed from the
stalks. The shredded stalks will be bedding for the
chickens and some of the seed will be sifted to get pure seed,
the rest will be give with chaff for the chickens to sort
through in winter. At least the principle worked and next
year we could manage a bigger plot of barley.

Our American friends split their time between us and our friends who live on a goat farm. They helped us with some of the jobs, like gathering in the barley, some of the buckwheat and some of the beginnings of the tomato glut, but some work we couldn't do because of the weather or just too tired. For Ian, especially, it was a good time to sit down and talk about what has been happening, which was a bit like having a holiday for him. It has been a bit of a tough year and so we both feel a bit drained at times and just processing what has been happening was good for us. They also took us out for a meal, something we haven't done in a long time. We have had pizza in the big town, but that was out of necessity and not just because it was a nice thing to do (the pizzas are amazing and made by an Italian and so necessity works too), so having a meal, just for the sake of it was a refreshing change.

Barley seed

Yes that is me, up in the tractor bucket
collecting rowan berries to make rowan
berry jam. It is very tart and goes nicely
with pork, but we like it on toast too.
It is supposed to be good for sore throats,
as are most berries.

The weather this week has either been really hot or stormy. It has been 35C (95F) some days and I have been finding that it is not ideal having hot flushes in this kind of heat. Hot flushes in winter at -25C (-13F) fine, even helpful, but not at 35C. It's a good job they are not real humdingers of hot flushes, just mildly uncomfortable. One storm in particular was a sight to behold though. We are used to torrential rain and I have told you about the gulley washing storms. It is kind of normal from our experience of summers in Latvia, but one night the rain was so hard that it looked like a power shower on steroids. The gutters for the apartment couldn't handle the rain, we are not sure if they are partially blocked or just weren't up to that volume of rain, but they overflowed and ran down the wall of our home. The water then found a gap just under the window and started raining in. Ian fortunately spotted it and constructed a way of catching the water in a bowl, by jamming a tea-towel into the hole with a brush that was jammed against a piece of furniture and then the towel dripped into the bowl. It worked anyway. Ian was worried though about the animals and the barn out on the land and so late in the evening he set back off to the land to see what was happening, only to find out the storm was very localised and there wasn't a problem out on the land, so he arrived back at midnight.

See it really is me!

Our shot of the perigee moon

I forgot to mention the other week that I helped my friend who has the goat farm translate her website. She told me approximately what was said and I had to write something that made sense in English along the same lines. It was really hard. My friend speaks perfectly adequate English and we understand her pretty well, but it is still with a very Latvian way of speaking and trying to put that into a more normal English sentence structure, rather challenged my brain and made me realise how long it is since we left the UK. Sometimes I can't find the right words at all and sometimes my own sentence structure lets me down. So anyway, here is the website and if you spot any mistakes or want to make any suggestions to improve the English then you are more than welcome to send me an email.

The swallows are growing up fast. It probably won't be
long before they are flying and then migrating.
Seems hard to believe when they are so tiny.

Other little snippets of news this week includes the ongoing saga of the oat crop. Well it is no more. Ian and I went to see if we could salvage anything and there wasn't even any seed left on the battered stalks, in fact the whole of the field was flattened by the time the wild boar had finished. I guess that is why I am not too upset that African Swine Fever seems to be creeping nearer and nearer to our land. I realise I shouldn't, but the numbers had been allowed to get unnaturally high, by feeding the little darlings through the winter and this is only to be expected. Hopefully nature will right the balance and we we can all live happily ever after again with just some damage every now and again. We are not sure if the wild boar ate the seed or it is just trampled into the ground. We know that at least some of it will have been and so we are going to leave it as it is and wait for the seed to germinate and cover the area, then we can put the sheep on it to manure the patch and hopefully trample the stalks into the ground. At least that way there will be some use from it.

Not to be left out, Estelle and yes, this really is Estelle.
Her ear tag matches the notes 

Ark 4 with the little chicks. This ark may make its way up
to the girls paddock. Ian has noticed that there are a lot
less flies in the boys alpaca house than the girls and he
thinks it may indeed be due to the presence of the chickens.
We often joke that the cleaning team are going in, as the
first thing the chickens do when let out is go straight into
the alpaca house to have a scratch around. The chickens
have been a bit of a nuisance, but if they make our alpacas
lives a bit easier by reducing the flies, then they have their
place.

Ian played bird saviour again this week, this time from the jaws of our cat. After a spell in a shoe box to recover, he let it loose in the woods where it flew off into a tree, hopefully a much wiser little bird. We keep telling Sofie, our cat, "furry things, good, feathered things, bad," but she isn't getting it. She still is getting furry things and demonstrated it today by bringing me a live mouse for me to catch. I wasn't playing and so I don't think she was impressed with my hunting skills either. One day this last week, we could see Sofie was on the alert and watching something. She set off slowly as if on the hunt. I got up to check on what it was that she was hunting, only to find it was one of our new chicks. They are proving to be great escape artists, which is not helpful with cats, ospreys and storks around. I know the ospreys are going to be off soon, as we have seen them gathering and many of the storks have already left, there are just a few who will also leave soon if they are not too sick to do so, but the cat will still be there and so those little fellas had better watch out.

One of the many ospreys we have seen this week. Looking
for a chicken dinner? Good job the new cockerel, seems
to be doing his job.

Close up of ark 4. Definitely a franken ark, made up of lots
of scraps, mainly from the girls alpaca house.

One of my supervisors was at his holiday home in Latvia and so we took a trip up to see them. We had a great time chatting and a lovely lunch with Yorkshire puds - a rare treat for us northerners far from our native land (said in a heavy northern accent, just in case you are having a grammar fit). A colleague of my supervisor works for a Latvian university, but also has a holiday home in the area and so my supervisor tried to connect us up. He rang and rang and in true British style we started to make jokes about this colleague that I had never seen. I had heard him talked about many a time, by both supervisors, I had even had an email from him, but did he really exist? Eventually a little later than planned, someone did indeed turn up, still we didn't see the ID, so the question remains, does the mysterious colleague really exist? Joking apart, at least he is going to try and encourage some of his new students to do a project with me, so I can get the kind of data I require for my own studies. I shall find out whether he was successful by mid-September.