15 minutes of fame

Tommy tomato

We had our first signing session this week, we were all highly amused. Ian and I went to get some chicken food from the agricultural merchants and the ladies at the till pulled out the newspaper with the article about us. Ian jokingly pretended to sign it and they handed him a pen for him to do it for real and then I had to too. We were giggling about it for much of the day afterwards. We boringly only signed our names but we should have put some greeting on it I suppose. Didn't think about that until afterwards.

A red rainbow

One of our neighbours has been visiting regularly and this week when she came she mentioned it was her son's birthday that day. She explained he doesn't like big flashy presents or a big birthday party, even though he is only 8 years old. He likes time with his family and to make a birthday cake with his Mum. He was thrilled to get a walk with Agnese as a treat and a bunch of grapes. It is lovely when a youngster is so appreciative of the little things in life. Mind you, those grapes are good.

A moody view from the greenhouse during
coffee time

20m3 of wood, cut and stacked ready to start on the new
alpaca house. I am only there for height comparison and only shifted a few planks. Ian did the most of it, along with a little help from the guys cutting.

We had a bit of confusion over a school visit this week, and so on a day we were expecting a visit from the school that didn't materialise we took a visit to Depot - a diy place in Jekabpils and spent mucho money. We needed screws and metal brackets so Ian can get on with the alpaca houses. We also bought a leaf blower, not for blowing leaves you understand or even to vacuum them up, but to blow the alpaca fleece when it is in the tumbler that Ian made earlier on in the year. This will help clean the fleece of dirt and small fibres. We also bought some big bags for sawdust and a kneeling stool for gardening.

Agnese posing for the camera for the
smiling alpaca selfie

Eventually the mix up was sorted about the school visit and four very enthusiastic girls and their teacher turned up for an extra-curricular English lesson on alpacas. Ian talked about alpacas and their care and then we all went for a walk with Agnese. She did very well, as of course the girls wanted to keep close to her and stroke her. In fact she was so good she produced the most amazing smiling alpaca selfie. Funnily enough we got a booking today from another school for a school visit. I will be away and so Ian will have entertain them, but since he did  pretty much all the talking the last time, I don't think that will be a problem. It would be more of a problem if it was me, because I don't think Agnese would cooperate to go on a walk with so many children, in fact she might even be quite hesitant to come near as I am the big bad veterinary substitute - in other words they see me more often when one of them needs treating for something. Ian also knows much more about the alpacas' daily habits because he looks after them all the time.

A picture by a very talented friend of ours

We have had rain on and off this week, a definite indication that the seasons are changing. It is great we can sit in our greenhouse when we have visitors if it is a bit damp, as we did one morning, sitting under the grapevines eating grapes and drinking coffee - perfect! It was a very early visit by someone who has been going to visit for quite a while and not quite made it yet. We were beginning to wonder if the guy who was cutting the wood thought we just had a never ending stream of visitors as we have had so many while he was working. I suppose we have had this year. Quite a surprise for us really.

I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes, but I did manage
to remember to take a photo of the carrots I harvested.
Although there weren't many, due to using old seed and
the rather slow germination rate, there were still more than
in the picture, honest. You can see also see one of the three
or four wheelbarrows full of weeds I removed.

During one dry spell we got our potatoes harvested. We were a bit worried about how many potatoes we would get this year because we only planted a smaller area and it has been a cooler year, warm, dry and not always sunny days but cold nights. Despite all of that we got as much as last year and a far better size. Many of them are chipping size (not that we make regular chips any more and Ian has to make do with oven chips, but it gives you an indication of size) and quite a few were even baking size or even extra large baking size at that. Ian decided that since it had rained the area would be too wet and so difficult to use the two wheel tractor for lifting the potatoes, so it was decided to dig them by hand. We weren't looking forward to it, but when we got there and removed the soggy straw off the top, the ground was actually bone dry. If anything we would have had difficulty due to the ground being a little hard in places. On the whole though it was fairly easy work.

Many of the carrots were also a decent
size, despite having fought valiantly
amongst the weeds (maybe that's their
secret)

There is still a bed to harvest. Spot the
carrots

As we weren't looking forward to it and Ian seemed in a bad mood, I asked him if there was going to be any swearing. His answer was "there might be." He was very good though and he didn't swear once, I on the other hand did. Nothing that bad and for many it wouldn't even be considered swearing really, but if you know me you would realise that swearing isn't something I do. The first occasion was after picking up what I thought was a potato and thinking it felt a bit weird, as if it was hollow; it turned out to be the most enormous earth coloured toad. I am not sure who got the bigger fright. Fortunately I hadn't speared it with the fork or anything and so it made its escape, although I do confess it flew a little way. The next time wasn't so drastic and was because I was standing on something that I had been trying to avoid standing on (can't even remember what it was now). Not having kids around is obviously not good for me. I will have to behave from now on.

A weird sunset after the rain and before the day of showers
today

Waste wood! Well not quite waste, but all the odds and
ends that now need sorting into wood for burning, for
chipping for the road way and so on.

After potato harvesting we had just finished lunch at home when we got a call from our neighbour to ask where we were. She was out on our land with her husband's brother and they wanted to see the alpacas. It wasn't a problem and we were on our way shortly after the call. They had a teenager with them and unlike the four girls that came earlier in the week, she was not going to see the alpacas and stayed in the car. Funny how different people can be. The little girl of the family enjoyed seeing them though and fed Agnese and our neighbour did really well telling the family many of the details of their care. That could be because she does look after them for us from time to time.

Some of the sawdust we can now use for our composting
toilet. Should last us a while

Just in case we run out, here is some more. We also use it to
store carrots and beetroot and there are plenty of those

One of the regular parts of the day is we have porridge for breakfast every morning. I know many people will go yuck! but we make up a big batch and have it cold, it is just easier and cheaper for breakfasts that way. Ian likes to eat as soon as he gets up and therefore hot porridge in the morning will not work. We have also been eating our porridge with berries pretty much since July. First we had the strawberries and just as they finished we had blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries, albeit with a little gap in between. Just after those the raspberries ripened followed by the grapes. Now we are eating blackberries along with the grapes that are still going strong. We have just a few more of the red grapes and then the green grapes seem to be ripening along with the autumn raspberries. Perfect!  Even better, our neighbour gave us some strawberries that ripen later on in the year and so hopefully in years to come we won't have so much of a gap between the strawberries and currants ripening. For winter we also have a few of the berries that I managed to bottle in syrup and some grapes dried to make raisins. After that it will have to be fruit from the freezer.

Our kitten says thank you for building her a very large
playground

One of the weirdest things to happen this week is I have a gorgeous bruise on my chin as if someone has socked me one. I can't even really remember hitting my chin hard on anything, I sort of vaguely remember catching myself one day, but for the life of me I can't really think of what exactly happened and certainly nothing to end up with the bruise I have. The only thing we can think of is that maybe I hit myself in the area where I had a filling earlier this week and perhaps it was something to do with the area where I had an injection, because the filling was nothing major (unlike my previous visits). I don't usually bruise easily either and so that is not the reason. I just have to be careful not to be seen around town with the bruise and end up giving Ian an undeserved bad name.

After all that playing around it is time to sleep. She looks
all cute and cuddly there, but I am not so sure that is a
good idea now. I found fleas on her today and one of the
fleas escaped. Hmmm!

I will have to do some changing plans this week. I was hoping to go to Sweden for at least a couple of weeks to work with a university there, but it is looking like this is not possible now due to a lack of funding. Estonia have had a good programme of funding for higher education that funds two trips a year. My Aberdeen trip was funded by it. The funding period ran out at the end of May or June and they were supposed to have a new funding period in place by the end of May, which didn't happen and it is still not in place for the beginning of the academic year that always starts 1st September (unless it falls on a Sunday, not sure about Saturdays these days). It is now really too late to apply for funding to have it in place for the beginning of October and so it looks like I will have to cancel the trip. There is no funding from the Swedish side either, there would be if I was Estonian or Latvian, but not for British citizens. I could find funding for a 3 month stay but that is not really something I would be happy to do and Ian certainly wouldn't be happy with that. Rather frustrating, as I only wanted to spend two or three weeks there.

Spring? No not yet!

Our neighbours horse drawn hay rake, still where it was left
waiting to rake up hay before the weather changed last year

I'm not very good at anniversaries and birthdays and that sort of thing. Facebook kind of helps by reminding me when it is someone's birthday but that is a bit late if I actually wanted to send anything. And anniversaries are only remembered if I set them as alerts on my computer. Well I missed one anniversary last week. Ian remembered it on the day, but I forgot to comment on it in the blog. And the anniversary? It is on the 4th March 4 years that we arrived in Latvia to live. It's hard to believe that four years have flown by, but what a lot has happened in between times. We now manage a piece of land, two of our children are married, I am in my final year of a Master's course and we still haven't learnt much Latvian. We have made some lovely friends and are thoroughly enjoying being here, even if at times we still wonder what on earth we are doing here.

It was still deep on Friday

I did think of updating last week's post, but didn't think it was worth it as there was something else I had forgotten too. At the drumming concert we went to last week, we were sat on a table with another couple and fortunately the guy sitting there could speak English, it turns out he knew rather a lot of people we knew, in fact one of our good friends who is the reason we are even here in Latvia has stayed at his house quite a few times. Small world as they say. It was funny to start talking about someone and go "Oh yes! We know them too." He is a pastor of a church in Riga and as one young man went past he said, "that's our church's youth pastor." The brain cell started whirring into action and I thought "I know that face," sure enough I did, another person we both knew. The young man had been in the Netherlands translating for a team of Latvians that I had travelled with to a conference and Ian and I met him at another friend's wedding. It is strange to meet someone and know so many of the people he knew and yet we hadn't met, or not that I can remember anyway.

And yes, Ian was still shovelling snow this last week. Mind
you this was to clear the road to get the horse box down

This week has seen some glorious days and I had been stuck in a lot of the week writing up. One day I was looking at the weather forecast and I realised that Friday was going to be another glorious day but the weekend looked poxy as we say. The forecast was for warmer temperatures and a mixture of snow and sleet, so rather than miss the good weather, I declared that Friday was the new Saturday and took the day off. I'm so glad I did as that meant that I could enjoy the sunshine and walk around in the snow for what will probably be the last truly glorious wintry day of the year. I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn't slipped on a sloping path that had iced over so hard that even my Yaktrax wouldn't grip. I ended up on my knees having twisted my ankle and there was no way I could get up easily without help and so my gallant hero, Ian, leapt to my assistance, that's twice this winter he has been my Sir Galahad. Makes a change from being laughed at anyway. Fortunately my ankle wasn't that bad and I could still sit in the greenhouse (20C that day) and sip coffee. We even managed to get the horse box into the barn, which meant Ian reversing it by car all the way down a hill with a sharp turn at the bottom and I kind of directing, well saying "stop, stop" and waving frantically every now and again when it was obvious that the trailer was not going in the direction that it should do or a bit too close to the barn door.

Horse box safely ensconced in the barn. It is now easier
for Ian to change the brakes and the wheel bearings
even if the weather changes.

I've changed my homepage on my internet browser this week, not momentous news I know. I like the range of articles in the Guardian, especially as they have a section on development, but I hate the language. It is almost as if they seek out uses of the "f" word. A report on the protest in Russia, seemed to single out any badges or banners which had on the "f" word to report and that was the final straw. The "f" word for me does still have a shock value, but not to many people around me, they think it is normal part of the language and indeed it is for some, but that does not mean that it should be bandied around in the English press. Now if all the banners had the "f" word in the protest I would have seen that a fit place to report it, but not the odd one or two and I am sure that the Russians have more in their vocabulary to express their protests and if they had then what were they? So it is back to the BBC for me, a bit staid and not as interesting at times, but at least the language isn't as bad.

Our kittens have grown but are still cute. Sophie has found
her voice just lately, driven us barmy today but we think
the dehumidifier is unsettling her, but we need it on because
someone didn't use the litter tray again!!!!!!

It has been a week of computers, partly as I am deep into writing up my thesis now that I have finished the research phase and also because I updated Microsoft as well this week from a very, very, very old version (in computer terms that is i.e. 2001). It was so old that it wouldn't update automatically and so all my settings were lost - that wasn't the real problem though, the problem came on updating the email client that proceeded to delete messages off the server, ones I had kept for ages. I wouldn't mind but I have done that before when changing email clients for work from Thunderbird that got corrupted and wouldn't update to Mail. It is something to do with the difference between IMAP and POP accounts - I don't know, but what I do know is I am not keen of what happened to my emails. I am a hoarder I know, but in some cases I was keeping them for reference. Fortunately really important ones were downloaded and kept separate but general emails were not and now I have lost a huge chunk of my past. It made me feel very grumpy.

In pensive mood here, but occasionally still shows herself
to be the livewire she was as a kitten

I am beginning to wonder if God is saying something through this though, there is something about hoarding that keeps hold of "things" as security and my security should not be in things, or emails but in God alone. I wonder what else I need to let go of? I had seen so many posts on hoarding, the good and the bad aspects of hoarding. It is good that we don't throw away jars, because it means I can process so much of produce from the year to eat over the winter. Hardly a day goes by when we don't tuck into some of the food prepared over the summer, and jars were handy the other week when we found maggots in the plastic packets (still finding the odd one, but I think we have got the infestation under control now). But how much other stuff do I keep that I should let go of, or is it more a state of mind that hoards, that I should let go of? This was on my mind when someone posted a link to a song called Pioneer by Rick Pino on YouTube (thanks Paul). Not quite sure how all the pictures relate to the song, but the lyrics were what caught my attention. "You travel light and you travel alone," well I don't travel alone as I travel with Ian, but travel light? Perhaps, in some ways, but I'm a hoarder and along the way I have accumulated stuff. A hoarder cannot be a pioneer, a pioneer cannot be a hoarder - too much baggage to take with you.

Leduspuķes or literally translated as ice flowers on the
greenhouse plastic

Rick Pino - Pioneer

Pioneer, Pioneer
Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears
And only your Father goes before you, to your own frontier
You're a Pioneer

Uncharted wilderness stretches before you
And you thrive on going where no one has gone
Still it gets lonely when darkness rears
So sing by the fire until the dawn

You travel light and you travel alone
And when you arrive nobody knows
But your Father in heaven, He is glad you can go
Cause those who come after you will need the road

And what you have done, others will do
Bigger and better and faster than you
But you can't look back, you gotta keep on pressing through
There's a wilderness pathway and it's calling you

Calling you, calling you
Keep pressing onwards beyond your fears

And only your Father goes before you, to your own frontier
You're a Pioneer

Hoarding? Getting a little crowded in the greenhouse just lately

So what do I let go of? Where do I go with this? I don't know, I just know the season is about to change as I finish this phase of studying and move on. I don't think it is moving countries, but just into the next season of life. It excites me that others will follow, but do things better, faster and bigger than I will, and so I am happy to tread the road for others if that is what is needed. Well I guess I had better press on.

Hard to believe that these will be uncovered soon. Once
the snow goes and the fence re-electrified then the wraps
will be off.

(I'll also post a poem from years ago (see I said I was a hoarder) of the questions that occurred to me as I thought about the pioneers who forged a route across America, when I gazed across the landscape from what was then home in Colorado)