Winter's arrived

Sunrise at -18C! Beautiful

Winter looks to have arrived again, only this time we know it is likely to be a bit more permanent than the cold we experienced in November. Now we have the problems of frozen water for our animals, because, despite the cold, there is not enough snow for them to eat in its place, which is what they do normally when we have a cold spell. We have too many animals to carry water easily out to the land and the water situation is not sorted out yet, as it hasn't been the right time to dig the well. We have ponds, but they are frozen over now. Still Ian is resourceful enough to work it out and has been chopping a hole in the ponds to get at the water and today he boiled some up in the kettle, as he thinks the girls are not too happy with the cold water. It took three kettlefuls to get enough to warm the water up and they loved it. Fortunately the boys prefer the snow for now, what little there is of it. Ian is going to have to gather some up from elsewhere and put it in the paddocks. Not that it is hard to collect as the temperatures are down to around -18C (0F) in the mornings, so what little snow there is is not disappearing fast, even in the bright sunshine we've been having, in fact it seems to be increasing with the frosts we've had.

Soaking up the sun in the greenhouse

Two of the newest chickens took up residence in the ladies alpaca house, as I have mentioned before, but unfortunately they seem to have also taken to roosting on the feeders inside the house and for anyone who hasn't had chickens, they poo a lot at night and in this case it was into the hay. Not good! The chickens have actually been doing well up until recently, as they make good cleaners. Any food that the girls don't get, the chickens finish off. Not much use though if they then go and deposit their waste all over the girls food. Ian has put a cap on the hay feeders to try and stop this, but if it carries on, they will have to be removed all together. 

Soaking up the sun outside the chicken house

Soaking up the sun in the paddock

The vet came again this week and gave the alpacas there monthly vitamin injections. She wouldn't have done that, but she was also checking for a skin problem on one of our male alpacas. I am sure the next lot of vitamins will have to be given by me, otherwise I have to learn how to handle the alpacas better. The skin problem must be mites as the none of the boys had a problem until long after the ladies arrived. Maybe the mites arrived because of the stress of moving, we don't know. We need to do something about it, but we can't at the moment, as putting oil on their skin in these temperatures would only make matters worse, even if it did smother the mites. We did suspect the chickens might have introduced the mites, but we have checked them over and they seem okay. 

Even the sheep are enjoying the sun, after so much dreach
weather

More hay please!

Although I am still not actually back at uni yet, I've still got a lot of work to do. I am gearing up to the workload and starting to get more organised and disciplined, which helps enormously of course. I think making a point of doing some knitting (even finished another hat off this week) or sewing is helping, as it gives me a brain break and time to mull things over. I am definitely a great muller over of things and that is where my inspiration comes from in those quiet moments. It is funny how it is the life changes that have thrown me the most and not necessarily the workload. I didn't realise I would find it so hard that the grandchildren are so far. I think it was because I had spent so long as a stay at home Mum that it is strange having to go through the emotions of not seeing the children so much. Especially as my grandson was one this last week.

Yum! Snow!

Still there is always Skype and I have had a lovely couple of chats with the babies and Ian was even around to talk to our grandson. Our grandson was playing with playdoh with what looked like a large plastic swiss army knife and he played quite happily sat on his dad's lap for ages. My little granddaughter was sat in a high chair eating and playing with toys (not at the same time), but she also was quite happy for a good while. Occasionally they would realise that the picture on the screens of either the phone or the computer was actually interacting with them and they would smile at us, which was lovely.

See! Very tasty!

Snowdrop doesn't get a look in very often. Usually off
doing her own thing, but she is getting a little more
interactive these days

I mentioned last week that I was away at the time of posting the blog. Oh the wonders of being able to pre-write a blog and then set it to post while away. I didn't get home until about 9pm and had gone out at 8:30am - a loooong day indeed. It was a fantastic time though. I got to speak to four wonderful ladies who were very patient with me and answered my questions thoughtfully. I did warn the first two that it was the first time I had asked this set of questions and so I wasn't sure how it would go, they were my trial run. My favourite quotes of the day though, were when I asked one lady if she grew her own food because it was tastier than supermarket veg and she replied, "I wouldn't know. I have never bought vegetables from the supermarket." I then asked, "If she had enough money would she still grow her own food?" "Oh yes!" she replied, "because it's mine and it is fresh outside the door." By the way, her tomatoes were tasty. She had then in a jelly of some description and not cooked down like mine, but they had a wonderful taste anyway. Summer in a jar!

Ripe for a caption competition this one. This is Tellus and
he is often photographed.

Looking good even in these
temperatures

My translator also had a wonderful time too. He was a local lad who now lives in Riga and it was an opportunity to take a trip back home. He would love to move back, but it is a problem for youngsters to find sufficient employment so far away from the city. I think it fired him up though to think more seriously about it and try and find ways to move back. Hearing me ask questions about the community and how people help each other out, about the way people grow their own vegetables, made him feel quite nostalgic for his home village. Not a bad start anyway. My heart is to see more young people move back, but how they do that is another thing.

Puddles and squashes

Autumn begins

I forgot to mention last week, the storks have gone! We saw some circling around on a Sunday a couple of weeks ago and then we saw just a few after that - the stragglers. Definitely all gone now though (well that's what we thought until we saw one very lonesome looking stork on the way into Riga). With the exit of the storks, the trees have taken their cue and decided it's autumn and autumn colours are beginning to tinge the countryside. We even had our first proper rainfall in a few weeks, enough to actually wet the ground. We badly, badly need the rain as our ponds are almost down to a puddle. I have never seen them so low, even in the last hot dry summer three years ago, which is bad news as we still have the greenhouse to water and now have to think about bringing in water for the animals as there hasn't been enough rainwater collected off our caravan and the pond water is too low to give them that. At least the cooler days means they don't need quite so much water and there is lots of moisture on the grass first thing in the morning. That is something that has really surprised us this year, that despite the lack of rain, there is so much dew that the grass is actually growing quite well.

One of our pond puddles

We managed to collect the most important crop of the year in this week, our potatoes. As usual the potatoes were grown on two separate crops, one had a good amount of potatoes but a lot of blighted ones too, one had lots of small potatoes but some of the plants were still green too. We decided to only lift half of those and see if leaving it till later would mean a bigger crop. Not sure if maybe the different variety we bought in this year was just a later maturing crop or it was due to the place they were planted and the type of year we've had. Oh well! As a gardener you are always living and learning and there is always next year. At least this year we have more potatoes than last year, that's a blessing as we are not planning lots of trips away, well Ian isn't.

Well I'm okay now! 

Another surprising thing this year, we saw a  squirrel. A very skinny looking brown/red squirrel. We didn't get a good look at it as it was while we were driving along and it very nearly ran out in front of us. Now that would have been just typical if the first time we see a squirrel in this country we ran over it, but fortunately it took a double take and decided to scamper back into the woods. We feel sure it has heard there are hazelnuts on our land. That's another first too, we haven't seen those around our place, hazels yes but none with the nuts on. I have some sad news too this week. We lost six chicks in all, to whatever ailed them last week. Not exactly very good at all, but at least the rest have perked up and looking pretty good now. Even the big chickens are looking much better after their bout of illness, not related to the chicks, but some mould in the buckwheat made them wheezy. Just one hen is still causing us some concern, but they are starting to roam around again and it probably won't be long before they are all being a nuisance again.

Gaining trust!

I have been rushing to get some work done this week for my paid employment before the start of the new university semester. I have taken a step back in my job and I will no longer moderate the student cafe that I have been doing for the last 9 years, a younger lass is taking that bit on. It means I don't have to be online all the time, which makes it easier when I am jetting off here there and everywhere. I also felt I was getting too old for chit chat with teenagers all the time. I love talking to teenagers, but not for a job any more. I'm still around for trouble shooting and I have some bible studies to do. There is still some details to work out as to what else I do, but it will be nice to make a change.

Morning mist

There has been frustrations galore this week. I had to redo a proposal for a doctoral seminar. Basically it means writing a piece that they think is acceptable to be discussed amongst my peers, well I made a complete hash of it. I hadn't been able to get hold of my supervisors (holiday time) until this week to get it amended and so I had to redo it all before Friday. I got something together anyway that was acceptable, but it was just a hassle I could do without. Deep joy! I wouldn't mind but I made some terribly basic mistakes, the sort of mistake that had my kids done it when doing home-ed I would have asked them if they had actually read what they were meant to do. I think my mind is still too distracted and I need to de-clutter it sometime. At least I don't feel so tired as I did about three weeks ago, the iron tablets seem to be having an effect. Going up and down the stairs doesn't seem such a hassle either now.

Horsetails looking bejewelled in the dew. Pity we don't
actually want horsetails in our field but they look pretty

At least I managed to get a poster printed on time. I have to take that with me to a course I am attending in France this week. I was so pleased that they were able to do it and have it delivered to the apartment by Friday. I was even more pleased when I saw the van roll up outside the house, I could have kissed the guy, but I don't think he would have appreciated it. I even have business cards now, the poster and cards are all designed by my youngest son. He can do the work a lot faster with the software that he has than I can. The problem with the poster though is that firstly it didn't come in a cardboard tube, just thin card surround it and bubble wrap and secondly it will only go in one of our large cases and not wrapped in the card or bubble wrap. I have wrapped the poster around certain items of underwear and put a large towel on top of my clothes and under the poster. The bubble wrap was then put across the top of it. Hopefully that will stop it from getting crushed and I just hope I don't get stopped to open my case.

Another beautiful summer's day in the nearest big town to
us.

We have made some progress on the house. We now have our address and we went to the notary to sort out a contract with the owner of the land, to get a lease. Only the owner of the land is in Canada and we have power of attorney for her. This meant that one of us represented the owner and one of us represented us. So Ian is leasing the land from me in effect and he has to pay me 10 Lats (£12) a year (I won't spend it all at once, honest). We had an issue at first as the notary would not handle the writing of the contract, as we don't speak Latvian, but she said we could write out a contract between us ourselves using an online template and she could notarise it (legalise it), as long as we had a translator present. Off we went to the architects office and the architect wrote out the contract, she also managed to get a translator - an English teacher from one of the local schools. A very nice fellow indeed. Needless to say we now have his number in case we need his services again and I'm sure we will. He nearly didn't take any payment either as he said the architect had done most of the work, we still gave him a token payment anyway.

Nice and clean and don't the squashes look nice on the
windowsill

I spent Sunday cleaning though. We have visitors today and our apartments needed floors washing. The problem with summer is there is not that much time to do it and so it needed to be done. It wasn't just the floors though, there were squashes that needed a wash and laying out, onions needed outer skins taking off and soil removing before putting neatly into some baskets. All jobs that have sat there for a couple of weeks. We have over 100 squashes now, to last us through to next year. They are not just for us but also the animals. I like squash because you just plant them, they may take a bit of time to really get into their stride but then they just sprawl over the place and take care of themselves by smothering everything in their path. The squash just then need cutting off the plant, curing the outer skins so they are nice and hard and then leaving until winter time. Some squash last just up to Christmas, some into the new year and some we have this year, should last through until this time next year if we wanted to. They are great winter food and when they do start to go off they can be made into preserves or frozen at a time of the year when there isn't that much to do and it isn't that much of a problem to have the oven/cooker/fire on all day. Easy! This year it will be even easier as the animals will be getting the majority of them. Even if we are a fan of the squashes we grow, we can't really eat that many of them.

Close up on the bedroom windowsill

Bedroom 2

Kitchen windowsill

Living room windowsill. Do you think anyone will notice
that we use this apartment as a storage place too?

See you hardly notice them

Not so sure where these will go though! 

It's a hard life

There is definitely no blog next week. As I said I am swanning off to the South of France, ten days up in the mountains. Life's tough heh!

Oy vey it's cold

It was that cold that even the thermometer had to be
brought in so that we could read the minimum temperature
recorded overnight. 

It has been a distinctly difficult week. You may have seen on the news that sub -30C temperatures have been affecting large parts of Europe and we have been no exception here in Latvia. The record for us was  -32.4C on Sunday morning and I am grateful that it was nowhere near that this morning. In fact the temperature even got up above -20C before noon today which must be the first time in days and feels like weeks. People sometimes ask how do we cope in those kinds of temperatures - layers is the answer. Yesterday it was around -25C and we needed some shopping and our car wouldn't start for the second time this week and so we had to walk. To walk in those kinds of temperatures I had on two t-shirts, a polo neck jumper, a thin fleece top, a fleece jacket and then my ski coat which also has a fleece lining. I also had two pairs of socks and well insulated hiking boots, base layer leggings, my jeans and a pair of overtrousers. The trick then is to get out of the house before you start sweating and keep up a pace enough to stay warm and yet not get too hot. Sorry I didn't mention the headband, hat, thick scarf and warm gloves. It wasn't too bad at that temperature, but I kept having to dry the moisture away from my scarf encased chin before it froze. It is worse if there is a wind and today although it was a lot warmer the breeze occasionally blew and it was not pleasant at all.

Whoops forgot to clean the windowsill before taking the
photo. What you can see is a layer of ice on the inside
of our double glazed windows, despite the heating being on.
You know it is below -15C when ice starts appearing
on the inside of the double glazing.

I mentioned our car wouldn't start this week and it doesn't help that it is a diesel. We weren't the only ones though, most of our neighbours were also having problems at some point in the week. Our car not starting became a bit of a community event though as folks came to have a look and offer advice. Eventually one of our neighbours told us the trick was to heat up the engine compartment with a hairdryer or fan heater and we also heard many of our neighbours take their batteries in at night so they don't have to start from cold. You learn something new everyday. So we abandoned attempts to start the car one day, took the batteries in to warm up (we even wrapped them up in an electric blanket at one point) and be charged up. The next morning we ran a cable from our third floor (second floor for my English friends) apartment down to our car and connected up a fan heater pointed at the fuel filter and left it for an hour to heat up. I have to say that it is not a good idea to be feeding cable out of a window with freshly showered hair - it freezes. Eventually though our car did warm up, but it was distinctly poorly, but that is part of another story.

It might be cold but it looks beautiful 

Last week I said we were going to pick up a translator and that very nearly didn't happen. Last week on a trip to the big town our car seemed to lose power and I wondered if it was the type of fuel we got locally and so we filled up in town with some winter diesel that went down to -31C. It didn't seem as bad on the way home, but it was still acting up a bit, yet it was fine around the village. Tuesday we set off to pick up our translator and the car got worse and worse, which seemed odd as we thought it would improve as the car got warmer. At one stage we wondered if we would have to cancel the trip and stopped for a little while, when we got going it improved again and we made it. The trip was worth it as my translator has been doing a good job, just not necessarily to do with my course.

I love the pattern of these trees against the blue sky

The first task he had was to translate for a meeting with our local heating company director. It was a an eye-opener in how grievances are handled here in Latvia. Our next meeting was with the mayor and was also not an easy one for our translator to translate for. Out of that meeting though we have organised another meeting with the director of the heating company to find out exactly how the bills are calculated, as we suspect that we end up paying more for cold water being sent around our radiators than we pay for good hot water. We will also ask a lot more questions related to the supply of energy, which I am sure they are not used to. The rest of the day must have seemed like a piece of cake as he had to organise several interviews for me, which meant kind of cold calling people whose numbers we had been given or found for organisations and local farmers that I want to interview. To his credit though he organised several interviews and one for the Wednesday. Unfortunately though our car was not playing and sulked - don't blame it really as it was definitely -29C on the car thermometer and this was midday, that turned out to be the first of two interviews and a visit to make a new friend to be cancelled this last week.

These bushes provide hours of entertainment to our cats
as they sit glued to the window watching the birds flying
in and out. Very funny watching their intense gazes
and swishing tails.

Our car was booked into our normal Riga based dealer because we have a five year guarantee on it, but the problem with Riga is it is too far to go with a very sick car and so we needed a tow truck to take it. Organising a tow truck was interesting though, firstly the local guy was in a similar predicament and couldn't get his lorry started - maybe when it's warmer!!!! The Riga dealer should collect our car, but only if it is a warranty issue (not what they said two years ago when our wheel bearing went when we ended up paying for a tow truck to take it in) and since we suspect it could be a fuel problem and not a warranty issue if they came out to collect the car it could be 150 LVLs ($280, £175) and then a repair bill on top of that. We decided that we would stuff the guarantee on the car as it was actually costing us too much money to get it into Riga and not worth the effort for us. We found a company that sells and works on similar cars in a nearer town and decided to try that, at least a friend of ours could then follow Ian in as he drove the car in case it died completely and bring him home afterwards while the car was in the garage for repair, well that was after giving the guy a tow because his car wouldn't start in the cold either (how bizarre is that!). So for the present we are car-less, which is interesting. We are now also effectively warranty less as well, and means Ian will now service the car - I think he's missed messing about on the car really. It did mean though he needed a repair manual for the car and he hadn't seen one at all while in England which was a bit of a worry. We asked our daughter to search for one in Australia as the car is available there but under a different name and she found a manual on a CD, which will hopefully be shortly winging its way across the waters.

Swept clean

On top of all that our cat discovered she could get out of our living room where she is locked up at night and bounded onto our bed purring away at 6:30am, we mustn't have closed the door well enough. I most certainly do not want that kind of an alarm call every morning - good job I was already vaguely awake before she joined us. I also had one of those interesting conversations with God this week too, which added to the rather weird week. I was reading in the bible about the story where Jesus had just finished talking to the crowd from a boat and told his disciples to "Cast out into deep water." That phrase resonated with me when I read it (in other words something just felt right about what was being said), "but I'm already in deep water" I said to God as I was thinking back over the last week, "just because you can't touch the bottom of the lake doesn't mean you're in deep water!" came the reply Hmm good point! Especially at 5ft nothing. I somehow think it is going to be a challenging year ahead. At the beginning of starting my course I felt like it would certainly be the start of something and I wrote "And so it begins" because I could feel the changing season as I moved into a new phase of life. "And so it begins" and it certainly has done, it has been an amazing journey so far with me meeting people I never expected to get access too, but they have been generous with their time and listened if I had something to contribute. I have felt out of my depth at times, but I guess it wasn't that far out of my depth and so I wonder where my next step will take me as I begin to wind down on the course I'm doing.

Evidence of life

I know this has been a long and arduous week, not helped by those little annoying mishaps that happen on difficult weeks, like Ian's back is niggling him and I have to go on record and say my naming of jars has to improve. I opened a jar of tomato sauce today to go with some pasta but as we ate the meal I realised that the sauce was a type of ketchup sauce and not a pasta sauce as I had been expecting. I have jars labelled ketchup too, and I have other jars labelled as sauce, so how many jars labelled sauce are actually ketchup? Oh boy! They are labelled this year, which is better than usual but I guess there is still room for improvement. At least I got plenty of reading done for my research so not been a total waste and I have had plenty of time to talk to our translator about what my research is about, given him interviews to listen to so he knows what to expect and what words he will need to remember and also talked about faith a lot as well, so actually it's been quite a good week really in a weird sort of way. I also have to say that even the Swedish finance minister made an excellent comment this week too as he said that Swedish banks should regard the Baltics as their home and act like they do at home. Absolutely! Spot on! And why couldn't he have said that a few years ago? If the banks had acted like they did in Sweden, Latvia wouldn't be in quite the mess it is in now. Sweden learnt in the 90s that a speculative bubble in the housing market fuelled by banking loans was not good for the country or for banks and learnt some painful lessons, unfortunately they weren't ones they applied to Latvia.