Another year over and a new one just begun

Yes the clouds did part and the sun did shine for a short while
out on the land

Well after consultation with the ancient texts we were able to confirm that the glowing ball in the sky today was actually the sun. This resulted in so much joy and jubilation in our household that I turned the light off. In other words, it has been pretty dreich here. A great Scottish word to encompass the damp, dismal, drizzly, dark days that also has an effect on mood, especially sun loving Ian, who was not in the happiest frame of mind anyway, with the worry over Aggie, the mud to contend with and the rain that stops just about all outdoor activities and saps his energy to do much else. The joy lasted all morning, until it started snowing that is ....and then all wood chopping had to cease.

The view from the apartment in our village, where the sun
also shone

Aggie now has a mucky mark on her face from the cream that
the vet gave him to rub in

The vet came out to see Aggie earlier this week and she tried to drain the lump on her face, but there didn't seem to be anything to drain. Instead it is a hard lump. It is quite possible it is something to do with a new set of teeth coming through. We won't know that for certain though until we have another vet come out with a portable x-ray machine. Something we will try and arrange once the vet opens again tomorrow. I remember a friend of ours a few years ago speaking about farming and animals and she said "It's easy, no animals, no problems". Well she was right there!

Alpaca hoof prints

There won't be much skiing at the moment on the ski hill.
The snow has come and gone and come again

I have spent most of this week on and off, finishing off the details for our first felting course of the year in June. We are limiting the places so that people can have a good experience with more personal tuition and it also means we get to see how it all works. Consequently we are nearly full already. This is a great start for us.  (If you would like to see Heather's perspective of her time with us in Latvia planning the felting workshops that I mentioned last week then you can see her blog here. It is highly recommended as some of her photos were superb and I think she captures this country beautifully)

Still eating Christmas trees

It was a tad breezy some days

If you know anyone who would like to join us then do send them over to our website Griezītes Alpakas, you will find a programme and details there. It has been hard work trying to sort out the specifics, but we now have a programme that we are happy with that has a good balance between excursions to see the local area, a tour of Riga and workshops too of course. If we get more interest we will run at least another one of these sort later on in the year. We are also nearly sorted for some shorter workshops too, but we need to just work on the details for that some more.

But the plants are a little confused with the cold spells followed
by the warmer weather

A bit brighter today and at least the rain stopped

It has been a bit of a slog trying to work everything out because I also came down with a cold. Trying to plan a new venture with brain fog is not advisable. It is a good job I am not often ill or for very long. There was only really one day when I truly felt awful and I felt that I could have traced the whole of my lymphatics system by tracking the aches and pains, after that it was just a matter of waiting for it to clear up. I began to feel a bit overwhelmed again though with the work I needed to do and trying to adjust to my new computer. I don't like my MacBook Air at all. It is the first time I have felt that I am taking a truly retrograde step in computing, as it does not seem as near intuitive as I expect from a Mac nor does it have some of the functionality of previous operating systems. There has been much huffing and puffing.

A chance for a stroll in the sun

A little sunbathing for some alarmingly fat sheep. We just
feel they are waiting until the worst weather to give birth

At least now I feel I am beginning to get down the list of things to do, although most of the things I have accomplished seem to have been fairly short and quick things to do, which still leaves some major work to get done over the next few weeks. Hopefully I can start to whittle away at those before my time whittles away.

More sunshine

A reflective Brencis

I decided this year to actually stay awake and welcome in the New Year. I didn't last year and Ian didn't again this year, so it was just me. That was fine. I just felt I needed to be awake for what lies ahead this year. This year has been quite a struggle for us in many ways. The loss of two of our adult animals, a cria and some lambs. The hot dry start to our growing season and then the ongoing wet summer that meant our hay was still being cut in September. and a lot less of it than normal Trying to get work done for my course and so on. These seem to drown out the good points at times, such as the fact we had over 300 visitors to the farm and we actually made enough money to cover the feed of the alpacas. The fact that despite the lack of income over the years, we are still managing to get by here in Latvia and love this place and call it our home. What will next year be like? I'm not sure, but I do know I want to be awake to see what it will look like.

Finally the light is just right to be able to capture the curls
in Mr. P's fleece and the fact he does like to wear his food

The boys taking advantage that the rain has stopped

Now I have to mention something that I have so far neglected, my youngest son. It has taken a week of messages backwards and forwards until we managed to find a time when we were both online and free to chat at the same time as Ian was home too. Apparently the mention of only talking with two of my children in the blog last week was taken as a subtle hint to my youngest that he had been remiss in so far not chatting to me- good I am glad there was a tad bit of guilt in there and yes I have left this until last so you have to read down the whole blog to find mention of the fact we Skyped today, son. Only joking. It was good to chat with hm and his family today. We were a bit silly at times, we watched the cat attacking them over the top of the computer, which was resting on her scratching post anyway and we generally chatted about this and that. As the old phone advert used to say "It's good to talk". Now I just have to catch up with my Mum.

The ice has receded for now, but it won't be for long. The
forecast is for some sharp drops in temperatures soon/ 

Still hanging on

Looking enormous

We have had so many moments this week when we thought the alpacas were going to deliver that we are getting to the point where it is only their bulging bellies that keeps us believing they are pregnant. So still no news! There are signs, definite signs like Snowdrop sitting with her feet to one side and grinding her teeth; we got so excited about these signs that we were convinced she would give birth in the morning, but when Ian went to let her out the following day, she went outside and started feeding and didn't look uncomfortable at all. The weather has still been cool most of the time, with only the occasional very warm day which at least means they are not suffering too much from not being shorn, but I think Ian's nerves are wearing.

Trying to get comfy

Trouble ahead! The chickens have discovered the currant
bushes again

We did have another group of visitors, but these were folks we know well and they were returning a trailer to us. They spent a little bit of time coming to see the alpacas though and we made sure that our cockerel who has gone for our friend before was aware that I had a stick with me and he usually scuttles away when that is waved about. Unfortunately our usually placid cockerel disgraced himself and went for their little girl. I don't think it was a pre-planned thing, I think he went up close and then she ran and he ran after her, but not too sure about that. I tried to catch him, but he managed to keep out of arm's distance and so he made a retreat. Obviously it is something we will have to watch when people visit. Especially when they have little ones.

The dark round spot on Tellus' back is the offending lump
before it started disintegrating

We had a kind of medical emergency yesterday and if you are of a nervous disposition or trying to read this while eating, I would suggest you skip the next two paragraphs. Tellus our stud male had a lump on his back that the vet looked at on Saturday. With a bit of internet searching and the opinion of our vet, we think they are fat lumps from clogged sebaceous glands. We are wondering whether the extra weight he is carrying this year has anything to do with the sudden explosion of fat lumps over his body. It is not uncommon to get them, so we are not too worried, but this lump was rather large in size, so the vet suggested a biopsy, which was scheduled for this coming week so we could take it to the labs for analysis. Ian though noticed that flies seemed to be particularly drawn to it and so he wondered if we had anything that we could put on it that would keep the flies at bay. I don't use insect repellents as I hate DEET products, they make me feel ill. I use a spray with lemon grass and vanilla oil in, which is fine if I keep spraying it, but not so great for an alpaca as they don't want spraying on a regular basis. The only other solution was a soap we had with tea tree oil in it which insects do not like, so I started washing the affected area down, only to realise to our horror that the lump was starting to disintegrate. It was gross. For the next few minutes we were removing hard crystalline lumps and revealing a gaping hole. Unbelievably, Tellus, stood still for most of the time of fiddling and poking around with this lump.

The blue-bodied chasers are back again

Sundays of course are not good days to try getting hold of vets and so Ian nipped up to our neighbour who used to be a vet to see what she suggested. She suggested Brilliant Green, but all she had was iodine solution and that was out of date. Brilliant Green was used a lot in the Soviet era, especially for insect bites. Even post-Soviet era it was still used regularly and we remember lots of children during camp weeks in our early days of visiting Latvia with what looked like alarming green spots all over them. Now we know what it was. A little later on, our vet rang back and she agreed it might be a good idea. Neither our neighbour nor our vet suggested stitching it as it might just harbour infections. It was better to let it dry out naturally and heal by itself. We managed to get hold of some Brilliant Green and so Ian will try to put it on tomorrow morning. That will look weird. I have to confess we also have some of the stuff we got out of the wound in a jar in the fridge for analysis. Gross!

Mating damselflies

We had rain this week. I know it might not seem so long ago since I was complaining that we have had too much rain, but the last lot of rain was on June 1st, when we had a thunderstorm and then nothing until yesterday 14th. The ground was beginning to crack and the upper pond level was starting to fall, so Ian connected up the pump to pump water from the bottom pond to the top pond. We reckon we moved about 3000 litres of water and means we can carry on watering the greenhouse without worrying about the level of water in the top pond. The cool temperatures, lack of rain and wind has meant that germination has been rather slow for many seedlings. They are just starting to get going with the few days of sun to warm the soil followed by the good shower we had, but the temperatures have dropped back down again - good for alpacas but not for plants. It is a good job that although we have a short season, we do have long days that can bring plants on. It might just mean we have more cabbages and peas this year, which do well in cooler temperatures and less of the hot weather plants. We'll see, it could all change.

Ian spent quite a while trying to capture the swallows in
flight, a difficult thing to do, but I like this one

Since last week's blog was such a long one, I didn't mention that we gave away our third lot of chicks from incubating our own eggs. We are beginning to wonder if this is a one off venture or the start of something profitable. Hmmm! Mind you, to be profitable we would then need a larger incubator - so maybe just another of those little supplementary things that can add up over time. We still seem to be getting black and white or grey chicks and no brown ones, despite having several brown laying birds, which seems odd, but the black ones are rather pretty. Hope they are good layers too and not all male ones. We are a bit worried though about foxes as we have had more visits. Ian even found one eyeing up the chickens in the arks. When we went to the dentists today, we took the precaution of fastening up our free range ones to keep them safe. It is a good job they are so easy to entice back to their secure homes with a little food.

The pied wagtails are easier to capture though

Another thing I didn't mention was I left my phone behind when I went away for the few days to the conference last week- it was such a palaver. It wouldn't have been too bad, but I had been trying to organise a meet up with someone to discuss a development project and he had my phone number to make it easier to find each other amongst the conference delegates, since we hadn't met before. Once I realised I had left it, I headed out to find a mobile phone shop, as I had about three quarters of an hour between buses. I then bought the cheapest phone they had, which was still €54 but at least the sales assistant got me set up and running with it, complete with a new SIM card and I didn't miss the bus. I did need a new phone as I was using Ian's American phone which was now about 9 years old and buttons weren't working properly. It also didn't hold it's charge very well. Ian tried to get a new battery for it a few years back, but for some reason it didn't work, so it was still on its old battery. Now I have a dual SIM phone, so that should be good on trips to the UK as I should be able to get a new card there and not be chopping and changing SIMs.

A sunbathing Estelle

Ian got a new phone today as well. The battery doesn't last well on his old one and the connector wasn't very good, so it didn't always charge up. In fact he was using an old phone of mine to charge up his battery during the day and then swapping over at nights, but that wasn't always successful. We found a shop with used phones that still seemed in good condition and picked one of those. It was only after a while that we realised it was probably a pawn shop. Still as long as the phone works, we are not too worried.

I'm stopping here near the feeder and the water bucket, in
the shade! 

I see Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel Laureate in science has resigned over what he now describes as silly comments on the place of women in labs. It is fantastic to see so many women humorously posting pictures of themselves at work in the labs because it shows that women do have a place there and they are not really a problem in mixed labs at all. It is ironic though that there is an element of truth in what he says, after all if you are into science it is more likely that your future spouse will be too and certainly the case for Ian and I. We met at university first day, first term of the first year and and what attracted him to me? Me in my lab coat. Not so sure the lab coat will look so flattering these days, I am of a fuller figure now, but after 33 years of knowing each other and nearly 31 years of marriage, there must be an element of truth, only it didn't apply to every woman Ian met in the lab, which is fortunate as he worked in labs for over 20 years.

Buttercups are lovely to look at, but not what we want
in the grass. Fresh they are not that healthy for animals.
Fortunately they lose their toxicity in hay when dried.

So yes, love in the lab is possible but not to be expected as Sir Tim Hunt seemed to imply. His comments were not fair to men or women, it suggests that men are incapable of thinking about anything else, other than women when they are around and unable to control their urges in order to concentrate on their job. To hear him say that women cry when criticised made me wonder what kind of a lab he was running. Constructive criticism can be delivered in a way that does not reduce people to tears. I am just pleased that now he has had a chance to make a proper apology and some prominent scientists have jumped to his defence as a person, including his wife. They made no apology for his comments but at least vouched for his non-sexist character, which is good. It now opens up a whole new can of worms though, of how universities handle their staff and silly comments made by them. It also opens up that trial by social media issues. I wonder if that will have some effect too?

Tellus' brother Turbjørn. That mark on his back is coloured
fleece and helps us to tell the two brothers apart. It is not
like the lump on Tellus' back

Talking of saying stupid things I have come out with a classic this week, that perhaps beats one of my family's all time favourite, which was to switch around the "C" and the "T" in an order for Lemon Curd Tart. The waitress in that particular instance was a saint and never even twitched when I said it. This morning's offering was to manage to combine two words in an inappropriate way, so cornflakes was mixed with porridge. I am not going to tell you exactly what was said, as it could incur hits from unsavoury websites that I would like to avoid, but if you switch the "P" from porridge with the "C" in cornflakes, I think you will get the idea. Try not to snigger too much in the morning as you eat your breakfast, it makes a mess of the table.

I nearly forgot to add that I had an interesting meeting this week about the wild boar issue in the area. The government changed the law last year and I was interested to know if it had made any difference, I suspected it wouldn't and so far my hunch was correct. It was amusing to be asked if I was the lady in an article in a hunting magazine and it was also amusing that it had been noticed that we don't always do things the same way that others around us do. I explained that we are scientists by training and so we like to experiment. My interviewee even suggested that maybe I could be on a committee to do with the issue, but we both agreed that would be unlikely to happen, but you never know. At least I hopefully will be able to keep up-to-date on the issue with some insider information and maybe I can pass on information back to the committee.

An eventful weekend

Cold, cold mornings

Before I get onto the more exciting events of this last weekend, I have a few things to run through; the Winter olympics is cancelled due to lack of snow! OK! Well before you think I have lost the plot it is the Latvian Schools Winter Olympics which is cancelled, not the ones at Sochi. I don't think the snow dare stay away from that one. Our village will not therefore, be inundated by coaches from all over Latvia, neither will we see youngsters zipping around the place snowboarding, skating or skiing. Such a shame, but there is very little snow on the ground, despite the freezing cold temperatures we have been having. The cancellation of the Winter Olympics in our village will also probably mean we will not have a sudden miraculous improvement in our heating, as we normally do in that week. Such a shame as it has been running rather low yet again.

Human chain, passing books on a cold winter's day (picture
from the European Commission website)

The low temperatures didn't stop the formation of a chain of folks from the old Latvian national library to the new one. They passed books one to another to demonstrate their love of literature. It never ceases to amaze me in a country, where cooperation in the business arena is poor, that when it comes to voluntary cooperation then the Latvians are there, in fact 14,000 of them. No mean feat in a country of around 2million.

I love the frost patterns on our greenhouse plastic. I always
used to think frosted glass panels were a little unrealistic,
now I'm not so sure.

I was not encouraged by the announcement of the deregulation of the electricity market. As usual it is hyped as an opportunity for competition to drive prices down. Which person in reality, honestly and truly believes this any more? The only way to keep market prices down is by regulation, proved time and time again in the UK and more recently Estonia. On the one hand, rising energy prices might mean that people curb their usage and that is not a bad thing. One thing I do like about the current market is that for the first 1200 units per year (yes you read that right), the price is lower, after that there is an increase. That encourages those who need to save money to keep their electric usage down. Well that's the theory anyway. So how long do you think it will be before the prices go escalating?

Concern!

Well now onto the exciting bit, the weekend. It was cold this weekend, very cold. Friday morning saw me heading into Riga for meetings and my toes were frozen by the time they got there. Doesn't help that the 6:40am bus from our village didn't warm up until we were within sight of Riga, neither does the temperature of -23C that morning. Anyway I got to my Friday morning meeting and managed to thaw out quite quickly thank goodness. I had visions of having to take my boots off, revealing my none too stylish but should-be-warm socks and trying to get some feeling into them, but I was spared that embarrassment. After the meeting I was then off to find my host for the weekend, the young guy who translated for me recently lives in the centre of Riga and said I could stop there any time I needed to. Him and his housemate are truly open hearted folks and genuinely meant it when they said, "help yourself, to whatever there is in the fridge." Such a joy to meet true hospitality. It wasn't the flashiest place in town, and didn't need to be. Give me a place where the welcome is warm any day, over the pristine houses.

So any guesses what our weekend entailed, if you don't
know already?

Whilst in Riga, I quite often give my young crazy friend a ring to see if she is free. After all we love to talk. She had the crazy idea of meeting for breakfast. We did discover that there isn't a lot in Riga for breakfast at 7:30am on a Saturday morning, it was a choice between Narvesen (a type of 7-11) or McDonalds. Well McD's is not my scene and so Narvesen's won. So there I was eating a bacon hotdog, washed down with a hot chocolate for breakfast on another very cold winter's morning on my way to a meeting about Transition Initiatives, where many of them eat ever so healthy food and the thought of what I ate that morning would have been an anathema. Normally I would agree, but that morning, I really didn't care as long as it was hot. A nice salad sandwich was not going to cut it.

Needed sustenance

It was a weekend meeting about Transitioning to a low carbon economy (translated means not buying so much rubbish and living in a way that is kinder to the earth we live on) and the first day was good. The second day was okay, but I was tired and we were doing "transition of your mind" and trying to picture our ideal world to give us a vision for the future. Well I'm living my ideal world and quite frankly I just wanted to get back to it, rather than try and picture it while sat in the city. That does not mean the organisers were to blame for a poor presentation or anything, it was much more to do with where I was at at the meeting. The organisers were actually a lovely bunch of people and a joy to meet. I had a rally lovely chat with a couple of folks that day, but the day was rather rudely interrupted by a phone call from Ian.

Life's hard when you are born in January

Ian would never ring when he knows I'm in a meeting, unless it was urgent and so I excused myself from a conversation I was having and I answered it. I was in for a shock. "I've just found a cria (baby alpaca)," he said. His mind was racing, my mind was racing. "Snowdrop and Veronica still look pregnant though," he continued. They were only due in May/June so if they had given birth it would likely have been a premature baby, but this one to Ian looked a full term one, from what little we know. "I think it might be Alicia's!" Alicia's? The old lady, who we promised not to breed from? "It's got a darker colouring" Ian said. Well that clinched it. Snowdrop and Veronica are white alpacas and bred to a white male, so no chance of a darker coloured baby. I couldn't concentrate in the meeting after that. I had no idea what to do. I had just arranged to go part way home with a chap living in my direction, as I could either catch the bus from the village where he lived or Ian could come and fetch me. Oh yes! I forgot one other minor detail, the car hadn't started that morning and so he had to walk to the land a trip that takes just over an hour and I had thought that if he could get the car started when he got back home, it would give the car a good run to offset the problems of the cold start.

Not the ideal house guest

My mind was in a turmoil and I wasn't concentrating on the meeting. I suddenly thought of someone Ian should ring and went outside the room to pass on the message. A lady turned up while I was outside who had been at the meeting the day before. She had forgotten her charger and returned to pick it up, she didn't really fancy being around for the transition of the mind part so wasn't staying. As she lived along the road to where I live, even if it was a good way a way, she offered to take me home. I was so relieved about that. On the way we talked about faith and God, her from her standpoint of being a Pagan Priestess who runs a church in her own garden and me from my Christian faith. It was an interesting chat and we were quite enjoying the adventure of hurrying home to see our unexpected arrival, when the adventure turned into a drama. Suddenly the car started to snake on ice and as we headed towards the opposite side of the road in a spin, I braced for a roll. The roll thankfully didn't happen as the newly installed crash barriers stopped our descent down the embankment of the road. The car was a bit of a mess though, with bits all over the road. It was still driveable, but the tyre was flat. I realised, however at this point she would need to get back home and not take me to our village.

Looking kind of cute!

Meanwhile back on the farm I had already phoned some friends to go and help Ian and they were heading in his direction with a supply of milk powder and transport to help him home, so the little one could be warmed up. The caravan was good to get him out of the extreme cold it had been born into and the radiator was helping, but it needed more heat. Another friend who was a neighbour and previously worked as a vet, came and helped Ian as well with getting the situation stabilised and even managed to get some milk from the mother. She is used to milking too as she has her own cows. At least we now knew it was definitely Alicia and the little cria is a boy. In the caravan there was also a poorly chicken that Ian discovered in the morning, probably suffering from the cold, he was jammed up by the radiator to try and warm him through, but other than that he got no attention with the little cria to attend to, consequently he didn't survive the night.

Mum and baby

We are so grateful to lots and lots of good friends we can turn to in a crisis and I had to make a phone call to some more friends of ours, to see if they could come and rescue me. Sure enough, rescue was on the way, but unfortunately they were having to travel a little further than normal as they had been at church in the big town. Well we sat and waited. My new friend didn't fancy trying to learn how to change a tyre on a piece of icy road with cars going past, so we waited for help to arrive. First of all a policeman stopped, but when he realised no one was hurt - we thankfully suffered no worse than a bit of a bump on the head each - he went on his way, as he was going to attend another accident where people were hurt. Great! I phoned my friend to warn the young lads driving to get me to take it easy.

A motherly nuzzle and a little alpaca conversation going
on here

A few cars went past, some even slowed down, but eventually one young Latvian fella in a fancy car slowed down and asked if we needed help. We were only too pleased to accept. He changed the tyre and said I could go and sit in his car while he worked on my friend's car. There was a lady in the car who it turned out was from Estonia and so we had a great chat about what had happened that day and a little bit about the type of research I was doing at an Estonian University. I asked her about her perceptions of the differences between Latvians and Estonians - I wasn't going to pass on the chance to do some research, besides it is always good to get different people's opinions. Eventually the tyre was sorted and my friend could go on the way. The young Latvian chap and his travelling companion then took me onto my home village, as they were going that way. It only dawned on me today, that they must have been one of the cars that went past and then thoughtfully turned back to see if we needed help and I don't even know their names.

Mum looking on and yes it is still cold!

Well I turned up back at home, just before Ian turned up with our new arrival and we got a chance to swap stories around wondering what to do with the little fella. The little fella wasn't doing well he was snorting in a funny way that instinct told us was not right. I had to run around to neighbour's houses to see if any had baby bottles we could use, as the supermarkets didn't. They had milk powder but not baby bottles as our friends found earlier. Fortunately I was able to get a bottle and we spent a while getting down some of the milk from his Mum. It was a struggle. We called the vet out and eventually she turned up, poor lass she had been out skating with the kids. She said at least it wasn't in the night. She gave him an injection of sugar solution, directly into his stomach, something she does for sheep. We scoured the internet and the vet book to see if there was an alternative way but decided that was the best. She even went out with Ian to get some more milk from Alicia, so I could stay behind and keep an eye on the little one. I think she is enjoying the new challenges from our gentle animals.

To think that only last week we had no idea, that our little
old lady was actually carrying a baby. We have to contact
the breeder and see if he has any idea who the father might
be now. 

This morning we took him back out to our land and took him to see his Mum, wondering if she would recognise him or accept him. She did! I nearly cried and I'm not the emotional sort. He had been making little humming noises and she started to respond to his noises. We covered him up with straw to keep him warm and left them to it. We kept going back to feed her and give him a bottle, as he still hasn't got a lot of strength back yet. He can get up and stagger about a bit, but not a lot. Not surprising as we have no idea how long it was since he was born and he did get cold. We are just so grateful that Alicia decided to give birth in the alpaca house, if he had been born outside he would have died for sure. We have brought him home again tonight, the temperatures are just too low at the moment for such a weak one, his Mum wasn't so pleased. We felt awful, but there is little else we can do. Also he needs feeding through the night and she can't provide enough. For now I think that is quite enough. I think the adrenaline is beginning to wear off a bit now and the shock setting in, at our little surprise package. An unexpected bonus gift. Now all we need is a name.

Talking stuff and shifting stuff

Preparing for my Skype conference, thought I had better
check how I looked 

Skype has been immensely useful this week and I wonder how I would get on without it. First of all I did a Skype video presentation to my tutor and a colleague on the topic I wish to research for my Masters. It was a very technical experience, as I used two computers - are you impressed? My old laptop, that was repaired, has a bigger screen than my new one and so I could have Skype on and see my tutor and his colleague as they listened to my presentation and have my notes in front of me for the presentation; on my newer laptop (no I'm not greedy, it was just we didn't realise that Apple would repair the computers before I bought a new one) I had my presentation slides, so I could see the slides that were being viewed far away on the Isle of Lewis where my tutor works. There was also the usual chats with children on Skype and the not so usual, the usual how are you doing and the not so usual hope you are okay and help my computers packed in and I haven't backed my stuff up and I'm panicking sort (have to admit to that being a wake up call and I went and backed mine up immediately after that call). We also had the opportunity for a fantastic chat with some old friends from our church back in the UK and one of them even treated us to a bit of ukulele playing. Modern technology can be an invasive experience but for us it has allowed us to do the things we are doing, while still maintaining contact with friends and family. Which is especially good when our daughter had a car accident this week and it was good to know that she was fine.

A lovely sunset after a busy day

Of course it wouldn't be much of a life if we lived it solely online and we have a couple of great opportunities to enjoy good company with some good food this week. A friend of ours and an old friend of his from overseas joined us in the hotel this week, not planned, but one of those lovely impromptu moments  that just happen. It was a really pleasant experience chatting about accents and misunderstandings and different experiences that life has thrown our way. Our next meal followed an impromptu invitation to some neighbours of ours who are working hard and one day looked like it was going to be worse than normal; with two little ones in the household I could just picture the evening arriving home and the lack of energy to do much in preparing a meal - I have been there quite a few times when our children were little, at one point we had three children under the age of four and life could get a bit fraught at times. In the morning I had made use of the slow cooker to start a meal off with chicken stock and some borlotti beans, then added some salted beans, barley and beaver sausage and I knew that meal would stretch to a small family with addition of some potatoes and baked squash. An easy meal knowing we would also be busy during the day. In fact they did us a favour by accepting as the bean casserole needed the additions to make it a great meal, the casserole on its own needed toning down with the potatoes and we got to be entertained by the little ones to. Bargain!

The moon added to the show

Our kittens have also been a little surprising this week. They had to go back to the vets for their second injection and it was there that we found out it wasn't just Bella that has surprising agility. Sofie, our usually calm, placid kitten is beginning to show streaks of not being quite so calm or placid and in the vets she was decidedly not happy with the injection and twisted herself around in a way a cat should not be able to and ended up giving the ver some rather nasty scratches. The vet was rather apologetic because she said it was her fault as she was not expecting that reaction at all - neither were we to be honest. This is from a cat that likes tummy tickles and paw massages!!!!! Bella was well and truly pinned down between us though, as we weren't going to have a repeat of that episode. Reminded me of the time I used to help out at a vets as a teenager to find out if I wanted to be a vet or not in later life. The other episode involved Bella, our mischievous one, who managed to get up onto the higher rafters of our greenhouse but was struggling to find a way down. Several times she crossed backwards and forwards looking for a way down, even walking on the fleece that is stapled for shading below the apex - at which point I felt sure she was going to come through it. Ian was just about to head off for the ladders when she decided to make a jump for it, it was rather a long way down but although she looked a little shocked she is none the worse for the event. So far though the kittens have not caught a mouse that we know of but I found one out in our allotment patch and ended up killing it with the spade - not something I enjoy doing but we do need to keep the population down to manageable proportions.

Our new beds with the sawdust path

Most of the week seems to have been spent shifting things around. I had to shift some old manure and compost around the garden to make room for some new manure. Ian used the tractor to shift two loads of manure, one to each garden and two loads of wood chippings, one load to our neighbours garden and one back to our land, plus a car trailer load. Having written that down it doesn't look a lot but it took two days to do, albeit short days due to the shorter days and being dark by 4:30pm. One thing Ian discovered today is that all this transporting things by trailer has improved his ability to reverse them. He had to reverse the tractor trailer with one load of manure quite a distance and managed with just one or two small deviations from the path and today he drove a trailer into a building with a heavy saw on it that needs renovating, not only did he reverse it, he had to turn the trailer into the building to put it where it needed to be put. All I can say, is it is a good job it wasn't me, I am getting better at reversing our truck but it is still tricky as it all has to be done by wing mirrors and not looking over my shoulder. There was more shifting on the land as all those wood chippings needed to be put somewhere as there are still more to come, so I started putting rotted straw down where the vegetable beds should be and then put a good covering of wood chippings on the top. It won't be perfect for vegetables next year as they will need a good lot of compost added to give the roots something to anchor into but the year after it will be great and hopefully easier to manage for weeds. I also began laying the sawdust paths, not sure that they are deep enough to stop the weeds coming through but decided a light going over with a blow torch to any that dares to put its head above the sawdust will do the trick (and no I am not going to set the sawdust alight in the process!!!!! Trust me!)

It was like this all day, on one particular day, the frost lay
on the ground all day, never bothering to shift

I read a lot about sustainability issues and I had to laugh this week when I read an article about building with sand filled water bottles. Comments were made that there was now a worry that the area would run out of sand due to the amount required in the building. It harks back to the idea that if you find a sustainable building method then you multiply it and replicate it lots of times, but that is not sustainable. Sustainability is about applying principles not blueprints, each area needs to find creative solutions bearing in mind the type of area it is. Sustainable solutions will not be mass produced, but small scale. Reliance on single products for the answer to all problems is not an option, that is what got us into the mess we are in now. I suppose that is similar in principle to the Occupy protests at the moment, the world is looking for "one solution fits all" answers from the protest groups, but the groups are not providing answers, they are seeking first the right questions and then looking for principles that can be applied, not blueprints that once applied with help us to live happy ever after - that just won't happen. Sustainable solutions to today's problems will take a lot of time to work out as they are going to take some massive rethinks in how we do business, how we live and how we interact with each other. Interesting times indeed!

Frosted grass

Okay I know you have to tilt your head to see this
it won't turn round. It is correct on my computer but
Picasa won't turn it around. Okay now I have moaned
what you can see is a dusting of snow. Winter is on its way