A week of calm

I'm sure Jakobs draws his eyebrows every morning. Mind
you, it is not as perfect on the other side.

I have been back home for over a week now, with no plans to go on any jaunts for a while - well if you discount the day trip into Riga later on this week. That means back to writing, writing and errrr, more writing. There was some sorting out of admin and some catching up where necessary as well, but not much else.

Recycling time. It was pretty bad that we've
been using scraps of papers to mark the
prices on the items we produced. Unfortunately
we just hadn't got anything better at the time.
I bought a tag punch when I was in England
and started making tags from a classy calendar
that a friend of ours produced a while ago.
Much better!

This was the first point that the animal tried to get in

I mentioned last week that over a period of a couple of days chickens were disappearing in the night on our farm. We had managed to get all the chickens in the ark box while I was there and hoped that would sort the problem out, but no! Whatever was taking off with our chickens was more persistent than that. One night of no access to chickens wasn't enough. Ian emailed me to say he had found the cockerel dead and one other chicken had disappeared. He put the remaining two chickens into one of the other arks and made sure they were all away that night. The cockerel was largely intact, so Ian plucked it and brought it home. We weren't wasting it. We had already been deprived of three other chickens.

We've had another dusting of snow, but its been and gone again.
At least the sun shone

We think it is the wind  that has blown the snow across the
pond, rather than some animal. The ice would be rather thin
to take the weight of an animal this year.

Unfortunately, chickens are not always blessed with the most wonderful of brains and so some of the chickens are not going away at nights despite the danger. They are more secure than in the other ark, because their arks are resting on logs with no gaps, but with some digging it would be possible to get underneath the logs. The chickens are not even eating that much, so cannot be enticed in with food, like normal. They seem bored with their food just lately. It hadn't done the cockerel much harm as he was the fattiest bird I have ever had to prepare for cooking. Maybe it's the weather, it has been pretty gloomy again. It may also be they are unsettled due to the animal that has been taking the others. Still, you would think they would be anxious to be put away in safety. Not so! If the animal finds a way in, then that will be another ark to cull, rather than be food for the local wildlife. It will be a shame if we end up having to buy chickens next year to replace them.

Vanessa looks like she's just got up

You're supposed to eat it, not wear it on your nose Silla. Silla
is a bit of an odd one. She often sits outside, even in the
pouring rain. Doesn't seem to do her any harm though.

I had some good news this week. While I was away one of my supervisors asked if I could do some other work. I could begin slowly but it would last until June. Well that is three months longer than my contract now, so I said yes, especially as I am winding down on getting my thesis done. I was even more delighted to find out that I will get a pay rise when my current contract runs out at the end of March. That should provide me with a bit of a cushion to see us through for a bit longer.

Our old man, Herk. He's been looking quite sprightly and so
Ian was a little shocked to see he's actually lost quite a bit of
weight just lately. Ian has ordered some feed that might at
least help him put some weight back on. It might be that his
teeth are not so good now, which will make it harder for him
to get the most from his food. He doesn't seem to have an
overload of parasites fortunately, as Ian has just tested his poo.

Honeysuckle starting to bud. I have a feeling it is going to
regret that later on in the winter. It isn't over yet! Or is it?

I made a point of more or less taking the weekend off. I did reply to some emails, but nothing major. I recognise that some of my colleagues also work some odd hours and so we are all often juggling getting work done around other tasks. I went out with Ian to the land. We are having some very mild winter weather compared to a normal Latvian winter. It hasn't been much below freezing so far this year, in fact it was colder and snowier in October and November. What that does mean, though is that I was able to get some gardening jobs done. I mulched some beds with old hay, rather than digging them over, which I had planned to do agggggesss ago. I also pulled up some grass that had made its way into my herb bed - that should have died off long ago, but it was looking rather spring-like. I also trimmed some maple trees that we were using for hedging and had got too big.

Our old lady, Lady V, continues to plod on. Her legs are getting
more bent despite the Vitamin D injections but her body score
is still good, so she isn't losing condition overall.

Turbjørn enjoying the sun

Towards the end of the afternoon, as we were having coffee before putting the animals away, some visitors arrived. They had planned on arriving earlier but they got delayed. Fortunately they have been before and the main reason for coming was not to see the alpacas, although they did say hello to them, but to see us. We were going to chat about..... business (that reminds me of The Muppet Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer Scrooge sees his old headmaster again -youtube link here). This young couple were quite enthusiastic about helping us plot a way forward and could see a lot of potential in the farm. So could we, but actually bringing the ideas to the point where we can do something, is always an issue. We need a push and some routes to realise some of our ideas and some of their ideas too. We went back to our apartment to continue the conversation and over a meal and the next few hours, we chatted backwards and forwards. Our heads were fair buzzing that night.

Ian does have a backlog of orders now. This is some of
Freddies fleece on the carder

A nice pile of carded fleece

The following day I planned to do some tidying up. Not that remarkable really but a novelty for me with being away so much. Instead I was ill. Grumble! Grumble! I got a bit done but generally just lounged around, drinking lots of cups of tea and feeling sorry for myself. So much for some quiet tinkering around the house, getting some sorting out done. Ha! Maybe next time.

Ian sat amongst the bags of fleece, spinning
away. He's getting very good now. We had
another order from someone I have met on my
travels too. That will keep him busy for a whle
yet then!

Marie in contemplative mood

I mentioned last week that Ian's oldest brother passed away. I've been thinking over the week about what I could write about him. The most memorable thing about Ian's brother, Ron, was that he was always someone with a smile on his face and ready with a quip to make others smile. Even in his later years when he had issues with diabetes that meant he had limbs amputated and experienced a lot of pain, he was still ready with a smile. His jolly face always lighting up. There was one day last year we had a family party and since he was in a wheelchair he wasn't so free to move around the house to join in where everyone else was. I saw him sitting quietly and perhaps a little sad that he was missing out, but as soon as he saw me, he was back to his jovial self and smiling.

Ilvija our little walking haystack

Eyre out in the sunshine. Sofie comes back to visit from time
to time. Most likely she comes back when she gets too warm
in the cow shed at our neighbours.

Ron was also someone we greatly admired for turning his hand to a multitude of jobs. He lived in a time when children's education was decided at 11 with the 11+ exam, but like Ian he was a late flourisher, so failed it. Ian, however, made it through to university because they had scrapped the 11+ by then. Whether Ron would have ever gone to university of course is up for debate, but he showed an amazing amount of talent nonetheless. He was a panel beater when I first met him, working in a car repair shop. He was good at his job. He left that and I think his next job was in a pub, which he also did with good results. Next job I remember was his time as a baker. He not only baked the bread and the pies, like his grandfather before him, he built the brick ovens to bake them in. Each job seemed to be cruelly taken away from him, but he would then take on something else and do well until illness took its toll. It would have been nice to see him get more breaks than he got though.

Brencis on sentry duty

Josefs

That of course was not all there was to Ron, he would make things, do diy and helped to raise his grandkids. He was a lovely man and it was sad to say goodbye. Rest in peace big guy.

An ordinary life

Schmack! These photos may look kind of familiar, they
were taken last week when the snow was on the ground and
the sun in the sky. This week, it's back to dismal and Ian
hasn't taken any new pictures! Can you imagine that!

Yes! We have finally moved out of the caravan and back to our apartment in the village. So instead of having to drag myself out of bed as soon as Ian is up, I get a cup of tea in bed. Ian is an earlier riser than I am and so in the caravan we pretty much get up when he does. There is not much choice really when there isn't enough space and we haven't an awning for him to go to. The bed has to be packed away so he can have his breakfast. Only in the middle of summer, on a warm day will he sneak out without waking me. I'd still rather have a cabin out on our land though.

Vanessa looks more and more like her mum

But maybe not from this angle. This is Veronica, Vanessa's
mum

The downside is that I have had to get the apartment sorted finally, so we can move about. The dump room was just that and so I had pulled all the stuff that was lying around on the floor out of there so that I could sort it out. And there it stayed for months. I hadn't had the time to deal with it. In fact we had been in the apartment for nearly a week before I got around to it, as I still had too much to do. Another downside is having to light the fire every day. In the caravan it is possible to switch the heater on without even getting up. Having said that, I don't light the fire until the temperature is below 16C, which is usually sometime in the afternoon, now that the place has warmed through.

I like the textures of the tree, moss and snow in this shot

I don't know what Herkules is laughing at, but looks like
something was amusing him or he was singing a solo

One of the jobs we had to do before moving in though was to shift wood from the land and stack it in the basement. Ian had loaded up the horse box and there it stayed until we had a freeze so that we could get the horse box off the land. We moved about 3 months worth of wood that day and we were rather tired. I stayed at the apartment and lit the fire, made something to eat for our tea and then crashed. At least with the fire on I could have a bath. Not something I do regularly these days, but I needed to soak my muscles after filling up boxes of wood and helping Ian carry it down the stairs to the basement.

Chanel, the loving mother, but not the brightest spark. This
could be her, "if you come near, I shall spit at you" pose

The girls looking very grubby against the white snow

My ordinary life this week, though was writing and writing and writing. In fact my supervisor complained with a smiley face at the end of his email that I was too productive. At least I have now finished writing the first draft of my PhD thesis, a paper that should have been submitted December 1st and updated a protocol that needed finishing off for submitting this week. By Friday afternoon I had done all I could and I actually took the weekend off. I don't always get weekends off as I've been trying to finish off my thesis and also I take off random days in the week, depending on whether a job needs doing or the weather means I can get on with an outside job. This week I just worked late to make up for the day off with moving wood.

Someone's taking an interest in the girls

Brencis doing a bit of alpaca pruning here.

Brencis finally got his Vitamin D injection this week. He is an absolute pain to work with, although a joy when we have visitors as he always comes to see people. We did have some help as our wonderful neighbours came down. It only took about 5 minutes to do with the extra help and a great deal less stressful than trying to do it ourselves. Our cat, Sofie, also thinks they are wonderful as she keeps disappearing up to their cow barn.

Sofie soaking up some sunshine

Valeria soaking up a bit of sunshine. Good job, there was
precious little of it this week

So my first day off in ages was doing the tidying up. As I mentioned we can now move around in our sitting room. The remaining piles of stuff to move are, at least, more manageable and I shall sort those out later on this week. All the food, bowls, and pans that were out on our land have also now been stacked away, which was easier said than done as it meant rearranging cupboards. I have also spent time reacquainting myself with what we have and where everything is. "Oh yes! I'd forgotten about that!" and "Oh! That's where it is!" is heard fairly regularly.

Our snow covered car. Now it is back to just red and brown.
It's supposed to be just red but not with the dirt roads which
are slecky (I think that is a Geordie word for slippy,
muddy conditions) due to the melted snow. 

These are the bales ,what's left of them. While I was working
on one bale a little mouse popped out from its tunnel. It
obviously did not approve of the changes I was making to its
accommodation

Sunday I went back out to the land. We had a bin collection and I wanted to get all the plastic off some rotten bales of hay into the bin. They were intended for growing squashes on but the conditions weren't right for them. They
will make good compost now. It makes us realise why we do not cover our bales with the stuff, there is so much of it. Ours are either kept under tarps or under cover in a building. We had that much of plastic off 13 large bales that some of it will have to wait for the next bin collection. It is a good job we don't throw much out most of the time. I have just signed a contract to only have our waste collected every three months and even with this extra plastic, that will be enough. Unfortunately, it is too dirty and degraded to recycle.

The little pond is full of blocks of ice where Ian has hacked
away so he can get some water out. This week the well though
is within 16cm of the top. That's a lot of water pressure

Ian has been working on next year's wood supply. This week
he's been busy getting the chicken ark repaired so we can
get the chickens that are still outside into the greenhouse. I
think they will appreciate that. There are days they don't even
venture out of the ark and then there are days they stop out
in some of the most stupid of weather and get too cold. Not
exactly renowned for their intelligence.

Besides doing that mucky job, I also planted garlic and sowed some seeds. I've been going to plant garlic for ages and just not got around to it. Apparently it is fine as long as it is before the shortest day of the year. Just in time then. I also had to wait for most of the snow to melt because I had to see where the beds were. We work with permanent beds and I had covered them with old hay. It was a fairly easy job to move it to one side and the ground was still soft. I dug out the weeds that were there, not that there were many and sowed the garlic bulblets and planted up some larger bulbs. I had let them go to seed this year to increase the genetic diversity.

Freddie's colour stands out nicely against the snow

George, just pondering life. He's a bright lad. He takes after
his mum in many ways, both good and bad. They are both
intelligent ones, but they also both eat through the fence and
have snapped fence posts in the process

I also experimented with sowing rocket, mizuna, chinese cabbage, onion and parsnip seeds. I've experimented with parsnip before and found I had far more success by planting the seed in autumn than I did by planting them in spring. They tended to get away before the weeds that way, rather than struggling to compete with the weeds when sown later. They are such slow germinators that the weeds have sprouted and away before parsnips even begin to show through. I've lightly covered them back up with the straw to stop them being washed away and give a bit of cover over the winter. We'll see what happens with that! I'm hoping this will also counteract any problems of spring droughts.

Mari, George's mum

Little Ilvija has started eating the grain and now eaten out of
Ian's hand. A step forward for training. Not sure what her
spitty mother will make of that though 

So today back to the ordinary life. Cup of tea in bed, read a little and get up after Ian has left to go to the land to see to the animals. Then it's back to writing and tidying up some things that need doing for work.

Winter's last stand?

An icy scene

Is it winter's last stand? Probably not, there maybe more snow again tomorrow, but in between spring peeks out and so did the poet in me

Chanel enjoying the snow. She is starting to show her
pregnancy

Winter’s last stand
The swelling buds speak of times to come
Peeking out from their furry coats
The soft wind whispers, “Soon”
The love-struck birds chirp in echo, “Soon”
The warming rays embrace the earth and murmurs sleepily, “Soon”
Winter screams back “Never!”
Covering the earth once more
In a blanket of white.
But already his power is spent
He recedes
Thrashing into the waters of the raging river.
Losing his grip on the earth once more
Spring rises drowsily from her long sleep
Then racing with abandon
Lights the ground with a creeping verdant layer
Trees rush to embrace the warmth
Bursting with wavering branches,
Unfurling flags of the brightest green
Eager to pronounce the coming season.
Spring has come!

At least we got to see the sun this week

Flags flying in the stiff breeze in Tartu
outside the gym of my university

It has been a week of meetings and writing. I had a meeting with my local colleagues in Tartu on the Tuesday and had the privilege of getting the key to the office for two whole days. I've given it back for now as I won't be up for a little while, or not that I know of anyway. The following day was a bit hectic and started early with a visit to the health centre for my employment health check. Everything was normal, little does she know then. Weight, a tad high because I've put some back on, but normal for my age. Waistline a centimetre too big, but normal for my age. Blood pressure, just towards the higher end, but normal for my age and not too high anyway considering I had to try and find the place first. Anyway you get the idea. I did find out I was a centimetre higher than I thought I was, so a whopping 153cm and not 152cm. Close!

Ian halter training Josefs

A view of the old and new parts of the university

The doctor asked me about the stresses of the job, potential risks etc, Did I have a proper chair to sit at the computer? Do I sit correctly? Errr! Of course... not! But I wasn't going to say that. I have installed an app on the computer to remind me to take my focus off the screen and to get up and move around though. The app started off at every 10 minutes but that drove me mad and so it is now set for every 20 minutes for a microbreak and longer breaks every hour. It still drives me mad, but I embrace the distractions as something necessary. She was surprised that I don't suffer from issues with my wrists as I don't use a keyboard for my laptop. I think I would have more issues with keyboards than my laptop, but each to their own I guess.

It was as cold as it looks

The benches by the river look a little empty at this time
of the year

The health check was an hour long and I had to get a taxi, paid for by the uni, to get to the office to join in the Skype meeting with my international colleagues. I was representing our team as one had to go to the doctors and the other was lecturing and couldn't get out of it - hence the taxi to make sure I was on time. This was followed by another meeting with my local colleagues since they were back in the office by the end of my Skype meeting to fill them in on what had been said. I then had a bit of time to work in the office before heading on down into town to get a bus card so I could then go to the Border Police to collect my new Estonian ID card. Phew!

Just a few days ago and we actually saw
grass, Ian saw some cranes were flying
over and we both saw geese. Today it
is back to white

This morning's sunrise

Thursday morning my friend took me down to the tax office. I had been told to go down there by the university personnel department, so I dutifully complied. I asked the lady at the desk if she spoke English, to which she replied "No!" very firmly. Hmmm! Good start! So in classic English style I explained very slowly what I needed. I suspected that she might know a little bit of English really and at least enough to get by and she did. She got out a form for me and I realised that it could be a bit of a problem for me, as it meant I would have to change my tax residency. Whilst it is okay to have more than one place to be resident, it is usual to choose only one place for tax residency. The lady at the desk called in a senior member of staff, who spoke English.

Someone's been out in the snow

Jakobs looking cute

I explained to the lady that although I work for an Estonian University, I worked most of the time from my home in Latvia. This would mean my tax residency should be Latvia. I also said, I really didn't want to change this at the moment due to Brexit, as it could cause me issues later. She smiled sympathetically and agreed. She explained the university just needed to put that I was non-resident. The university were worried about the travel expenses that were not covered in the budget to pay me for travelling up to meetings in Tartu. I explained that it was fine, just think of me as resident in Estonia for part of the time, just not the whole year and that would work. I also mentioned the B word to them too.

No alpaca was hurt in the making of this photo. 

The melting snow earlier on this week
has meant Ian was on drain duty, trying
to make sure all the water was running
away from the alpaca houses. 

The B word was mentioned more than once this week. I had to explain to my international colleagues that if they wanted a face to face meeting, then they would have to convene in Estonia because I might not be able to travel if the UK left the EU without a deal, until my status is settled. Oh yes! Less than three weeks away and I can make no guarantees to anyone about my status. Not as if we live in a war zone either. It is extremely exasperating, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, except watch the circus in the UK Parliament to see where it is going. What an absolute shambles.

Chanel, Veronica and Josefs all enjoying the sunshine

George thinks the sunshine is something to smile about
anyway

I had been keeping up with news on an expat Facebook forum and contributed a few comments from time to time. I was a little surprised to get a request to write an article for them. I took a bit of time to find out more about them and then decided to give it a go. It was only short and didn't take a huge amount of time to write. It was something swilling around in my brain anyway. I was quite pleased with the response to the piece, it seems to have hit the right note and people have been quite kind in their comments. (You can read it here)

So does Freddie. He wasn't so sure about having to stand
still to put cream on his legs the first time, but he now
just accepts the process

Even Herkules looks happy to see the sun

I finally made it out to the land to see the alpacas again. Not sure that the alpacas were so pleased to see me though, as the girls were given Vitamin D injections and Freddie had some of my magic cream applied to his legs. The first day I went out the paths were a bit icy but we could see more and more of the grass appear as the day went on. Today we are back to whiteout with heavy snow showers on and off in the afternoon. So I still haven't made it out skiing yet, but at least Freddie got some more of the magic cream and I Skyped with my Estonian colleagues from the caravan in a snow storm. It's a good job the caravan is still in the greenhouse at the moment.

George practicing his yoga

More sunbathing alpacas, this time Amanda and Silla