Is it spring?

This was the scene on Wednesday

It sure feels like spring after the two and a half weeks of snow we had. It has finally just about left us now. Just a few mucky piles of the stuff left over from the piles of cleared snow, mainly at the sides of the roads or in car parks. Of course that does not mean there won't be more, but at least Ian can get back on with some jobs that he could do with doing before the winter really does kick in. The only problem is that we now need the ground to dry up or freeze. Our well has been filling up at an incredible rate of over 250 litres a day with the melt. The recent influx though of water is mainly ground water and not the spring water so it is a bit murky with sediment. Part of the reason though is because the concrete rings were mucky from when they were put in, so hopefully this has cleaned the sides now. A friend of ours said it might take a year to settle down, so no worries yet!

Friday 

Saturday, just about all gone and the grass is still green, unlike
after the winter snows next spring.

A path cleared with the snow blower

At least now the snow has gone, it means Ian doesn't have to do so much snow blowing. We had begun to wonder if this was going to be a feature until March or April, so although the days are duller now without the snow, more can be done. I also dug up the dahlia tubers that I had forgotten about, which need to be stored over winter and not left in the ground. I have now also covered my herb bed with spruce branches to protect them from a hard freeze.

Nature's artwork

And this is the result in the well. Nearly full to overflowing.
Approximately 3m3 of water. Should keep us going for a
while. Although Ian is planning on cleaning the sides of the
well with a brush and then pumping some of it out and letting
it refill.

It has been a strange week as we settled into living back in our apartment. We haven't lived there since mid-April and so many of our things have been put away or we have just forgotten where they once lived. Ian finally found my big, fluffy, purple dressing gown - something you would think was rather difficult to hide in a small apartment. He found it had been pushed to the back of a shelf in our wardrobe under a bag of clothes destined for the second-hand store or recycling. I still haven't found the tie for it though so for now it is tied up with a rather vibrant scarf - it works. Ian also found his body pillow - a pillow recommended by a chiropractor that Ian used to visit in the US when he was having issues with a bad back. We are also still in the process of bringing stuff back from the land that we still need at home or will be damaged in the cold winter temperatures, but it is a slow process.

If you were wondering how Sofie has got on after her hip
dislocation. I think this picture speaks for itself. This is above
the door in the greenhouse

She's also eager to be off on her travels. This was the day
after she had the pin out. It is hard to keep her in now.

We are also gradually sorting through our list of things to do and trying to get them ticked off. Ian and I finished off an article for a magazine and I finished off a book chapter for an academic piece of work. We have sorted through bags of fleece to decide how to process it.

As the snow melted off the roof, the icicles were left at a
rather perculiar angle

This little lass has discovered how to get into the food
cupboard on the wall. No wonder she slept so well today

We even got our friend round to help us finally make a decision on our sheep and what needs to be done with them. He gave us a few options and gave us his opinion, which was helpful. We are still not fully decided but will be by the end of the week, as we have a deadline to work to, always useful. Our friend also offered us some silage, as they have more than they need. That will help us with feeding the sheep, as they are getting through rather too much, much more than the alpacas despite their smaller size.

One eerie morning

Makes me thinkg of some fantasy winter scene for a movie or
something like that

Another item ticked off the list was to get our land onto the rural support scheme, which basically means getting some money for endeavouring to farm the land. We have to put a map together of the parts that we are including in the support area, as we know some bits have too many trees on at the moment. Some bits will be included but we will cut down the trees that need thinning out and some we won't bother with for the time being. I say "we," what I mean is Ian. He has the bulk of that kind of work to do. I shall be busy doing other things. I try to make a point of going at the weekends though to take a break from the brain work, but I cannot be there all the time. At least we are grateful for one of our visitors over the summer who is helping us get this sorted.

The mid-week snow made some
interesting sculptures

We have done some sorting out in here, honest!

We've had the usual problems with plumbing again at our other apartment. We can't blame the plumber, we know he did an excellent job with the best fittings available. The problem is that some of the fittings available are rather sub-standard. It is one of the reasons that all water pipes run on the outside of the wall and we have stop taps at multiple points. This time it was the bath tap that started leaking. It is the first time the water has been heated in a long while and so the tap split and water started squirting out the back of the tap. It was the first bath we had planned since April - don't worry we have had showers in the meantime, but the bath was a luxury soak we had once a week along with watching a DVD, not while we are having a bath of course. In the end we did neither.

I guess Turbjørn has his woolly blanket on, so can sit around
in the snow

Why drink water when you can eat snow?

One of the good things about being at home is the chance to have a trip to a nice little bakery in the village with a friend. She had been teaching us Latvian but I hadn't really had the opportunity to have a proper catch up in a while, so made a point of doing just that this week. We put the world to right, as you do over a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake. We were just about done on the topic of communities when her husband arrived and then the topic turned to hay, back home it was sociology. I can get through a few varied topics in a day.

I love the way that photos capture an agate quality of semi-frozen
ponds. In life it just looks a bit mucky.

The pond a few days later

The car gets left near the road, because the track up is too
muddy and it could get stuck. Rather than ruin the ground
even more we decide to walk to the caravan.

We also joined in with a local action group on Sunday. They are trying to make positive changes to the village, when the consensus it is a place where people come to die - not really true, as there are so many young families, but obviously they can find it difficult out in rural Latvia. We want to support the young folks, so even though we don't understand much, we can participate and encourage. Being younger, someone often does some translating and if nothing else it is a chance to hear Latvian being spoken.

Hopefully this will stop a lot of the snow getting in this time.
You can see the spruce covered herb bed to the right too

Glorious coloured dandelion leaves

Agnese in decidedly unfriendly mood to me. Head up, tail up
back arched and clucking. She is trying to say she thinks she
is higher up the pecking order than I am. I have news for her!

Agnese in friendlier mood

I still find it hard to believe at times that we own this forest.

Home! I think!

A winter wonderland

Where is home? Good question. I am now back in Latvia, so that's a start. We are even now back in our apartment, but is this home? It would be fair to say there is a degree of despondency about the transition. Part of that is because it marks the beginning of the winter season and all the issues we have with that, such as the long nights, dealing with a frozen car in the morning, remembering to leave the windscreen wipers up, the hand brake off and the car in gear, so the brakes do not freeze, the increase in fuel costs and so on.

Agnese in soft focus

The despondency I also think has something to do with becoming more deeply rooted in the land through staying out there for such a long time. It is harder for Ian than it is for me. I do not have so much to do out there now, but Ian does. He is out there every day, seeing to the animals, making sure the jobs that need doing get done - weather permitting of course and in winter cutting down trees in the forest - again weather permitting - for next seasons fuel. Unfortunately there are still a few trees on the floor that were going to be chopped up for firewood and are now under snow.

Yes we still have icicles

Yes the snow is still with us and set to stay with us for a few more days at least, before it maybe all melts and turns to mush later on in the week. I managed to go for my first slide of the season, whilst still up in Tartu, Estonia. I hate ice and not particularly good in icy conditions. I always marvel at those who sail past me as I make my way in slippery conditions at a snail's pace.

The view from my attic window in Tartu

Fortunately at the moment, it isn't particularly icy and there is plenty of crunchy snow to walk on, however, not everywhere of course. I saw a patch of what looked like thick, slick ice and decided to walk to the side of it where the snow was. Unfortunately it also happened to be snow over ice and down I went. I was carrying my suitcase with me at the time and that went down on the ground first and slowed my descent so it meant I didn't hurt myself at all. I just embarrassed myself trying to get up off the slick ice and the young chap who obviously observed all of this, only rushed to my aid when he saw that I was leaving my hat behind.

Growing up 

Despite that, it has been a good week when I got to talk to different people. I met up with a lady I met in Vilnius a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time talking about Estonia generally and more specifically the problems of changing from one system of mental health care to a more inclusive system in the community. Not that I am a great expert on the matter, but I could appreciate some of the difficulties that can entail due to my research on communities and through some discussion in the past with my daughter about issues of those cared for in the community and in a hospitals in other locations.

Eating rather too much too soon. Rather a problem this year
and we will need to cull some sheep. They have been rather
demanding - more so than usual

I also spent quite a while chatting with a chap who has been at the forefront of village development in the early years of transition. It was interesting to hear how it developed over time and some of the influences on those transitions. It was also interesting to hear how even during Soviet times, not everything was done according to the strict expectations of the Soviet authorities and perhaps some things were done a little differently. It made me smile to hear there were such undercurrents going on. I knew of some examples but not in an agricultural management institute. He also brought some apples as a gift for me, which were an old Estonian variety and were definitely different and tasty.

We took the rather ragged plastic off this greenhouse to save
the poles. They are already in bad shape and it doesn't seem
as robust as our first cheap greenhouse.

That's not all. One day I was chatting with a lady who came to our land earlier on in the year with her husband and young daughter. The little girl was the one who had the misfortune to discover nettles for the first time and called them Stingrays - such an apt description. The lady has an idea for a series of children's books on environmental issues, to help children understand some of the problems. She had met with varying degrees of skepticism and some support but was encouraged that I loved the illustrations she had already done and I liked what I was hearing.

Photographing Mr. P. is challenging any time of the year and
even harder now due to his colouring. He is also loosing
his baby teeth - hence he looks like he has a mouthful of
rather crooked teeth

I had some reservations about the actual language used, I felt it was a bit too complicated for young readers, but felt it had a lot of potential. I could hear the story, so to speak, it just needed some different words, which is easier for me with English being my first and to some extent only language (well at least sometimes and if I put my mind to it). I have also worked with children for a while and read many, many stories to them. In fact that was something I could do quite well and even today the ability to read text with enthusiasm helps me enormously when presenting.

Just chilling

I was treated to a lovely Indian meal of curried chicken, sweet rice and a fresh fruit salad. This was then followed by pictures and videos of India and Indian life, so that I could understand the lady's background and where she was coming from when writing the stories. It was a fascinating and very enjoyable afternoon, and topped off with lots of hugs from her daughter and those kinds of conversations you can only really have with bright, bubbly almost five year olds.

Turbjørn determined not to look at the camera

Not content with chatting to Estonians, Indians and my Australian friend who I stay with, I also spent an evening chatting with another friend who is from America. I didn't communicate very clearly to my Australian friend how long I would be staying up in Tartu, I think I must have written the email in my head rather than actually sending it and so there was a problem over one night when they were expecting someone else to stay in the room I normally sleep in. My American friend, however, said if I ever needed to stay somewhere else then she was willing to put up with me, or rather put me up. So another chance to chat away and put the world to right. I stayed in her apartment, even though she was going to a conference the next night and it was a chance to absorb the peace and quiet of her place. It is quite close to the city centre and yet it was quite peaceful and not really noisy at all. I needed that.

Tellus' old fashioned hair do makes me laugh, but don't tell
him

Post it note workshop

On the Friday of last week I did a short presentation to my doctoral candidate colleagues and my supervisors. I deliberately kept it short, as to be honest I'm a bit bored with presenting and I wanted to try an experiment with them. I wanted to see what characteristics they felt rural village leaders had or should have to be helpful in the participatory development process; in other words, what do leaders need to be able to draw in other inhabitants in an active way. It was quite entertaining to lead them in the process of doing a mini-workshop on the topic. I laughed at my supervisors remarks at the end, which were basically along the lines of thank you Joanna for  once again taking us on another thought provoking journey and perhaps not quite what we would expect in a doctoral seminar. I think I'm getting a reputation for pictures of my alpacas and not conforming to the normal pattern. As long as I get my doctorate at the end, I'm not too worried.

At this time of the year, the alpacas seem to prefer snow to 
cold water. It is easier this year for Ian with the well now
though and means he doesn't have to traipse down three flights 
of stairs with heavy containers of water

On our way home, shock, horror, I made Ian stop the car to
take this photo.

And finally? I actually chatted to my husband. I know a bit of a novelty. We arranged to meet up near to the Alpaca farm in Estonia where we get the feed from. I took a bus from Tartu to near Pärnu, also in Estonia but on the coast and he drove up from home. I was a bit puzzled though in the week as he told me he was expecting a visit from a nice lady who had emailed him and so he would have to cancel it. I thought he was talking about another visitor and it was only in the car that he explained it was a joke and the "nice lady" was me, since he thought I was travelling home by bus and had forgotten we were possibly going to collect feed. He's called me many things in our over 32 years of marriage but a "nice lady" was not one of them and so I didn't twig. We often have jokey emails while I'm away but I missed this one.

But of course I couldn't make him stop more than once and
we ended up putting the animals away in the dark as it was.

So after a very short visit to the alpaca farm for coffee and cakes and a visit to see their newest alpacas who had arrived since our last visit at shearing time in May, we set off back to Latvia and home, where we have spent the last couple of days trying to locate various things. We have stayed in the caravan for so long that all the familiar routines and places have been forgotten. I still haven't found my dressing gown and there are boxes and crates full of fruit and vegetables or clothes all over the place.

Errrmm! I think it's winter already!

The sheep in what was the boys alpaca paddock

Tuesday was a day of preparation before I went away and before the threatened snow, which was forecast for later in the day. The sheep were still out on the field and we needed to get them into the paddock where they had access to better shelter and they could be fed some hay. We attached wire to the posts in the old alpaca paddock that had been put in by our American friends earlier on in the year. It all started off well, but we had to keep stopping to warm up. The wind was so bitter and neither of us wanted painful hands or feet. We ended up finishing it off as the snow descended earlier than forecast. We went to get the sheep but in their hurry to get to the hay that they had seen Ian put out, they managed to break three electric posts. Ian was not happy with them. At least they are now in their winter quarters.

The ram lamb has got quite big

Alpacas have such big expressive eyes

On Wednesday I was supposed to travel up to Tallinn in Estonia. The idea was that Ian would drive me to our alpaca friends near Pärnu, where he would collect some fresh bags of alpaca feed and then drive home again and I would have a meeting with someone about leaders in rural areas before travelling up by bus to Tallinn. This was going to be a bit of a long drive and so not something he was looking forward to and not made any better by the forecast of more snow.

Snow on the greenhouse. Ian got a bit concerned today as he
spotted a tear in the plastic where the snow was coming in. We
don't want that to fall apart over winter. He managed to tape it
up with tape he managed to buy a while ago and hopefully
it will hold. Not the best time of the year for putting tape on

My journey up to Tallinn

On the morning we woke early and it had indeed snowed overnight. It was not a huge amount by Latvian standards, but it was wet slushy stuff and our car had four year old all weather tyres on and not the winter tyres that we got last winter. After slithering into our village, we decided this was not a wise move and cancelled all arrangements and I stayed at home instead, or rather in our caravan, from where I booked a ticket to travel by coach from Riga to Tallinn. Thursday morning we set our alarm for earlier than the day before and Ian took me into our village to catch the Riga bus.

More snowy scenes from the bus

Tallinn

I rolled into Tallinn late Thursday afternoon and walked the snowy paths to the church where the latest conference I was attending was being held. This was rather different to the last ones, as it wasn't an academic conference and I wasn't there to present anything, I was there to help in any way I could. The event was the European Christian Youth Parliament and the idea was to gather youth from across Europe to discuss European issues and also to hear a little about how the European Union began.

The Lutheran church in Tallinn. We were guided by a Baptist
Minister who was also a qualified guide. He apologised that
he forgets English words quite often as he is more used to
guiding Chinese tourists around

I love the decoration on this door and above it

I found out about a man called Robert Schuman, who was motivated by his faith to work for greater cooperation between the European nations, one that included Germany. This was despite the fact he was imprisoned by the Nazis. At first he orchestrated an agreement to collaborate over coal and steel industry but he ultimately envisaged this as a way of making war impossible between the European nations as they worked together. This was a very different vision to the one I had heard amongst some in Christian circles and one I think Robert Schuman would have been shocked and saddened by. At least the weekend gave a more hopeful and positive version of events.

The Russian Orthodox church

A small statue on another church in Tallinn. I love the blue
colour they used for this. Different to just plain white or stone

The idea was that in the spirit of Robert Schuman's faith and his vision, youth would discuss national identity and the rise of nationalism, Estonian politics (since we were in Estonia) or Environment and Natural resources and present their thoughts on these issues. In the end, not many youth actually turned up, but those who did were excited to be discussing these kinds of topics in a positive and affirming environment and not the toxic environment that often seems to fill the social media posts or conversations with others. Since there were not so many there I opted to be one of the participants and joined to guys to discuss Environmental and Natural Resource issues. It was a bit disappointing not to have any youth in our group but we set to in trying to work out why it did not connect with them and how could we get the message across that it was important and needed to be included in discussions.

The medieval town hall

Old School, working on a blackboard

We realised first of all it is a huge, all encompassing issue and one that can overwhelm. We thought of the different aspects that make up the issue and discussed what could be done on a personal and wider level. At one break I was chatting to one of the younger folks there and telling them what we were talking about in our session and said it was a shame that no one of their age was in the group. She apologised and said it was really important, but the issues with nationalism was more urgent from her perspective. That set me thinking. In the end I had a couple of brain waves, firstly we needed to highlight that tackling environmental issues was a justice issue and secondly a healed environment was a healing environment.

A massive felt light-shade in a café

Part of Tallinn castle

So what did I mean that the environmental issue was a justice issue? The fact is that when things go wrong in our environment, it is often the poor who suffer the most. They live in the most vulnerable places and have the kinds of jobs that can expose them to most environmental toxins. Environmental issues can poison their soils and their water and leave them little options but to either take the risk of eating and drinking from that environment or leaving it for risky jobs in the factories. Those with more money and resources are often able to insulate themselves from at least some of these risks. I used a clip from the Story of Stuff to make the point.

Is it Christmas yet?

The trees Ian cut down earlier on in the year, disappeared
under the grass and reappeared as the grass died down. Now
they are disappearing under the snow. Sigh!

I also saw that as we learn to heal our environment it in turn heals us. A pleasant environment becomes a place to relax in or to even de-stress. We need those places for sources of inspiration, for food, medicines and so many other possibilities and as I am sure an acquaintance of mine would point out, we should protect it for its own sake and value. I and my fellow participants would say that we should also protect it because that is our God given mandate to do that. We presented our findings to the other participants of the conference, so I did get to do a presentation after all. At least the practice of past presentations meant that it was possible to put it together pretty quickly.

Icicles look pretty, but so soon?

Possible Lynx footprints. Not what we want to see really
when the sheep are out. Someone today suggested that they
and the wolves are going to be hungry this winter in Estonia
at least because the wild boar numbers have finally crashed
after the African Swine Fever. It might explain why we haven't
had much damage this year

During my stay up in Tallinn I stayed with a young couple I had stayed with before. They are so incredibly hospitable and it was a joy to meet them again. I had mentioned that others might need to stay too and they had mattresses set up in preparation. They welcomed them all warmly and made sure that everything was labelled and all foibles of showers and toilets were explained. It was amusing that the toilet light was wired into a radio to disguise all noises that may emanate from within, as this was a source of embarrassment for someone who had shared their apartment. It played retro music and so every time I popped in, it was like stepping back in time to my youth and certainly before many, if any, of the other occupants that weekend were even born.

How Estonian or Latvian! A roll in the snow, but that should
be after a spell in the sauna first. Brrrr!

Today was another snowy trip to Tartu but first I had a meeting with a professor at the Tallinn University and a good friend of one of my supervisors. I have rediscovered how to navigate the occasional ice patches that are beginning to form as I made my way carefully across the town. I took the precaution of taking the buses or trams, even for short routes, rather than walk on snowy paths as I usually do. It was a good meeting though and helped to confirm that I am on the right track for my PhD studies, for which I am grateful to know. From there it was onto Tartu by train. It was a pleasant journey as I met one young lady who I had met the day before at my friend's apartment and we sat and chatted for most of the journey about the future and how we envisaged it to be.

Broken!

A wet soggy Turbjørn. Our alpacas seem to have their heads
down most of the time eating while they can still get to the
grass

Just recently we seem to have a catalogue of things breaking or going kaput. Some of them are silly little things but many are things we have been relying on and will need fixing or replacing and it is getting rather annoying. Maybe it is being out in the cold that is doing it and sudden changes in temperature. I suppose that won't help, but not the case for all of them. So here is the catalogue of broken things

Even formation eating. 

The newer greenhouse - some of the poles have got bent or snapped. It doesn't seem to be lasting as long as the other one we bought a few years ago, but then again we anchored that one down into the ground and this new one is not in a permanent place yet.

Sometimes our animals stay inside when it is wet

Halogen oven, aka Robbie - that went a while ago and Ian thought it was probably the bulb and so ordered two when we went to England, but now it looks like it might actually be the thermostat and we still need to locate a replacement for that.

Slow cooker - I cracked the bowl. I think this might have been a temperature thing and so annoying.

Lady V sporting the newest curly look

Transformers - we have had a variety of small transformers and this week one of the bigger ones went kaput on us and that brings the total to four that have gone this year. Ian really needs one of these for the tooth cutting machine and I need one for my sewing machine that are both from the US. Fortunately for the sewing machine we have a large transformer but it is not exactly portable and so no good for Ian. We are now trying to source a new one of those.

Cleaning a bucket in the pond

Pipe for soot collector - this went today whilst trying to clean out the wood-fired oven before the winter heating season. Nothing major just annoying and made worse by the fact we don't seem to be able to get any decent duct tape to repair it with.

It has rained a lot this week and so the ponds have filled to
overflowing. The ground water has also leaked into the well.
It added 330 litres of water in one day where had been filling
up by about 20 litres a day just before as it had slowed down
from the 40 litres a day we were getting.This is no big deal
from a contamination point of view, there is nothing nearby to
contaminate it except sediment, so the water is now cloudy.
The problem is that the ground around the well has still not
settled yet and Ian had to pack it down a bit more. It slowed to
70 litres the day after and 30 litres today (yes Ian does like
to keep records)

Coffee press - that was this week too during washing up. Fortunately we have a spare that our friends bought for their use whilst they were here in Latvia. So we at least have one we can borrow.

Kettles - the one at our apartment went kaput but fortunately our friends who were there at the time bought us a new one. The one out on the land also started to leak but fortunately Ian fixed that with some super glue.

One foaming cat. Of all our cats, Sofie is the best at not taking
tablets. She has perfected the technique of foaming the tablet
rather than swallowing it. Here I am making sure she doesn't
work the tablet out of her mouth. It still had to be put back in
about three times. I wouldn't mind, but normally I don't have
a problem, she is the only cat to have ever beaten me.This was
the worming tablet, fortunately her antibiotic tablets she will
just eat with her food- well most of the time anyway.  

Even the cat, Sofie, is broken. We have no idea what happened but she disappeared for a day - nothing unusual in that, she often disappears for a little while although these little trips have been getting fewer - but when she turned up she was not putting one of her rear legs on the floor. Somehow she had dislocated her hip joint and so that entailed a trip to the big town to get an x-ray and then an operation to put a pin in. At least a specialist was in town that day for his weekly visit. She is now quarantined to the caravan for three weeks to stop her jumping around so much. She still climbs but nothing major and after nearly five days I think she is beginning to accept or enjoy being confined. At least she is in the warm caravan during the day.

Oh yes! Winter struck

The timing of Sofie's accident was not great as winter decided to have a bit of a blast this last week. We had about 5cm of wet slushy snow and so the roads were rather nasty on the way to the big town. We haven't got the winter tyres on yet, instead we have all weather tyres which are legal even in winter, but they are past their best. We got new winter tyres last year, but in the spring we put the old tyres back on to save wear and tear and we haven't swapped back over yet. The wintery weather lasted for about three days before disappearing, but the forecast for the week ahead is not looking too great.

A light blanket of snow as described by the English version
of the Latvian news

We had to take two trips to the big town as we had a meeting with a rural business consultant. She is helping us with getting the rural support for our land and looking out for project money that might help us with the farm and our alpaca tourism. We hadn't gone down the route of EU money before because, to be honest, we weren't sure what we were going to do and had only vague plans, which are not helpful when trying to access project money or the rural support money. We now have a clearer idea of which areas we are willing to manage according to the rules to get the money and which parts we are not for the time being. This year has helped us to crystallise out some of our plans for the future and helped us to work out what we need help with, although this is still a work in progress of course.

Agnese has been trying to show she is boss to me this week.
I have ignored her stand offs and yesterday she ran off instead,
so I think that is progress. She was being standoffish with Ian
but is now back to being more friendly, so hopefully she has
got over the early pregnancy and feeling more like her old self

The snow this last week of course concentrates our mind on what needs to be sorted before winter proper starts. Some of our plants need protection and we notice people have started wrapping up their trees with fleece or plastic, so that will be on the list of to-dos. Whilst Ian was sweeping out the oven earlier on today I got out and picked the last of the beets. I was surprised though that the rows of beans were still okay.

We did see some sunshine and it always makes Chanel's coat
glow

I was annoyed I haven't had the chance to pick them earlier and fully expected them all to have rotted away by now, but they weren't. The pods were soft but not rotten and there were lots of them. I decided to save them and managed to pick the lot before some sleety rain came down. It was fairly easy to separate the beans from the mushy pods and they were rinsed and put on the electric dryer and we had to finish the job by the light from the caravan, but at least it was done. There are still parsnips, jerusalem artichokes and carrots to dig up before they get frozen into the ground and then that really will be the end of the season.

A damp and shaggy looking Mr. P.

We are still out in the caravan, because despite the snow, it hasn't actually been that cold. It was colder overnight earlier on this month. We have though started the process of moving back to our apartment and plan to do that when I get back after a trip up to Estonia. It is easier for Ian to stay in the caravan when he is on his own. I have taken my clothes back and anything else that is not needed over the next week or so.

Lady V in the sunshine too. She is looking really good and
so having some time off from pregnancies has helped her a
lot, although occasionally we do wonder if she did get
pregnant after all in the five minutes she was left alone.

Also despite the weather we have still had visitors, but not the ones that booked earlier on. We were meant to have a group of fifteen but they decided the weather was too bad and let us know they weren't coming. We are pleased that they let us know anyway and to be fair it was pretty miserable over the weekend, so can't say I really blame them. We had two sets of visitors on the Saturday and both hit lucky with the weather as we were in the greenhouse giving the talk about what we do and how we came to be in Latvia when it rained and they managed to see the alpacas when it was dry. The first set were very generous, they bought a ball of hand spun wool, paid for the trip and gave us a donation too. We felt very appreciated. They also told us that neighbours around here are very pleased with what we are doing and the fact we haven't sold the land to some large Swedish company, as many do, which is good to know.

Herkules also looking a little damp

Our second group were two ladies helping at the camp nearby. One of them has her own small farm with a llama amongst other things. She also tries to grow her own food and so was interested in what we were doing. We decided on a cup of tea before going to see the alpacas since it was tipping it down with rain and just chatted about farms, spinning and handicrafts.