Ooh my head!

Mari is cute

I have been on Skype most of the day today, so forgive me if I am a bit dull. It was a one hour meeting this morning with my Estonian colleagues and just over three hours in the afternoon with the colleagues from around the Baltics. All of it was to do with the project I'm working on with the university. We are all trying to find a route forward, bringing in our different skills. It is one of those projects where not much has been done in this way before and so it is a bit like trying to join the pieces of a rather complicated jigsaw, not just moving on from a well worn path. We are getting there though, just it is a bit slow at the moment. Once the route is clear the rest should slot in fairly easily - she says! Ask me that in a few months time and see if I say the same thing.

Tellus looking suave again

It's going to be another cold night!

It has been pretty cold during the nights in the caravan, but mainly glorious days - well if we discount the rather bitter north-easterly wind. Not always so pleasant. It also snowed one night, but only a small dusting and that was the only moisture we've had all week, so everywhere is still looking fairly parched. At least we did find that by sitting on the sunny side of the boys alpaca house we could soak up the sunshine on the warmer days and watch the boys hunting down the tiny blades of grass in their paddock. Not a bad way to drink a cup of coffee in the morning. They are still itching to be out in the field but we can't until that grass grows, no matter how much they moan at the gate.

A George close up

George doing his Elvis impression

The three muskateers... sunbathing! Herkules, Tellus and
Brencis

A couple came one evening to see the alpacas, I had some work I had to prepare for the following day and so said hello and then excused myself. About an hour later I finished up my work and I realised Ian was still chatting in the greenhouse with the couple and they hadn't even been to see the alpacas yet. They did see Vanessa's group (the newer acquisitions) pronking around their paddock from a distance, even Vanessa was doing it even though she is 10 years old. And yes I do mean "pronking," as it is a technical term for the running they do where they look like they are on springs not legs (you can see our youngsters pronking in a post on our facebook site here).

Who me? Pronking? You would never catch me doing a thing
like that.

The parched grass means dry moss .... all over the fleece

Mr. P trying to disguise himself with the moss

Antonia showing off her good side

Ian finally wrapped up his talk and we all went to see the alpacas. It wasn't the warmest of evenings and the temperature was rapidly dropping, but there was still a lot to talk about and the alpacas were being cute, so all was well. At the end we all had a cup of tea to warm up. we needed it. As they toddled off home we put the display away and hurriedly got the alpacas and chickens tucked up for the night. We were glad of the heaters that evening and always glad of them in the morning. Ian is close enough to switch it on first thing and we don't get up until the heater is warm enough to warm our clothes on it. We might be tough, but not that tough.

Herkules looking cute and cuddly. Some days he looks kind of
old, but today not so much. He must be enjoying the sunshine

Digging Jerusalem Artichokes

One advantage of the cool weather is that spring is sluggish to get get going and so spring jobs in the garden are getting done and I don't feel like the weeds are getting ahead of me yet! Ian has been dumping the manure from the alpaca houses just over the fence over the winter to save time but of course now the snow is gone it needed shifting. Last week I mulched the raspberries with some of it and this week it was the turn of the blackcurrant bushes and half of one of the Jerusalem artichoke plots. I am gradually digging up the Jerusalem artichokes and mainly feeding them to the chickens. We can't eat so many but they are good for chickens, so that works and they are so easy to look after. I also managed to weed two of the strawberry beds too. I just need them to grow a bit more to mulch them with some old hay.

Partying too hard the night before?
We can see Brencis' fighting teeth have
grown though and he will definitely be
having those cut during shearing time.

Mr. Turbjørn, have you been spitting by any chance?

That's better Mr. Turbjørn

Ian has been busy too of course. He put the back hoe onto the tractor and went around to one of our neighbours to dig foundations for a cabin for him. He is going to use an old cabin and rebuild it, but first he needed an old fashioned style foundation where a trench is dug and filled with sand and then large stone placed on top of the sand. These are then levelled off to rest the cabin on. It will be interesting to see what that looks like when it's finished. While the back hoe was on he went to dig out a load of barbed wire that was stuck in the ground where we cut hay. Ian always had to remember where it was and go around it, as it was just a single wire stuck up out of the ground, but firmly attached to something.

And now for the funny poses! Josefs in
the poo position

Chanel mid-roll. Look at that belly! Take care Chanel, we
don't want any accidents in your condition.

Slowly greening but still needs more moisture

Water is already an issue and as I mentioned, we've hardly had any precipitation since the snow went. Just the odd dusting. Our well is going down, which is to be expected as the weather dries and the force from underneath decreases. We just hope it doesn't go down as far as last year. We couldn't actually draw from the well from July onwards. In preparation for sowing the seeds we decided to fill up a water container from our pond that stayed fairly full last year, despite the drought. The water is brown from the peat, but it will be fine for the plants. So that was another job for Ian as it required the generator to work the pump. I hope we don't have to fill that up too much though. We still do not have much rain forecast for the next week either. The last time Latvia had a dry April was in 2009 apparently and was followed by a dry May and a cool rainy summer. Err Yippee! That would be challenging for sure. We'll see though, after all the weather does what it does and there is not much we can do about it, except pray for rain at the right time.

The yellowhammers are back

Mari already eating through the fence.
It's not as if there is any grass on the
outside either.

Aggie is still feeding Josefs, despite he being nearly as big
as Aggie. Mari has stopped feeding little Josefs though.

Feels like a lifetime

Our little fluff ball, Jakobs

It is funny how quickly we have settled back into our summer routine. There are still some hitches to sort out, such as things left at the apartment that we need. Things like scales to make sure our porridge is nice and thick and not runny. Cakes and bread I can make without scales, but the amount of porridge to add to the milk I kind of misjudged. Shall we say Ian was not amused. We make porridge in the evening and eat it cold over the following mornings. It might sound awful, but when it is made with the rich, creamy milk we get, it is delicious, at least when it is made properly. Probably only appreciated by the sort of people who like cold rice pudding though.

Now the snow melt has gone, the pond is receding. It hope
it is only disappearing so fast because it is the first year
after digging it out some more. Sometimes it takes a year or
two to settle back down.

Our morning coffee view

One aspect of moving out to the caravan is that I have enjoyed being able to sit outside to enjoy a morning cup of coffee with Ian. It is just about warm enough most mornings, even if it means huddling in a coat and lots of layers, but the benefits of being outside in the sunshine outweighs getting a bit cold - at least most of the time. There are days when the wind blows too strong or from the wrong direction to be able to do that though. One morning we witnessed the arrival of the wagtails, back from their winter holidays. They are cheery little birds that often torment the cats. Whilst they resident in places like the UK, here in Latvia they are definitely migratory and could have been down to the Mediterranean for their holidays. Ian had only said the day before, he wondered when they would be back.

One of the wagtails that returned this week

The view from our Oak tree hill

It has been an odd sort of week. I spent the first part of the week trying to put together some work that needed to be done for an online workshop that was happening for the project I'm working on. It should have been the whole team working together on it, but the other members of my team were away on conferences and so I had to try and figure out what we were supposed to be doing. I went to our apartment to make sure I had good internet connection for the Skype call and put the fire on to warm the apartment through a bit. I muddled through the workshop and at least have a clearer idea of what now needs to be done for the next stage. That's progress at least. I even got the report for my colleagues written before setting off back to our caravan.

Chanel is starting to look big. She did with Freddie too.
Either that or it is all the fleece she is carrying and not
just a big baby.

The new girls are also enjoying spending lots of time
outdoors and even getting quite a bit of sunbathing in.

My article for Dispatches Europe and its subsequent translation into Latvian is still causing a bit of a stir. One ex-neighbour rang Ian, since it is his details that are on our webpage, to ask if I would be interested in teaching English at a school about 30 minutes away. It is definitely not something I am able to take on at the moment, as I need the flexibility to work on the university project and not enough hours in the day to teach English, continue working on a paper for my PhD and start the garden off as well. That wasn't the only phone call Ian took from someone trying to contact me. He also got a call from Latvian National Radio asking for an interview with me about my views on the EU. Not because I am some world expert but because they were doing a series, which included various nationalities who are now living in Latvia.

Signs of spring. A miniature daffodil making an appearance

The cowslips are coming through

Mr. P

The presenter came to the farm on Saturday and we sat outside in the sunshine with storks flying over and the alpacas peacefully eating hay in their paddocks. The interview went well and she said she got more out of it than she anticipated. Not quite sure what she anticipated or what on earth will end up in the final cut. The interview I can handle, but I am a bit nervous as to what will come out in the broadcast itself. She was thrilled to see the alpacas and is talking about coming to see us again in the summer with her family, so looking forward to that.

The winter wrecked the tarpaulin. They really are not good
when they start to disintegrate and we are finding plastic bits
everywhere.

The peony is starting to poke through that I planted last year

She asked if she could interview one of our neighbours and so I contacted our nearest neighbour to see if she was willing. It turned out to be a good story, two neighbours who are neighbours in part due to the EU. We can't speak each others' language well but we communicate and get along, helping each other out as best we can. In a country where mistrust can sour relations, it was a positive story for the broadcast. I think my neighbour came out with the best quote of the day though. She was asked for the first thing that came to mind when she thought about the EU and she said, "Family." I think that is a brilliant analogy. As in all families we don't always get along, but we try to find the best way forward. At least I think that is what we should be trying to do.

The elder tree is starting to bud

The swamp at least still has water in it. This is Ian's makeshift
bridge he put in last year to make a section of our land more
accessible

He found our cranberry patch is still under snow though

Brencis and Herkules enjoying time outside in the paddock.
Mind you they are itching to get out on the grass but it
hasn't grown enough yet.

She wasn't the only visitor this week. We've had a couple who came to take the alpacas for a walk and they have uploaded a video to page that discusses different places to go in Latvia. It will be interesting to see if we get more visitors through that. We also had a visit from another neighbour who owns land but doesn't actually live on site and he wants Ian's help to dig foundations for a cabin he is planning on building this year. So that's a job for Ian this coming week. He won't be bored.

The weeds are doing well despite the lack of rain. Here you
can see the docks and ground elder coming through

Sigh! And this is cow parsley that we don't want either

The pig damage harrowed. You can see how dry the ground
is though

This week Ian has been busy harrowing the land to deal with the mole hills, the pig damage and to scarify the moss a bit. It is looking better now than it did but not as good as we would like as we've hardly had any rain. It is hard to believe that we are worrying already about a lack of rain, when the snow has only just gone and we are not even half way through April. We also both went to the camp/sheep farm where Ian will be working part time. We were putting plans together for a new vegetable garden and to sort out the plans to rework the old vegetable garden so that it doesn't wash soil down the hill. Because Ian has a two wheel tractor he can work across the garden, whereas a large tractor can only work up and down making ridges - which is why the soil was washing down the hill. By mulching and slight terracing he should be able to make sure that doesn't happen. We will also make sure there is a good herb garden and start on organising raised beds with the sheep manure.

More greenery

These were last years potato beds. We planted the potatoes
into the manure and then after we pulled up the potatoes
heavily mulched the plots for over winter. I pulled off the
hay that hadn't rotted down and raked it. The only digging
I did was to straighten the edges. The right hand side has
got parsnip seeds in and the left-hand side has another type
of parsnip, hamburg parsnip and a salad mix.

I've been working on other little projects. Another article for a webpage but it needs mulling over and a project for my grandson that is taking far more time than I would like. It has been one of those projects that sounded like a good idea at the time and involved a bit of filming. I then tried to download the iMovie but my software was out of date, so I had to upgrade my software to Mojave. Well that went okay and I'm getting used to the dark side. It is easier on the eye to have more black and less white on my screen but of course it takes time to sort things out. I also found out that my computer could not read the format of my sound recording, although my old computer never had a problem with it and so that was another piece of software to download to make that work. Pah! I'm getting there now. I just need to synchronise visual and sound. Hmmm!

I cut back the autumn raspberries and mulched this with the
hay from out of the alpaca houses that Ian has stacked over
winter. It has alpaca poo in too, but it doesn't need to compost
to be added to the garden, so this should make a good mulch
for them.

Another view of our rather parched looking land

Something has been busy doing a bit of
woodwork. Possibly a deer or an elk. Wish
they would stick to trees like this rather
than our orchard.

The boys looking for the tiniest bit of grass. We are not sure if
they are eating the moss too. Don't worry, they still have plenty
of hay to eat.

Ian has been busy chopping and stacking the wood for next
winter

Errr! The cats busy sleeping

It came, it went

A magical Narnia like scene once again

I guess it has been that kind of a coming and going week in more ways than one. The Brexit deadline came and went and the UK is still in the EU for now. March came and went. The snow came and went. It is frightening how fast this year seems to be speeding by. We even moved out of the apartment and into the caravan for the summer on Sunday. Although it snowed last week, the days since have been sunny, which makes staying in the caravan okay. It is still in the greenhouse protected from the wind and therefore has some insulation of sorts and soon heats up with an electric radiator.

The snow then headed to the land and this is Ian's photo
just as it was arriving

The day after was a glorious but cold day

I do feel a bit responsible for the snow. I did say in last weeks blog that it would snow because I had planted some seeds outside, so lo and behold it did. It didn't last long though and now the snow is only lingering in the shadiest of places like the forest. The grass is beginning to show some small signs of recovery and the weeds are racing to get ahead. It meant I was able to forage enough leafy stuff to add to a meat soup. It makes a change from squash and onions anyway.

Dear, sweet little Freddie. He had his splint taken off
on Friday and so far he is doing well and his leg looks
good.

The young men of the group. Soon to be joined by two
little ones

Talking of Brexit, I got an email from the Estonian authorities outlining what will happen as a British citizen in Estonia after Brexit either with a deal or without. It was reassuring on the basis that they will issue British Nationals with the relevant ID and there will be no hurry. They will also allow me to return to the country, which is a relief. There is so much unknown, especially with the MPs in the UK Parliamentarians still discussing the issue at this time in the process. As the MEP Guy Verhofstadt said, please can the Parliamentarians vote "for" something and not just vote "no" all the time.  Such a shambles!

Oh Mr. P. You do need your teeth cutting.
Couldn't you have waited until shearing
time?

A stork visiting our pond

Anyway leaving politics aside for now, we've also had some comings and goings on the farm. The storks have come back from their long jaunt and visitors have been arriving to see us and the alpacas. The first group consisted of one of our local friends from the nearby sheep farm and camp and a guy from England who manages a large walled garden. I remember many years ago watching the Victorian Kitchen Garden that was set in a derelict walled garden and I always loved the idea of having a sun soaking walled garden. I did use to do some gardening for a friend at one time in the old walled garden on her farm, but that wasn't quite so grand as our visitors' 4 acre plot. We had a good time though talking about some of the ideas we use here on our farm and thinking how we could incorporate a no-till garden into the set up at the sheep farm with a demonstration plot too. This will be Ian's part-time job to develop over time with probably a bit of input and moral support from me.

Up close!

Brencis looking very stately and calm here. He's lovely
really and will come up and allow you to stroke his
neck - well most of the time and if you have food.

We also had another three groups who had come to see the alpacas. One group arrived as we were walking Josefs and so they were thrilled to see us walking across with him on a lead, but I don't think Josefs was that thrilled as were were just on our way back to his mum when we spotted the group. He was fine though and we soon wandered over to take him back. The next group were an international group, a Dutch guy with his Russian wife and two children now living in Riga. They came for the tour and then walked two of our alpacas. We took Tellus, who is a steady plodding sort of alpaca and Mr. P because Brencis is getting a little more unpredictable. He is just coming into full adulthood and I am sure he will calm down a bit later, but he's too big for young children to take for a walk. We hold on too while youngsters walk the alpacas but we still need the alpacas to be calm and sensible all the time.

George and Freddie, sill best buddies

You could even call them drinking buddies

The last group were an interesting group. They had come from the north of Latgale (East Latvia) and so north east of where we are. They have lots of animals, ostriches, emus, horses, goats and so on. They are another mini-zoo and had bought three alpacas last year from Lithuania. They had a good tour around and fortunately organised for a young woman to come and translate for them, so they could find out a lot of information. They also went away with some of the special alpaca food, lots of advice and we also got another booking for shearing. In addition to all that going on we got our first enquiry online for the felting course we will be having in August. All in all it definitely feels like we are heading into summer.

Turbjørn

Tellus looking like a wise old sage

What are you guys looking at?

Oh so that's who you've seen. Some female red deer

They stayed around long enough for Ian to run back to
get me and then back again to get his camera with the
long lens on. Not the best photos but as you can see from
the photo of the boys' the sun was going down. It's sights
like these that makes putting up with the cramped and
sometimes cold conditions of living in a caravan all
worth while.