The Journey: Weird

A rather weird tomato from our greenhouse

I'm sat in our apartment on my own and will be sleeping the night here. To most people that would probably not sound so strange, but for me it is. I think the last time I stayed overnight here was back in April. We've been in the caravan out on our land all that time apart from when I have been travelling. I'm also on my own because Ian is across in the UK. He went to do an alpaca parasitology course and is now on a round the world.... errr round the UK trip to see the grandkids, oh and the children of course. He will get to see the youngest one for the first time later on this week.

I finally got the waistcoats finished for
two of my grandchildren before Ian
left for the UK. I have been in the process
since about March, maybe even February

My walk to see the sheep. This day they were
easy to see, but today they gave me a bit of a
fright as I couldn't see them at all, until I had
just about walked all the way around their
area. Ian has set up a large area for them
amongst the trees and so they were well
hidden. Neither did they hear me calling or
were ignoring me.

I had to take Ian to the airport on the Wednesday but it was a bit of a longer trip than normal due to. bridge repairs one way and road works the other. Our route to the airport is usually quite quiet and we rarely see much traffic until we get closer to Riga, but the routes I took this time were all a bit more congested. I suppose I should be grateful it was only about 20 mins more and not hours like it could be elsewhere. Ian got held up on his way back to the airport to drop off the lady who was doing the same course. They agreed he would do the driving as the lady was not used to driving on the left hand side and was a bit nervous about doing that. My poor son though had to wait for him at the airport meanwhile racking up car parking charges.

I'm not sure how many raspberries we will get this year before
the frosts finish them off, but I am enjoying them for breakfast
while I can. I have also frozen a small tub of them, so Ian can
enjoy at least some. Autumn raspberries are always a bit hit and
miss for us

These all went in an apple and raspberry crumble or on
my breakfast

They are quite large

The marshmallows are still flowering
well. They are sweet looking flowers
and this is despite being hammered in
winds a few weeks ago

It has also felt weird this week because I haven't actually seen a living soul since Wednesday. That's okay it has been kind of nice getting into some sort of a rhythm looking after the animals and the garden. I have done bits of work on my paper I am supposed to be writing but it feels rather slow and I think it is because I am at the stage of needing new glasses, which makes staring at a computer screen hard. The weather has been lovely for the most part, a bit chilly at times and we had our first frosts, but no rain. So I have been doing some garden tidying up jobs. It is forecast to rain tomorrow and so I thought I would head back to the apartment and freeze some garden produce while I can, as I need to be here at around 8am for milk day anyway.

Looking a bit battered

Aggie in one of her challenging poses

Normally I would let the alpacas our first in the morning before breakfast, but if it is going to rain all day, they might have to stay in, so being in the apartment isn't a problem. I made sure they had enough hay and water to keep them going until I get there though. They have been reasonably well behaved, apart from Aggie who has challenged me a little but I just ignore her mainly. She gets over it! Nothing serious. Brencis has been quite sweet and coming up to me, except when I had a harness in my hand. Some people emailed to ask if they could come and visit to take an alpaca for a walk, but of course it went to Ian first and then had to come to me and by the time I managed to get hold of them, they had decided to go to Sigulda. She did apologise as the email was sent late at night and is now thinking of coming at a later date. That suits me as Brencis was proving to be too difficult to catch easily. I'm sure I would have managed eventually, but it was not as easy as it usually is for Ian.

Chanel telling Frederiks it is time to feed

He's getting quite big now

Letting the animals out in the morning has been no problem, putting away though has taken some getting used to, especially as the nights seem to be cutting out quicker and quicker. One night I had put the boys away and then decided to start my evening meal cooking as we don't have lights for our outdoor kitchen and it was starting to get a bit dim. I must have got a bit distracted as I suddenly realised that the girls were all looking in my direction and wondering where their food was. I virtually finished cooking my meal that night in the dark.

Frederiks seems to complement the autumn colours behind

Yes they are over there somewhere!

There is also the issue of mucking out. Normally Ian would do that while I fed the chickens and made the coffee, but now I have to do it. I finally decided that mucking out the alpaca house first was not working with the girls. They now have the freedom of a huge paddock and lugging a big bucket around full of you know what was hard work. Now I do their paddock first and finish off in the alpaca house and only then have to carry the full bucket the shorter distance to the garden. Now that many of the plants have gone over we have started putting the manure directly on the garden to rot down in situ ready for next years gardening. In the case of the boys I do their alpaca house first as it is further away from the garden anyway and their paddock area is closer. I have to remember to go back though and switch the electric fence back on after finishing. I always remember to do that because there have been too many times when I have seen Mr. P. looking longingly in the direction of the girls and I don't want any issues of that nature.

I went for a walk in the woods to see if I could find cranberries.
There were some but not many, but I did find some interesting
mushrooms of course. None that I knew to be edible though

A mushroom high rise

Our internet has been really pretty poor just lately and so I wrote to complain. As expected, eventually a nice young man (well he sounded young) rang to enquire what the issues were. Of course he did not offer any other solution than a router with an antenna at greater cost. He mentioned that the mobile towers in our village are not very high and maybe the trees had grown since last year or maybe someone has a new roof that is affecting the signal. Or more likely that more and more people are actually online and they haven't got enough bandwith for all of us and not going to do anything about it. As I mentioned I am in the village tonight and I was hoping to take advantage of a faster internet, but it is not much different to out on our land really. My download speed tonight is apparently currently 1.98Mbps and upload is 1.67Mbps. Not exactly stunning as it is possible at times to get 6Mbps upload speed. I think another complaint maybe in order.

The route was a bit tricky in places and wet. It was worth it
though to smell the bog myrtle in the area where the cranberries
grow. The advantage of having a smartphone on me was being
able to use it to finally identify the plant that makes the
wonderful smell. Well at least I hope I have.

More autumn colours

I mentioned last week that a flock of geese flew over, which effectively announces that winter is on its way. It was only one small flock last week, but yesterday I saw two much larger ones fly over and heard another this morning. So maybe mid-October we could have snow. Yikes! It was certainly chillier this morning, not because of the temperatures exactly but the wind.

The dahlias have survived the first frosts

The new asparagus plants are also doing
well

Being on my own has meant more time to think. It has been one of those weeks with lots of news about people getting upset with others. One that stands out is the protests about the American flag. I find the whole veneration of the flag and the anthem rather bizarre, but I know it means a lot to some of my friends. It made me think about what our identities are built on. Mine is most certainly not a flag or the queen or pride in my country of birth. I'm British, there is no denying it, it makes me who I am. I'm a possibly eccentric Brit but there are still traits that are quintessentially British even after living outside the country for nearly 15 years now. With the whole issue of Brexit, I had wondered about Latvian citizenship, but I have never pledged an oath to a country in my life and don't really intend on doing it now. Maybe I will change my mind if I have to, but my allegiance is to Jesus and a simple yes or no is all that he required. I just do not get pledging an oath of allegiance at all, it is not who I am. So who are you? What does your identity rest in?