Divides

The golden rays of sunrise, just before the sun went and hid
itself behind the clouds for the rest of the day. It was nice
while it lasted.

It has been an exciting time in our village for all the wrong reasons. There is a dispute over a forest next to a local museum that celebrates the life of a famous Latvian writer. It has even made national news and been the subject of debates on the tv. As usual there are some who are vehemently for the clearing of the nearby forest, arguing it is dangerous and is of felling age and therefore should be done. Then there are those who are equally vehement that it can be managed and there is no need for the forested area to be totally cleared and become an eyesore for the next five years or so. Even the National Heritage Administration got involved and a letter was sent to the local council, which halted the sale for two weeks. Apparently the sale was illegal as it is within a set distance away from a National Heritage Museum and a plan needed to be drawn up to ensure it is not be visually impacted in a negative way.

The sunrise gave a golden glow to the
trees out the front too.

Well I suppose it is warmer in there. Eyre asleep in some
plastic bags

I tend to agree with the latter group but mainly because it does not appear to have followed regulations and again takes no account of people's feelings on the matter. It seems the council is anxious to get the money from selling the felling rights though and so the auction is now timetabled to go ahead on the 30th November instead of the 14th as originally planned. Not long for a proper consultation or for drawing up adequate plans for the area in accordance with the regulations. A protest has been planned to coincide with the auction, adding to the already bitterly divided atmosphere within the village, between those who support the local mayor and those who want to see change for the better. There are some administrative changes planned soon though, so he won't be mayor for very much longer and it will be interesting to see if things do start to change then.

Lots of alpacas! It seems like it took a while to get there, but
it now feels like a real alpaca farm. The new acquisitions
are at the back and the ones we've had for awhile with the
babies are at the front. 

The new girls, our most recent acquisitions, now called
Vanessa's lot. Vanessa is the one at the front.

My concern is over the division. We seem to be going through a period of time when divisions seem to be deepening in many places. There are those who are working in the opposite track though. This quote was taken from the blog Empathic Creativity: Generative Transformation and reflects on the actions of the young girl nicknamed Scout in the book To Kill a Mockingbird. It involves a scene where she faces an angry mob who want to lynch a local black man and she reaches out to one of the neighbours as a human being.

It must be Movember!

If we are faced with an angry mob, ready to do the unthinkable horror of our days, what would be our response? To fight back with fire against fire, respond in hatred against hatred? I suggest we follow Scout's lead in calling people to remember. Scout did not confront the bigotry by arguing for justice. What she accomplished in her naiveté was to step into the mob, to remind people that they were her neighbors. Within a culture that is full of cynicism, apathy and anger, we must remind one another to remember. Our task as artists is to remind people that they are our neighbors. Our arts should lead others to recall who they are. And by doing so, we may remind them, and ourselves, who we are. Our responsibility is to re-humanize the divide, to speak a "third language" of generative creativity that defuses the cultural war language.

Best buds! Well maybe. They are so active still

It's a long read but worth a look. It argues for a redemptive kind of talk, one that builds bridges rather than burns them. In this day and age we need it.

I was in the gallery so looking down on the rather nice
natural decorations

The 18th November was a momentous occasion for Latvia, the country we now call home. It is one hundred years since they first declared independence. Such a young country and yet they had it snatched away from them for 50 years by the Soviets. Of course there were lots of events and fireworks over the anniversary weekend. It is kind of hard to drag ourselves out in the evening, especially when it has been damp and dreary all day though and so I nearly didn't make it out. There was an event on in our village the day before the anniversary but we went to a friend's house instead, since we hadn't seen them in ages. On the day of the anniversary I decided to go instead to an event in the nearest little village with my friend who I had seen the day before. Of course it was all in Latvian but I could kind of follow along with the general gist of it, so that was nice. It also followed the usual pattern of singing, voice overs and then followed by an hour of thank yous, so I knew the format well.

The choir gathering bunches of flowers from all the people
that thanked them

Veronica, Vanessa's mum. Definitely no green grass now

If you follow my blog you may remember that I apologised for not posting last Monday - my normal blog night - as I got back rather late from a Lithuanian road trip. Earlier on this year we had a visit by a local family who had just bought some alpacas. There were a couple of issues with their purchase, such as one turning out to be older than they were led to believe and two not being pregnant when they were told they were. It made them realise that there needs to be more collaboration between breeders and maybe even a register, so we all took a road trip down to Lithuania to meet with another breeder with similar ideas. Ian had taken them up to Estonia last month while I was away to talk to other breeders up there, so that slowly we start to build up the networks and make some positive changes.

He's such a mucky kid, but cute with it. We think he must be
rubbing himself on the salt block. He doesn't seem to be
actually eating it that much. Mind you Valeria from Vanessa's
lot is addicted to the salt block and Ian is going to remove it
tomorrow for her own good.

I'm cute too you know! 

Whilst we were in Lithuania it was interesting to hear of a slightly different approach to raising and caring for alpacas. They do not have as much land as we do and so the males and females are let out on alternate days, which surprised us. They looked well on it though, the food they were given obviously suited them. So we are trying out a bag to see how our alpacas take to it. We like the stuff they are on at the minute but it has two drawbacks, one it is expensive and two it is so small that it makes it difficult for Ian to use for halter training. We would consider using both together rather than just one sort. We found out the vet the lady uses has quite a lot of experience and so that might also be a good contact to make to help to improve knowledge in Latvia. There are many more alpacas in Lithuania and hence more experience. We found out though that there is generally not so much interest in the fleece quality, which is much the same as in Latvia and Estonia. We also got some more ideas on treating mites and possible treatments, so we will probably give that a go. Just need to get hold of the cream now.

We gained a hunting tower to help get some control over
the wild boar and the problem we have of them digging
up our land. 

I love the angle of this shot. It makes it look like we have a
Chinese pagoda on our land, with the mystical George
moving through the mists. Just in case you are wondering, it
is just the tin roof of the boys alpaca house

Sweet little Freddie hunting for some green grass. Don't
worry we have plenty of hay, but the do prefer the grass.

I will do a catch up for the last week tomorrow. It was a busy old week.