RIP Spuggie

This was Spuggie as a little chick. One of those will be
Black Tail too but she was a little hard to pick out at this
stage. Unfortunately I haven't got any recent photos of
Spuggie on this computer.

Spuggie, the Geordie name for a sparrow, was a survivor. She got her name because she resembled a little sparrow when she was born, a little stripey brown chick, amongst all the yellow and peach coloured ones. She grew up in an ark that we moved daily and then as we raised more chicks we decided to let her and her cohort become free range chickens. We did this for a couple of years, raising new chicks and putting the older ones in a hutch in the alpaca paddock. The idea was that the alpacas would protect them. We did this until we got to the stage of losing too many of them to foxes and birds of prey.

A view of the ski hill from a track we have or at least had
around our land for alpaca walks. Details below

Herk have you been rolling in the mud? Last year I used to
cover him in clay to protect a sore spot from the flies, he
obviously thought it was a good idea.
He is one of the alpacas that was meant to protect the chickens
and didn't. We used to say that they had a hotline to all the
foxes and birds of prey to tell them we were out and come
and get the pesky chickens. 

Obviously the alpaca deterrent wasn't working and the chickens went through the fences anyway and left the potential protection of the alpacas. Big bird, the only female broiler chicken we managed to hatch even had a big bite on her behind from one fox attack. We had known the alpacas watch with amazed expressions on their faces as a bird of prey circled the hen house causing panic amongst the chickens until we chased it off. So it was with great reluctance that we decided that free ranging was not working for us and Spuggie and those who were left were re-incarcerated in an ark to be moved daily in summer. That was a few summers ago now and Spuggie and Black tail have hung on from the second brood we ever raised (Big bird was in the first brood and died a few years back at a great age for a broiler chicken of over 3 years).

Ilvija is definitely the most inquisitive cria I've seen in a while

Mari and Ilvija are definitely good friends. We were worried
at first that maybe Mari would hurt her, but they seem to
encourage each other and Ilvija does not run away all the
time.

Spuggie was always a bird with a full crop. She always looked like she had got food stuck in it and if any other chicken looked that full we would have been worried, but not with Spuggie. We were used to her waddling around, her crop swinging about looking so stuffed we wondered how she could possibly move. She was still the boss though to the end, albeit a boss with an eye for the fellas. Unfortunately the other night we found her with a leg that seemed to be unresponsive. We settled her comfortably into the ark to see if she had just hurt it rather than put her on her own in the cat basket, but by the morning she had passed away. Her end was swift. I do wonder looking back if she was struggling a bit with her legs the day before but up until then she was often one of the first in for food every night. RIP Spuggie, you had a good innings of just over 7 years. So now all that remains of that brood is Black Tail, a chicken often too intelligent for her own good but still going.

Poor Freddie, he often looks startled. Bless him!

A soggy looking Jakobs.

The day I found Spuggie dead in the ark was a rather busy day. I ran into the village (in the car of course) for some supplies and called in for some cheese from my friend the goat farmer. Late morning a lady I had met at the Rural Parliament came with her husband and some friends with their two girls. We had a great time chatting, seeing the alpacas and drinking tea and eating cake. In the middle of that a vet who is beginning to specialise in alpacas came with her mother, so more alpaca visiting and talking about alpacas. Our friends hung around and helped us to cut the toe nails of the boys, which involved haltering up Brencis and the two guys who came hanging onto him while Ian cut his nails. He is a lovely guy, except when it comes to shearing and toe nails and then he becomes quite uncooperative. Not good for a huge chap. I must admit to leaving them to it while I had a chat about development and such with my friend from the Rural Parliament.

The boys out enjoying the cooler weather

This! Yes we had rain, but also some trucks turning round on
this spot. Our driveway is not designed to take big trucks.

We did it! Just enough bales now to get
us through the year, with still more to cut
if the weather will just hold long enough.

Our friends left to get something to eat and I went back into our village with Ian to collect a young lass from France. She was a friend of my long-time crazy young friend (crazy in a good way, you understand and I wouldn't have her any other way). My young friend had suggested a few places to camp in Latvia and she chose to come and visit us. What a blessing she was. When we were busy, she pitched in and when we weren't ,we either sat around and chatted or she read. It was so good to have someone help us on a rather hot day to gather the bales of hay and get them put away before the rain. She camped by the side of our greenhouse, which is one of the few flat areas to camp on our land and went with the flow. She helped with washing up or whatever little or big job needed doing.

Ilvija's neck is now just about long enough to reach the
ground to eat the grass.

You can never have too many baby alpaca pictures.

She also joined in chatting with friends and came with us to visit others. She went with Ian when he went up to our friends north of us with alpacas to collect some feed and see her new alpacas that had arrived that day and she went with me to my goat farming friend to pick up her daughter who also came to do some work for us again. It was rather sad to see her set off on the bus to Riga today the first leg on her way back to France on the bus.

Rain clouds gathering from the south.

A lovely evening sky to relax with.

It has been such a lovely weekend with great visitors but the only downside was the good weather was followed by the rain on Monday. It was only meant to be a short shower, but we got a deluge instead. It wouldn't have been so bad but we are still trying to finish off hay cutting. Ian had cut the steep part of the hill and had planned to turn it to get it off the floor but ran out of time. He turned it this morning even though it was still damp in the hopes that it might dry off, but it rained again. We still will have to clear it, we cannot allow it to rot onto the field, otherwise we lose subsidies.

I love the stripes but would rather see it baled. You can see
a bale on the left hand side. It is one of the large bales that
should be on top of the hill. As our friend and
I were rolling bales together to make them easier to collect,
there was a guy baling for our neighbour at the top. Ian
pipped the horn of his tractor and pointed up the hill. At first I
thought that he was pointing to the large number of storks
setting off (Ian counted 27 storks), but I then realised he was
pointing to this huge bale rolling down the hill. I did move
slightly and watched until I was sure it was heading away
from me and not heading towards the road. 

An evening rainbow

Our very own grumpy, pesky cat. This week's haul was
nearly a large tub of sour cream. Fortunately, although she
got the lid off, we caught her before she had eaten very
much of it. A rattle of a pan has her skulking around. It's
driving me mad.

Other snippets of news this week is that a paper I co-authored was officially published this week. I had heard it was accepted a few weeks back but now it is online (unfortunately behind a paywall though - link here if you are interested and have access). Ian finally got around to fixing the horse box, which was a good job as we needed it to collect hay from the field. He also had to take a wheel to get another puncture fixed. Not good. And finally the mushroom year continues and we managed to collect more and get them dried. So potatoes, mushrooms and peas for winter this year it would seem.

The daisies are looking a little sad after the rain

The apples are ripening

Welcome to the jungle.

The road alongside our land is being remodelled. They are
putting in humungous ditches. This is going to be fun! Not!
Imagine what it will be like when it has rained consistently and
turns into mud soup or when it has snowed and turned to ice.
Now imagine a huge logging truck or one of the frequent
trucks heading to the biogas unit hurtling along the road. A recipe
for an accident unfortunately.
 

This is the top of our land. When they put an electric cable in
they created a track that we had been using to access some
woodland for mushroom picking. We can't get this way now
the only options are to access it by road, scramble down the
bank or over a swamp. Hmmph! The road is dangerous to
walk along on this stretch as it is on a bend.

And this is the bank to scramble down

Another view of the bank. The only other option is to cut
back more trees on the left of this picture.

They have also sculpted the soil back onto the land. It isn't
technically ours as the road belongs to the state up to 11m
from the centre. Only this does go over the path where we used
to walk the alpacas and will need remaking now.

It is already washing away into the ditch too.

And full of water after the rain.

Yes of course you can park on our land! Without asking!
It is a good job that we had already cut the hay.