The Journey: Pine Marten

Sorry no photos of the pine marten, it
was nighttime. Will one of Ilvija do?
She is getting more and more
inquisitive. I don't think it will be long
before she is eating from the trays. She's
been very interested in everyone's tray

Just after I finished the blog last week Ian heard a noise. He has exceptional hearing -well, exceptional compared to mine. He went out to investigate. It seems there was a pine marten on top of the nesting box on the side of the barn that had been taken over by wasps. He was impressed with its climbing abilities and that seems to be characteristic of those creatures. The reason for it being up there was obviously it was partial to a little wasp snack and by the next morning the wasp nest had disappeared.

The wasps nest in the process of being
created. It got far more elaborate than
this before the pine marten destroyed
it. It saved Ian a job and he had been
wondering how he was going to remove it.

Michaelmas daises are blooming. This
was early one morning so the flash
went off.

Now the nesting box seems to be inhabited by hornets though. Not sure if they are just finishing off the job that the pine marten did or not, as they do eat wasps. At least it does seem to have cured the wasp problem. We are beginning to wonder if maybe it was the pine marten digging up the wasps or whether it was badgers or both. I also wonder if it was a pine marten responsible for removing another wasp nests on the side of the barn a few years ago, we thought it was birds. Maybe not! Interesting what goes on around here in the night.

The sun just coming up. I was surprised to note how far it
has moved since summer.

Three rows of potatoes dug and one more to go

On Tuesday we drove to the airport and Ian flew to the UK. He's seeing the kids and grandkids first and then heading to an alpaca course. So now I'm in charge of all the animals as well as my usual jobs. There's been plenty to do. The weather was fine but the forecast for the weekend was for it to turn wet. I was worried about the potatoes still in the ground that they might get blighted, especially since we've already had some wet weather. First of all I went to the camp where we've been helping with the garden and with help from some others we dug up the carrots, beets and potatoes. The next day it was turn for our own potatoes. We had made a start but the majority still needed digging. I was quite surprised that I wasn't aching after 5 wheelbarrow loads of potatoes. I think walking backwards and forward to sort the animals out helped.

The soil is beautiful. Ian dumps alpaca
manure directly on the beds over the
winter and then I plant the potatoes
into them in spring. No digging. I just
used my hands to get the potatoes, so
no fork marks either. The soil is so
friable, it just falls away and easy to
move.

Some potatoes got rather large

White potatoes in the foreground and
beans on the rack behind

On Saturday there was rain forecast for the afternoon. I continued digging potatoes and just dumping them in the greenhouse to dry off. Another 2 wheelbarrow loads. I also carted in beans still attached to their supports, chickpeas and dried out broad beans. All just propped up or dumped in the greenhouse - I planned to deal with them later. The main focus was to get everything inside. I also cleaned out the chickens, as well as the usual poo clearing for the alpacas, which has to be done every day. While I was doing all that I noticed a Lada Riva pull onto the land and sighed! Visitors! They were a lovely couple, the travelling hippy type. She was from Norway and he was Latvian. They are planning on moving to Spain to build a house and were first just introducing the newest addition to the family to his father later on that day.

Red potatoes and the beans shrouded in fleece straight from
the garden behind

The beans under cover in the garden before being taken into
the greenhouse.

Looks like Herk enjoyed seeing visitors
too.

I enjoyed their visit even though the eldest daughter was scared of the alpacas. They took it in turns to stay with her while the other one met the alpacas. The little girl did say goodbye to the alpacas - from a distance sat on her dad's shoulders. It was safe up there! It put extra pressure on me tough to get the jobs done, so I missed morning coffee and snacked on some cracker things that someone had given us a while ago for lunch. I sat down to eat a meal and have a drink about 4pm, after another set of visitors had gone and I had finished cleaning out the chickens. These vistors were more interested in taking selfies with the alpacas than anything else and couldn't speak much English anyway. The good news is I made it! Just in time! As I was eating the rain started. I was tired, not aching but glad it was over - apart from the fact that now everything needed to be sorted out in the greenhouse and I had some computer work to catch up on.

The same view on different days. A bright crisp morning

A foggy morning

A dull day. The change within just a week is amazing though.
The conifers are beginning to stand out now that the trees
behind are changing colour

I had my haircut too. It's a bit
shorter than normal but that is so
that I can go longer between hair
cuts. I have a lot of travelling to
do.

Sunday I started catching up on work and in between in the breaks sorting out in the greenhouse. About lunchtime a guy turned up to see if he and his parents could see the alpacas. His mum, who lives locally, had been wanting to see them for a while but she doesn't speak English, He had been working in Denmark for 8 years and so his English was pretty good. His Mum was very inquisitive about the alpacas and he was amazed at how much there was to learn about them. I have obviously paid enough attention to what Ian says to be able to regurgitate some of the information. They must have been looking on our website because he knew we had knitted socks and was going to buy some but his Mum decided on buying a skein of Veronica's wool instead. They even had to go back into the village to get enough cash to buy it, but were quite happy to do so. Ian is going to have to get cracking with spinning some more, stocks are quite low now.

There are still mushrooms about.
This one I think is the dull cousin of the
Fly Argaric - the pretty red one with
white spots. This one is called the
panther cap. It's a bit old now.

With glove to give you an idea of
size. Not edible anyway or at
least I'm not eating it.

A rather nibbled tree. I hope it will
be okay

The lady commented on the fact the boys were eating the bark of the oak tree. She said that it is something that is eaten to cure diarrhoea. I explained they shouldn't be eating the bark anyway and had only just started. Today I sorted the fence out so that they can't go near the tree. Ian can sort it out when he gets back. There wasn't a huge amount of grass anyway and so they needed moving. She also asked why all our potatoes were in the light in the greenhouse - I think at this point her son was getting a little exasperated with all her questions and he laughed when I said it was because I had only dug them up yesterday and that was a job for today to bag them up. I think she thought I was just storing them in the greenhouse. Oh well!

The same tree in the morning with the sun rising behind it.
Looks like a burning bush with the contra trail behind

Morning coffee. At least I got a
morning coffee this morning.

Today I started steaming grapes for the juice. They are a bit squishy for eating because they got frosted, so I just popped them into the steamer and I'm in the process of draining the juice directly into a demijohn. Once it's full I shall then take it back to the apartment and add some yeast and see what happens. If it's no good it will make vinegar and if its not that palatable it will be made into a mulled wine. I will make it work one way or another. Nothing wasted in our house. Well I must be toddling along now, still some work to do.