A week of calm

I'm sure Jakobs draws his eyebrows every morning. Mind
you, it is not as perfect on the other side.

I have been back home for over a week now, with no plans to go on any jaunts for a while - well if you discount the day trip into Riga later on this week. That means back to writing, writing and errrr, more writing. There was some sorting out of admin and some catching up where necessary as well, but not much else.

Recycling time. It was pretty bad that we've
been using scraps of papers to mark the
prices on the items we produced. Unfortunately
we just hadn't got anything better at the time.
I bought a tag punch when I was in England
and started making tags from a classy calendar
that a friend of ours produced a while ago.
Much better!

This was the first point that the animal tried to get in

I mentioned last week that over a period of a couple of days chickens were disappearing in the night on our farm. We had managed to get all the chickens in the ark box while I was there and hoped that would sort the problem out, but no! Whatever was taking off with our chickens was more persistent than that. One night of no access to chickens wasn't enough. Ian emailed me to say he had found the cockerel dead and one other chicken had disappeared. He put the remaining two chickens into one of the other arks and made sure they were all away that night. The cockerel was largely intact, so Ian plucked it and brought it home. We weren't wasting it. We had already been deprived of three other chickens.

We've had another dusting of snow, but its been and gone again.
At least the sun shone

We think it is the wind  that has blown the snow across the
pond, rather than some animal. The ice would be rather thin
to take the weight of an animal this year.

Unfortunately, chickens are not always blessed with the most wonderful of brains and so some of the chickens are not going away at nights despite the danger. They are more secure than in the other ark, because their arks are resting on logs with no gaps, but with some digging it would be possible to get underneath the logs. The chickens are not even eating that much, so cannot be enticed in with food, like normal. They seem bored with their food just lately. It hadn't done the cockerel much harm as he was the fattiest bird I have ever had to prepare for cooking. Maybe it's the weather, it has been pretty gloomy again. It may also be they are unsettled due to the animal that has been taking the others. Still, you would think they would be anxious to be put away in safety. Not so! If the animal finds a way in, then that will be another ark to cull, rather than be food for the local wildlife. It will be a shame if we end up having to buy chickens next year to replace them.

Vanessa looks like she's just got up

You're supposed to eat it, not wear it on your nose Silla. Silla
is a bit of an odd one. She often sits outside, even in the
pouring rain. Doesn't seem to do her any harm though.

I had some good news this week. While I was away one of my supervisors asked if I could do some other work. I could begin slowly but it would last until June. Well that is three months longer than my contract now, so I said yes, especially as I am winding down on getting my thesis done. I was even more delighted to find out that I will get a pay rise when my current contract runs out at the end of March. That should provide me with a bit of a cushion to see us through for a bit longer.

Our old man, Herk. He's been looking quite sprightly and so
Ian was a little shocked to see he's actually lost quite a bit of
weight just lately. Ian has ordered some feed that might at
least help him put some weight back on. It might be that his
teeth are not so good now, which will make it harder for him
to get the most from his food. He doesn't seem to have an
overload of parasites fortunately, as Ian has just tested his poo.

Honeysuckle starting to bud. I have a feeling it is going to
regret that later on in the winter. It isn't over yet! Or is it?

I made a point of more or less taking the weekend off. I did reply to some emails, but nothing major. I recognise that some of my colleagues also work some odd hours and so we are all often juggling getting work done around other tasks. I went out with Ian to the land. We are having some very mild winter weather compared to a normal Latvian winter. It hasn't been much below freezing so far this year, in fact it was colder and snowier in October and November. What that does mean, though is that I was able to get some gardening jobs done. I mulched some beds with old hay, rather than digging them over, which I had planned to do agggggesss ago. I also pulled up some grass that had made its way into my herb bed - that should have died off long ago, but it was looking rather spring-like. I also trimmed some maple trees that we were using for hedging and had got too big.

Our old lady, Lady V, continues to plod on. Her legs are getting
more bent despite the Vitamin D injections but her body score
is still good, so she isn't losing condition overall.

Turbjørn enjoying the sun

Towards the end of the afternoon, as we were having coffee before putting the animals away, some visitors arrived. They had planned on arriving earlier but they got delayed. Fortunately they have been before and the main reason for coming was not to see the alpacas, although they did say hello to them, but to see us. We were going to chat about..... business (that reminds me of The Muppet Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer Scrooge sees his old headmaster again -youtube link here). This young couple were quite enthusiastic about helping us plot a way forward and could see a lot of potential in the farm. So could we, but actually bringing the ideas to the point where we can do something, is always an issue. We need a push and some routes to realise some of our ideas and some of their ideas too. We went back to our apartment to continue the conversation and over a meal and the next few hours, we chatted backwards and forwards. Our heads were fair buzzing that night.

Ian does have a backlog of orders now. This is some of
Freddies fleece on the carder

A nice pile of carded fleece

The following day I planned to do some tidying up. Not that remarkable really but a novelty for me with being away so much. Instead I was ill. Grumble! Grumble! I got a bit done but generally just lounged around, drinking lots of cups of tea and feeling sorry for myself. So much for some quiet tinkering around the house, getting some sorting out done. Ha! Maybe next time.

Ian sat amongst the bags of fleece, spinning
away. He's getting very good now. We had
another order from someone I have met on my
travels too. That will keep him busy for a whle
yet then!

Marie in contemplative mood

I mentioned last week that Ian's oldest brother passed away. I've been thinking over the week about what I could write about him. The most memorable thing about Ian's brother, Ron, was that he was always someone with a smile on his face and ready with a quip to make others smile. Even in his later years when he had issues with diabetes that meant he had limbs amputated and experienced a lot of pain, he was still ready with a smile. His jolly face always lighting up. There was one day last year we had a family party and since he was in a wheelchair he wasn't so free to move around the house to join in where everyone else was. I saw him sitting quietly and perhaps a little sad that he was missing out, but as soon as he saw me, he was back to his jovial self and smiling.

Ilvija our little walking haystack

Eyre out in the sunshine. Sofie comes back to visit from time
to time. Most likely she comes back when she gets too warm
in the cow shed at our neighbours.

Ron was also someone we greatly admired for turning his hand to a multitude of jobs. He lived in a time when children's education was decided at 11 with the 11+ exam, but like Ian he was a late flourisher, so failed it. Ian, however, made it through to university because they had scrapped the 11+ by then. Whether Ron would have ever gone to university of course is up for debate, but he showed an amazing amount of talent nonetheless. He was a panel beater when I first met him, working in a car repair shop. He was good at his job. He left that and I think his next job was in a pub, which he also did with good results. Next job I remember was his time as a baker. He not only baked the bread and the pies, like his grandfather before him, he built the brick ovens to bake them in. Each job seemed to be cruelly taken away from him, but he would then take on something else and do well until illness took its toll. It would have been nice to see him get more breaks than he got though.

Brencis on sentry duty

Josefs

That of course was not all there was to Ron, he would make things, do diy and helped to raise his grandkids. He was a lovely man and it was sad to say goodbye. Rest in peace big guy.