I'm on holiday

George doesn't believe in staycations. He's always off on a little
jaunt outside the fence. Fortunately he cannot go far. 

How exciting, an actual holiday! Or vacation if you prefer. What that actually means is that I haven't done any university work since Friday, well if you ignore the fact I uploaded the final draft of a paper to a journal on Saturday evening but that didn't take long. As it was an online paper, it has been published already. This is the final paper from the research for my PhD and means I concentrate on the next step- well after my holiday that is. It also means that in total I have 6 academic papers and a book chapter. So very happy with the outcome from that. It is one of the advantages of the Estonian system that doctoral students finish off with academic publications and that is helpful for finding employment, or staying employed anyway. 

I know that thistles are a nuisance, but they
do look amazing.

A candy-striped spider, apparently. I found this on the
nettles. I am still amazed by how many different 
insects and plants we have that I haven't noticed before.
Nearly every day we are finding something new to add
to the iNaturalist observations.

So I've had a lazy few days, just kicking back and lounging around ....... errr! Not quite! So far I've finished weeding a strawberry bed - finally. Retrieved an escaped alpaca; administered first aid to two alpacas struggling with irritating flies; spoke to our youngest son and two of the grandchildren; gathered nettles, sorted and hung them up to dry for teas and stews over winter; cleaned out chickens; baked bread, cakes and pies; pruned and weeded gooseberry bushes and then picked the berries off the prunings (it's easier that way, as they need pruning and the berries are then more accessible than fighting through a thorny bush to get them) and finally I created a new garden bed for some irises a friend gave me. I was hoping to get blackcurrants finally picked too but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Fortunately another dry day is expected before rain overnight.

These are amazing creatures too. Our cats very kindly
leave various bits and pieces of animal, mainly mice
around for us. So sweet and thoughtful. Anyway
meet the cleaners. There are times we watch the obviously
dead animal move. I watched half a mouse today move
about 3cm and when it stopped, this creature came out
from underneath upside down. It had been moving the
mouse with its feet. An incredible feat for such a small
beetle. 

A bumble bee on the marjoram

I managed to get a few jobs completed last week for work that needed to be completed before Friday, but also I wanted them completed so I could take the time off without something hanging over me. There is still another paper that needs writing but that can wait a little while. I need the break to give my brain a rest. Although that's not always a good thing, as too much of a break means too many ideas. Too many ideas usually means more work for Ian. Hehehe! Still maybe I concentrate on gardening then I won't have time for too many ideas!!!! No chance! I can think and work on garden chores at the same time, sometimes even better. 

A ground beetle, mainly nocturnal, predatory beetles that
feed on snails, earthworms, and caterpillars. So that's 
good then. 

Jakobs looking all sweet and innocent. Do not be deceived.
He's a little troublemaker. He is sweet though as well.

The stifling heat of last week, eventually gave way to rain and more rain and yet more rain. It was so frustrating to think we could have got the hay done last week and not have to nervously watch the forecast again. It's been fine but cooler over the weekend again but rain expected tomorrow before another spell of fine weather - we hope! The hay needs to be cut and baled before August 15th for the subsidies, so time is ticking away. If you don't hear from me next week, that's what I will be doing. 

Well it rained. At least the effect on the waterlily leaves is
quite abstract

The waterlily has had quite a few flowers on it this year. So 
pleased it survived being eaten by a deer on the first year I
got it. 

A peacock butterfly on marjoram. The butterflies love the marjoram
and there are a lot of butterflies of many different kinds.

There are also lots of caterpillars. I think this one is 
Knot Grass, which hardly sounds like a moth at all, but
there you go. 

Lesser Yellow Underwing

This magnificant shiny beast was on the gooseberries.
Not sure what it is yet, I need some help on this one.

The wagtails may have hatched out a second brood. I do 
hope so as it is good fun to see these little chaps darting around
the alpacas and hopefully eating lots of flies.

Turbjørn's neck is still not straight, but we think he's still
steadily improving. Herk and Freddie are the ones needing
a bit of tender loving care at the moment as flies pester them.

A few of our friends visited this week. My supervisor and his wife finally made it out from the UK to visit their holiday home and didn't have to self-isolate while in Latvia, as they had just changed the rules. How long that will last for is anyone's guess. Another friend was more local and brought one of her friends from Riga for a visit. It was the first time that our friend had experienced the full tour of our alpacas. She's seen them before but not had the full version of the life and times of looking after alpacas. Another set of visitors phoned from the bottom of our road, they had seen the advertisement for our place in the village and drove out, only we have a closed sign at the bottom of the road to stop people from just turning up. We prefer it if people book, particularly at the moment as it gives us time to prepare. We had just sat down for coffee, but we decided to let them come on and I just got on with other jobs. 

European comma, such a boring name for such
a pretty butterfly

Having a holiday in these strange times has set me thinking about what holidays will look like in the future. We've done staycations before there was even a term for it. We used to live in Derbyshire, England and it is a pretty place to live. We didn't often go on the type of holidays most people went on as we couldn't afford it. One year we thought about going away for a holiday but when we calculated how much it was to stay somewhere we decided that for the same amount we could go on day visits to local attractions and eat out more. It was a really nice holiday that year, with no travelling but lots of nice things to see and do. Plus I didn't have to cook often. If a rural place is struggling to keep people or employ them in reasonable jobs then opening up for tourists is often touted as the thing to do. It takes a lot of investment though and different skills to running a farm or doing a regular rural job. It is also not a certain money spinner and an unpredictable form of employment, especially in these weird times. There has to be a better way of making rural places work. I shall be thinking of that while I'm gardening. 

Maybe pine hawkmoth, but not sure yet.

So I hope we see some more of the sun this next week so we can 
get the haymaking finished.