Catching up slowly!

Some very intrigued alpacas. The boys are 
rather interested in something.

Last month I received a request to meet a Polish professor who was visiting our university. I was intrigued. Apparently, our research overlapped, which kind of felt odd when our academic disciplines are different. Then again, my kind of research in rural landscapes does cover various aspects from rural out-migration to place attachment, from agriculture to tourism, and from landscape types to practical realities of living in sparsely populated areas. It's diverse and I like it that way, I find it much more interesting than being a specialist in a narrow field. 

Our place is looking very autumnal now

Not sure what Rocket Ron is staring at, or 
maybe he's just sleepy.

Our overlap apparently comes from her focus on the market branding of regional areas to my focus on the place attachment that can be branded or rather the specific identity of a place that people feel connected to. It kind of reminds me of the attachment of Sheffielders (from South Yorkshire, UK), where Ian and I used to live, to Henderson's relish (you might have to look that up) but that all comes from a sense of belonging connected by something you put on your food. Something very regional and distinctive to a place. Anyway, the meeting with the Polish professor went well and we will explore ways to apply for funding for a joint project. That would, if all the funding comes together, make three projects on the go at once - common enough in academic circles, none are full-time but should add up to a full-time job. Now it is just a case of waiting to see what happens. 

Our neighbour's trees

So peaceful

I went in the car to the university because I didn't want to spend too long travelling - 3 1/2 hours compared to one day on public transport. Well, it would have taken me 3 1/2 hours, but I stopped on the way to take a meeting, which of course is possible in the car these days. I didn't use the video to save energy, but I don't think I really needed to do that. Despite being in the middle of nowhere the coverage was adequate to have a problem free meeting. In fact, a meeting later on in the week suffered more problems with the internet connection from someone's house in Cambridge than it did from my car in the heart of rural Estonia. The joys of being in digitally well-connected countries. Apart from the fact ours is going through a naff phase.

The plan was to put the caravan in the greenhouse,
but we didn't. It's fun to see the boys while working
though. 

Just looking!

I also should mention that I took the advantage to go and visit a woollen mill that spins alpaca wool on the way up, as it was only a short detour of about 5 minutes. I wanted to see what they can do and what was needed to prepare the fibre for spinning our end. It was a very interesting visit and I got to see quite a few possibilities to use our wool and to understand some of the challenges of the fibre. The woollen spinning mill is only a small building on a huge farm, but the mill has customers from all over Estonia, Latvia and Finland. The lady herself used to hand spin yarn from her own small flock of Wensleydale sheep but now it is all processed by machine, albeit still small-scale. The long locks of the Wensleydale sheep are gorgeous though, so silky and curly. 

So that's what you're staring at Mr. P.

The weather has been largely dry for the last week.
That's been a lovely change from the endless 
days of rain.

Ian fixed the brake cables on the horse box this
weekend and glad to say it passed the technical.
Now we can fill the horse box up with wood and
take it to the apartment while it's still dry. Next
weekend's job I think.

This last weekend I've been trying to finish off as many garden jobs as possible, especially since we've been seeing more geese fly over in big, noisy flocks. It has a way of lending some urgency to the jobs, as we know the season is coming to an end and winter will slowly creep across the land - or race in, it depends. I finished off digging all the potatoes the weekend before and finally got around to bagging them up this weekend. They are now stored in our basement. There weren't as many as last year, but I think there will be enough. I stuck the tail end of last year's bags that we didn't get a chance to use on the ground under some hay and Ian will cover them over with manure over the winter. Saves a job next year if they come through, otherwise they will feed the local mice and shrew population, which in turn will feed the cats. I will also plant some little potatoes and see what happens. There will then be one row of white and one row of red to plant in the spring. So, let's see how many will be eaten by mice and how many will come through. 

One of our visitors was really concerned about
our poor Turbjørn. I thought he looked a bit 
brighter today, but lately he has looked rather down.
The other younger boys have been doing rather
a lot of play fighting that's led to some proper fights
and we wonder if Turbjørn is either getting 
knocked about or he's just trying to stay out of
the way and not relaxing. 

A cheeky look

Another job finished this weekend was taking up the last lot of beans. I've been in the process of de-podding them while I wait for the kettle to boil for coffee breaks, or while waiting for the evening meal to cook. There is still plenty of veg in the garden, but they are all plants that will take at least a light frost. So, we still have radishes (much better at this time of the year with fewer pests), beetroot, carrots, parsnips, kale, a few leeks (those that survived being dug up by the cats), savoy cabbage, turnips (still small, but we'll see how they do), broccoli and one squash. We also still have some tomatoes ripening in a box under fleece in the greenhouse, waiting for another day to make green tomato chutney. If I don't get around to it soon, it will be red/brown/yellow tomato chutney. I'm not fussy! Either will do.

Some serious eating going on in the fresh field.
They know too that the winter is on its way.

There were lots of visitors in one group and so 
they have to stay out of the paddock. Aggie
came and sat next to the fence though, so they
could all stroke her. Her eye is still 
giving me cause for concern. She will stand
while I irrigate it, but it didn't seem to make much
difference unfortunately. The vet has now been 
and she's on antibiotics. Sigh!

We are still getting visitors and one of those things occurred that just had to happen one day. Ian always talks about the reason we are in Latvia and one of those reasons is that he suspected he would be relocated to Miami if we had stayed in the US. And as he says, "Colorado, nice. Miami, no way". Latvia looked much more appealing to us. One guy piped up, "I'm from Miami (pause) and that's why I'm here now and so I understand what you're saying", or words to that effect. Phew! Good job he didn't take it as an insult. Ian does explain though that we are not city people and even the thought of living in Riga doesn't fill us with joy, we are happy enough in our rural retreat.

Karla is going to be a very fluffy alpaca by next year

And Lolly is going to be a tall alpaca we think

This particular tour guide always seems to make sure we sell something and this time I sold a hank of wool (only one left and Ian still has orders to fulfil for more), lots of felt balls and now we only have about two or three of them and I also sold an experimental piece of felt I made quite a while ago. I was intrigued by what the lady wanted to do with it and she said she was going to paint a design to match, then place the felt on it and frame it. I really should do something similar but haven't had the time to do that. Oh well! Nice to be part of someone else's creativity too. 

Oooh! That sun feels good

Mrs. Bossy boots though does have a nice smile

I was rather taken aback, though, by the young whipper snapper who cheekily suggested that because I'm old I don't know how to use the internet properly. Whaaaat! There are differences sometimes between the way I handle the internet and those of younger generations, that's inevitable and I most certainly use the internet differently to many within my own generation, but to suggest I'm old and so don't use the internet properly was a bit staggering. I think the gist of his argument was that he had grown up using it and I hadn't, which is true, but I'd certainly been using it longer than he'd been alive and errrrhmmm! I use it for my job and can effectively research a topic pretty quickly, even if I have to resort to "just googling it". I know it's limitations and the techniques you have to use not to get misinformation only. 

Lolly has a sweet smile too

Chanel can smile sweetly too, but she can also
be quite grumpy and spitty. She's loss the fleece 
off her legs again. We thought that after the
summer of spraying her with a mix of clove
infused oil and vodka, she was doing really well
and didn't need to continue. Apparently not! The
problem is that she is so uncooperative about it
and stressy, that's its not easy to spray her
regularly and not where we really want the spray
to go. We will persevere.

I've been doing another peer review for an article. I haven't done one for a while, but it didn't help that the notifications were landing in my spam box. I thought I had better send a message to one editor rather than let them think I was ignoring their messages - not a good look really, especially as it was a reasonable journal to review for. My. colleague has also resubmitted a paper yesterday that has been ongoing for aggggggesss. I do hope that is the last time ever with that article. 

I think Jakobs is wondering what Ian is doing!

As things are winding down a bit, I've actually had a little bit of time to do some reading of papers for myself and one I was reading was discussing the response to the Covid 19 crisis and whether there has any opportunity for progress on sustainable development. It reminded me of how nature didn't take long to take advantage of the pause in modern life. We need nature to recover more long-term for the sake of life on this planet, but it did show what can be achieved if we stop and slow down. Of course, there is the drive to "get the economy back on its feet". Pity! The economy they have in mind is endless growth and that is not a pleasant thought. 

A false morel. Not one we'll be 
eating any time soon, but an interesting
looking mushroom and quite large.

The boys in their field. They are now not far
from our caravan, so I can look out and be 
distracted by alpacas.

We really need to buy less and buy better. Buy local and if not local, then fair trade and based on ecological principles. With this in mind we were quite pleased to have found someone to do a zip repair on Ian's trousers. I don't mind repairing things, but I'm not a fan of replacing zips. He had two pairs done for €6 and the zips look sturdy enough, so that's good enough for me. How many other small businesses can we support? We buy locally raised meat when we need it, we buy from our local bakery once a week and we use the local small supermarket for our regular stuff. We top up using online shopping for things like flour from a Latvian company that sell organic flour and we buy milk from our neighbour. We can afford to do that partly because I'm earning now, partly because we don't have loans and mortgages and partly because we don't spend our money on a whole lot else. Retail therapy is a thing of horror to me. 

And now for some rather autumnal tree photos

I love the clouds in this one

There is also a lot of talk about getting back to normal by sending children back into school with face-to-face learning for the benefit of their mental health. This has been strongly argued but the premises are still a problem. We have to recognise that not all children were thriving in the school environment either. They need interaction with others that is true- but not just with children but other people of all ages, we all do to greater or lesser degrees. Some thrive in a noisy, vibrant environments and some don't. How to thrive in different environments is an important part of education, but we have to manage that depending upon the child. 

More of those clouds from a different angle

They don't look like that today as the wind has
been blowing for the last two days and the 
trees are starting to look quite bare.

How many have realised that a lot of work gets done without the endless rounds of meetings and people popping in and out of the office? Quiet spaces are important, a topical question at my workplace. So why is that not the same with children too - again some more than others. Often children need supervising, but not all the time. There is evidence that boredom is good for children as long as they have access to relieve that boredom. Access to the outdoors is important for that. Learning how to navigate barriers, creating stories in their heads and acting them out are essential for development of young brains. Plastic toys and structured activities may have their place but are not the answer to a child connecting to the natural and social environment around them. 

That is the highlight of laziness young lady! 

Brencis!

A push to reconnect both in schools and work needs to be balanced with working out how to do that safely and not pushing us into yet another round of unnecessary lockdowns or sending vulnerable people into hospital. It is also about creating a safer environment for the future - not one that removes all risks but manages them for the health and well-being of all inhabitants of this planet. Let's put health and well-being first and not the economy. The economy should serve the people, not the people serve the economy. If it isn't working, then fix it and it sure is broken at the moment. That's a whole other topic!