You're supposed to fly south!

A glorious autumnal day

Have we missed winter? Did we fall asleep and not wake up for months? It felt like that on Sunday when a small flock of large geese flew north east. After a few minutes one lone goose flew south west. It was honking away as if to say, "I told you all, you're flying the wrong way, but would you listen? No!" I knew how it was feeling. There are times I feel like I'm just flying the opposite way to everyone else, but I think we all feel like that from time to time. 

....but winter is on its way. The photo looks 
greener than it did that morning

...to prove my point

Well, Latvia is in a state of emergency again for the next three months. People are simply not getting vaccinated in enough numbers. The government are organising mobile vaccination clinics and hopefully that will help in the more rural areas. There are also more restrictions on non-vaccinated people, which seems to be providing an incentive to get in line to get the jab. Meanwhile Sweden, Norway and Denmark have reopened after they have vaccinated a high proportion of their population. It's not rocket science. Vaccines work. It brings down the incidence. It reduces the severity of the disease even if you do get the virus. But as long as people are not getting vaccinated in enough numbers this whole stupid situation continues and the virus goes round and round and round.

Mari. Ian mulched this long, dry grass today

Two trailers! There's a kids story in there 
somewhere. 

Not sure if ivermectin is a thing in Latvia but I understand that it is elsewhere in the world. Marvellous! So not only do we have a virus circulating around due to a lack of vaccinated people we are storing up problems for resistant parasites, as people take ivermectin as a precaution against Covid19. There is already a huge problem in the livestock industry of resistant parasites. So mange anyone? And yes people can get it too and it's called scabies. Or maybe a nice intestinal parasite like roundworm or a wonderful case of lice. Oh life will be fun when we can't get rid of these things because they are resistant. It will add to our woes with failing antibiotics due to overuse. 

The girls enjoying the sunny spots these days, 
after spending the summer seeking the shade.

Silla!

Well life for us does carry on in our little rural bubble, especially as we've closed the farm to visitors for the winter, so I don't think we slept the winter away. Our caravan is now back in the greenhouse. It didn't seem to go in very easily and it took a bit of too-ing and fro-ing to get it up the ramp and in but at least there were no disasters - close but not disasters. It's a good job that this autumn hasn't been as wet as last year, because it was mid-November before we got the caravan in the greenhouse that year. The weather this October though has been mainly dry and over the weekend it has been glorious, if a little cool. This last week we had a couple of hard frosts that finished off any tender plants, but we still have plenty of hardy stuff in the garden.  

Spot the babies! They're getting big now

Not long before Ilvija will be scanned to see if
she's pregnant.

The dark blue grapes have now been cut back, a bucketful of them steamed and some of the remains sieved. I did give up after the third attempt at unjamming the hand food strainer though. This was despite using the right insert in the strainer that is supposed to handle grape pips. Oh well! The tub full of pulp was added to what might be the last of the autumn raspberries and steamed in the pressure cooker to add to porridge over the winter. Another job done. We still have other grapes and they will have to be cut soon, but they've held up under the frosts. 

Aggie. She's a funny one. She seems like she's
almost getting motherly with Lolly. A bit late now.

Aggie's eye is slowly getting better now. She's
had more antibiotics and now on a steroid
cream as well. It might be caused by ingrowing
eyelashes but we will check again, once all
the swelling has gone down.

Today was glorious again and so I took half a day off to stack wood in the horse box with Ian. That's another job that needed to be done before winter rains set in. That was enough for Ian's back and so I will take another half day off to help him stack it in the basement. It felt a bit of an odd day, frosty first thing but then a relatively warm wind from the south. No wonder those geese were confused. It felt like something was in the air, a wind of change. I'm basically an optimist, despite the rant above, my optimism keeps me going, pushing forwards for change. It's six years since the song, "Winds of change" hammered into my brain (link). Six years ago seems like a lifetime away and so many situations have taken a turn for the worse. More countries feel precarious or on the edge. 

Lolly has grown well on grass and bottles of milk
from the neighbour's cows. Ian has dropped one 
of her feeds in preparation for weaning and also
to ensure she is ready for when we do go back
to the apartment and cannot give her late night 
feeds.

Karla looking dreamy

But it is times like these when change happens. A generation has gone since the Scorpions sang their song and now it is time for a new generation to rise up and step away from the path that others have trod towards destroying the planet on which we live. Change scares us, but staying the same scares me more. I want to pass on a living, breathing planet to my children and grandchildren. Not a shrivelled up wasteland that we are preparing for them at the moment. We've seen in the last couple of years that if nature is given space it can grow in abundance. It can fill the gap. If we don't! It's not even worth contemplating. So I will continue on my path of looking towards the landscape changes that will be needed to give nature and people space to breathe. The paths that involve political change, individual change, system change, the lot. That path will also continue on our own land, as I give myself room to breathe and space to think. It's been awhile!

Vanessa soaking up the sun again

Sometimes there two are the best of pals and
sometimes they're not. Like kids really!

Chanel is still giving us cause for concern. She
might be having a course of ivermectin. At least
in this case it will be used for what it is intended 
to be used for as an anti-parasite medicine to treat
mites.