And Breathe!

Winters can be brutal but definitely stunning

Oh gosh! Another three weeks have gone by and have I been busy? Oh yes! Most nights I've been proofreading reports for an organisation, a prospective business plan or a PhD thesis. Not much then! I have no problems when it comes to trying to help people craft their words into something more readable but dotting the i's and crossing the t's is not quite my idea of fun! Needs must though! By the end of it, I am spotting those full stops that shouldn't be there, at least on the second reading anyway. However, the main aim of ensuring a more readable piece was achieved. Although it wasn't fun finding some of the more mundane mistakes, they have been interesting reading material and I think I've learnt quite a lot in the process too. 

Hopefully that new cover is keeping the snow off
our bales of hay.

A perfectly formed snowflake on
our car

I have a confession to make. A couple of blogs ago I talked about buying only what we need and making do with what we have. I do still stand by that, but it has come to the stage where I need a car and I cannot use the one that we have now, as Ian uses it to get out to the land.  In summer it is not too bad as we are out in the caravan on the land anyway and a few days without a car for Ian is not a problem, In winter that is not an option. For several years I've used public transport and it's been okay. A long day but I've been fine with the travelling. The problem is that due to Covid-19 the travel has become more onerous. I looked at the timetable recently and it was not very convenient at all. I can still get the early bus, but will the cafe I used to use still be open and available to sit in for around 3 hours? I wouldn't know until I got there and sitting in a train station for three hours is not my idea of fun, especially in winter. I can work in the cafe but not so easy on chairs not designed for ease and comfort. 

GT aka Ginger Tom

The boys alpaca house. All is calm

To get to the university I used to travel to Cesis on the early bus and then catch the train to the Estonian border town, cross the platform and then get the Estonian train to Tartu. That meant just one three hour stopover in the cafe I mentioned between the bus and the train. Before that I used to travel up by bus to Cesis, another bus from Cesis to Valmiera, another one from Valmiera to Valka, walk over the border for 20 minutes, have a late lunch and then catch the bus from Valga to Tartu. I looked at all the possible permutations that I can think of and all of them involve several hours somewhere and most of them involve the 20 minute walk across the border. Not much fun in winter at all. I'm due for a pay rise in January and so I've decided that since I need to be up in Tartu more frequently then I need a car. It was decided with a heavy heart though. 

Wonder who is in the stable?

Most of these photos are from over a week
ago when it looked very Christmassy. 

There was another reason that tipped the balance. Our car suffered in the cold again, despite putting the additive into the fuel to stop it waxing out. One morning Ian set off to the land but the car died on the way and he had to get a neighbour to tow him. He got out to the land and fortunately had a new fuel filter. He got back okay, no issues but the following morning, he didn't even get away from the apartment. He had to call the garage out and borrow a friend's car. One without a heater and not ideal for the country roads. Not good when you have animals that need seeing to.

The last bit of fence was taken in last week.
The girls have to remain separated now until 
spring.

The hunting tower didn't
survive a windy day and looks
rather bizarre in the snow

Apparently the additive needs to be put into the diesel before it waxes, which makes sense, but not helpful to find out after the event. It isn't like adding salt to the icy roads that will melt the ice once it freezes (well as long as it isn't below -5C). The additive needs putting in before the temperatures drop to below zero to work. Unusually for early December we had a thick layer of snow and very cold temperatures. A friend of ours in his mid-20s does not recall such cold temperatures so early and his mother only once. 

Almost looks warm in the rosy glow of the sun, 
but do not be deceived

Josef out soaking up a bit of winter sunshine

One of the reasons for the additive problem was also trying to get enough of it. Ian had just a small amount left over from last year and the petrol station ran out of the stuff. Well Ian has now sourced some online and bought enough to last a few winters. People panic buy toilet roll, we panic buy diesel additive. I was meant to be going up to Tartu a few days later, but didn't dare risk getting stranded in the middle of nowhere and there is plenty of that on the journey up. Neither Latvia nor Estonia are densely populated outside of the capitals.  I will not be getting a diesel car for this reason, but I'm aiming for a hybrid. We'll see, I still have to organise the financing of it.

I just love seeing the frosted trees against the 
brilliant blue of a winter sky

Lolly is growing well but still being fed. It does
rather tie Ian to the farm. No going off for a few
hours yet.

With the cold weather we also got snow, quite a thick blanket too. That didn't help our greenhouse situation. It is definitely on its last legs and needs quite an overhaul for next year. Two sections tore and dumped some snow inside the greenhouse and some on the caravan. Ian managed to repair one patch but the other was more problematic. One of our visitors contacted us and offered to help. She came with a friend of hers and he was wonderful. He worked out what to do and organised us to help. It's not easy though repairing a central section of a large greenhouse. Hopefully it will last the rest of the winter. The lady also helped us with Brencis while Ian cut his toe nails and gave him his Vitamin D injection. I held onto Brencis' head and she kind of draped over his back. That is usually enough to keep him steady while he has his toe nails done. I think he even behaved better this time around. He's not bad, just very fidgety, which is not helpful when he is so big.

Not the sort of gaping hole we want to
see in the greenhouse

The caravan gets moved into the greenhouse to
protect it over winter. Not get snowed in.

"How warm is the water?", Lolly asks.

It did warm up again last week and the snow almost disappeared resulting in the usual post-snow muddy mess but now the cold has returned. Not sure if it will dip below -25C again this time though as the forecast is for more like -15C, but the wind is bitter. We've also had little snow flurries and so the ground is covered again, but not deep, more like a dusting - well a Latvian version of a dusting. The cold has meant we had unwelcome visitors to our orchard and some pruning was undertaken. Not quite the pruning we had in mind. At least the muddy weather meant Ian was able to put up the double stranded wire fence around that was enough to keep the deer out of the orchard the last time. Apparently they don't judge distances well and so a double fence works better than a high fence.

Karla has been eating the snow it seems. She is
one unfazed cria. Normally they are more timid,
not this bossy little madam. 

Sort of looks like Lolly is up to her
neck in snow, but not really

Since the cosy blanket of snow went I also decided that my plants needed some protection from the cold and cut down some spruce trees (Christmas trees). They grow like weeds on our land ad so we cut them for our alpacas and the garden. We leave the trees that are better for biodiversity. I also cut one to bring home to decorate for Christmas. Normally Ian would bring one back on Christmas Eve but it was due to snow and since I was cutting trees down anyway, I thought one of them would make a decent decorative indoor tree. 

I won't be getting much veg from the garden
for a while.

I had to laugh the other day when Aggie was
purposefully ignoring me till I offered her food.
She turned to me, snaffled the food and then
ignored me again.

So apart from that, not much else has happened. There are the regular things like putting cream on Aggie's feet as the mites had made her feet sore. It is now improving even with only a weekly slathering of home-made ointment. Unfortunately Chanel is a difficult one as she won't let us get near enough to put cream on as she sits down and all the parts that need cream are underneath her. During the summer we sprayed oil on, but that is not feasible over winter as we cannot direct it to just where it is needed and it means her fleece doesn't repel the water as well - surprisingly. We had to give her a good brush down to fluff her coat up again to protect her from the cold. She has now been started on a course of ivermectin (yes its for mites not Covid). She had one at the weekend and the next will be in about two weeks time. So all in all, plenty to keep me busy but just not so much to write about at the moment. No escaping alpacas, no traipsing to the garden to get veg, to the barn to get milk and then to the kitchen to prepare food. All the preparation of food from the garden has been done and in jars or in the freezer. A waiting time, a pondering time, a planning time.

Chanel is such a sweetie really, as long as you don't
want to put cream on her, cut her toe nails, do 
something to her daughter (who is now a grown 
alpaca and expecting her own baby hopefully) or...

Ilvija, Chanel's daughter, practicing her Christmas
carols

What's this doing here? This is from 
many years ago, when my hair was not
white for a start. I used to teach in 
children's camps in Latvia. This was 
a photo I used in a presentation for a
lecture to talk a little about myself and
some of my experience. A varied 
background for an academic really