The Journey: Oh, it's Tuesday!

Lolly

Are you confused by the days of the week too? Most of us are at this time of the year. I had fully intended to blog again this week on Monday night, like I used to, and completely forgot. I spent the evening revising some Latvian and writing an email to my Latvian teacher instead. All of which takes time. It was nine o'clock at night before I remembered.

A sun pillar. Apparently it means
it's cold.

UFO? No! Sure looks eerie
though

Last week I worked up until Thursday. I managed to get all the proofreading done and an invoice sent off before the deadline, along with my regular work completed. The money made will come in handy as a deposit on the car that I mentioned about the other week. I won't be looking forward to finding a space to park it though. There are so many cars around at this time of the year, more than in the summer. On Christmas Eve one of our neighbours rang the doorbell and complained that our car was parked in front of our apartment and I never cleaned the road of snow. I was really confused. I thought it was something to do with the fact they now had a baby (which I hadn't realised) and maybe it was difficult to get the baby in and out on the opposite side of the road.

Brencis

Not sure that the lack of sow makes this look
any less weird. It looks more like the skeletal
remains of cabin than a hunting tower.

I was also confused because of being accused of never cleaning the snow. I certainly hadn't done it this winter due to working non-stop trying to get things done before the end of the year. I knew the neighbour upstairs always cleaned the road and he never complained. That day was the first time I had even seen the complaining neighbour's boyfriend actually cleaning any snow anyway. I did find out a few days later that the complaining neighbour's car is always left with a pile of snow around, because they had been quite awkward, so no one clears around their car. They don't actually clear the road, just enough to get themselves out and they were obviously disgruntled they had gone to all that effort and Ian had had the audacity to park in "their" spot because they had cleaned it. I did find out the neighbour upstairs is fine about cleaning the rest of the road as he likes to get out and do a bit of exercise. I helped him the other day as I wasn't working and he was very nice about it. He made sure I left the snow around the complaining neighbour's car though.

The snow has come and gone and come again
over the last week. The temperatures go up
to above freezing and rains and then drops and
snows. Still we did have a white Christmas, but
as a FB friend said, not quite sure if Bing really
knew what he was singing about when he sang,
"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas".

Wintry scenes do have a striking beauty but it puts
stresses and strains on the the people and animals.

Chanel

I spent Friday decorating the Christmas tree, that Ian had helped me set up the night before, and preparing food. I can never decide if we have a celebration meal on Christmas Eve, like our Latvian neighbours would be doing, or Christmas Day. In the end, we kind of did both. On Thursday evening we went to our goat farmer friend and she gifted us four goat legs, some wonderful aged pepper goat's cheese and some goat milk soap. I decided to first pressure cook the goat legs to make sure they were tender and then slow roast them in the slow cooker (also it meant I could fit the legs in the slow cooker, which they wouldn't quite do when fresh).

A field of diamonds

Looking towards the neighbours

I cooked some kale, cabbage and leeks in white sauce to go with the meat. Normally I just do leeks in white sauce but certain little pussy cats kept trying to use that area for a toilet earlier in the year. It nearly drove me potty driving them off, but they still managed to dig up most of my leeks, so I only had about three left for Christmas dinner. That is why I had to eke the leeks out by using the kale and cabbage. It worked nicely anyway. We also had roast parsnips which we sprinkled with the pepper cheese, mashed potatoes and stuffing balls. I meant to make Yorkshire puddings too and forgot and then I forgot again the following night when I slow cooked a ham that I had prepared. Oh well! Maybe New Year's Eve instead?

People often ask he how the alpacas do in the snow.
Well? As you can see! Not so bothered. Deep cold
can be an issue, but a nice sunny day and they'll
be outside.... sunbathing!

See!

Lolly is now adept at alpaca yoga.

The rest of the goat meat went either into a pie or in the freezer. Ian does like pies and it is a great way of making meat go much, much further. I put the rest of the veg in, added some onion and some dried mushrooms - which incidentally I found in a drawer that were leftover from the year before. I was worried we didn't have enough dried mushrooms this year, but apparently we have more than I thought. I only found them because I was looking for somewhere to put something away. I can't even remember what I was trying to tidy away in the excitement of finding a stash of stuff I had forgotten about. I'm not getting more forgetful, honest. I've always been forgetful about where I put stuff and constantly looking for things. I like things to have a place, I just never quite remember where all those places are. At least Ian has been enjoying the pie, as that's the nearest he gets to a Christmas present these days.

Investigating the snow.

Jakobs outside eating the snow

I had intended to do my usual Christmas trip out to see the alpacas, but there wasn't much point. It snowed quite heavily on Christmas Eve and so Ian spent Christmas day snowploughing the pathways and he did it again on Sunday, and again on Monday. Today is my second day out on the land this week though. Today Ian helped some neighbours collect a cow from the Daugavpils area, a trip of about 2 1/2 hours each direction. He wasn't be able to feed Lolly and do all the other jobs around the farm that need doing in the morning, so I'm standing in for him.

Ian had spent quite a bit of time clearing the
paths on Christmas Day. Then it snowed!
You can just about see where he had been. The
tracks are down the side so he doesn't trample
the path and make it more difficult to clear the
proper path.

All cleared again. Although it almost looks the
same, I never get tired of seeing the snowy pictures.
Not sure Ian is as happy. He agrees it's beautiful
but the extra tasks get old quickly.

Freddie eating the snow outside.

I was standing in for him on Wednesday of last week too. Ian was on his laptop first thing in the morning and after putting it down to get ready to go out, it switched itself off. When he tried to switch it back on, it only showed a grey screen. He managed to get hold of the computer technician and arranged to take it in. He had to come back to the apartment to pick me up first though so I could feed Lolly while he was away and put the animals away. I had a meeting that couldn't be rearranged and so I managed the first half hour, went to put the animals away and came back to my meeting. Again, it is good to have understanding colleagues. I think most people these days get the need to do something at home during online meetings, whether it is take kids to school, sort a child out or in my case, put animals away.

Accumulating against the greenhouse

Looking at the snow from inside the greenhouse.
Not sure how much will disappear over the
New Year weekend as it is forecast to warm up
for a few days before getting cold again.

I bet my Christmas tree is bigger
than your's! Mind you, this one
is a tad bit taller than the one we
have inside the apartment.

He seemed to take a long time in Riga, but he said the traffic and roads were horrid. The roads were in a better state here in our rural municipality. Apparently the roads in Riga were not cleared and were full of slush, which is about the worst type to drive in, especially in heavy traffic. He also hit rush hour on the way back to compound the problem. At least the computer problem was fixable. They checked it over, gave it a clean and adjusted the connector to the battery. The battery connector was the problem and nothing more. So €25 and the diesel to get into Riga seemed cheap compared to the deposit on my car disappearing.