Has it stopped raining yet?

A piece of artwork on the Latvian/Estonian border
depicting the Baltic Way when thousands of Estonians,
Latvians and Lithuanians joined hands from Tallinn to
Vilnius to show their solidarity with each other in the
face of the Soviet Union.

It rained a lot this week (and no I’m not expecting a lot of sympathy from my British friends who apparently have had really rotten weather this summer), it just means that normally I wouldn’t have much to write about, because heavy rain all day means not a lot gets done. This time it is different. We noticed that the forecast was pretty grim and so we organised plenty of visits instead. Why sit around in the caravan moaning about the rain when we could be out and chatting with people?

Brahma chickens, these are seriously huge, maybe even
bigger than our broiler chickens

Our first visit was to someone who first visited us to see our alpacas. He and I spent more time talking about what he was doing and Latvia in general than looking at the alpacas. I was interested in his story of how he came to be a beef farmer when he had actually trained as a mechanic at the university. He started out with just 5ha (12 acres) of land and now maintains about 140ha (350 acres), not all his, as some is rented. Impressive for someone who only reached the age of 30 years old this year. His support came from his family and other young men doing something similar, but mainly in his attitude and desire to do something productive with the land. That gives me a lot of hope for the future. His mother and wife also put together tea blends from herbs and berries they grow themselves that they mainly sell in gift packs at Christmas time and they gave us a pack to take home. The Latvians are indeed a generous people when you can connect with them.

My supervisor and his wife were paying a visit to Latvia and we travelled up to see them. It has almost become an annual tradition. There have been some changes at their place in the meantime. The last time we went it looked like The Battle of the Somme, there was so much mud everywhere from excavations to re-create the ponds that had become little more than swamps over the years. A winter has passed since that time and now the ponds are full. Amazing how much water can be collected. In fact they overflowed in the winter. The areas around the ponds are also beginning to grass over and to cover up the scars made to the landscape. In some places it is hard to think there was ever any earthworks done.

Some of the border crossings between Latvia and Estonia
are tiny and quite picturesque. Just a sign on a country road

We arranged with a neighbour of ours to look after the animals for two days and then took off to Estonia, as you do. We wanted to meet up with a guy I met at a conference in Tallinn earlier on in the year. He and his wife run a horse therapy place and a sustainable education centre. It was fascinating talking to someone who runs so many different projects, using the various different skills he has, in order to make a living and to carry on doing the work he enjoys. He encouraged us to try many different things, rather than one big project, as this is more sustainable in the long term. Schools work, workshops, small gift shop, working with the unemployed etc. Big projects have a habit of suddenly ending and then leaving people with a gap and no income, small projects can run side by side and as one small one finishes another one can fill in the gap. At least that is the plan. Many of the ideas we threw around seemed a little more feasible. We also stayed overnight in some guest accommodation they have and ate loads of pancakes.

 

The border

We stayed in the little house on the right. The steps I
presume are because of the straw bale floor to keep the
place warm. The walls were thick and despite the
inclement weather the little room was cosy and warm.
We weren't sure what to expect, so had gone with
sleeping bags and blankets in case it was cold
(more pictures and website here. All in Estonian though
but they speak good English if you ever fancy a visit)

We did have one minor hiccup in meeting up. The guy we were due to meet sent me an email when we were already on the road and as I phoned to confirm we were nearly there, he explained he was on his way to pick up his tractor, which had just been fixed and he wouldn’t be around for another three hours. He explained that we could go to the nearby town of Paida, as there were things to do there and shops. We first found a little coffee shop to while away some time as it was still raining. Estonia seems to do coffee shops, not necessarily something that is easy to find in Latvia outside of Riga. Our village has a bakery and coffee shop, but not all do.

 

The outside toilet made from cob walls and green roof

A donkey hut and a chicken house in one. The walls
were laid on a sandbag base and built from cob and wood

After a little while it stopped raining so we took the advantage of a little walk around. Ian was in Heaven, there were so many shops with DIY equipment and a shop he had been wanting to visit that had workwear. We came away with two masks for when Ian deals with hay, as he is worried that the dust is affecting him, a pair of socks for him and a pair of winter work gloves for me. Not quite your everyday trip to the shop, type shopping, but the sort we tend to do now if we get the chance. With the threat of more rain we headed back to the coffee shop to wait until it was time to head to our destination once more.

 

This is inside the little hut, the donkeys
sleep at the bottom and the chickens
in the floor above, just under the roof.
The skylight lets in light

A close up of a cob, wood and bottle wall. Sorry no pictures
of alpacas that we took, it rained so we went inside and
then talked a lot. They have pictures on their website though

Amazingly enough, our next destination was only 25 minutes away from our first stop in Estonia. It wasn’t planned that way, it was just how close the two places were that we wanted to see. This time it was to an alpaca farm. The people who run this farm, which they had only been doing for about 18 months, had set up an Estonian Alpaca Association and were trying to encourage good breeding of alpacas to maintain fleece quality. We were interested in trying to foster some Latvian and Estonian cooperation and they were keen to do the same. We both recognise that alpaca breeding in both countries, at the moment, is very low and to encourage good husbandry would require some joint initiatives to arrange training. We swapped information on feeding, processing and just generally talked alpacas for about four hours. All too soon it was time to wend our way home.

 

One of their animals from Wile Farm website
gallery (link here)

I would love an outdoor kitchen like this one. It has a pizza
oven in the corner

On the way home the skies cleared and so our rainy days were over for the time being. On the way back we stopped at a restaurant I had stopped at before on a couple of my many trips back from Tartu. From one of the tables an English accent wafted through the air and our ears pricked up. Sometimes Ian will have a chat with such folks to see where they are from and what they are doing in Latvia, but there was no way he was going to with this gentleman, we were so embarrassed. He was rude and tried to joke with the waitress, but his joke was just confusing and made the waitress feel uncomfortable. He was also very loud. This was no youngster who had still to learn his manners but an elderly gentleman, who time had not taught wisdom or humility. At least I felt a sense of accomplishment when I managed to do the whole of my order without resorting to English at any point and even Ian managed most of his. We even got a smile from the waitress.

 

Deluxe straw bale and cob rabbit
accommodation. They should be toasty
in there in winter

The walls have symbols created from different coloured
clays. They are such organic looking walls, not perfectly
straight

Saturday I had to do some catching up on work that I need to have done for deadlines and although I got off to a slow start, things picked up when I realised I was actually further on in my work than I remembered. Little by little I am whittling down the list of things that need doing, before I set off on my travels again later on in the month (and goodness me it is August already, where has time gone?). Sunday was playing catch up with the garden too and I finally dug up the garlic. Normally it is ready much earlier and although one or two of the plants looked like they would have benefitted from lifting earlier, many looked just perfect – and some were huge. Finally veg is beginning to appear. The flowers on the beans are showing signs of turning into beans and there are loads of peas to pick. It has been such a slow year.

 

Another cute looking building made from wood and cob

This is a photo taken from a previous
visit. It has lovely granite walls.

Today I thought I had a dental appointment and so arranged to visit a castle beforehand, since we were in the area, with someone who could tell us about the history of the place. As it turns out, I had got mixed up and my dental appointment is tomorrow, but it worked out quite well as it meant we had far more time to look around, have tea in a café located in a walled garden and then pizza before heading home. What was only going to be a trip of a couple of hours, turned into an all day affair. The castle, in a place called Cesvaine, was meant to be shut, but our guide asked some people and we got a chance to take a tour, they only charged us for the tour and not our guide, even though he wasn’t working for them. The café, similarly should have been shut, but someone turned up in the garden of the place and let us look around the shop and made us tea. None of this would have happened if we had gone on our own, as we wouldn’t have dared to ask and I don’t think people would have understood either. Our guide has a gentle way of asking and people were very accommodating. The castle also had a textile exhibition that was held in rooms that had been badly damaged in a fire a few years ago. Much of the castle is being restored, but these rooms still require a lot of work. They made fabulous, dramatic backdrops though for the textiles. If anyone wants to see them, they are open until October.

So, as you can see, we have sunshine and that means the
fly numbers have increased. It might have been a cool
summer and everything is late getting started, but that has
meant it has been relatively bug free so far. Ian had to resort
to the bug net to keep the flies away from his face when
cutting the grass though this time.

So a quite different week to one that would have been expected with the weather and now summer has arrived, at least for a week according to the forecast and that means back to some hay cutting to cut the remaining grass. We don’t need to bale this for feed, it might do for bedding or it might do for insulating projects of which we have many ideas for over the last week. It still needs cutting though and so as I write, Ian is walking up and down with the two-wheel tractor with its sickle mower attachment. There will be a few more hours of that over this next week before he is finished. I must now go and pick peas before we go home too and before our little kitten starts to try and join in with the writing. 

RIP Alicia

Alicia

Well after coaxing Alicia to stand for a couple of weeks, Ian came home one morning and said, "she won't stand at all. Can you come out and help me?" I went out with him and we tried to get her moving, we tried rubbing her legs to stimulate the circulation, in case they had gone to sleep by sitting too long, but she was having none of it. Ian at this point decided, enough was enough and we called round to see the vet. We opted to have her put down the following day, as Alicia didn't seem particularly distressed and she wasn't making a lot of noise calling to the others, as they do when they are bothered about sitting on their own. The vet came the next day and I noticed that Alicia seemed to have ballooned up, so something was going on. Ian held her head in his arms while the vet found a vein and while the injection took effect. She passed away peacefully. We then had to carry her out to the tractor to transport her to our barn for an autopsy. Not exactly the most elegant of transportation, but needs must. We found out the reason for her ballooning up anyway, it was fluid collecting in her abdomen and it contained a lot of protein that would suggest liver failure, but her liver looked fine. On reading up on the internet afterwards, we are inclined to think it was heart failure. The vet thought her heart looked big, but she wasn't sure how big an alpaca heart should be. She is now buried up in the corner of one of our fields, it wasn't the most pleasant of jobs, as it was difficult to do it gently, but we figured she was past caring.

Alicia's corner. A nice restful place

Veronica hogging the water bucket

Of course Ian found it hard, she was a lovely alpaca who would stand a bit of molly coddling and they had been through a lot together, what with the baby she gave birth to in the coldest of months and then the lung infections - or at least that's what we thought might be the case. Maybe it was her heart all along, making it difficult to breathe at times. I don't know, I'm not a vet, I'm a pharmacologist or at least was back in my younger days. Today, though Ian is thankful we did what we did, it has been so hot and if she couldn't stand, she wouldn't have been able to reach the water bucket. She was also our only black alpaca and as such would have absorbed a lot of heat. Our two pregnant alpacas have been suffering in the heat, one takes her place by the water bucket, continually sipping out of it and won't let the others near. I'm off tomorrow to get extra buckets. They won't even go out much to eat the grass that is finally growing, they just sit inside their shed eating the hay, out of the sun. I had a bit of a brainwave this morning and suggested to Ian that he moves their fence to incorporate the trees and so they can sit out under those. It is nearer to the boys paddock and a bit of a stretch for the fence from the girls, but they take priority at the moment. They get the afternoon shade too, as they are nearer the trees, good in summer but colder in winter. You can tell how hot it must have been, it is 9 o'clock at night here and still 24C out on the balcony. This is May isn't it?

Well why go out in the hot sun, when food is right out
the door?

They do eat the grass sometimes

It wasn't much use attempting to shear the alpacas at the beginning of the week, they had been spending their days out in the rain getting soaked. Inside when it was dry and out when it was wet. We can't shear the girls, until after they have given birth and now we are beginning to wonder if the sooner they are mated the better for next year (Alpacas have 11 1/2 month pregnancies). The earlier they can have babies the better we think, it might be easier to keep babies warm, than to keep them cool in a heatwave and May can get quite warm. If the alpacas are born later on in the year, the alpaca cria (babies) might not be big enough for the winter to keep warm. A delicate balancing act for sure.  Whilst I'm on about shearing, most people guessed that the mystery object was a pair of shears, but they have been modified with a wooden block. Last year, shearing was a bit of a headache and took absolutely ages and so Ian has been doing some investigating and noticed that there was a special attachment for alpacas that gave a longer cut that cost a huge amount of money and so Ian experimented to see if the wood block might work. If it does work it might be a good idea for when the biting insects start and also may make shearing easier. We tried it out on Alicia, just before the autopsy, one for a reminder of her and two to make the autopsy easier. It seemed to work well, so we hope when we get around to the boys that it will work as well.

Wandering chicken

We are not coming out

We have wondered if our boys are too warm and that is why they have been sitting around the hay feeder, but now we are beginning to suspect that they are just being lazy. The girls we can appreciate not wanting to go out, they have less shade available, but the boys! Ian decided not to fill up their hay feeder and make them go out on the grass. Today though, they sat inside, there is still hay in their shed, as their bedding is made up of hay. Might have to take more drastic action and make them go out in the mornings when it is cooler.

Gorgeous place to be

Ian's hard work, preparing the ground for other crops

There has been some niggly little things happen this week, which only added to the general feeling of misery at the beginning of the week. I broke my crock pot when some weights slid off and hit the bottom of the pot from some dandelions I had cooked and was pressing the juice out. We made dandelion syrup last year and loved it, so we thought we might do the same again this year. It was the merest of cracks and at first I thought it was just chipped, but no, the crack went through. So now we have a planter for outside the caravan and the electrical part will have to be binned at some suitable site when we go to the big town. The breadmaker broke too. Ian thought he might have managed to fix it, but it didn't work, unfortunately. All it needs is a new copper bearing apparently, the rest is working fine. Pah! The part doesn't seem to be available either. Double Pah!

None the worse for his swim

Another cockerel tried to go for a swim again this week, this time chased by the dominant cockerel and not us. They are obviously mistaking the grass growing in the pond as walkable on. Wrong! We have been discussing what to do with the chickens. Someone is interested in buying some off us, so that might help, but they are still wandering near and far. We even discussed things like having a kite with a hawk shape on it, but then it isn't always windy near us. We jokingly thought a drone hawk might be a good idea, flying it every now and again to make them go in. Probably freak out the alpacas too. At least we have sorted out the errant cockerel that wouldn't go in at night, Ian caught him and we put him in the horse box to wait for the culling of two of our cockerels in one of the arks and then he can go in there with his own set of ladies. Rather curbing his freedom, somewhat, but we hope the company makes up for it.

His wandering days are over though.
Next stop one of the arks with some
new lady friends

The oak tree looking good.

Another reason for curbing the dear chaps freedom was the rude awakening at 4:50am the night we decided to stay in the caravan. He decided to cock-a-doodle-do right outside, not a good move. It did mean we were up and moving around quite early that morning. I think we were in the garden before 8am, which was nice since it was quite hot later, in fact so hot we decided to have a snooze in the afternoon - how Mediterranean! This time the other cockerel decided to pay a visit to the greenhouse and started crowing whilst he was in there, I was awake and up running outside in my stockinged feet to chase the blighter out. Fortunately I don't think he damaged anything, since our tomatoes were all planted out. Not a good day, awoken twice by cockerels. We still ponder our decisions about how to deal with them. I think tomorrow there needs to be decisive action.  The drier weather at least has also meant chance to get things in the garden and we have planted out a lot of kale plants (hope they are going to be all right though as the sky has gone a really weird orange as I write this blog, I think a storm is imminent), I planted out more beans, some fodder beet and done lots of weeding, before they really take off. I even managed to tidy up my herb bed and made it look neat and tidy again.

It did rain too earlier on in the week though

At least a nice rainbow to make up for it

Sofie our cat has gone missing again. Why she goes on these little jaunts we have no idea. We do wonder if it is something to do with either the ticks or the tick medicine. She had that two days before she went missing. She does seem to make an annual event of this, maybe she is just away on her holidays. She could send a card though and then we would know where she is. The longest she has been away is six days, so hopefully she will be back soon.

After the rain, the sunshine, so plenty of
solars for our solar drier. Drying some
sage.

A rather handsome chap don't you think? Not sure if it is
harmful or not though.

It hasn't all been bad news this week. Our daughter and husband sold their house this week in Australia, all preparation for coming back to the UK. Our youngest finally got a job this week, so relief all round. It should be quite stretching for him as it is a design engineer job, so he needs to learn some more about engineering principles of design, he knows some but his degree was more design based. But after nearly a year out of work, after finishing his degree, it was getting really worrying for him and he was understandably quite despondent. All credit to him, he kept plugging away looking for jobs though.

The dandelions look absolutely gorgeous. Pity we don't
want this many though. We want grass. Ian is holding
off cutting them, because they still turn into seed anyway
after cutting. We are gritting our teeth and letting the grass
grow, as that way they will shade out the sun loving
dandelions. Or at least that's the theory

Barley take two! The stuff we planted before winter died
so we are trying again with a spring one and also the
seed we had last year. Maybe it was spring barley too, it
grew faster than the one we know was spring barley.
Oh well! It will make forage whatever happens.

My studies over the last few weeks have been about making maps with people or for people. It has been an interesting exercise, but something struck me as I read yet another paper that either didn't meet the true participatory ideal, i.e. including at least a representation from all sectors of society that feel the effects of decisions, or are part of the decision making process or bemoaned the fact mapmaking by the authorities wasn't truly participatory, that instead of saying "it isn't happening" type of thing, we should be saying "so how can we make it happen? What needs to change?"I think there are a few things in life that we could add that kind of thinking too and not just in the wishful thinking category, but seriously applying our noggins to the issue (for my friends who might struggle with Google translate for noggin, it is a word sometimes used for head, or brain). Identifying the problem is one thing, but instead of getting stuck there, we should be working towards making it happen and often that means really examining what is done and looking for issues, but also trying to think outside the box. Unfortunately politicians aren't very good at thinking outside the box these days. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes its not. Nowadays though, we need some real creative thinkers to generate some alternative outcomes for our planet - otherwise, one way or another we are in trouble.

Apple blossom time! Taken with my new camera

This evenings rather ominous looking sky

They're here!

APH2 (alpaca house 2 of course) complete with new
fence and gates

We had 203 sheep last week! "What! How did that happen?" is maybe racing through your brain at this point, especially if you have been following this blog. I had even hoped to have a picture of them, but that was not to be. You'll have to take my word for it. One of our neighbouring farms has lots of sheep and was running out of space to move them to and asked if they could put their sheep on our ski hill. We were delighted to accommodate them as it meant that we could finally get some mobile manure depositors up there, to put some added fertility into the ground to enhance the grass we grow next year. We have taken hay from the ski hill for the last four years and put nothing back into it and so it was more than ready for that. However, if you have been following this blog, you will know that we were expecting to get our next group of alpacas and sure enough they have arrived safely and I am assured they are tucked up nice and snug in their new accommodation, which Ian finished off this week.

Meet Estelle, Snowdrop, Veronika and Alicia.

The transfer in Riga! Helped along by some willing helpers
dragged out of the comfort of their beds on a Sunday morning

Come on girls this is your new home. You'll like it here.
Honest!

I had hoped to get to see the girls before I took off to Estonia again, but it wasn't meant to be. It was partly my fault that I didn't. I have done that much research on the internet to try and find transport that matches up that I got a bit confused. I had decided to go in with Ian in the morning, see the alpacas and then catch the train, but since the ferry came in at 11am and my train, so I thought, was setting off at 12pm, that didn't give a lot of time. I did catch up with the transport people to tell them where they should be as they had set off in the wrong direction and fortunately parked up not far away, but I didn't really feel like asking for a peep to see what they were like, because I didn't want to disturb them too much and it was at the edge of the old part of Riga .... and I had a train to catch. We had already been joking with people that if they heard of some escaped alpacas in the middle of Riga, they would know they were ours, so I didn't want to tempt fate too much. I got to the train station and realised my mistake, after thinking that maybe I had missed it for a brief moment. Arriving early at least meant I got a cup of tea, a bite to eat and a much needed loo stop. Some friends of ours also came with us into Riga to help make sure the girls were loaded properly since I wasn't certain about being available to help and it meant they were there to help at the other end in the unloading. I gather it went without a hitch and even better than our boys last year. At least I have pictures and they are so sweet looking.

Hmmm! Nice grass! What do you think of our new place?

Veronica! She is pregnant along with Snowdrop

Our animals have been a bit odd this last week, I understand it is something to do with the time of the year, heading into winter and all that. Anyway maybe you know the scene from Chicken Run when the farmer says "They're up to something" well they were, some of our little chicks made their escape, some flew at the door and some tunnelled out. Ian got them back into the ark quite easily with a little persuasion of some food, unfortunately not necessarily the right ones in the right ark, since we have two from which they had managed to escape. We were intending on keeping them separate for breeding purposes and this made it a little tricky. Fortunately there are differences, but we are not confident we know them all yet as Ian hasn't spent the winter in the greenhouse studying them in his spare time. We did manage to work out the majority though - those that were being picked on were in the wrong ark. It was also noticeable that there weren't so many brown chickens in one of the arks, as previously there had been more or less equal number of brown and white ones. The little chicks weren't the only ones misbehaving, James our male chicken went for Ian and was swiftly reprimanded for it, but then he took off and we couldn't get him in. After a few minutes chasing him around and since Ian wasn't feeling well at all we decided to leave him to it and if he became fox food then so be it. The following day, the majority of the chickens including James did not stray far from their hen house for a change but one of the big brown chickens went missing this time.

Snowdrop, step sister to Herkules, one of our boys. Can
you spot the resemblence?

Alicia, she is the oldest one of the group. She was going to
go into retirement and hasn't had a cria (baby) this year but
her condition has improved enough for our seller to say she
maybe able to get pregnant next year. We do hope so, as
it will be nice to have some different colours amongst our
herd.

The chickens weren't the only ones making their escape this week, on the same night that James was acting up one of our alpacas was sat outside the wire fence when we came back to put them away. Ian had spent the day at home because of not feeling well and I had been sorting out our home, trying to make some sense of the mess in it. Fortunately Herkulees didn't run off, just sat down on the wrong side of the fence and when Ian went up to sort him out by laying the fence down for him to walk over, he walked straight in, almost as if to say "I've been waiting for you to turn up, so I can get back in." Somehow the wire was snapped, but not sure that Herkules our alpaca would have done that, maybe it was already snapped and Herkules being Herkules would have eaten his way under the other wires and before he knew it would have been on the wrong side of the fence.

Estelle, the baby of the herd, she is 2 years old and her
wool is incredibly soft. She will be mated for the first time
next year. Notice the sturdy fencing, that is to keep the
male out as much as anything. Or to keep the girls in maybe

New glasses! Not the most flattering picture, but at least I'm
smiling

We both got new glasses this week. Mine are varifocals and so I had to wait a while between getting my eyes tested and them being ready, Ian just needs some reading glasses and they were ready in about 20 mins. While we were in town we also got the piece of paper sorted out that allows us to get buildings registered on our land and hopefully they will now send the tax bills to us, instead of another place where they often get delayed, before finding their way back to us to pay. At least this is progress, we can now both read small print again and we get a step in the right direction for house building, well kind of...

Our giant orange pepper. It is getting to the stage where
the peppers need harvesting, green or not!

Ian having a chat with the new arrivals

The next piece of news is a little difficult to explain, but we ended up buying another apartment. We didn't set out to do this, but someone asked us to help, as theirs was being repossessed by the bank and they would be homeless otherwise. We don't intend to own it for long, otherwise our own dream of building a house will draw even further away, but we didn't feel we could let this family down, we tried to think what would God want us to do in this situation. Hopefully their circumstances will change soon and we can sort something out, but until then we now own three apartments and before you think us very rich, they are not expensive being situated in very rural Latvia. We did feel a little bit down as we knew we were risking our own house build, because savings won't last forever anyway and it was already beginning to look like we might end up living in just the basement of the house with no hope of building further up, but at least it would be warm, dry and cheap

Ian dug out the dried up pond a little more
so that we hopefully have more water next
year,. It looks a bit of a mess at the
moment. Still it is starting to fill with the
damper atmosphere and the occasional
rain. Still more is needed to recharge the
wells of locals before the winter. 

The Stockholm-Riga ferry which our girls arrived on

It was at this down point a strange thing happened. Ian had been playing hunt the trays that he uses to feed our male alpacas with, this is a regular game as they bury their feeding trays under the hay ... I'm sure they don't do it deliberately, or maybe they do ...... anyway on this particular day, Ian was looking at the gap at the base of the shed to see if the alpacas had hidden it there and spotted a whole load of eggs. Our chickens have been laying intermittently, which is only to be expected at this time of the year and so weren't too surprised that we hadn't seen many. Ian occasionally has a look around to see if he can find any, but not spotted many in odd places for a while. The little dears though had managed to accumulate 22 eggs and as Ian carried them back up to the caravan, the word that came into his head was nest egg! So call us daft or whatever, we think we will find a nest egg sometime, maybe when we aren't looking. So that raised our hopes again anyway.