Just another week gone by!

Ilvija before shearing looking like a little
teddy bear

Time flies when you're having fun they say. Time just flies anyway I think. Another week gone and more shearing done. We've almost finished. We just have a mini-zoo left to do. This last week we sheared the rest of our girls on one day and the rest of the boys a few days later. It has been a bit difficult trying to fit the shearing in this year. First because it was too cold early on, then too wet and travelling to do other's. Finally we had a few days when the rain was only forecast to start later in the day and Ian is now fast enough to get it done in a few hours, at least on just four or five animals. After we sheared the girls, we had literally just packed up everything and thinking of sitting down for a coffee when the rain started, but at least we managed. It was also manageable to get it done and still have time for me to get on with some work, if I worked into the evening anyway.

Long legs, not like her Mum

Such a cutie.

How are we going to tell these too apart. Ilvija is 
definitely a little mini-Chanel.

The swelling has gone down but there
is still a crick in Turbjørn's neck 

I mentioned last week that we wondered if Turbjørn had some arthritis in his neck. The next day Ian came into the caravan and said you had better come and have a look. Turbjørn was sat upright but his neck was most certainly not straight, it had a definite kink in it. We had the vet come out to look, but she doesn't really know much about alpaca necks - this is something a bit different to the problems we've had with alpacas up until now. She gave us some anti-inflammatories and Vitamin B complex and the swelling at least seems to have gone down. He still has a bit of a kink, but due to the wonders of modern technology and an appeal on our Facebook page we have someone who is studying animal physiotherapy coming to have a look this next week. We lined up a few other jobs while we are at it that we would like some advice on. It will add to our knowledge anyway.

A pond frog

These ones do like to sunbathe

Mari looks very smart.

Brencis is so nosy, each time Ian switched off the shears  

he would come and look to see what was happening

Father and two of his sons. Tellus in front,
then George and then Brencis

It was a short blog last week because I have so many deadlines due and so much work including on our farm that I was rather inundated. The amount of work is beginning to slow down a bit and by the end of the week I will have finished some major milestones. More on that next week though. What I did forget to mention is that we had one of those, "What was all that about?" moments during shearing at one place. It is normally a lively affair at this one particular farm as one of their alpacas is rather spitty and uncooperative. This time it wasn't that particular animal that caused mayhem though. We were shearing one of the alpacas when two of the ladies helping suddenly jumped up and ran to the back of the barn. There was a bit of a commotion and we saw the bull kicking up quite a fuss, but it only dawned on me afterwards that he must have been on the wrong side of the hefty fence. He was corralled up before I even realised what had happened and Ian was oblivious because he was focussed on the shearing. Now that would have been rather exciting if he had got out, but the sort of excitement I'm quite prepared to miss out on. Still all was well in the end, which was a good job as one of our helpers is due to give birth this month.

Jakobs is looking spottier, I'm sure!

The grass has grown a lot

We have started the plans so that we are open for visitors this next weekend. People have already been ringing up and we have agreed to let them visit. We don't mind small groups with a little advance warning. What we will not be doing is having people just turn up. We want to be prepared for visitors and so people will have to book in advance, no matter how far they have travelled. Also Latvia moved out of the state of emergency this last week and although there are still deaths from Covid19 there have been no new cases in the last two days and even before that the number of cases had been pretty low. There are still some restrictions on distancing and masks on public transport but for outside events the restrictions are minimal. We plan on only doing outside tours and not doing so much of a demonstration like we used to. Not quite sure what will happen on very hot days or days when it rains yet. We will find out. 

Just too hot!

Relief in the rain

George looks much happier to have less fleece.

As I said, work is winding down as we head towards the end of a project I am involved in. Little did I know how much I would learn about the Baltic Sea and how much the marine environment is beneficial to people. I have learnt about the different ways that pollution gets into the sea and the way that the sea processes those harmful substances. Some are neutralised and some are accumulated and cause us harm. Then there are underwater eelgrass meadows that are nurseries for the fish we eat - isn't that cute? Reed wetlands filter water for us, so there isn't as much of the harmful substances in the water we swim in. That and so much more. You can see a bit of what I've been doing here (link), I was on the health and well-being team. 

Josefs before shearing

He really needed a haircut

Dapper!

A very leggy looking Josefs

Freddie with his new haircut.

I still have another project to finish that I'm working on. This one was just a short project for me, as they needed some help to finish that one off, also about the sea, but also other blue spaces and health. Then I start work on a new project but more land based this time. At least that keeps me going part-time until the end of the year. It keeps me busy and some income coming in anyway. At least part-time I might be able to actually clean up my computer and sort through the hundreds of files I've saved ready for a project of my own - well maybe. There will also be the garden to sort out. The weeds, as usual are getting ahead of me. At least this weekend, in a brief spell before the rain, I managed to find parsnips, beetroot and garlic. The carrots look a bit thin though. Either they haven't come through or still coming through. I'll find out next week and re-sow if there are not enough of them. 

Sweet Freddie before he was sheared. He was amusing  

because he made such a funny noise before while  

he was being sheared. 

 

A spruce tree

All the boys sheared now.

Ian at least tackled the greenhouse monsters, aka grapevines today. They look so sweet as they start to grow and then suddenly they change into a raging monsters that threaten to strangle you as you go in through the door. It is amazing how much it grows in just a week. At least I have a ready supply of leaves to bake bread on until the end of the growing season. They save on baking paper, oil and wear and tear on my silicon baking sheets. Which is good, because I bake bread every few days anyway, virus lockdown or not. 

Lady V looks like she has a spring in her step since being sheared

A new sport?

Bales collected together.

Have you heard of Crown Green Bowling? Perhaps not. It is a genteel game, usually played by older people on a crown shaped, i.e. not flat, lawn in the northern parts of England and Wales. A great deal of skill is involved to ensure that the bowls travel in the right direction over the curved terrain towards a smaller ball, known as a jack. Now as you can imagine, if you follow this blog, the idea that I have taken up a genteel sport usually played by older people is not something I'm likely to do, but I did play something a bit similar today. I shall call it Crown Green Bale Bowling. The idea of the game is to assemble bales of hay into groups. Now our bales are not the huge ones, they weigh about 25kg and not 600kg and upwards like some you see these days.

The view from the oak tree hill of the cut hay

We can now see our alpacas again

Our fields are definitely not flat and so it is possible to launch some of the bales down the hill to gather them together for easier collection later, or at least it is in theory. Usually the bales don't travel very quickly and have to be encouraged along the way or more likely rolled manually depending on the gradient. However, occasionally there is a rogue bale, perhaps where I haven't anticipated the angle and gradient correctly and those are the ones that gather speed as they roll off in the wrong direction. At this point you will see this not so genteel older lady haring down the field in pursuit of a bale of hay before it ends up at the bottom away from the others, or worse in the pond.

It is amazing how much the grass had grown. Such little rain
but it seems like it was just at the right time. We got almost
double the amount of hay from these areas this year.

Ian and his stork pals. They sometimes get rather close and
have to run to get out of the way. It is comical watching them

As you can gather Ian has been cutting and baling hay this week. I help with gathering the bales and  stacking them. We haven't stacked them yet, we will be doing that tomorrow to allow them to lose some field heat overnight. We only bale and stack on the same day if there is rain forecast, it is better to wait otherwise. He was going to start cutting properly earlier but there was a forecast of rain. We did get some much needed rain in the end, but not as much as was forecast (yet again!), but at least it was enough to keep the plants going.

It is still dry and dusty though

This is on the verge of the field.
It has plenty of flowers to get
seeds from later. Interestingly
we found out that the purple and
yellow flowers (well not really
flowers but bracts) are actually
parasitic. Well I didn't know that.

The day before Ian cut the hay we had a phone call to ask if a group could come and survey the field for a biodiversity assessment. We are pleased we didn't get it cut after all. We were a bit skeptical at first as we knew they were meant to be doing an assessment ages ago and thought that had finished and wondered why they were doing an assessment on a major holiday weekend. The problem in Latvia, if you can call it that, is there are too many places with high biodiversity and so I think it might be taking longer than anticipated. Anyway, it was indeed a legitimate group and so we had a fascinating time wandering around our land looking at the various biotopes and discussing how best to manage the land for biodiversity.

Lots of flowers but not special enough! We need to reseed some
of the marsh orchids into this place.

It just so happens I found one, down
by the barn

We were also able to give them valuable details of where we had re-seeded after pig damage and where we knew there were plants they were looking for, for example cowslips, which are starting to spread all over the place. I only said last week that our meadows are flower rich, maybe not as much as they could be, but we still have a lot of the different plants they look for, just maybe not all in one place. I shall certainly be looking for seeds from the various plants on their lists. I downloaded the booklet the lady was using to show us some of the plants they were looking for from the website of the organisation. It is very handy.

We have loads of vetches this year. I need to find out exactly
which sort this one is. I have been photographing them to
compare later with the book I downloaded 

A butterfly orchid

The top of our hill with the old oak tree is apparently a special sandhill biotope and over the hill - which we didn't think was anything special also qualified due to the number of plants per square metre. Apparently the ski hill, where we get most of our hay from, was declared a special area before as the satellite picture picked that up. That has been meadow for many years and never re-seeded and so it is full of flowers and different grasses. On our trip around I also spotted a couple of butterfly orchids. We were quite pleased about that, as we hadn't seen many in the last year or two, probably due to various factors, but mainly because the animals are grazing in those areas. We will make sure we cut later to let them re-seed themselves.

I thought at first this was an orchid.
It is in an area we have found orchids
before but realised it wasn't the
butterfly orchid we had seen before.
Apparently it isn't an orchid. It is a
woodland plant, but that is as much
as I know at the moment

Our potatoes are enjoying the alpaca manure, not bad
considering the lack of rain.

It has been good this weekend to take some time off from computer work. As I mentioned earlier it was a holiday weekend here in Latvia. There are lots of activities and many families gather in the countryside to see the sunrise on St. John's day. There is a rhyme that basically says the person who sleeps through the night and doesn't see the sunrise on St. John's day, will sleep the rest of the year. I'm afraid we went to bed. We have a lot of work to do on the farm and by 11pm we are ready to sleep. We also have a heavily pregnant alpaca that is due any day now and so we want to be up early enough for any possible births. Fortunately alpacas usually give birth in the morning or at least early part of the day, so we don't want to be sleeping late.

A sit down protest. This is to stop them going in and using
their house as a toilet during the day. They do have plenty of
shade, there is a huge oak tree at the bottom of the field.

Apparently daises aren't special, but I think they are. They
also make a great resist dye plant.

I was also up late one night this week, trying to finish off some work for the project. My colleagues were away again and so it was up to me to get it done. I managed with half an hour to spare for the deadline. Happy days! It did cause a bit of a problem though, as it is not easy for Ian if I am working late when we live in a caravan. If I'm up working, he's up too. Heh ho! I had another Skype online meeting this week. Normally I would Skype from in the caravan but that particular day it was far too hot. I also do not normally do video Skype calls because there are too many team members and our signal for the phone is not fantastic, but this was only a meeting with two others. I made them jealous because I was there with a blue sky and a few clouds as a backdrop, whereas they were both in offices. I even got to show our alpacas to one of them after the main meeting was finished and we chatted about some other things that needed sorting.

This is a good indicator plant, or is it a characteristic plant. I
did get a bit confused by the terminology and not sure if it was
a translation problem or not. Anyway it is typical of the type of
biotope it lives in and we have plenty of it.

Not a native biotope, but my herb garden. I don't think I've ever
seen so many flowers on the lavender. Obviously enjoying the
dry conditions.

Awww! Jakobs and Josefs having a hug! Actually not, they
are play fighting and trying to bite each other. 

I finally got our chicks moved into one of the arks and out of the cage they had been in since they were hatched. This now means a nightly ritual of capturing the little darlings to put them away, until they get the hang of putting away time. I usually put feed in the hutch area so they come into feed and then close the door, all operated by a simple pulley system. The problem is that until they get the idea that the food is in the hutch area, they don't go away. I was relieved that on the first night four of them came to investigate. That meant only having to capture four of them. The second night, only two went in. Pah! I left them for a while and when I went back, only two were still out. Phew! Climbing into the chicken ark to capture them is not so easy, but at least it is easier than the ark that the older chickens went into. There would be no way to capture them in that one. It was never meant for long term use, but ended up being used for that.

Group hug! Or an alpaca game of twister

Jakobs looking very cute.

We have four different arks. Most of them are totally enclosed, but the other one is under netting to stop them getting out and stop the hawks from getting to them. The cockerel in that one, will not go away with the girls, but each night he almost seems to check that I have put them all away before he hops off to sit on a bale of hay. It is funny the way he cocks his head to one side and fixes me with a look as if to say, "Okay! All present and correct! You can shut the door now!" He then sleeps on top of the box where his girls are after I leave the enclosure.

Herk still looks kind of tired these days, but it is only on the
hot days when the flies have been bothering him

Chanel is also looking tired, but she is due to give birth any
day now

Inside this amazing nest are five baby swallows. It's just they
wouldn't cooperate for Ian to get a photo of them.

One of the parents having a rest from darting this way and
that. We got to watch some amazing arial acrobatics this
week as they had a territorial dispute with some others and were
backwards and forwards getting insects for their little ones

Feels like a lifetime

Our little fluff ball, Jakobs

It is funny how quickly we have settled back into our summer routine. There are still some hitches to sort out, such as things left at the apartment that we need. Things like scales to make sure our porridge is nice and thick and not runny. Cakes and bread I can make without scales, but the amount of porridge to add to the milk I kind of misjudged. Shall we say Ian was not amused. We make porridge in the evening and eat it cold over the following mornings. It might sound awful, but when it is made with the rich, creamy milk we get, it is delicious, at least when it is made properly. Probably only appreciated by the sort of people who like cold rice pudding though.

Now the snow melt has gone, the pond is receding. It hope
it is only disappearing so fast because it is the first year
after digging it out some more. Sometimes it takes a year or
two to settle back down.

Our morning coffee view

One aspect of moving out to the caravan is that I have enjoyed being able to sit outside to enjoy a morning cup of coffee with Ian. It is just about warm enough most mornings, even if it means huddling in a coat and lots of layers, but the benefits of being outside in the sunshine outweighs getting a bit cold - at least most of the time. There are days when the wind blows too strong or from the wrong direction to be able to do that though. One morning we witnessed the arrival of the wagtails, back from their winter holidays. They are cheery little birds that often torment the cats. Whilst they resident in places like the UK, here in Latvia they are definitely migratory and could have been down to the Mediterranean for their holidays. Ian had only said the day before, he wondered when they would be back.

One of the wagtails that returned this week

The view from our Oak tree hill

It has been an odd sort of week. I spent the first part of the week trying to put together some work that needed to be done for an online workshop that was happening for the project I'm working on. It should have been the whole team working together on it, but the other members of my team were away on conferences and so I had to try and figure out what we were supposed to be doing. I went to our apartment to make sure I had good internet connection for the Skype call and put the fire on to warm the apartment through a bit. I muddled through the workshop and at least have a clearer idea of what now needs to be done for the next stage. That's progress at least. I even got the report for my colleagues written before setting off back to our caravan.

Chanel is starting to look big. She did with Freddie too.
Either that or it is all the fleece she is carrying and not
just a big baby.

The new girls are also enjoying spending lots of time
outdoors and even getting quite a bit of sunbathing in.

My article for Dispatches Europe and its subsequent translation into Latvian is still causing a bit of a stir. One ex-neighbour rang Ian, since it is his details that are on our webpage, to ask if I would be interested in teaching English at a school about 30 minutes away. It is definitely not something I am able to take on at the moment, as I need the flexibility to work on the university project and not enough hours in the day to teach English, continue working on a paper for my PhD and start the garden off as well. That wasn't the only phone call Ian took from someone trying to contact me. He also got a call from Latvian National Radio asking for an interview with me about my views on the EU. Not because I am some world expert but because they were doing a series, which included various nationalities who are now living in Latvia.

Signs of spring. A miniature daffodil making an appearance

The cowslips are coming through

Mr. P

The presenter came to the farm on Saturday and we sat outside in the sunshine with storks flying over and the alpacas peacefully eating hay in their paddocks. The interview went well and she said she got more out of it than she anticipated. Not quite sure what she anticipated or what on earth will end up in the final cut. The interview I can handle, but I am a bit nervous as to what will come out in the broadcast itself. She was thrilled to see the alpacas and is talking about coming to see us again in the summer with her family, so looking forward to that.

The winter wrecked the tarpaulin. They really are not good
when they start to disintegrate and we are finding plastic bits
everywhere.

The peony is starting to poke through that I planted last year

She asked if she could interview one of our neighbours and so I contacted our nearest neighbour to see if she was willing. It turned out to be a good story, two neighbours who are neighbours in part due to the EU. We can't speak each others' language well but we communicate and get along, helping each other out as best we can. In a country where mistrust can sour relations, it was a positive story for the broadcast. I think my neighbour came out with the best quote of the day though. She was asked for the first thing that came to mind when she thought about the EU and she said, "Family." I think that is a brilliant analogy. As in all families we don't always get along, but we try to find the best way forward. At least I think that is what we should be trying to do.

The elder tree is starting to bud

The swamp at least still has water in it. This is Ian's makeshift
bridge he put in last year to make a section of our land more
accessible

He found our cranberry patch is still under snow though

Brencis and Herkules enjoying time outside in the paddock.
Mind you they are itching to get out on the grass but it
hasn't grown enough yet.

She wasn't the only visitor this week. We've had a couple who came to take the alpacas for a walk and they have uploaded a video to page that discusses different places to go in Latvia. It will be interesting to see if we get more visitors through that. We also had a visit from another neighbour who owns land but doesn't actually live on site and he wants Ian's help to dig foundations for a cabin he is planning on building this year. So that's a job for Ian this coming week. He won't be bored.

The weeds are doing well despite the lack of rain. Here you
can see the docks and ground elder coming through

Sigh! And this is cow parsley that we don't want either

The pig damage harrowed. You can see how dry the ground
is though

This week Ian has been busy harrowing the land to deal with the mole hills, the pig damage and to scarify the moss a bit. It is looking better now than it did but not as good as we would like as we've hardly had any rain. It is hard to believe that we are worrying already about a lack of rain, when the snow has only just gone and we are not even half way through April. We also both went to the camp/sheep farm where Ian will be working part time. We were putting plans together for a new vegetable garden and to sort out the plans to rework the old vegetable garden so that it doesn't wash soil down the hill. Because Ian has a two wheel tractor he can work across the garden, whereas a large tractor can only work up and down making ridges - which is why the soil was washing down the hill. By mulching and slight terracing he should be able to make sure that doesn't happen. We will also make sure there is a good herb garden and start on organising raised beds with the sheep manure.

More greenery

These were last years potato beds. We planted the potatoes
into the manure and then after we pulled up the potatoes
heavily mulched the plots for over winter. I pulled off the
hay that hadn't rotted down and raked it. The only digging
I did was to straighten the edges. The right hand side has
got parsnip seeds in and the left-hand side has another type
of parsnip, hamburg parsnip and a salad mix.

I've been working on other little projects. Another article for a webpage but it needs mulling over and a project for my grandson that is taking far more time than I would like. It has been one of those projects that sounded like a good idea at the time and involved a bit of filming. I then tried to download the iMovie but my software was out of date, so I had to upgrade my software to Mojave. Well that went okay and I'm getting used to the dark side. It is easier on the eye to have more black and less white on my screen but of course it takes time to sort things out. I also found out that my computer could not read the format of my sound recording, although my old computer never had a problem with it and so that was another piece of software to download to make that work. Pah! I'm getting there now. I just need to synchronise visual and sound. Hmmm!

I cut back the autumn raspberries and mulched this with the
hay from out of the alpaca houses that Ian has stacked over
winter. It has alpaca poo in too, but it doesn't need to compost
to be added to the garden, so this should make a good mulch
for them.

Another view of our rather parched looking land

Something has been busy doing a bit of
woodwork. Possibly a deer or an elk. Wish
they would stick to trees like this rather
than our orchard.

The boys looking for the tiniest bit of grass. We are not sure if
they are eating the moss too. Don't worry, they still have plenty
of hay to eat.

Ian has been busy chopping and stacking the wood for next
winter

Errr! The cats busy sleeping