Departures and arrivals

One of the last few pictures we have of Estelle. Here Lady V
and Estelle are hogging the water buckets in the heat.

We have had a dramatic end to our shearing season. We have spent the last month shearing animals both on our farm and in Estonia without an issue apart from the dirty fleece issues I have mentioned before and the usual occasional cut, which unfortunately happens. The very last animal we sheared however, our own pregnant Estelle, unfortunately collapsed and died shortly after shearing. We were not able to save the baby either. She was one of those animals we had high hopes to build our herd on. The others who had died were older animals or the young from older animals, but Estelle was only four years old and pregnant with her first baby. She didn't manage to get pregnant last year and we have been wondering for most of this past year if she was or not. Her behaviour changed, which gave us a clue, but she only started to show visible signs in the last few weeks, so it is a double blow for us.

Mari before shearing 

And afterwards. Not sure the hair cut works so well, but it will
grow back. Don't be fooled by the clouds behind either, we
still have not had any significant rain fall , bar one good shower
that didn't leave much in the way of puddles but at least refreshed
the plants. We could see the rain to the North, the East, the West
and the South but they passed us by with only the odd drop for comfort

We have never seen this type of caterpillar before. A very
vivid turquoise though

The shearing itself went okay and she literally jumped up after being released from the restraints. She wandered outside a little stiff in the legs, but that is normal and she walked over to the gate as if she wanted to go in the field. She then moved away, but as she did the other alpacas stopped and stared at her, which was odd. There is usually a bit of hilarity as animals are not recognisable to each other after shearing and they have to assure themselves that the animal is familiar to them by their smell and at first we thought that was the reason. She then seemed to spraddle her legs and we thought she was going into labour, she righted herself and then moved on again before sitting down

Before

I like Chanel's hair cut. I think it suits her

By this time we felt something was wrong and Ian went to phone the vet, but before he finished phoning we think she had gone. The vet was on her way though so we started pumping her chest to keep oxygen going around her system to try and save the baby at least and just in case the vet could bring her round. The vet tried two injections but no response before doing an emergency caesarian. The baby though had also died in the process and we could get no response out of it. So hours later saw us burying Estelle and baby Edmunds. It happened all so fast that it has been hard to process.

Before 

After. A much slimmer look and unfortunately shows her age.
At least she is better for it and has been out much more. Neither
is she hogging the water bucket so much, but then again it has
cooled down a lot. So much so that lots of folks have been covering
their tender plants with fleece tonight

Estelle on the 5th May starting to look pregnant

It has been a tough spring/early summer on our animals, especially the girls who had to wait to be sheared. They have been drinking a lot to keep cool, as there have been no showers of rain to wet their fleece to help them cool down from time to time and we just do not have the facilities to spray water on them like some do. Having said that I think now I would contemplate at least using a watering can to help, but our animals have managed with similar problems before, especially our older ones who had babies in dry hot years. It wasn't comfortable for them, but they managed. So of course there are the unanswerable "Why?" questions, when she was only four years old and "If onlys!" of which there are many. What's done is done though and for future years we try and make sure that the animals have electrolytes in their water from time to time if they are drinking lots and we try finding a way of getting them cooler if needed.

Before

Aggie after her hair cut

Group photo, but kind of sad because Estelle is not there

Next year we will not have the same problem and we will be more organised. At least that is the plan, but who knows what our plans will be next year if the UK decide to pull out of Europe! That is a worry in itself, especially as we see the debate slipping into re-creating a supposedly glorious past that in reality never existed for all. Also there those protectionist stances or taking back control over sovereignty as it is labelled, which never achieves what its sets out to achieve, of protecting the state, as it usually end up with an isolated and increasing xenophobic society - not healthy.

Our Christiania bike 

Another departure that is more bittersweet than just bitter is the departure of our Christiania bike. We bought this bike in Denmark and it served as our car for three years. We have many recollections from the mundane carrying a week's worth of shopping in it, to the more bizarre such as the 4m long pipe that was rested in the box and over Ian's shoulder; the numerous friend's of our sons who were ferried to the bus stop in it and the time I had to pick up one of our sons at night from the train station because the bike seat and wheel had been pinched from his bike, so he couldn't ride it home, which meant bike and son had to be ferried back from the train station in it.

The Christiania is not so useful with the hills we have around here though

Mia their dog is having a great time in the Christiania bike.
The bike has carried all sorts of materials in its time, but
never a dog. 

We have tried to use it on our land, but it is just such hilly terrain that it is difficult to ride with it. Even when the ground looks flat it isn't, so our friends from Alpakafarm in Estonia have bought it. We were sad to see the bike go, but we are pleased it is going to a good home where it will be well used. Our friend drove all the way down from his place near Pärnu, dropped some alpaca feed off had a quick look around our farm and then drove all the way back with the Christiania bike. An epic journey in one day for sure, especially on the dirt roads around here at the moment. The last few kilometres are dreadful at the minute.

Even though the boys were sheared a while ago, they still like to
hide in the shelter from the sun

Already we have had to put a mesh on the top because this
little one was trying to escape

On the arrivals front we have three chicks so far, although one seems to be struggling with its legs - if it doesn't improve and get up on its feet that one will have to be despatched. I hate doing it but it is better than letting the poor thing suffer. I aim to make sure it gets the idea about getting up on its feet and making sure the tendon is in the right place, but apart from that there is no point in going through any more rigmarole from experience. Yes there is lots of information about strengthening legs and maybe it works with a lot of intensive effort, but it then also means that there is probably some weak genetics in there and it is better for the flock health and for future generations to dispatch it. Fortunately I think the chick seems to have got the idea about standing properly and so the grisly deed may be avoided.

As this was the first chick by a long way, a day ahead of schedule

Enjoying the cooler weather and eating

There is no news from our expectant sheep, we are still waiting for the arrival of their lambs. Hopefully by next week they will have produced, although it is a bit cold for the arrival of newborns at the moment after our hot weather.

Chanel and Aggie

We also have some friends from Estonia who have arrived today. Our Latvian roads proved a bit daunting and so progress was slower than anticipated. I am not surprised. We thought the dirt road was particularly bad on Saturday when we went to visit a friend about 3/4 hour away and we have a 4x4 (by the way on that trip we ended up with a lovely meal cooked by a Ukrainian, an Armenian and an Englishman so a lovely mix of foods representing the different cultures and a bit of a last minute invite so a rather pleasant surprise for the day). We decided to go and meet our friends from Estonia in the village, rather than make them come out the extra 6km only to travel back to the village later where they are staying in our guest apartment. We will introduce them to the alpacas tomorrow instead.

Oh we know how to have fun

I was going to take a lovely picture of all that lovely manure
but I forgot and so I guess you will have to put up with
this one instead. Would look even nicer to me if I didn't
know that is mainly ground elder in the foreground.

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than shovelling manure, heh? You can tell we are gardeners when we are so grateful to neighbours for the offer of trailer loads of manure. One of the few advantages for a gardener here in Latvia is the length of time animals end up spending in barns and of course that means lots and lots of lovely muck, so we toddled off with tractor, car and trailer round to our neighbours, as that then meant we only had one lot of digging to do and that was out of the trailer. It was hard work and we were bushed after four trailer loads of the stuff and we only made a dint in the pile they have, so I guess we will be back for more. We also have another offer of manure from a farm that is nearer to our apartment allotments and so we have more fun to go yet. Oh yes we know how to enjoy ourselves indeed!

The cathedral is progressing well!

Digging manure was a break, can you believe? A break from writing essays. I have really struggled with the last few essays as I now just have too much information and trying to process it into an essay is not easy.  It took me all week and about three re-writes which is just not healthy. Good job my eye is still not quite right and I need to take care of it and so need to stay in a bit, but when there is stuff to do in the garden I want to be outside not stuck in. I am now onto antihistamines and anti-inflammatories to keep my eye under control and that seems to be working for the most part, I keep trying to reduce the amount until I feel it getting sensitive again. At least my assignment is finished and that is one more unit completed and just leaves me with a report to write now. I might resort to the old fashioned cut and paste method, you know the one with scissors? I did for this last assignment. I printed out the work I had done and wrote the titles of the paragraphs down on strips of paper and then cut up my printed work into sections and plonked them next to the paragraph headings I thought they would fit in. One reason was that I just couldn't settle on a structure for the essay to bring all the random bits of information together and then inspiration struck and I settled on a structure, but then all the information was in the wrong place. Hope it worked! Should get to know soon enough.

Our not so new caravan, aka mission control. 

I said last week we were soon to be the proud owners of a caravan, and indeed we are this week. It is dirty, it's a bit battered on the inside, but it is dry, and comfortable enough to sit in and when your working the land you don't need a palace. The orange seats and orange curtains are just so 80's but who cares! Caravans like trailers have to have documents of ownership and so Ian went with the guy who owned the caravan and the guy's nephew to act as translator. The young man like so many other Latvians had spent quite a lot of time in England, working in a frozen food factory, I would only hope he was paid well for the responsibilities he was given, but I somehow think not. He is back in Latvia now to study and so I hope he does well in that, but first he has to get on a course which is not always that easy by the sound of it. I think there are just not enough places for the number of students who wish to study, from what I understand. When they got to the nearest centre which deals with transfers of ownership there was a note on the door to say the lady dealing with it was not in and so a short trip turned into a mega trip as the guy was anxious to get it sorted, as he was working for the next 6 days anyway. Still Ian had plenty of time to chat to the guys and find out a bit more about life for Latvians.

Ian ploughing

Ian has also been out ploughing again, something he loves doing. I think if it wasn't so bad for the land, he would just keep ploughing it all the time. He now needs to leave it a couple of weeks for the weeds to rot down a bit and then he can put a spring tine (not sure if that is right but that's what it sounds like) through it and then it will be ready for seeding. Hope we find something suitable. Why plough you might ask if we haven't really planned what to do with it? The reason was that the area was a mass of nettles and ground elder and hardly a blade of grass amongst it. Those rather invasive weeds appear to have largely gone now and we hope to plant it with a grain, probably buckwheat as it is a short season grain, but also some alfafa (lucerne) and some timothy grass for feed and hay (Oh yes and not altogether)- thinking ahead you see! Well sort of, if we were thinking ahead enough we would probably have got the seed by now. 

If you look carefully you will see a bee

Ian was a bit worried that the residents of the bird house he had made had gone off the idea and gone somewhere else, apparently that isn't the case. It would seem that the mum must be quietly sitting on the nest instead, so hopefully fairly soon we should be seeing plenty of activity as the parents feed the young. Apparently it is only about 14 days before they hatch out. We haven't heard the corncrakes back yet from their long journey but certainly heard the cuckoo, noisy beasts they are too. Funny isn't it how the sound of the cuckoo is a much heralded sound of spring and yet it is a murderous beast. One the way home from the land one night I spotted a head sticking up out of a patch of ground elder at the bottom of our ski hill, I kind of shrieked incomprehensibly at Ian to stop as I was sure it was an eagle. I got out  of the car and got the camera on my phone ready and walked slowly in the right direction, sure enough it was an eagle and it rather lazily flew up out of the grass and away to a telegraph pole. I am sure it was laughing at me though, as I could not get a decent photo of it, and I even tried the video option but couldn't tell if it was even pointing in the right direction due to the glare of the sun, and needless to say you will have to trust me that I saw an eagle. So far the weather has been for the most part quite pleasant just recently and rained when we needed it and so of course the richly biodiverse insect life of Latvia is appearing in greater and greater numbers, first the fleas, then the mosquitoes and I have even seen a couple of horseflies. Wonderful isn't it! There are some things I wouldn't miss if they did not reappear.

So just picture it, teenage son and bike in the box, and mum
cycling

I was reading a blog just lately and the poor woman who writes the blog had had a rough week and her son wasn't faring much better either as he had had his bike stolen and had to walk three miles home. I know it shouldn't, but it made me smile, but only because it reminded me of the incident our son had with having not all his bike stolen, but a wheel and a seat. Quick release is not a good idea sometimes! It was rather late one night and we got a phone call, "Can you come and pick me up please, I can't ride my bike home." Easier said than done, as at the time we didn't have a car, but what we did have was a Christiania bike like the one in the picture. Well you should have heard my son on the way home, it was so funny, all I got was "Slow down Mum, please!" He was crammed into the box with his bike, because there was no way I was getting in there with his bike and letting him be in charge of the Christiania. By the way it wasn't all bad news on the blog, Gina made a fantastic looking art doll, it has to be seen to be believed, wouldn't mind being able to be that creative on a bad week.

Finished!