And so it continues

New tyres

On Thursday of last week, Ian went off to the garage to get some new tyres for the car and I had my Latvian lesson. I happily told my Latvian teacher, in Latvian, that the boys had been peaceful since the last incident. After the lesson, I needed a coffee before starting work, so I switched on the kettle and then went out of the back door of the greenhouse to the outside office (aka the loo). As I went back to finish off making my coffee, I saw a row of faces staring intently at me over the fence. I thought that was a little odd but waved merrily at the alpaca boys. 

It's not completely unusual to be stared at by the
alpaca boys just perhaps not a row of them.

Life has also been a little wet just lately. Our
well is rather full.

Life is a little complicated in some ways and could do with a little bit of a reorganisation, so while the kettle and coffee are in the greenhouse, the milk is down in the coolness of the barn, as it is a better location for the fridge. I set off out of the front door of the greenhouse and saw the girls were not heads down gently grazing the grass, instead they were all gathered together with their heads up and postures that suggested they were on their guard. My level of alertness went up the scale, scanning for the cause of their behaviour. 

This is how they should have been, quietly
and peacefully grazing.

Josefs does tend to stand out for his
distinctive markings

I spotted Josefs first, his distinct brown and white colouring standing out against the mainly solid colouring of the girls. Then I spotted little Jakobs too. My heart sank. I was home alone and needed to act. I plonked my coffee down and ran, meanwhile mentally calculating if there were any more loose alpacas. Nope, just the two young ones. I knew they had tried to join in the mating game at the weekend and so not likely to be able to just head them off. 

On a more peaceful, sunny day.

Really, this is how they are most of the time.
Just peaceful grazing away. 

I enacted plan A: I went to close the gate to stop the girls getting into the paddock and went back to try and drive the two boys in, since at least they were still on the outside of the girl's electric fence. As I got closer though, they crashed/leapt through the fence into the girls area. 

At least Freddie wasn't involved..... this time! He
is often mixed up with the fighting just lately and
is perhaps the most persistent. The others often
give up before he does. You wouldn't think it
from that sweet face would you?
Don't be fooled!

Lolly has such a sweet face and is looking more
and more like a little female version of
Mr. Tellus, her father

Plan B: (Plan A didn't last long then) I went back to open the gate and try to drive as many girls as I could into the paddock. I ended up driving in Jakobs too. I gathered the herding sticks and managed to capture him in a corner and man-handled him along the fence and out of the gate. There was nothing I could do about Josefs and so herded Jakobs back to the boys paddock and grabbed a harness for Josefs. 

It will be interesting to see what colour she is at shearing time.

Still soaking up that sun.

Plan C: Get as many of the girls into the paddock as possible as Josefs was intent on mating with Mari. He would be busy for a while. I did notice he was definitely a rooky suitor as he wasn't positioned correctly. At least that was what I hoped! I was surprised though that Mari was sitting down for him, she doesn't like Josefs. I managed to get all except Mari through the gate and could now concentrate on getting Josefs. 

I'm surprised that Mr. P wasn't there too with
 Josefs and Jakobs. He so wants to visit the girls.
He is often stood by the fence
staring in their direction.

Hopefully Mari is not pregnant, but interesting
that she sat down for Josefs. She would normally
spit him off as soon as she saw him.

Mari had stood up by then and was moving around a bit, which made it more difficult to get him. He wasn't giving up easily though and so I was able to walk up to him and get the harness strap around his neck. With the strap around him he wasn't able to run off and so I was able to get hold of him properly to put his harness. After that he wasn't too much bother to lead him back to the other boys. I secured their paddock gate and went back for my coffee and cake. I needed cake!

Turbjørn was not involved either, but no
surprise there.

Antonia.

I rang Ian who was still at the garage and told him the news. All was calm by now. Everyone was in the right paddock and I would let Ian deal with them all later. A few minutes went by and Ian rang me. "I have a problem," he said, "I'm nearly back but the wheel is nearly off". Oh my goodness! The garage guys were on their way pronto and soon sorted him out. They had no idea how it happened, as they checked the required torque wrench settings when putting the wheels back on. Fortunately though, due to Ian's prompt action in stopping when things didn't feel right, nothing was damaged and he managed to find all the nuts from the wheel.

Another issue we have is the
caused by the moles.
We must be mole city by now as they
are popping up molehills all over the place.
This is on the path up
to the girls' houses.

This is just outside Vanessa's house and there are plenty 
around our large greenhouse and even some just inside. 
There are also mounds and holes appearing in the little 
greenhouse and outside of that. There are some around
the boys' house and in their field as well. Just about everywhere.

Just a little scratch

In an attempt to return to get back to normal I then spent some time reading a PhD thesis for one of our students and doing a little editing, followed by some lunch and a bit more editing. At one point I suddenly realised that I needed to do some work on the final proofs for the article that had been accepted recently and it needed doing before the next day. Phew! That left me just time to grab a quick cup of coffee before an online meeting.

Oh that is so much better!

Ilvija and Lolly searching for grass amongst
the leaves.

I listened to the presentation on the position of the bioeconomy in EU policy by someone from the European Commission, then we were assigned to work groups. Our internet hasn't been great and so I didn't immedieately volunteer for the rapporteur's job, but after waiting for several minutes for someone else to volunteer, I realised we were not getting anywhere fast, so agreed to do the job. So that is how I finished the day by giving a five minute report for our group from our caravan in the middle of rural Latvia, on a by now dodgy internet, to the folks from the European Commission - as you do! It was an odd kind of a day. They're not all like that though, thank goodness.

Karla also looks just like her father, Brencis

She looks like she will have more fleece than her father though

This is wool that has been spun for our neighbour.
It is a combination of Josefs and George.

Just as a side note, the new tyres came in useful to help Ian pull our neighbour's car out of the mud (twice) at the weekend. 

I think Josefs approves

Wheeeeeee! A little roll on the bank.

Do you mind, I'm eating!

Me too!

Show and Tell

We've been watching the rain clouds a lot just
lately

Well it is two weeks since I last blogged and a lot has happened and not much has happened. It's rained a lot, that is for sure. Yesterday (Sunday) I worked as there were students who needed an English check before they submit their theses this Tuesday, but that was okay as it rained for most of the day and so not much else to do in a caravan. Even the greenhouse is showery in that kind of weather as the moisture collects on the plastic and then flaps down in the wind, sending a fine drizzle onto anything below. We make sure that anything that needs protecting from rain is under a table these days. 

One of our visitors this week. Fortunately he and
his Mrs. decided it is not a good place to raise
ducklings and went somewhere else. The pond is 
not reliably full enough to make sure they would be safe
from Mrs. Fox who is somewhere nearby. Another 
visitor was a hare that I stood and watched as it
made its way across our field. I couldn't believe that
it couldn't see me in my bright red coat, but I was
standing very, very still with a watering can in one
hand, hardly daring to breathe while I watched.

More rain on the way, fortunately not much
today though.

The rain started late at night and then carried on until well into the afternoon. It was also pretty heavy at times. We could hear the rain on the greenhouse plastic and then a steady and irritating drip onto the caravan. Yes the caravan is still inside the greenhouse, even though it is near the end of May. The weather has been that cool it is better off inside the greenhouse. I think there's only been one uncomfortable night so far this year. when the temperature was too hot to sleep well. The weather forecast though did promise us that the weather would be better next week. We'll see, but then again the Ieva or bird cherry tree has nearly finished flowering and they do say that it is often cold when the Ieva flowers.

Someone has a sunny smile anyway

Lockdown haircut

Although it's been cold we have been shearing all over Latvia. We still have Estonia to do thought. The problem with shearing in Estonia is that there are still restrictions on travel across the border, so that does not make our job any easier. To get a test we would have to travel to the big town about 45km away just before we head north. Theoretically we should then self-isolate - but we cannot do that when we have our own animals to take care of. Once we have our second vaccination, this should help, but then some of our animals are due to give birth. 

Poor Mr. Tubjørn, he has bad days...

And he has good days. The yellow around his 
eyes is from eating dandelions or lying around
on a field of dandelions. As you can see it is 
definitely dandelion season.

 

Jakobs always looks a bit of a rascal and that's 
probably because he is. He's always up for a
play fight and being the smallest, usually comes
off the worse. 

Fortunately the weather cooperated reasonably okay for us while shearing. When we had to shear outside it was dry and on the other days we had shelter. In fact at one place they have had a new garage built last year, that meant we could shear inside for the first time Normally it has been really hot and we sheared outside in the heat. We were always worried about cooking the alpacas on the shearing mats. It was a good job they did have the new shelter, as it did rain. They also had a new metal construction for the llamas and so Ian was able to shear them standing up. A steep learning curve but better than trying to pin them down, one year a llama went unshorn because he couldn't be restrained. The construction was too big for the alpacas though, so they were restrained on the floor as usual.

Ian has another order for handspun yarn, so he's in
the process of cleaning Chanel's.


It ta
kes a lot of time but it's lovely when it is done.
The fleece here is a bit dusty but it will be fine
once washed. It also has a slight purple tinge to
it. Not sure if it is the light or what, but it is 
interesting.

Mr. Tellus, the old man now but suave as ever.

The Internet has been really bad, especially after a rainstorm the other week. I complained to the company and it did improve to some extent, but when I pushed them a bit they said there was nothing they could do about it. Funny how it can change a bit but not enough to get a steady access. We use our mobiles and we have anything from 0.2 to 17Mbps. Not helpful when I work so much online, as do so many others obviously. Whine, whine, whine, but I was there first! I will talk to someone higher up at some stage and find out what their strategy is for the future in the rural areas of Latvia, i.e. the majority of Latvia. Our access is not bad compared to other places around the country, so I don't know how other's manage. 

Oh to be that flexible!

Sorry but I think that's just lazy
to eat while lying around on the
floor.

I was a bit worried about the internet access when I couldn't even do a Zoom call with video with just my Latvian teacher. Neither I nor my teacher had our video on that day. I usually have mine switched off due to the access issues but it is very bad when she has to switch her's off too. Fortunately it had improved enough to do an online presentation for a conference organised by a Lithuanian university. It is the first time I've done a presentation for a conference since the pandemic started. Then I was literally zooming around Europe nearly 18 months ago and now all the zooming I do is online. It worked anyway. I even did a "Show and Tell".

Brencis always looks content with life.

We have had some gorgeous sunsets too.

We were discussing food and where we get our food from in a workshop for the conference. In principle the other participants understand about eating home produce but in practice many do not and so it was just easier to take my computer outside, switch on my camera and take them on a quick tour of the garden. They also got to see the alpacas but not up close as it started to rain. That isn't something that is so easy to do in a face-to-face conference. 

I have a garden in there somewhere. Honest! 
Fortunately Ian managed to find it or at least
strim around the beds.

Amidst the sadness there was also the joy of
remembering a life well lived.

Sadly this week we had to say goodbye to a friend of our's. We've never been to a Latvian funeral but I guessed there would be flowers, at least I remembered at 3am on the morning before. I ended up sending an email to another friend to ask about the protocol for flowers. He kindly got some for us and brought them to the farm, he also explained what to expect and the order that things would happen in. I'm glad he did. Although it didn't happen quite the same because of Covid restrictions, at least we kind of knew what to expect. It was a moving time and the weather was kind to us all. The sun shone through the trees and warmed us through. Goodbye dear friend!

Ian found my veg beds. The peas are growing 
anyway. I also planted some broad bean plants
so at least it is possible to see something is
growing. Next I will need supports for all
the plants.

Today I finally managed to get some time in the garden, but first we had to go to the Immigration Office in the big town. We thought we were just going to pick up our ID cards. We didn't realise that we should also have our passports with us. I fortunately had mine with me but Ian didn't, so he has to go back tomorrow. I thought the whole point of an ID card is that it is an ID, or am I missing something? I handed in my old ID so not quite sure why they needed our passports too. They already have a copy of them anyway from previous trips. They also looked at our passports when we went the first time to apply for the new card. Sigh! 

I lost count of the number of storks we saw on the
way back from the big town. Ian had to slow 
down for one, to give it time to get some height
as it tried to fly off. 

Sunbathing at last! Not that the alpacas really like
sunbathing a lot at this time of the year, they do 
after they are sheared.

Normally by now we have the tomatoes in the greenhouse, but the chickens are still in there and even if they weren't the tomato plants are still rather small. It's just not been hot enough to make them grow much. I even started them off with heat and had bottles of water to retain the heat of the day through the night. I haven't lost any to frosts this year, but neither have they exactly rocketed away. The weather hasn't stopped the weeds though. All the moisture has meant they've grown but all the moisture falling from the sky has meant that Ian hasn't been able to get out very regularly to strim them. At least today he managed to sort them out and I can find my veg beds again.