RIP Hoppy!

Hoppy was a very different looking chicken. Such a shame
that she never got to get her legs working properly

It has been a sad week as we decided that Hoppy's quality of life was deteriorating as the cooler days draw in and for some inexplicable reason she seemed to spend most of her days with her crooked leg stuck through the wire mesh. Hoppy, unfortunately never did learn to hop on what was her good leg, even that gave up. She was always first out of the box in the morning though and would dive underneath the others to get to the food. The others didn't pick on her, in fact they just totally ignored her and acted as if she wasn't there, with dire consequences for Hoppy as she squeaked her protests at being stood on. As I said with the cooler days drawing in, it was going to be increasingly uncomfortable for a bird that couldn't raise itself up off the floor and so we decided the kindest thing to do was to dispatch her and bury her in the garden. We hope at some point to put a quince tree over the top of her, although I did think that maybe I could put some lemon balm in that place - a restful, peaceful herb. A decision for later anyway. Hoppy wasn't the only chicken we dispatched this week, there was one of the broiler chickens. It wasn't as big as it looked and obviously we need to look at feeding again, if we are to raise chickens for meat. Still it was an okay size and made a good chicken pie.

Amazingly those clouds didn't actually
produce much rain, but there were plenty
more where they came from that did.

We have been trying to make other decisions too this week. One of them is whether to move out of the apartment we are in now and sell it then build a house out on the land. We are debating whether to just have a house that we could live in in Spring, Summer and Autumn when the nights are late, or whether to have a house that we can live in all the year round. We think we have picked the perfect spot, a piece of land that is only good at growing dandelions at the moment and yet it has a lovely panoramic view that overlooks the majority of our land. Well the jury is still out on that one as it would of course demand a substantial investment. We know what our hearts tell us but our minds are backwards and forwards over the pros and cons.

The weather's not been all bad. The last few
days have been gloriously autumnal, just a
shame we haven't had more of those for the
sake of the garden.

Our rather nude looking tomatoes, just a
shame that removing the leaves wasn't
enough and they all needed pulling up

We had to admit defeat and dig up our tomatoes. Blight won the day again in the big greenhouse, where airflow versus warmth has been a difficult balancing act this year. Our small greenhouse which is constantly open but faces a different direction hasn't been as badly affected, but then again the yield on the tomatoes is lower too. You win some, you lose some. We also got the beans and peas in from our field plot and I even managed to harvest a few squash this week. We have all of 9, and we have eaten another two already as they were in danger of rotting. I have seen some folks with enormous squash plants as normal, but I think it was all to do with timing. I think I actually started mine off too early for the cold weather we had and so by the time they were due to go out they were struggling in the pots they were in. We have been pleasantly surprised with the corn though this year. The cobs on them looked so unpromising and we felt sure the crop this year was a failure but when I have opened some up, the surprise was that there was actually something on them worth eating - maybe not as big as last year but tasty anyway. As for the oats, they were a disaster, we were so close to getting something in, but it just kept right on raining and a beautiful field of green oats turned to nothing as they succumbed first of all to rust and fell over and even what was left appeared to have been eaten, probably by deer.

Sorry the picture quality is not great on my
phone for this kind of photo, but there are 143
 blackcurrant cuttings that have shown signs of
life from the cuttings that were dumped in a
bucket of water. Not bad going from a total of
10 plants that we bought originally, we already
have around 40 plants that produced
blackcurrants this year. So who's up for
blackcurrant and strawberry with black pepper
cordial next year?

The left side has been sculpted, unfortunately there are lots
of deep ruts by the barn to fill with water, but at
least in the future Ian can now get in with the tractor and
clear snow if need be

Ian has been doing a marvellous job with the back hoe and tractor, re-sculpting the land around the barn area and moving bucket loads of soil to areas around the pond and near our orchard plot that needed building up. He's getting rather good with that back hoe, I have to admit, and it looks rather neat - well the bits he's finished anyway. Unfortunately he didn't quite get finished before hitting a problem, part of the back hoe broke. A good friend of ours came to have a look and he decided it was possible to weld it back together and he came back with his welder, unfortunately our generator wasn't powerful enough for the welder to work properly. A phone call to our neighbour wasn't answered, but that was normal and so Ian and our friend decide that the only thing to do was to go up to our neighbour's farm and ask if they could use their electric, complete with tractor and welder. I guess they didn't have much option to say no, but they are good friend's of ours and we've helped them out a few times when they've been stuck and so we don't feel too bad about that. That's what neighbours are for, right?

A rather neat job on the right, just using the
back hoe.

Wish we could say the microwave could be fixed as easily as hopefully the back hoe was. We had a quote back for the replacement part ........ £250!!!!! The stupid thing is that it is only a couple of micro-switches that don't work, the rest is perfectly functional. Surely replacement micro-switches should not come to £250. We have better news from Stanley flasks though. One of Ian's Stanley flasks stopped working properly and the top part of it on the outside started getting hot, it would appear that the vacuum was breached but how and why, we have no idea. It's not as if it was dropped recently and they are sold as tough flasks that survive a lot of hammer. Ian wrote to the company to explain the problem and they have agreed to send a replacement, so far, so good. Now it appears to be in the hands of the Latvian distributor and so we will see what happens next. It is a shame that the flask stopped working as it has outlasted other flasks and when working is far superior to the other brands as it really does stay hot for a very long time, which when working in -20C is a necessity, not a luxury.

Competition time

Lovely blossom, I thought it was a mock orange at first but
on closer inspection it didn't give off the heady aroma of
a mock orrange. Beautiful flowers though

Excited? Well you will have to wait as the competition is further down the post. First of all it has been planting, planting and more planting, weeding, weeding and more weeding this week. It's monotonous and boring really and my back aches, but when I step back and look at the result it is good and worth the while. Most of our recent plantings are growing well, some of the types of squashes are struggling a bit, but I reckon with enough sunshine they should recover as they can be fairly resilient (as long as we don't have a frost that is), if not, we won't have certain types of squashes. We have three different plots where we grow food as well as the greenhouse and some things grow better in the different places, something we are still learning about. At least, despite the still cool temperatures we have had just lately we have had a crop of peas and salad leaves from the greenhouse and our broad beans are nearly ready. One evening we had sauteed peas, radish and chinese cabbage with the roast carrots and beetroot thrown in at the end. The peas and radish were from this years plantings, the chinese cabbage was from the shop after the desire for something fresh and not stored in the freezer, jar or in boxes of sawdust overwhelmed me, and the carrots and beetroot are last years rather rubbery, but still tasty produce from last year. This mixture of veg is much more my style of cooking and something I would do regularly when we had a much larger household, it is more difficult to maintain when there is only the two of us and also when I rely on our own produce.

I love lilacs and we have loads around
here, all on the wane though now.

This time of the year does mean there is an awful lot to do, some of it can wait but often it is weather or time dependant. We got the oats in at nearly the last opportunity to get a crop, the weather being against us on that one and perhaps some lack of preparation - ie getting the seed bought, but it is not like we can just pop to the nearest shop to get some, we have to travel about 30 miles to get it, which means a trip has to double up to get other provisions and so takes time. The weeding, if left I am sure you know, can quickly overwhelm a garden and keeping on top of that can be a major task, especially if other things crop up to distract or take priority. I was disappointed therefore, this week to have to turn down the chance of meeting up with some old friends, but we had to acknowledge that we haven't got as much time and travelling quite a distance to see them for just a few minutes is not really something we can afford to do now. We are more than willing to do airport runs if it means we get a good chance to chat with someone - we don't mind chatting and weeding if the other person doesn't mind us carrying on, or there is always the evenings, we don't even mind giving up a whole day if we get a good chance to really share heart to heart with someone, but unfortunately from past experience meeting up with people at camps where they have come to lead activities is not the place for a good place to share. When we started coming to Latvia we used to teach English in some of these camps and in those days they were much less structured, they had an innocence about them, but times have changed and children have changed in the last 12 years. Today children expect more and camp leaders have got more organised, not always sure that is a good thing on either account, then again parents pay for their children to attend camps and I guess they are looking for some sort of value for money from them. What that does mean though is that camp helpers are busy and the chances of an uninterrupted couple of hours chatting is highly unlikely and perhaps a bit selfish to expect it, so we declined.

Hoppy having some time out of the box, so it doesn't get
run over in the bun fight when I gave its box mates some
potato, cucumber and oats.

Our little chicken hoppy, has been giving us cause for concern. There was one point I was praying for the little chap (or is it chapess?) and I wanted to see a miracle, a sign that healing will flow in this place. Well a miracle happened but not quite in the way I expected. For the first time ever here in Latvia I saw comfrey. I had been kind of looking out for it as it is good for composts and since one variety is called Russian comfrey I thought there was a good chance there was some somewhere, but never seen it, till the other day that is. We were wending our way home in the car and had just pulled off the land and travelled a few metres down the road when I saw some. I got Ian to stop the car and we both got out and had a look, sure enough it was comfrey and I took a leaf home just to make sure. The comfrey was so close to the edge of the road that it was in danger of being cut by the road maintenance crew when they clear the road edges, or removal by the grader when they level the dirt road and so the next day I got out my spade and removed it to our garden. As the stems were tall, I reduced the size of it as that should aid in the transplantation and it also meant that I had some comfrey to use as a poultice for the little chick's leg. We needed to get the inflammation down and the wound healing and the comfrey seems to be doing the trick. It also gave me an idea, I know there are lots of herbal books out there but I also know that my Latvian friends use different herbs to the ones we do for some ailments and I was thinking of gleaning the information from them to produce a different kind of book, one based on the seasons as well as the recipes from the Latvian countryside. Worth a try anyway and may save some of the knowledge from being lost in the process. Just have to make sure I take plenty of photos this year of all the different plants to go in the book.

Hoppy's box mates. Two got taken out last night for bullying
Hoppy and were put in the big box, but they in turn were
getting picked on by those in the big box so had to be put
back. I think they have calmed down a bit though after
the experience.

The chicks in the big box, no longer yellow fluffy chicks
as they gain their feathers. They are a varied group of chicks
some buff colours and some speckled grey and some white.
Will be really interesting to see what they turn out like

One of the stork chicks outside our other apartment. There
are definitely two and may even be three in there

The flower bed outside the other apartment. I'm really pleased
how this is turning out but I think I have a purple and blue
theme going on here. Click on the picture to see the flowers
better

Well while I have been weeding and planting, Ian has been constructing again, here are the results so far. I'm not going to tell you what they are, I want you to guess and all will be revealed next week when we show the finished constructions.

Construction No 1. Can you guess what this does?

Construction No 2. Photo 1
Is it a coffin? No! (Yes Ian has a macabre sense
of humour at times)

Construction No 2. Photo 2
Is it a bobsleigh?

Construction No 2. Photo 3
Sleigh?

Construction No 2. Photo 4
Nearly there but not quite. Any guesses yet?

Construction No 2. Photo 5
Maybe this will help? (Vital farm equipment Paul)

Chamomile

An interesting comment was posted by a friend of mine, Liz, on someone's blog, the question was essentially "Did they give the money to the wrong people? What would have happened if the money instead of being given to the banks was given to people to pay off their mortgages? The money would still go to the banks then, but people would have been better off in the process.What would they have then done with the money released from not paying off mortgages? Some of them would have squandered it surely? But what about others? I also wondered what would local farmers in this area do with a cash injection? Would they have replaced or invested in new equipment? Would they have repaired dilapidated housing and barns? Would they have tried some new innovative approaches to farming? Would that have had more effect on the economy than giving it to banks to fund bankers bonuses? At this point I guess we will never know.

I shall leave you with a video that someone posted a link to on facebook, that basically explains in cartoon form what I've been trying to say about the Latvian crisis for the past goodness knows how long. How we measure success is important and this really puts it in perspective and besides is funnier than me pontificating on the subject, yet again!

Planted up

Rows of Latvian beans, peas and squash in some rather
soggy fields today. Well watered in I guess

Been a rather slow wet day for me. There wasn't a whole lot I could do, it was too wet to garden, and besides I needed a day of rest after the last week when we have worked quite hard getting stuff planted and weeded while the sun was shining. The rain for us was just in time to water in the oats, buckwheat, beans, squash plants, brussel sprouts, celeriac, dahlias, and goodness knows what else because I can't remember now (but don't worry it is mostly written down somewhere). Most of the plants are now out of the greenhouse that should be outside, and I am just waiting for the amaranth and quinoa to get bigger and then they can go out to finish off. Apparently they sit around for ages at the seedling stage before growing vigorously and they have certainly done the sitting around bit. I shall grow a few in the greenhouse though, just in case they are a bit late. The amaranth and the quinoa are an experiment to see how well they grow in our climate, as they would make a good grain addition to our diet if they work. 

Our boating lake! You can see the sun did shine this week

I can't complain at the weather really as it hasn't been too bad once it dried up after the spring thaw and it certainly is not as bad as in the UK at the moment where there has been flooding near places I used to live in the North of England. I know our field here in Latvia was flooded again today but it will dry and it is an area we are going to work on over the next few years to raise the level so it no longer dips there. Neither have we the problems that friends of ours in Colorado have, where some of them have been evacuated due to a giant forest fire. I wouldn't mind, but I had only posted a message to my friend asking if the summer had warmed up enough for her as I know she likes the hot Colorado summers, she thrives in temperatures where I wilt. I am fairly certain though that she would gladly swap some rain and cooler temperatures right now. At least the weather for us was nice enough to sit outside yesterday with a take away from the bakery, soaking up the evening sunshine, listening to the very noisy frogs, the cuckoo still prattling on in the background and resting our aching feet. Twas bliss it was, twas bliss!

Flooded again but at least no river running through it.
Forgot to mention our nice hunters put a cover over
the drain to stop any more wild boar from drowning
because as they say a drowned pig is no good, you can't
eat it.

The new chicks are doing well apart from our poor little chick with the gammy leg. One morning I found it hanging upside down from the sling I made it to take the weight off it's legs. I was horrified as I put it down on the floor and both it's legs were all over the place again. I picked it up and massaged its legs, saying "Come on remember how to walk". I put it back down and it seemed to be moving around better and not scrunched up in the corner. It is still having its ups and downs though, we put it into a separate compartment with four other chicks that seemed to be quieter in nature or smaller, also means we don't have all 16 chicks in one box. The chick, or Hoppy as it is now nicknamed for obvious reasons,  seems to be holding its own and even seems happier in there rather than on its own, but occasionally it seems to get exhausted through trying to keep out of trouble or feed in competition with the others, today was one of those days. I picked Hoppy up and it just sat there, so I snuggled it into an old jumper and just had it on my lap for a while and it fell asleep. I think that was all it needed as it seems a bit more sprightly again this evening.

The monster eating machines. They are also fussy, they
aren't that bothered about a handful of weeds thrown in
they only want the fast food, so they get both and then
they have to scrabble around in the weeds to get the chick
crumbs. We will make them work for their food

All the chicks are growing fast and so Ian made another chicken ark, which will suffice for the time being while they are small and while we are deciding which are for keeping and which are to head for the freezer and which can be swapped. We know someone who ended up with all male chicks and no layers which is what she wanted, so if we have plenty of laying hens then we can swap as we don't need that many just yet. Before you all go arrrrhhh how could you, you should see the way the older chicks behave, they don't seem so cute now. In fact they are quite a menace; we think that is because they are the ones that are just bred to eat and not for their quiet temperament. We also think that we have three males amongst those chickens and only one female and I guess that doesn't help. Assuming the little one survives with the gammy leg Ian will make a small box that sits nearer the ground for those chicks, and if it doesn't survive then it also means we have a broody box ready just in case we have a broody hen when the others get bigger or as a box to keep any poorly hens in if necessary.

Getting more sophisticated now. This has a hinged door to
make it easier to enter and it has a bigger box for the birds
to roost in/

Running water! Even the middle pond was pouring into
the bottom pond.

It seems like we will have visitors galore this summer, which is nice. We had another two "bookings" this week. One is a young lass who came to help us before on the land and in the garden and she is coming back for more. It's lovely being able to talk garden and faith together as we work and it's lovely that someone wants to come to specifically help in the garden. Another is a family who we bought our apartment off that we live in now, they are back from Canada and in the area so would like to stay. I had a feeling this might be a busy year for visitors and it's looking that way.

Blackberries are flowering

I have been acting as an international trade negotiator this week. Are you impressed? Well I wouldn't be, because all it means is that I have been talking to a guy in Ireland who is trying to buy some railway sleepers from our neighbour's company and they find it hard to talk to someone in English over the phone, so they asked if I would do it on their behalf. I should know how hard it is to talk in a language you are not fluent in over the phone because I have had to speak Danish to the tax authorities there and I found that far harder than talking to someone face to face. At least now they have a Latvian contact, which is easier, as I was having to learn a lot of new terminology along the way. Did you know that a bale of railway sleepers is 24 sleepers bound together? Well I didn't before this week. 

"I'm not going out in that!" Sophie sitting in the barn and
not exploring outside. Can't think why!

Latvia has been in the news a lot this week on the internet. The lauding of the Latvian "success" though has made me mad. Christine Lagarde the IMF chief has been praising the Latvian success and the collective determination. More like collective acquiescence I think. The last few years in reality has been an exercise in prying the money out of those least responsible for the crisis in the first place to pay those perhaps most responsible. One dissenting voice rang out though and I have to congratulate the man

Dissenting voices were few........... Armands Strazds, an economist with political ambitions. "I feel like everyone in the auditorium except me has been hypnotised," Strazds told bne. "Sweden tricked the politicians and everyone in Latvia into a rescue package that was actually to save the Swedish banks. For them of course, it was the right thing. For Latvia it was and is terrible suffering." 

A dragonfly on the strawberry plants

At least there is more dissent amongst the journalists these days who are beginning to see how brutal the cuts have been for Latvians and there have been articles in both Reuters and The Guardian slamming the so called recovery. To sell Latvia's so called recovery as a success is to ignore the ongoing pain of those least likely to complain.