Never boring

Freddie was brave enough to come up and sniff my hat
this week

Sitting around writing can get a bit samey and I certainly do a lot of that it would seem. This last week I have written an abstract for a conference that I might never get to go to due to funding issues. I have continued on the paper I am currently trying to finish off. I have written emails galore and got a good way on with an advertising brochure for our Latvian Alpaca Adventure #2 and now I am writing my blog! I did emerge out of the apartment though from time to time, first to Riga and then out to the land.

King or is it Queen of the castle?

Ian has cut a path so the alpacas have somewhere to walk.
They will walk through the snow but prefer not to and it
is a way of encouraging them to actually get out a bit

The first event of the week was an email sent from my university to say I have been de-matriculated, which sounds kind of painful. If I was sick I could get a doctor's note and I would still be a student, but it seems a bit odd to do that really. It does now mean I cannot access funds for travelling to conferences from the foundation that Estonian students can apply to, hence the funding issues above. Mind you, I never got any money last year either. I can still finish my PhD, that isn't a problem, as soon as I get all three papers published that is. I'm still waiting for paper 2 to be accepted. I should get to hear soon, I hope.

Our old oak tree, always looks its best in winter. It really
stands out then

Looks like Brencis is having a chat with Sofie our cat

There was one day I have a confession to make. Ian rang me from the land to say that there was someone on the way to the apartment to have a look at the issue with our regularly overflowing pipework at the other apartment. I wasn't dressed! I was about 10 minutes later though. I had to take the chap up to the apartment and show him where the problem was. Eventually he got the idea and he said he would go and find our neighbour upstairs and lend him the equipment needed to fix the problem, since the problem (or so I thought) was in his wood store, which is underneath our apartment. I was told by Ian that actually the problem is further underground than that, so hopefully they will sort it out though.

All the boys coming to see Sofie

Ice-skating anyone?

The most eclectic day of the week was Friday. I found out early last week there was an interesting (and free) planning conference in Riga, so I got the 6:40am bus on a cold and chilly morning. The night before I printed off some work to do on the way in, only forgetting it is dark till about 8am and only light enough on the bus to read by about 8:30am. Doh! I was at the stage where reading it on the computer was just not working and needed a paper copy to sort it out. Anyway all was not lost along the route I took a phone call regarding details about selling our apartment and then sent off some emails to chivvy the process along. It also meant I could look out of the window and I spotted three deer running across a field.

Icicles

I was too early for my appointment and so had
a wander around old town Riga. I love old
doors and so took a few pictures

By the time I get into Riga I'm ready to eat — why am I always hungry then? I think it has something to do with trying to eat breakfast too early and arriving not long after normal breakfast time. I would probably be better just having a drink and then having breakfast when I get there, assuming I have time of course. As the conference was mainly in Latvian and only switching to English in the afternoon I decided to see if I could fit in a trip to a shop we hope to visit in June on the holiday tour. The shop is called Hobby Wool and it is a wonderful Aladdin's cave of knitted and felted products and knitting kits. I managed to arrange an appointment with the owner and we sat and chatted about knitting and alpacas. We arranged that we shall have a cup of tea there and a talk from one of the staff about Latvian knitting, particularly their wonderful varied knitting patterns - over 5000 have been catalogued across the country.

The back entrance to Hobby Wool

A little sunshine and blue skies does you good

Did I mention I like old doorways? 

It was still a bit early once I finished there and so decided to walk to the University across the river, but of course it started snowing. Fortunately nothing dire but did end up a little damp on arrival. I should have found the cafe and got something to eat, but didn't as I thought surely they can't factor in a whole day without a lunch break - well the answer is yes they can and so I lasted until I got home mid-evening on biscuits, tea and coffee. It was a good job that I had that extra breakfast earlier.

I said it was chilly. The Daugava river and that is ice floating
down river. Rivers further inland are more iced up than this

A memorial to the barricades built to deter the Soviets
from taking back strategic places in Riga after they
declared independence

The trip was interesting and I met a chap there who now lives in the town where I took my driving test as a teenager in the UK. That's going back some years. He has been to Latvia many times though to study planning and it was interesting to hear he had similar perspectives to me on the way things are in Latvia. It was nice to hear, he also has been ongoing with his PhD over many years, in fact longer than I have apparently. We both love the country but also recognise the challenges.

I am informed (because I know nothing) that these are
Fiat 126s

A metal design on a building

I also got chatting with a lady who has a summer house nearby to us and she was telling me how she regularly comes into our village to buy cheese from the Saturday market. I laughed when she told me who she bought it from. Of course it was my good friend the goat farmer. She also was friends with her. Small world as they say!

Aggie being nosy

Chanel investigating Sofie. The reason Sofie is in so many
pictures is because she was following Ian around all over

After the meeting finished I walked back into Riga centre with the guy from the UK, so I could catch the bus and direct him in the direction he needed to go to meet up with someone later. I got to the bus station with three minutes to spare. The driver was an absolute treasure as he let me pay with a €50 note. I think he knows me and I the fact I haven't done that before. Most would not have accepted that at all. So on the way home on the bus I had a little catch up on FB as you do and I found out that my hubby’s highlight of the day is finally getting poo from one of our alpacas to test. Oh yes and I got an email to say my mammogram from the Monday was clear, so that’s okay. I don't have to wait in the freezing cold again until next year. The things you find out on a bus journey these days!

A little motherly advice?

They sure needed cutting and this is after 2 1/2 months

The weather was supposed to be nice but cold on Sunday, so I went with Ian to help him with cutting the alpaca's toe nails. What I hadn't realised was that there would be a bit of a wind and a northerly one at that, so it wasn't just cold, it was freezing. Still the weather wasn't that bad and the sun did briefly appear. I also applied lots of wonder oil on different animals as it looks like the girls are struggling a bit with the mites. I suspect it is because it hasn't been cold enough to kill off the little critters. Hopefully this week it will. We also gave them all top ups with Vitamin D. I also cleaned out the chickens and was rewarded with an egg left in an accessible position by the chickens that usually lay their eggs on the far side of the ark and in a position I wouldn't be able to reach.

This is the look I usually get from Aggie. She doesn't like
me really! 😁 Can't think why! 

Alpacas often have such smiley faces. Here's our George

The little alpacas are growing up and Freddie now has his own bowl of food each evening. George still won't touch the grain though. George will eat the squash that Ian cuts up, but Freddie won't. I suggested that maybe if he mixed the two together, then they might start eating both. No! Freddie ate all his grain and left the squash and George ate all his squash and left the grain. Pah! Well that didn't work.

Chillier days

Frosty morning

Winter reared its head this week with some distinctly frosty days. One night it was -6.7C in the greenhouse and last night it was -5C. Staying out in the caravan in these temperatures is starting to lose its appeal. We are still warm enough, as our quilt and two blankets help a lot. Menopause also has its benefits. The disadvantage is waiting for the caravan to warm up sufficiently to want to get up out of bed. At least the heater is within reaching distance and the caravan warms up quickly, since it is only a small space. Of course our electric use has gone up, but our travel costs, or Ian's travel costs are still low because he's not travelling backwards and forwards all the time. I am also out and about on the land rather than cooped up at home this way too. At some stage it just won't be worth staying out as the nights will be so long in a small space. I know! I keep saying that and we are still out here. 

These two are forever fighting it seems, but I think they would
miss each other if they were separated.

A picture of me last week, filling in for Little Red Riding
Hood. I used the alpaca scarf to good effect. It was really
warm and kept the cool winds at bay.

I spent the week in Latvia and at this time of the year, it can become a bit of a novelty. I have several trips planned all ready and one to arrange. I did go into Riga though and had a great day chatting with some lovely people. One was a connection for professional as well as personal reasons. Lovely chap who I've worked with briefly in the past and we both value each other's inputs on rural development. Good to thrash ideas about and would be great if we ever found a project we could both work on. I'm sure we could spark some good ideas between us

Aggie looking rotund and hopefully pregnant

Chanel glowing in the autumn sunshine. She really is the
colour of autumn too

The other meeting was meeting up with some with an aim to start putting together a programme for a felting holiday (details to be announced in the near future we hope). I am working on finding activities for day trips for people to experience more of Latvia, including Riga and a chance to be inspired by Latvian art and design. It is mainly aimed at those from abroad of course. We hope to arrange various types of felting courses, to suit different budgets, so we hope to make some more accessible to local people and some for people who would like to come for the experience of felting on an alpaca farm and visiting Latvia for the first time. All this planning will mean we can also put together holidays tailored towards individuals or groups. Quite exciting really and not the sort of thing we had thought of doing before, but if it works then great. 

Eyre warily eying the alpacas, as they do like to chase her

A friend who I met at the local camp last year and this year is helping me organise the Riga city tour aspect and she also introduced me to a lovely textile artist Ieva Prane. Ieva's work is very varied and it will be wonderful to include her on one or more of our felting courses. She is really open to sharing her work and what she does, which not all felters in Latvia are unfortunately. I also briefly met her husband Guntars and as I write this blog, Guntars' music is playing on the radio. He produced an album of Gregorian chants from ancient records he found in a library in Riga. Very peaceful! 

All ready for our visitors. At least it was nice and warm in the
greenhouse

I am surprised that we are still getting visitors turning up on our farm, particularly at weekends. I even sold my first felted product this week, but don't get too excited it was just a felt ball, at least it was a start.We had one group from the local regional rural consultancy bureau during the week and a family who stopped to take a look at the animals at the weekend. We even have another booking for the end of the month for a small group who will be in the area for two days. It makes me wonder if we can do something for Christmas but that would be a challenge to come up with something but could be fun. 

Felt balls

A range of shawls, socks, pendants and scarves for sale

The ones that got away. The amaranth in the greenhouse grew

some lovely big seed heads and we harvested lots of seed

but these ones were much smaller. Unfortunately the wind 

seems to have also taken all the seed with it. No doubt there 

will be Amaranth growing all over the garden next year, as 

well as hemp

We are still making slow headway in finishing the harvesting. I collected all the beans from the garden on the land and started the process of drying them. Those that dried on the vine look fine to plant next year, but those that hadn't got frosted and I think they are only good for the pot. It was a shame as I was hoping for more beans to grow next years crop. We have also been collecting apples. Some of course are frosted, but many seem to have survived the frosty mornings. We have now got quite a few crates stored in our cellar. We hope they will last into winter and if not they will be processed at a later date. At least the chickens are enjoying the bonanza.

Sofie sitting in her favourite place when we are trying to move
the chicken arks. As we carry them to their new position, she
tries to lick or rub up against Ian's face. Not easy to carry the
ark with two hands and fend off an affectionate cat.

The humungous potatoes with a teaspoon for comparison

As usual our garden got a bit overgrown but I managed to find some potatoes that must have grown from some potato peelings which were in the compost heap and they were absolutely huge. I know there are lots who say you should never put peelings in compost heaps, but we do and not really have many problems apart from random potato plants from time to time. Unfortunately these ones also had brown, hollow centres. This is due to the hot dry weather when they started growing, followed by the wet weather which stressed the poor things out. Unlike blight though it doesn't affect their taste thank goodness, just a little disappointing to find they are not as big as they look.  One advantage to the frosts is they make parsnips sweeter and so we have started digging these up for a distinctly wintery flavour in our meals. 

Shawls outside for pictures for the
website

This one was inspired by dandelions, not
that they look like dandelions, but that
was the inspiration

Mari looking out for Eyre, our little grey cat

The greenhouse tidy up has continued in preparation for putting the chickens and the caravan in for the winter. This has definitely been a slower process than usual. Normally it is cleared much sooner, I'm sure. Or maybe it just feels like that. Certainly last year they were inside much sooner and there were more frosty mornings than this year. The steady drift towards winter though means that the animals are getting through the grass quite quickly and need to be moved more often as the grass stops growing. Soon they will be just on the hay, but the longer they can stay on the grass the better. 

Mari chasing Eyre off

Action packed week

I planted these miniature daffodils near the large oak tree on
our land. They were the first things we did on the land. I
love seeing swathes of daffodils in spring so hopefully
one day there will be a whole bank of them

Can't believe I have packed so much into this week but it has been lovely. We've had lovely weather too which is wonderful after the snow and we have had plenty of new experiences. Tuesday saw us in Riga as I had managed to get a placement visit to meet someone at the ministry of agriculture who was responsible for forestry. Last week I mentioned how happy I was to get this placement as it now only means I have one day left to organise, and joy of joys I have that one organised too, for this next week. I have been trying to work on getting placements for a unit of my course since September, but weddings, busy people and sickness all got in the way. The ministry visit was certainly interesting and I was encouraged that the skills I have been learning on my course, are necessary skills for Latvia. The people in the forestry division are trained in forestry, but see the need for development and, although they have picked up ideas as they have visited other places, they are not very sure how it should all fit together. I am coming at forestry from a different angle altogether, as I am looking at how it fits into the overall scheme of rural development, so my knowledge of forests is not so good but I can see what they are trying to do and have some ideas of what steps need to be taken. Unfortunately they haven't offered me a job yet but I think the lack of Latvian would still hinder me somewhat.

Surrounded by Macs! Ian making sure they
are all working and transferring data

We can't go into Riga and not fit in a few other jobs at the same time, so our car went in for its 60,000 Km service and we picked up the computers from the repair centre- finally! What a saga! At least I don't hear quite so many tuts and sighs from across the room now, as the old computer is once again relegated to purely playing internet radio until if finally gives up the ghost! We also bought a new flask, not very exciting you might think but in this household it is an essential household item; the reason being we drink tea by the gallon. A flask means we don't have to boil the kettle so often and we can take out plenty of tea with us when we go to the land. We haven't had much luck with flasks just lately though as Ian has got through three of them in the last year, one broke when it fell out of the car, one exploded when hot water was poured in and one just wouldn't keep the heat. He was beginning to despair of ever finding a good one when we came across a Stanley flask, the indestructible, keep things hot thermos flask. It had better be for the price it cost. Pricey! Definitely! So it had better last a lifetime. So far it is certainly living up to expectations as the tea is now too hot to drink straight out of the flask and that is all day.

Not sure what these are as we haven't seen them before
but there is a carpet of them under one of the oak trees

We have been into the school again to help with English lessons and I must admit it is all a bit confusing when it comes to trying to help the students understand what they are supposed to be doing for their exams, which are only next week. I think the style of exam is perhaps quite simple in some ways just not straightforward. To my mind it was all back to front as the teacher had a set of answers to questions and the students had to make up the questions. For instance the student would be told that they had to ask a question to do with reasons for moving to Latvia and the teacher had to answer with "I moved for a better environment for my children" but the student doesn't know the teacher has to say that, you could imagine the confusion if they don't ask the question in the right way to get the right answer. We also found out that the exams are assessed internally and then they all go to the education ministry to be assessed again. That is someone has to listen to all the students who graduate this year from the whole of Latvia! Not just a selection to make sure the assessors agree, but each and everyone. We were astounded at this method, it is no wonder it takes so long and people complain each year. We said that it would be better to have perhaps just one in ten selected to make sure that the assessors agree and only if there is a discrepancy would all students be re-assessed, which the head thought was rather a good idea and might suggest it. Not exactly a novel idea really as I think that is pretty much what happens in the UK.

A lizard out on the land

The head mentioned there was a meeting of the local inhabitants and said if I wanted to go she would translate for me so I didn't pass up the chance. The meeting was run by a consultancy firm as the district authorities try and find out what the local community want to see in terms of development. I must admit to seeing a demonstration of how not to initiate community meetings as I saw in development speak the 'capture by a local business elite', in other words someone not afraid to voice their own opinions and takeover a meeting, several people got fed up and walked out. It is really hard for the consultants as they have to give room for people to speak but they also need to pick up very quickly those who would seek to dominate the agenda for their own ends. For some reason as well, the month of June has been picked as the month to carry out surveys of 300 inhabitants, as the schools finish at the end of May, June is therefore a holiday month and perhaps not the best time for surveys. They would perhaps have more access to those who take the time to return for the very Latvian festival of Jani but then they wouldn't be folks who live here 12 months of the year. It would be funny if they picked us in their random sample to survey though.

The wrappings came off this week. I would have shown
you a picture of them without their winter clothes but
they don't show up being all twig like. The good news
 is that they have survived well and just about all of them
are beginning to burst their buds

It has been a hard week trying to get my assignment done with so much else going on but I did make it in the end. I even had problems on clear days as one neighbour decided to start on some renovations above the apartment where I usually work because it is so peaceful and quiet and at the other apartment I got interrupted by someone trying to sell me pans - Latvian in full flow. The only door to door salespeople we usually get are trying to sell potatoes, so this was a bit of a change. To cap it all one of our young neighbours is still having his all night parties and I went round twice in one night to tell him to turn off his music, 2am and 4am. The second time I walked straight in and made my feelings known which I think he probably found rather embarrassing, but I was not in the mood for being polite. The next couple of nights we decided to sleep at the other apartment, so I was well rested to get my assignment done, and it was bliss as we even managed to sleep in till 8am one morning- quite late for us. This was the first time we had actually slept at the other apartment ourselves.

Wood anemone 

This week one of our neighbours came up to us with another lady and started chatting away to me. I managed to understand that she was wondering if we would give up some of our allotment as this new lady had only just moved in late last year and wanted to grow something this year. We have more than enough space to grow things, especially now we have extended our electric fence to grow vegetables on the land too, so it wasn't really a problem, I just had to move some lavender that was growing in the section at the bottom. The lady has spent all week digging the garden over since, which won't have been too bad as Ian had dug it over thoroughly before, but she will just have finished when Ian takes the rotavator to do ours, which will not take him very long. Seems a bit of a cheat but we haven't got time to manage the land and dig over the veg gardens properly and we haven't really sorted out a bed system for it yet anyway so we can reduce the amount of digging we do. To manage all that we have to manage and for me to study, we have to cheat every now and again. Does feel a bit odd though having spent the time digging it over for someone else to benefit, but it feels right, she even gets the two year old strawberries too, as I had taken plenty of runners off them last year and we have two beds of them elsewhere, and I am sure that will be enough to be going on with.

Our extended electric fence so that we can keep the deer
and wild boar off our vegetables as well as out of our orchard

Had a really lovely Easter weekend. It was my birthday on the Friday and so I decided to take the day off and go and help Ian out on the land. It was a beautiful day and Ian rotavated the new veg plot and I raked mole hills. Moles and voles seem to have taken over Latvia this year and their hills and runs are everywhere, which won't make mowing the grass we keep short very easy at all and so I flattened as many of them as I could and filled in a few of the runs. Might not seem like the ideal birthday treat but it was just lovely to be outside doing something physical rather than sat inside using my brain. We did finish off the day with a visit to the local hotel for a meal and had the obligatory birthday treat of hot french chocolate cake, which has a gooey chocolate filling, so it wasn't all hard work. The next couple of days we had meals out at friends' houses. The first meal was with the neighbours to our land at some of other friends farm, our neighbours however had never been to the farm, or so they thought, and so they followed us out. Felt sorry for them as following anyone at this time of the year is like trying to drive through a sandstorm on the dirt roads, but we all made it safe and sound and it was then we found out that our neighbour had been before, in fact she used to be a vet at the kolkhoz where our friends farm is now. A kolkhoz was the name for the Soviet collective farms.

We were taken to see this lovely wooden chapel built in the
forest. It is next to a cemetery too, Latvians spend a lot of
time tending the plots and keeping them neat and tidy but
also very natural too, almost always up on a hill and
usually amongst a woodland.

The second visit was to see a couple who kind of live in Scotland, at least part time anyway, one of them is a professor in an Estonian university and so spends much of his time there but they also have had a house in Latvia for ten years, where they spend many holidays. I got to know them after making contact with the Estonian professor as he has written some of the few papers written about Latvians in Latvia and how they feel about their environment, so I wrote to him as I could tell he was not Latvian to see what his experiences of Latvia were and we have kept in contact since. We were invited for Easter Sunday lunch and so we had a beef stew - partly because Latvians don't really have beef joints for roasting and in fact rarely have beef at all and we had those with Yorkshire puddings. It is so long since we have had Yorkshire puddings, in fact we only seem to have them if we are making a traditional English meal for someone and so a wonderful meal and followed by apple and banana crumble - just so English. To round off this lovely weekend and to celebrate finally finishing my assignment and posting it I went out to the land again and this time we collected large stones (the ones that catch on the mower and don't do it much good) and filled in pig holes with some of the piles of soil we have lying around. The problem with the pig holes is they are rather deep and can tip the tractor if your not careful.

Taken on the 4th April

Taken on the 25th April, amazing
what difference a few days makes

Well I shall finish off with a follow up to something I felt God say last week "Wait and see what the Lord will do," funnily enough I had an email where I was offered $12.5m this week and it made me laugh after what I felt God say last week, but I thought I would not write back and claim it, not quite that daft. We did though get some Lampreys - the food of kings. I have cooked them and frozen them as we have not had chance to eat any yet with being out so much. I do promise not to eat them all at once though as I believe that it is not healthy since a couple of Kings are supposed to have passed away after eating a few too many. Another surprise was an email for Ian asking for some help concerning flow cytometer usage, the machine he uses for diagnosing leukaemia. The lady he helps in the hospital passed on his name to someone doing research from the university, not quite the same field, but he did manage to find her the right information to help her. Not sure if that will go anywhere but you never know.