Puika!

Our three puikas enjoying the sunshine

It was Ian's birthday this week. He had a good day, not doing anything terribly special, in fact he was acting as a haulier yet again, this time collecting farm implements from one friend to deliver to another one. At least we feel better knowing that the equipment is somewhere where it can be looked after and won't disappear, always a risk when people are not at home all the time. I went with Ian in case they needed an extra set of hands, but I was kind of redundant, apart from watching over things. One of the neighbours came out to help, which was interesting as he was a little clumsy at times and didn't speak any English, but he tried and his heart was definitely to help, he even gave us a bag of apples and pears. There was one point when our friend and Ian went off to hunt out some more equipment and I was left alone with the neighbour, who tried his best to engage me in conversation. I tried my best in response, but my Latvian is still worse than rudimentary, however there was one point I nearly fell on the floor laughing; the neighbour referred to Ian as "puika," which roughly translates as a lad or boy. I'm not sure if he thought he was my son, which would be even worse, but the fact that Ian was 49 years old that day amused me mightily. I managed to explain - I think! - that Ian was my husband and it was his birthday, I also explained how old he was. Puika indeed!

Amaranth outside. It makes a colourful harvest

I explained this to Ian when he returned which cheered him up immensely after feeling rather old most of the day(okay I didn't help as I was rubbing it in some what). I then rang our youngest son as he had been trying to get in touch all morning (doesn't help when my phone had slipped underneath the car seat at one point and so I hadn't heard any of the calls). My son lives with his girlfriend and her daughter and he got the little girl to sing Happy birthday to Ian. Awww! You could almost see the tear in his eye. There was one point though that the little girl stumbled over what to call Ian, and our son was heard in the background going "Ian! No! Grandad!" Ian was "reet chuffed" so to speak. So Ian went from boy to grandad in five minutes, and he loved it.

My new cranberry bed, awaiting a stone border and sand
to cover the cardboard.

Ian didn't get any presents - they are either in the post or he already has them (shorts from Australia from our daughter), or he has to wait until someone visits to bring them. All quite normal in our household. He did get a couple of nice emails as well to amuse him, one from his brother wishing him a Happy Bithday (no I haven't mispelt that, that is what was written) and a rather irreverent one from our daughter, which amused Ian anyway (dear me and to think I was her English teacher at one point). To cap it all, he even managed to order a beef steak at the hotel that night - not always available, especially around the third week of September and the sunset was glorious.

An empty greenhouse

Ian jokingly said he was thinking of setting up a For Hire business as we have been lending out our trailers all week. I mentioned our trip to pick up the farm implements and we used our horse box for that, the next day our friend came out and borrowed our smaller trailer to pick up the rest of the equipment, the day after that another of our friends borrowed the small trailer to pick up bricks to repair another chimney on our apartment block and the day after that another friend borrowed the horse box to pick up some furniture. At least they are getting used.

The grass has taken very quickly on
the newly landscaped banks. 

I am in trouble for forgetting to mention the back hoe broke last week. Fortunately it only broke when Ian had just about finished the landscaping. One of our friends attempted to weld it at our place but the generator was not powerful enough for the welder. They then took a trip up to one of our neighbours and used their electric - good job we are good friends with them. Unfortunately although he managed to weld it, the weld was not good enough to hold. It requires more major work to do that. It is still usable, just not as precise as Ian is used to. Our friend will give it another try sometime soon and see what he can do.

Peace returns

We have more news on our Stanley flask, the piece of equipment that is vital when temperatures dip in the winter or even in cool autumn days when it is damp like today as Ian is beginning to feel the cold. Two weeks ago we had the news from Stanley head office that they were going to replace our flask, the next email Ian received was in Latvian from the distributor to which Ian replied in English requesting a translation. The distributor wants us to go all the way into Riga to take the flask to them, so they can check it out and make sure there is a fault with it. Customer service and the customer is always right has yet to make it across the pond with the product. Ian has said the lady is welcome to come and visit us to check out the flask, since he has better things to do with his time and the costs of doing so is 1/2 - 2/3 of the cost of a new one, which is ridiculous to have to do. Currently we are still waiting for a reply to that.

Ian in the distance shredding and the pile of logs he cut

Weather wise it has been a reasonable week, even when it was forecast for rain it hasn't been as bad as they forecast and so autumn tidying up jobs were in full swing. Ian has been cutting the forest back a bit as it has encroached past the ditch, which is supposed to be the edge of it. This should help us to sort out the drainage too as he will be able to get in with the tractor and when the back hoe works he should be able to dig the ditch a bit deeper. That has meant lots of shredding to do, which is a good job as our pile of shreddings has composted nicely but is not terribly useful for paths so we don't have to walk on the mud in autumn and spring. It also means we have quite a bit of wood cut already in preparation for next year, or this year if we run out at our other flat - at least there is now a wood kiln in our village which means we can have the wood dried if necessary. If we do build a house on the land we are going to need the wood, depending on how much we get it insulated in the first year anyway and depending on whether we live in it in the winter or not.

Four boys - we think! One is destined for a new farm to
replace a very old cockerel and three for the pot

Ian has also been acting as a chicken psychologist this week. We finally dispatched the other two broiler chickens which meant we had a box free to spilt the birds up into smaller units; one ark was becoming a little crowded. Those that lived in Hoppy's box could now be moved to a proper ark that is up off the ground - better for the winter and the male birds that are surplus to requirements could go in Hoppy's box (at least we think they are all the males). That did mean though that now that there was only one male and three chickens in a big ark and there was space for one more. We moved in one of the birds from the over crowded unit, but the poor thing was constantly picked on by one bird in particular. We gave them a couple of days to calm down but it wasn't happening, so Ian removed the offending bird that was the biggest bully and put that into the unit that had more birds in it, he then took out another of the chickens to join the bird that was being picked on for company. Are you still with me? Well the upshot of all of this is that there was only a bit of a fuss while they sorted out the pecking oder again but nothing quite as bad as before and all is calm now.

Okay I'm not tall, about 5ft but that
Amaranth is very high. the next bed
was no where near as tall.

Harvesting has been slow and steady, with the good weather the number of squashes is steadily improving but the tomatoes in the small greenhouse succumbed to blight and I got two bucket loads of tomatoes from that. I thought I had picked absolutely all the tomatoes but I spotted one more plant that I had left in the greenhouse, it is a tomato with such tiny tomatoes they are no bigger than a finger nail and still not much sign of blight on them. Just rather slow to turn red. I also started harvesting the Amaranth, again a slow job but not too difficult. I am sure it would be quite easy to construct some sort of a machine to harvest it as it just needs the heads to be rubbed between two hard surfaces to release the seed. Of course in my case that means rubbing the seed heads between finger and thumbs or between the palms of my hands. It then needs drying off and then winnowing, which is also quite easy and so the seed is relatively clean. I used the first batch in some bread, but when it is not ground it makes crunchy bread - not unpleasant but not for the everyday loaf. I shall grind down the seed for the next loaf. The amazing thing is though that such tiny seeds can give rise to such enormous plants. Definitely something to try next year as even the plants outside have grown reasonably well, even in the cool wet summer we've had.

That tiny seed in the palm of my hand is an Amaranth seed

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.

The excitement continues

This is an example of the widespread damage that wild boar
can do to pasture land. That was probably one night's work

Oh yes the excitement continues here in Latvia, yes I am still counting pig holes. Well it is a great excuse to be out in the open, instead of stuck indoors reading more academic papers - that will come of course, as I will need to read more on the subject of wild boar and wildlife conflicts. I've even lost a few more pounds of weight in the process of tramping hither and thither across farmland. I did have a bit of a fright though this week, as I thought I had managed to delete one lot of photos representing over 2 hours of recording. I'm not the emotional sort but I came pretty close that day. Fortunately I did manage to find them, as iPhoto had decided to store them in a different order to the one I thought they would be in. I also found I got some other photos mixed up, because after a while one pig hole can begin to look pretty much like all other pig holes, but I have learnt that I need to take reference pictures to help keep me on track in my counting. There are probably easier ways of doing it but that would probably require expensive equipment.

Yes more damage, but what a glorious day!

Yesterday I came up over the hill to inspect more pig holes on one particular piece of land and was met with a sight of utter chaos, my first thought was "oh my goodness what have the pigs done now?" but something wasn't quite right. The chaos did not consist of tossed around mounds of grass turfs like the pigs often do, in fact it almost looked like huge mole hills but so many of them. Eventually my nose and eyesight clicked into gear and I realised it was manure, the farmer was muck spreading, so for the next three hours I was blessed with some gorgeous autumn weather, clear, bright and dry, sweetly perfumed with the odour of manure - not exactly my idea of a fresh air.

I think this courgette (zucchini) escaped our attention for
a while. Marrow Rum anyone!

Here in rural Latvia it gets very dark at nights, there is not a huge amount of light pollution, that has its advantages, as a clear night sky is a sight to behold with so many stars, but it also has its disadvantages, namely it's dark, very dark! It is law to wear something that reflects for walking at night, which makes perfect sense on the unlit roads, of which there are many. It also necessitates the need for making sure that we have a torch on us in winter and until recently was a necessity just to get from the car to the light switch for the hallway of our stairs leading to our apartment on the third floor (second floor UK). The problem was that to get to the first working light switch, we had to navigate about 6 steps, but now we have lights with sensors and we are no longer left fumbling around in the dark looking for the switch, when we have forgotten our torch yet again. It's only a little thing but it is still bliss (we're easy pleased!) Light sensors also means that we don't have to rush down the stairs at night, just to make sure we get down before they switch off and get plunged into the dark midway. Not easy if you are having a slow day, or carrying something.

Can you believe that these two kittens (Sofie on the left
and Bella on the right) can fit into such a small box
and not long before this were rolling around the floor fighting?

Our kittens have been a delight and great entertainment. It is a bit scary watching them beat seven skittles out of each other when they play chase, but they don't seem to do much damage and often curl up together to go to sleep, so can't be all bad. Of course we have had the various accidents, first while we were teaching Sofie about using a litter tray (fortunately Bella was already toilet trained), but also we have had the protest moves when the tray has not been as clean as they like. Without going into too much detail, we did have one little kitten moving around on the floor like she had worms and there was rather a mess in her wake - let's just say it is not a good idea to eat string!!!! Also thank goodness we walked in the door at just the right moment to deal with the developing situation. Aren't kittens wonderful!!!!! We have now dealt with the fleas and the lice that came with them, and no fleas do not just bite cats, they do like humans too. We have still not got them vaccinated as the vet does not like to do everything at once, and quite right too, so they are back tomorrow for those. At least they have now been wormed and using a tasty paste that you squirt into their mouth rather than those dreadful tablets. You know the ones that you have to shove down their throats, meanwhile stroking the throat and quickly shutting the mouth tightly to prevent them spitting it back out. I did get quite good at that with our cats, but there was one who was ace at pretending to swallow the tablet and spitting it out minutes afterwards.

Our lower pond has lapped over the bank now. Difficult to
believe that earlier on this year we were watching it rapidly
disappear.

The fleas and the lice have not been the only wee beasties to contend with this week. Fortunately just about all the biting things have hit the deck with the colder weather, although sometimes cellars are inundated with mosquitoes as they look for winter quarters. The other wee beasties I had to contend with this week was in a full box of cornmeal. Sometime in the process it had got an infestation of maggots, which does not fill me with a great deal of confidence. I was not terribly happy at finding the little wiggly things in the box when I had plans on making some cakey treats to take with us when we are out and about. Good job I had other options and a good job I spotted it early on before mixing in the ingredients. It is amazing though how such small creatures can cause such misery and changes of plans.

The Stanley family

We have now added to our Stanley family. It has been great to find products that really do last and do what it says, ie in this case flasks that keep tea hot. They are not the light weight carry around everywhere type flasks, but sturdy metal products that bounce. The food flask finally arrived from England and been put to use already, great for these cooler days, also a good way of using up some of the produce we have processed into soups or sauces. Ian though has got into the habit of naming things, maybe he has been spending too much time on his own out on the land and so we now have (from right to left) Stan (1.9 litre flask), Mrs Stan (1 litre flask), son of Stan (insulated cup),  and the food flask is Uncle Stan - the strange one in the family and not quite the same!!! Should I be worried do you think?

Even our middle pond now has water, wonder how long this
will last.

The dipping temperatures are certainly a reminder that winter is not far away and we have been making plans for winter storage, not just of the produce but also the farming equipment. The barn still needs a concrete floor and there is no time to lay it, because the ground is too wet now to have deliveries of the sand and the gravel we would need, so that means Ian just has to level the floor as best he can and concrete it next year. He will also lay a drain in the floor to hopefully prevent a quagmire in the barn itself when the snow melts (assuming we get snow of course) and then he can start to put the equipment inside, to get it under cover for the first time since we bought them. We have had them under tarpaulins the last few years. We have also moved kale and swiss chard into the greenhouse so that we have some plants early in the year and maybe even over winter - who knows! We are planning to put the caravan (trailer) in the greenhouse to protect it from the weather, as it will just about fit between the internal posts. We are a bit nervous of doing this as our last greenhouse fell down in the snow of last winter, but we think this one is much more sturdy and maybe we can put planks across the top of the caravan to save it if anything disastrous does happen. It might also mean the caravan will be a little warmer than when it is stood outside, which will be good for sheltering during dinner breaks. We also have two roofing jobs to do as our workshop developed a leak and our wood store at our other apartment is not in a good state either. All jobs clamouring for attention before winter really does set in. Speaking of which we had our first frosts this week.

We are not meant to have a pond here

Fortunately Ian is on the case, digging
ditches. We now have a drain away
that goes all the way into the forest.

Oh yes and for those who missed my weekly blog yesterday, we had a lovely time meeting new friends. Did you know that Rottweiler puppies can be really cute? All seven of them! Don't worry, we won't be succumbing to these cute ones, a Rottweiler in not on our wish list, even though when well trained they do make great family pets and would probably be great at chasing off wild boar.

Hmmm! Interesting!

A neighbours lake

Our village has been undergoing a certain amount of transformation just lately. A disused building, I think linked to the old water system, has now been dismantled completely instead of just being left to rot, which is encouraging (unfortunately no before pictures). Another building on the main road has had new windows installed after being vacant for quite a while, again not sure, but I seem to think someone told me it was a small cafe at one time. The road up to the technical school has now been tarmacked (asphalted) and about time too. The road up to the high school was fine but just past the high school the tarmac ran out and then it was dirt road, and a pretty lousy dirt road at that, right up to the technical school, which didn't really look good for all those visiting from abroad on european funded exchange type trips. Outside the high school there is also a new skatepark, a request from the youngsters of the village. Finally the lake is returning as well, as they start to finish off the new hydroelectric station, not sure if it is replacing or complementing the old system yet. Unfortunately you are going to have to wait for photos as I haven't got around to photographing any of them yet. It is nice though to see steady improvements to the infrastructure and look of the village, even in these difficult times and my prayer is that people themselves see transformations in their own lives and not just in buildings. 

A late flower

It was a birthday week here in our household as Ian turned another year older. As usual we didn't really do much except go to the hotel to eat and Ian ordered steak, which they actually had this time, so he was very pleased indeed. My present to Ian was another addition to the Stanley family. We now have two Stanley flasks 1.1L and 1.9L, a Stanley insulated cup and we now await a Stanley food flask, as soon as our son ships it across to us that is -hint! hint!. They are certainly robust enough as one survived a fall from the car recently, a fate that saw the sad demise of two previous flasks and are certainly great for us out on the land, especially as the weather turns cooler as they really do stay hot - worth the investment with the hammer and use they get in our house. Another reason for going to the hotel though was a lack of electric and water - nice present! We knew the electric was going off as the electric company send out emails and texts to alert us, they even send us an alert 5 minutes after they turn it off - at least we then knew it is the company working on it and not some random fault. Unfortunately, although we knew about it, I am not sure some of our neighbours did. One neighbour was having work done on his water system and the water was turned off and they worked on the water all morning but then the electric went off and so did the noise from the apartment below, next we saw the work van disappearing - no electric - no work - no water! Fortunately the workman did come back once the electric came back on, but that did mean a noisy evening and no water until much later. Good job we have two apartments as it meant it was no problem to get some water from there.

Fieldwork. I am standing in one of the wild boar holes

This week I started chronicling the wild boar damage on different properties around the area for my Masters research project. It has been interesting walking around with the farmers, as they show me where the boundaries of their properties lie and where some of the worst damage is. It is pretty bad! I have recorded holes over 50cm deep and some damage that covered an area of 8m by 8m and seen damage today that covered even larger areas than that, but not got round to actually recording them yet. It is so disheartening to see as we know from experience the repercussions of the damaged areas, where invasive plants get in and good grass doesn't get established. What was once flat areas become difficult to walk across without time consuming remedial work. For us each new patch adds yet more time in Spring flattening it out, adding grass seed and hoping the ground elder doesn't spread into it. For others it represents an area where the hay could become contaminated with soil if the cutter cuts into a hole, or hay cutting equipment breaks, or an area where cattle or goats cannot be fed. One farmer has had to forget about plans to expand as they cannot grow their own feed, the pigs would love that too much. 

Damage that covers 8m by 8m

This hole might not be so extensive
but it is deep. My stick is marked off in
5cm graduations. This hole is 45cm deep
and if you can imagine what would happen
if you stepped in it once the grass grows back
or a tractor wheel hits it.

Fresh damage on our own plot, on what
was flat ground

Footprints along the side of a public
road. The wild boar do not seem
to be afraid of travelling on the roads

The frustration with seeing the damage and lack of options to deal with the problem here in Latvia lead to one of our rare arguments. Ian was moaning about the damage and I said that it was one of the reasons that I was doing the research I was doing, he turned to me and said "What good is that going to do? What difference will it make?" I saw red! I was not happy, as he may as well have said that this next year will be a complete and utter waste of time, as no one will listen anyway. In my saner moments I would agree, what difference can I make? Who will bother to listen or read my findings? Who am I to think I can make a difference? I work on the principle though that I have to do something, I cannot sit back and watch it happen and shake my head sadly. Maybe my work won't make a difference, but the next person's might. Maybe my work will change things or be at least part of the answer. I don't know! But I have to hope that there is a reason for all this work. I have to believe that despite the circumstances I can make a difference. As Galdiel said to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings 

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

Before you think badly of Ian, he did apologise very quickly and admits he was wrong. It shows though what our neighbours have to live with and have lived with a few years, their frustrations are greater than ours. The general consensus of opinion is that there wasn't a problem 5-7 years ago - depending on which area we are looking at. The huge messes left by the wild boar are recent and not an ancient problem and yet they keep coming up against the attitude, this is their problem and nothing they can do about it. Not helpful for the future of farming in the area.

Grapes, just before they were picked and
eaten. They were tasty. 

Just thought I would up date you on the fermented cucumbers, hmmm well we finally tasted them and they are errrrr interesting. They are not awful, but their taste is very different and I can't quite make up my mind if I like it or not. Fermented foods are supposed to be healthy for us and the reduction of such foods in our diet is possibly some of the reasons our bodies don't work like they should. They are also a great way of storing foods for use over a longer period of time. Well it is about 2 hours after eating the cucumbers and I don't feel sick, so maybe they are okay, you will just have to check out my blog next week to see whether we are still okay.


If you have an hour or so to spare then take a look at this film. The guy is a gardener who takes time to talk to God about his garden and with amazing results. I have to say that after this year when everything seemed to be a bit too much, his way of gardening looks so easy and what's more doable. My heart has been asking how did Adam tend the garden of Eden, can we capture some of that connection and ease of gardening? Maybe this guy has got some of the answers and certainly some things we can learn from.

Warning to all arachnophobes, look away at this point, in other words, if you are scared of spiders then the last picture is something you will want to avoid

Had to remove this little guy before he got squashed under
the wheel, took a bit of doing but managed it in the end. He's
gorgeous though, isn't he?