It's a process

Hello! Lolly is fully weaned now and she seems
to have accepted this graciously. She doesn't
bother Ian for milk in the morning. 

Well not quite a monthly blog, but getting that way again. There have been more changes since last month, but it is all part of our regularly yearly cycle. The timing changes, to some extent, but they still happen. We are back out in the caravan as the animals are going way at night so late that it is difficult to find a sensible time to eat together. Fortunately, although the nights are cool, they are not that cool that they are unbearable and so we made the switch. Okay, -6C overnight was a tad cool but snuggled up under a quilt and blankets it works, plus the radiator is only an arm's length away and soon warms up the small space of a caravan.

Wearing our presents from one of our 
Australian grandsons. Not quite sure
how long it took to first get them to us,
via the UK and then for us to finally get
around to taking a photo, but we did it 
in the end. Oh and please ignore the hat
hair - bit of a problem at this time of the 
year.

Tuesday 5th April

Finally the snow is beginning to clear properly here. I drove up to Estonia recently for work and it was amazing to see stretches of land with no snow and then I got back to our land and there was still 20-30cm in places with hardly any grass showing. Gradually, gradually though it began to reduce in height and larger stretches of grass.... errr... I mean moss began appearing. As the snow got thinner larger areas of green appeared quite suddenly. It is startling to see green where earlier in the day it was white. We still have the occasional snow or hail shower but nothing that lasts and it finally feels like winter is drawing its last breath and fading away. I know, I know... it can still turn white, it is still early April and we are far north. 

Saturday 9th, yes a dusting of yet more snow and 
not much difference to four days before.

And three days later, Tuesday 12th. I
do believe it is finally going.

Well are you going to feed us
or not?

The normality feels deceptive whilst reading the news. The horror of the situation in Ukraine is awful, especially as I have read the history of post-Soviet countries. I can't even begin to imagine the sheer awfulness of the butchery that has been meted out on civilians, but a shudder went through me when I heard of people being bussed to locations in Russia, which sounds so innocuous but isn't. I've read about the forced deportations from Latvia to Siberia during the Soviet era and it is frightening to think deportations are happening again. This is not a benign action to take people to safety, this is a systematic attempt at terrorising a nation. A nation that knows its neighbour has been guilty of deliberate mass starvation (Holdomor) and forced deportations in the past. 

The crinkled effect of melting snow

The gas oven all cleaned up
and ready to go in the 
greenhouse! As you do!
Mind you, not sure how 
much use we will get out of
it this year, if there is a gas 
shortage. Good job we are
not dependent on it, we have
other options.

Another aspect that horrifies me is the slow response of governments to change for the sake of peace. Oil and gas is the currency that keeps this war going. On the one hand governments are supplying arms to support Ukraine and on the other the nations are paying out for the gas and oil that fuels such butchery. The reason given is that it would decimate the economy. War decimates an economy. War in Ukraine will have serious impacts on economies. When people die due to bowing down to the economy, then the model is wrong. One thing I have learnt over the years is that things like famine are not a failure of harvests, it is a failure in society. Famines happen when society lets it, after a failure of a harvest. There is no reason for sections of society to suffer unnecessary hardship due to a severe shock to the economy if the rest of society pulls together and works together then everyone can weather the storm. 

Yes the storks are back. Really! Look hard!

I guess the frogspawn will be appearing soon
then.

We only have to look at how Ukrainian refugees are being absorbed into societies close by to see how societies can pull together. It is possible to take care of and support others going through a bad period. This, of course, will not be a short-term event. Even if the war ended tomorrow, not all will be able to go back. Some will need to heal, some will make a new life in a new land because they do not feel able to go back, some will have to wait until there is some restoration of their homeland. We are in this together until we are through it, which we can, if we want to. I know I don't want to live in a society that puts the economy first and people second. The economy should serve the people and not the other way around. 

Oooh! Sunshine! I'm not one for sunbathing like
Silla, but I know how she feels to see that 
sunshine again.

The paddocks have been pretty wet as the snow
has melted. Mind you, it is surprising where the
water appears at this time of the year. How is
it so wet on the top of hills? 

So what do we do now? Grow as much as you can. Hoard or not to hoard? Maybe hoard what you will consume, like societies used to do before the advent of ever open supermarkets - in other words, store your excess from the summer for the winter. Share what is needed. I had thought I would take a year off from growing veg, but I've put that idea on the backburner. I'll throw in what seeds I can and hope for the best. Maybe help will turn up? Who knows. Our cabin is on order and as soon as this snow goes and the ground dries enough to stand on we (or Ian) is out there preparing the ground for foundations. 

Tasty!

Someone needs a haircut!

So is it crazy to be planning veg beds and cabins with Russia rattling its sabre? Who knows! They seem to be pretty occupied at the moment and we are in a NATO country, unlike the poor Ukrainians. So we carry on and wonder what we would do. We have the kind of animals you cannot just shove in the car and drive off, so that complicates matters. How do you even process these kinds of thoughts? I guess we don't. We watch, we wait and we pray, or stick our head in the sand, whichever is the most appropriate at the time. We have food, we know how to grow food, we know how to store food for the winter without using electricity, we know how to forage. We've already had our first meal with wild greens of the year - admittedly they were growing in the greenhouse. Does this prepare us? No not really, but it helps.

Arrrh! That's better I can see now

Greeeeeennnnnnn! Well nearly! Kind of
green anyway

At least with today's accessibility to information there seems to be more time to make the kinds of decisions to leave if we had to. I just wish someone would turn off the tap that fuels these kinds of atrocities (no pun intended), wherever they are in the world, not just Ukraine. We need to get serious about renewable energy for a more sustainable future in more ways than one. Let's hang on in there and be kind! Please!

There's nothing like a good scratch, but could you
do this while being 8 months pregnant.

Finally outside enjoying the sunshine and finding
the odd blade of grass.

The wagtails are back

Just chilling! 

The snow is getting further and further away

Mr. Tellus

A crane. They've been back longer

Not snowdrops - but snowflakes.

We don't know how much is snow
and how much is manure in these
beds yet.

The snow wasn't deep enough to
protect this bush that was trying
to be an apple tree.

Slowly, slowly melting

Rocket Ron is still an active cat but Ian had to take
him to the vet today as he's got ever so thin. We are
hoping it's just worms, although he was wormed 
recently. He has expensive kitten food, several 
injections and big tablets and he goes back to the
vet 26th.

The willow is budding

There are still a few piles of snow around

Who needs to dye eggs? Actually I think
the light was playing tricks on me. There
aren't really purple and pink eggs, more
a delicate hue perhaps, but they really are
green eggs.

Connecting and re-connecting

I forgot to buy some batteries for my camera on the way up
and so you have to make do with pictures taken from the
internet. You can find some other photos and more details
from here link

Well the day after my birthday saw me traipsing off again, this time to Tallinn. I have been to Estonia lots of times this past 18 months, but only made it as far as Tartu. Tallinn is definitely different. Tartu is leafy and very much like a Scandinavian town, just as you would expect from somewhere that was part of the Swedish empire and home to one of its universities. Tallinn on the other hand looks a right mishmash of styles. As I rode into town on the bus, it reminded me of a town in Lancashire with the limestone buildings, something I wasn't expecting at all. I then had to find the tram and following the fortunately detailed instructions I had been given, I made it to my accommodation, in the process I passed the oldest parts of the city which were situated on a hill, a hanseatic town surrounded by more limestone walls. The further north I went the scene changed to something more familiar of Soviet era buildings and wooden town houses. I have to mention the trams, definitely a relic of Soviet Estonia, the driver is separated from the rest of the tram in a cab and to pay you put your money in a metal tray and push it towards the driver, they then print the ticket and put it back in the tray and push it back towards you, no eye contact, and definitely no possibility of coming into physical contact at all.

The stop where I was introduced to the trams of Tallinn.
For my Lancastrian friends, don't those buildings look as
if they wouldn't be out of place there? To see more photos
of Tallinn you can also visit this link

The young lady who kindly allowed me to stay at her home was a wonderful hostess, she would get up every morning and fry eggs for my breakfast. Her husband and housemates were definitely very welcoming and hospitable and I felt very blessed to be able to stay there. I kipped out on a Soviet era couch, as it was described to me before my visit, but it was comfortable enough for me and I slept well. The housemates also shared a home-made pasta meal with me one night, which was extremely tasty. The trip up to Tallinn was for a conference, which wasn't quite what I was expecting. I was expecting to learn more about how landscape architects view the world, which to some extent I did, but it was also about the Estonian government working out whether to sign up for the European Landscape Convention, which has been signed by many countries in Europe and as I found out Lithuania signed it in 2004 and so Estonia has been rather slow to make a decision. Funnily enough some of the reason is due to the definition of landscape - there is no direct translation in Estonia and so trying to write laws that talk about landscape is always going to prove challenging.

Paldiski Lighthouse - again not one of my photos

On the second day of the conference we had a tour of Paldiski, somewhere that not even local Estonians could visit in Soviet times never mind the likes of me from across the Iron Curtain. Paldiski was one of the closed cities of the Soviet Union where only those with special passes could live, as it was a military enclosure. It was also brought home what difficulties these areas face. When the Soviet Union collapsed the Soviet soldiers were required to return to Russia, but often they left their families behind. As many as 75% of those in the area are non-citizens, in other words they only speak Russian and have not taken Estonian citizenship. These enclaves are the fertile breeding ground for propaganda beamed into homes from the Russian federation, people bereft in a world that left them behind. One of the women in the conference was also Russian and has a Ukrainian father and the whole situation in the Ukraine bothers her, she is incredibly embarrassed about the situation and what Putin is doing and said she is not the only one. She really helped us to understand what drives Putin's appeal amongst the people of the Federation and she explained that it is the desire to see a strong Father figure run the nation that is deep within the psyche of most Russians and Ukrainians for that matter.

The lovage was nowhere to be seen one day and then in
just a couple of days time they have grown to this size

I not only got to find out these snippets of information, but learnt a little of what is happening in Lithuania too. I even found out that there are plans to cull wild boar, every single one of them to protect the pig farms from African Swine Fever which is spreading from Belarus. Of course the conservationists aren't happy about that and I think that is a step too far. A cull to reduce numbers in areas of over abundance, where feeding is maintaining the populations is needed, but culling all! It is not really necessary either. Smaller populations are easier to control and less likely to be as affected if a disease did break out, over crowded populations are almost an open invitation. It will be interesting to see what the Latvian response will be. So all in all it was nice to make some new connections and with people in the field, it was also nice to meet with some Latvians who were at the conference one who I had met before. Interestingly enough he has a new job in one of the regional planning offices and needs some help with participatory planning, so hopefully will be in touch.

We were relieved to see the hop that we bought last year
has begun to appear too

It was also a week of reconnections with someone I had made contact with before on an internet forum. A young friend passed me on some contact details for someone who was interested in rural development in Latvia from a facebook page she is connected with. She thought I might be interested. I fired off an email and then discovered in the reply that actually we had already chatted a while ago. So with any luck we will get to meet up in Latvia and talk about the kinds of issues we are both interested in. I thought it was funny though that we connected again, but via a different forum. Small world as they say!

The girls out on the grass. They love
walking through the branches that Ian
left in. The oak tree behind is looking
lovely with the removal of the birch
trees, a fact one of our visitors
commented on last week. She has sent
me a link to a site where they are
searching for the best looking oak tree
 in Latvia, as she thinks ours has
potential

While I was on the tour Ian text me to say he would like to talk to me about Alicia. My heart sank. I knew that Ian would not send a text like that, if it wasn't important when he knew I would be in a meeting or something similar. Poor Alicia has been fighting with bad health since giving birth to Benedikts and this week was no exception. She wouldn't even get up and her breathing was noisy again. Ian called the vet out and she has prescribed more steroids and more antibiotics, along with hawthorn extract which is supposed to strengthen the heart. She has started to improve and even got up herself today, normally Ian has been standing her up. If she appeared to be in pain, we would have had her put down, but Ian felt her all over and she didn't flinch, so we are giving her a chance. It is so close to the time of year when a good day out on the grass will do her a world of good. The grass though is being slow to get going as we haven't had much rain, in fact none in the last two weeks with none really forecast for a few days more. There has been enough growth though to let the alpacas out to eat a bit anyway, although they have been spending quite a bit of time indoors due to the heat, as the temperatures are now starting to soar as well.

The boys enjoying the grass too

The lawn mowers in action

The sheep have also been moved out of winter quarters. That was a calm experience fortunately. As we don't have much in the way of spare electric poles at the moment, Ian plonked a bale of hay in the middle of the field where the sheep have been kept over winter and then took down the fence. Well that worked for a few minutes, but one sheep decided that no fence meant time to wander. Fortunately on the other side of the bales of hay that marked the exterior of their paddock the grass was long and green, so that kept them occupied for a while. Ian meanwhile was arranging the poles for their next enclosure. At one point I thought they were going to head off in the wrong direction and so just calmly walked up towards them, to discourage them from moving away in the wrong direction. They decided to just carry on eating where they were and then slowly little by little they moved further towards the place Ian was creating for them. The grass was enough to keep them occupied. Whilst Ian was sorting out electrifying it, I kept an eye on them, especially when they spotted the very green clover field, which I know wouldn't be good for them when they have been on hay all winter. Each time they got near to the fence I moved up close just to discourage them. There was just one point when the particularly nervous one decided to bolt and ran up to the fence, but fortunately not through it.

The chickens too are now out on the grass

Apart from that, there are just the regular ins and outs of farm life and gardening. I have done some more digging of vegetable plots and chased our new cockerels off several times from the greenhouse and the general area. Once I had to chase one of them out of the caravan as we had left the door open. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to encourage this rather large cockerel out, in the end I threw a towel at it and then left, hoping that would encourage it to depart - it did, but not quite how I thought it would; it managed to squeeze out with much squawking through the caravan window. Since there is not much for harvesting in the vegetable plot I have continued to add spring greens to our diets from plants I have foraged, so nettles and ground elder are pretty frequently in our diet, along with other plants like dandelions that are fine to eat at this time of the year. A good spring tonic. I did harvest our first rhubarb of the year from our allotment plot which is a wonderful change. I even managed to eat it without sugar after roasting it.

Ducks on the pond in the early morning

Besides nursing Alicia, Ian has been busy trying to finish off moving wood piles and sorting out rough patches damaged by wild boar in preparation for ploughing. He even slept in the caravan while I was away, but wished he hadn't one night as the first few nights were rather chilly. The plus side of being out on the land is seeing it in the early morning and the ducks that visit at around 6 ish. It also meant he could let the animals out in the cool of the day, which I am sure they appreciate with their thick fleeces. The girls have been spending quite a bit of time indoors in the heat. We can't shear the two pregnant ones until after they have given birth and so they will just have to suffer for the time being and we need extra sets of cutting blades before we start on the boys, actually we need to get the seeds in first before we start shearing too. At least we now have a set of hand shears so that if the blades stop working on the electric ones, we still have a means to shear the animals.

The burial mound! Well it is kind of. This is the lowest point
 in the land and often gets rather boggy, so we have made a
raised bed of old rotten wood, soil and hay. It will be a
pumpkin patch this year. Over time it will of course sink and
rot down, but still at least raising the level of the soil at that
point

The wood piles have been moved and humps and bumps
kind of moved with the bucket of the front loader on the
tractor. Next will be the ploughing.

What a week!

This was just over a week ago, just to show you we did
have some lovely spring like weather. Our girls enjoying
the sun

 I gave a short presentation about my PhD studies to my fellow classmates this week, since it is one of the requirements of the course. There is a very short time for questions afterwards and one young man asked what I meant by the term "robust communities"which is what I would like to see as a result of my studies. It was a fair question, because it is a difficult term to measure and who am I to say what is "robust", but I answered him that I felt it was the ability of a village or community to adapt to outside shocks, like a banking crisis I suppose. Anyway he then got into a discussion on why doesn't everyone move to the towns anyway, as their career prospects would be better. I was a little incredulous at this point and asked him where he thought the food would come from to feed people, to which he commented that they could then use machines in the countryside. Face palm moment I think! Fortunately at this point the lecturer said we had to move on and we could fight it out later if we wanted to. I do wonder though if he thinks that isolated individuals communing only with their machines is a sustainable and ethical way to produce food, sounds like a dystopian vision to me, especially when so many people actually want to live in the countryside for a better way of life.

Who took the grass?

A rather damp looking Veronica. At least Alicia our old
alpaca has the sense to stay indoors in this weather. She is
also sounding a lot better than last week, but still not quite
fit and healthy yet.

There was much discussion about "our friendly neighbours" in the class this week too, as obviously the Ukraine/Russian situation has some of my Estonian classmates a little on edge. The discussion arose after one of the students was talking about Soviet history - should it be kept or obliterated, which is the theme of her PhD. It is an important question when memories are still raw, but should all signs of the past be obliterated, even if they are not pleasant? It isn't really possible anyway, otherwise there would have to be a massive rebuilding programme, as so many people live in Soviet era apartments. Still it is a debate worth talking about to decide how much and what to keep. I did worry though how a Russian classmate felt in that class. I have no idea where his sentiments lie, but he is a gentle soul and not a brash kind of guy, probably more concerned with his studies than politics anyway.

At least the sheep have the good protection of lanolin in
their coats to keep out the damp

I had lunch with the lecturer's wife, after the class. It is not the best time of year to come to Estonia from sunny Colorado, because in common with many more northerly countries, people tend to hibernate in winter and so it can be difficult to get to know folks. In summer time though it is quite a contrast and it is as if people go hyper, although perhaps still not as friendly as those in Colorado. Mind you I think there was a tendency for superficial friendliness in Colorado that annoyed me at times when I lived there. I don't mind being friendly with people, but a friend I think is something different, but I guess that's me being all northern. I hasten to add, I did make some very good friends while I was there and do recall my time there with a certain amount of fondness. It is funny chatting though about things we both knew since we used to lived so close to each other at one time, only 50 miles away. Not far in American terms and we had visited Boulder where they are from.

The chickens have the right idea. Taking shelter in the boys
feeder. They have been getting through a lot of hay just
lately. They have been eating more than the girls, who we
expect to eat more since two of them are expecting

I also had a another meeting in Riga this week and I had a great time once again. The meeting was with two guys who help and support rural local organisations and we chatted about a few different things. They are interested in new methods to help local people and we had a real backwards and forwards discussion on different aspects of the topic. I think we all felt like we learnt something from it. It did kind of feel like this is what all my studying had been for. I was also able to send some ideas there way in terms of websites that I have come across before, that I thought might be useful. We also arranged to do a study where I help to assess how well the local organisations are doing, assessing what makes them a success. There is such a need to look at what helps people to be active in their communities and to see if there are any common threads in Latvia. I am going to organise what happens during the study and write a report afterwards, which basically means just working out a way to find out what I want to know and they will help with transport and translate. I think that is what is called a win-win situation.

Our girls having a bit of an argument. They do regularly
spit at each other, when they feel the other one is getting
too close, but usually never at us. Veronica though, does
have a tendency to spit more readily, but she is
usually much better behaved these days

After a long day of travelling and the meeting it was nice to come home to a neat and tidy place. I wondered what had motivated Ian to tidy up, after all he works hard out on the land most days, it was then that he reminded me we had visitors coming the next day. Whoops! Slipped my mind a bit. Still I think we should have visitors more often, our home might be tidier. Our visitors were the people who organised the Latvian camelid society at Raksi. They came to see our alpacas and see what kind of a set up we had. One of the guys is very used to handling alpacas, but unfortunately one of our alpacas was not used to being handled by him. He took some feed and managed to catch Veronica around the neck quite easily, but Veronica does have a tendency to spit sometimes, especially if she doesn't like something and she wasn't impressed at being grabbed around the neck. She spat a great dollop of green, good and proper, right over one of our guests fluorescent yellow jacket. We did warn them to watch for her. Apparently their alpacas don't spit quite so far if they do spit, or as impressively.

Finally the chickens are getting into the swing of egg
laying. Not all of them yet, and today we got 9 eggs, but
we have 20 hens. The large egg on the right is enormous,
but you wouldn't guess which chicken laid it - not exactly
one of the biggest build. 

It has been quite spring like this week, butterflies have been appearing, geese flying north, swans circling around looking for lakes, eggs in the incubator and Sofie our cat got her first tic of the year (what is it with that cat, she seems like a tic magnet). It was all to lull us into a false sense of security though, as we now have more snow than we've had all winter, we easily have about 20cm. That isn't much compared to previous winters, but not what we really wanted now when Spring seemed to have arrived and the promise of green grass not too far away. Ian isn't too happy, as the ground was getting quite dry and he was thinking of getting on with the extension for the ladies alpaca house, in preparation for the new arrivals at the end of May or beginning of June. At least, he did say he has managed to get far more done this winter than he thought he might be able to, due to the mild winter we've had.

Ian's double sided doorlock. We can now open both
greenhouse doors from the inside or the outside and don't
have to walk all the way around when we forget which exit
we used.

I have to mention the passing of Tony Benn, he was a member of Parliament for Chesterfield when we lived just north of that town. He wasn't our MP though. I didn't agree with his politics all the time, but I always felt he was a man of integrity, which is more than can be said for many MPs, unfortunately. There are not many MPs that would give up a life peerage in order to serve the people, which is a route he took. He was born into privilege, but decided to give up some of that privilege for the sake of others and for that he has my admiration. I will finish with a very apt quote from him

"This idea that politics is all about charisma and spin is rubbish," he said. " It is trust that matters."