I've seen the light

I wonder what these two are discussing?

....... you know, the one at the end of the tunnel and I don't think it is a train about to hit me - at least I hope not. I have actually finished off a lot of stuff this week, or at least posted them off to others to see what they think, before they push it back my way to do more work on. It feels good to finally see the workload depleting, unless my supervisor makes up more work for me tomorrow when I go and see him. There was also no further catastrophes on the travelling front. My Latvian classmate gave me a lift to Valmeira where I managed to grab some lunch and the late bus back to Cesis. It had only ten minutes to spare according to the timetable to catch the following bus and so it was a bit worrying, but it was a needless worry, as it actually got in 5 minutes early. I got back home on Tuesday and it felt like I had been away for a month, but it was really only a week. The last long stint away was to Peyresq in France, but that was so peaceful and remote with only around 30 people there, can't remember exactly how many, but it was around that mark, unlike the over 600 mark at the conference the other week plus catastrophes which didn't help.

Our very fluffy cat having a wash

It was nice for a couple of mornings to take my time getting up and not having to rush out somewhere. I took the Thursday off, but that meant getting up early to get out on the land with Ian. He is an early riser and the sun is up, so off he goes to see to his animals. Still the for the rest of the day I just pottered about and we sat and chatted for quite a while. I also helped Ian with the injections of vitamins and worming/anti-bug medications, which basically meant passing him the needles and then holding the heads of the alpacas after Ian caught them - support role really, but not one he can do alone with the set up we have at the moment. Ian is working on some ideas to make life easier for himself if I am away and he needs to give injections. Alicia our old alpaca is much easier to do something with, but if Snowdrop ever got sick, he'd be in trouble, she is so big and not as compliant as Alicia. Having said that, Alicia is getting rather canny when it comes to injection time, she knows and doesn't necessarily run away, but just sidles off.

There's just one problem! Her hair is that long........

She has to strain her head right back to get to the end of it

Since Spring seems to have arrived I decided to plant seeds, but since this is Latvia I played safe - well safer - and planted some in the greenhouse and covered them with fleece. I planted parsnips outside, but under black cloth to protect them, they take ages to germinate anyway and will stand a some frost. Inside I planted collards, spring onions, little round carrots, kale and corn salad. So I hope we have something to eat from that little lot sooner rather than later, our veg store is running low on variety now. It was with this in mind that I headed out into the field and snipped away at the just emerging nettles for a good spring tonic, the first harvested crop of the year. It was nice but a little gritty, must find a better way of rinsing them without stinging myself. Don't panic, for those who don't know, nettles are safe to eat after cooking, honest!

Oh yes! The sky was definitely blue that day

There have been plenty of other signs of spring, such as the kiwi plant in the greenhouse has started dripping from the buds, which means it's waking up from its winter sleep and some of the winter barley seems to have survived and started sprouting again, only hope the chill we expect this week doesn't finish it off. The storks are also back, the true harbinger of Spring around here and the first Ian knew of their arrival was when the chickens went berserk and started flying off in panic, pinging into the wire around the alpaca paddock in the process. Other signs are the bees, the wagtails, the ospreys and frogs in the pond. It is still rather chilly at night, the greenhouse can register -6C overnight, but then be up to +25C half an hour after sun up.

Spot the chickens! Hiding behind the alpaca

Ian had more visitors this week. The first he knew was Alicia screeching, a sure sign something was up. Ian went to investigate and found three adults and two children, heading for the alpaca paddock.  It was a lady who works in the local supermarket and her family, and she once translated for us when we visited the local orphanage. They spent about half an hour at our place and Ian let the kids feed Tellus, Ian also managed to get hold of Tellus, so they could feel the fleece. From hanging onto him the other day for his injections, I know he has a lovely thick fleece on him. He'll be a challenge to shear soon.

This is a series of pictures. Our attempt to capture a picture
of both of us, using a timed shutter with the alpacas. So
here is the first, just setting it up

I had an interesting email yesterday, from someone I don't know and at first I wondered if it was spam, because there was a link in it, but it was such a well written and lovely email my gut reaction was that it was not. I admit to sending it off to my son-in-law to check, since he is the tech savvy one and he thought it was probably not. Well I took a risk and I'm grateful I did. Hichu, wrote a piano piece entitled "A Journey to Somewhere" and put it up on the internet and then tried to google it, to see if it would come up and my blog came up. So if you want to listen then here is the link. To me it speaks of the halting and uncertainty of setting off on a journey to somewhere and is a lovely tune.

Come on boys, where are you?

I had a vague note from my oldest son, saying a present was on the way and was booked to arrive Saturday after 6pm. That actually got me worried, as I was thinking "no delivery company delivers on a Saturday and especially after 6pm." I asked for a tracking number, but he wouldn't give me one as he said it would spoil the fun. I was intrigued. At 6:20pm a ring on the doorbell and standing at the door was a lady with a bunch of flowers. It wasn't my birthday present after all (my birthday is later on in the month) it was a Mothers Day present. I know in most of the world Mothers Day, or Mothering Sunday is usually in May, but in the UK it is related to Easter, so is usually in March. The lady said some very nice things, well they sounded nice and I nodded and smiled, as you do when you haven't a clue what someone is saying as it was all in Latvian. That wasn't the only surprise I even got a phone call while I was travelling on the bus up to Tartu from my youngest son. We were never very good as a family about doing things for Mothers Day and so I was a little taken aback by all the attention, but rather nice.

Close but not quite

I think the biggest shock though was a post on  my youngest facebook newsfeed that quoted the verse below, I would think most have you have seen some version of it.

At 6 yrs "Mommy I love you"

At 10 yrs "Mom whatever"

At 16  "My Mom is so annoying"

At 18  "I wanna leave this house"

At 25 "Mom, you were right"

At 30 "I wanna go to Mom's"

At 50 "I don't wanna lose my Mom"

At 70 "I would give up Everything 

for my Mom to be here with me"

We definitely went through the stages 10, 16 and 18,  just not sure they were at that age though and so for the turnaround to "Mom you were right," feels rather odd at times, but nice.

Arrrhh! There we go, that's better

Another milestone passed this week, we finished watching War Time Farm. It was a fascinating story, as they said in the programme, we hear a lot about the effects of war on the cities, but not in the countryside. It was also quite surprising how much changed in those few years and in someways how much high intensity agriculture of today stems from that era. It is a good job that finished though 'cos we have farming to do.

Finally both of us, and an alpacas behind. 

Anniversary

The unremarkable Latvian/Estonian border
taken from the Latvian side and looking
towards Estonia

It was six years ago this last week that we arrived in Latvia. At lot has happened in that time and a lot has changed in what we do. We never thought we would be doing what we are doing now, even six years ago. We arrived with very few plans, in fact our only plan was to get the apartment sorted out for living in and see if we could grow some vegetables in the gardens outside. Well we did most of that in the first year. Six years on and I am sitting in the Estonian University of Life Sciences, trying to finish off this blog as quickly as possible as I have a deadline of tonight to finish some work for one of the compulsory courses towards a PhD. It is a good job that I didn't know that before we set off to Latvia to live, I think it would have frightened me to death. It was still a scary prospect starting out on the study trail, but I didn't realise quite where it would take me. Today I was lecturing for two and a bit hours to Masters students in the Landscape Architecture department.

Snowdrop enjoying the sunshine

Our poorly Alicia

Another thing we didn't anticipate although I think we always desired it, was to have a farm. We got that and seven alpacas, three sheep, two cats and goodness only knows how many chickens later and we have a mini-farm. Unfortunately life down on our farm hasn't been easy this week. I have been going out there a bit more regularly so that I can help Ian with the alpaca boys, as we are using a medication to try and tackle the mites that have got a hold on poor Herkules and started on Tellus too. The girls will need doing, but we need to know the treatment works before treating them. We are using an injection of something normally used for worming treatment, but it is used for other types of parasites too, that has to be given three time two weeks apart. We also have to apply a mix of mineral oil - purchased from the local tractor shop of course, an antibiotic, and a few other bits and bobs mixed at the local vets and applied directly on the skin to smother the mites, the problem is that poor Herk is fed up with all the treatment he has had just lately and won't stand still. His eye is still cloudy and he is now having a treatment to seal the cornea, to see if that works. At least so far it hasn't taken a toll on their general condition and other than that they are fit and healthy. Alicia our oldest alpaca, has also been having a bit of trouble breathing just lately. Ian called the vet out to see her as she wasn't interested in her food Sunday morning, which is not like her at all. The vet thinks she may have a bit of fluid on her lungs and so she is on antibiotics too. This is a good job it it Latvia and not the UK, we would have been bankrupt by now.

Not more chickens in our paddock!

We go where girls?

We had to do some rearranging with the chickens this week too, we need an empty ark for new chicks, as we want to start new ones much earlier this year, so they are laying by the winter and then hopefully through most of the winter too. These new ones this year, weren't ready and some are still not laying even now. We sent some of the new chicks down to the chicken ark, as there is still plenty of room in there and since they aren't laying yet, they are not so precious. We had to have a rethink on the males too and we asked our friend for a couple of her cockerels to replace a few of ours. It is hard, but we had to cull some fine looking cockerels because they are related to the females. James was one of those who was culled. Ian wasn't happy about it and Ian thanked James for being a good cockerel in looking after the girls before the axe was swung. He was tasty though! The new cockerels are much bigger and so we hope they will make good sentinels for the girls, at the moment though they are following the girls around who know the ropes.

A suave looking chap - our newbie

So this is the water mill, and near by is a lovely camping
ground overlooking a lake, So if you are looking for a nice
spot with a bit of trout fishing here's the link

We finally got around to making a visit to someone I had met at the Transition initiative workshop the weekend that Benedikts was born, all the way back in January. It was World Women's Day so I got given a hyacinth flower in honour of the day. Our new friend took us on a trip to see a rabbit farm where he had helped with project advice, a sweet shop that makes their own sweets and a walk around his own water mill which is on its way to being renovated that he has been working on for many years. He is a business consultant and has helped many people along the way to get going and realise plans, so is a good contact to know, as well as a lovely fella to meet. It was nice for us both to be doing something different for the day. If I go out to the farm, it means Ian doesn't get a break and if I stop in, it's boring.

Rabbit farm near Skriveri. No rabbits in residence though
they are waiting for warmer weather as the winters are too
cold here - thank goodness

Eggs are once again becoming a regular feature of our diet

It has been a hectic week for me study wise, so much work to do for deadlines and I have found it a bit stressful. I thought I was on top of it the other week, but obviously this week was not so good. It didn't help that there was an extra piece of homework for one course, some software to sort out for another one so I can run a mapping programme on my own computer and a lecture to prepare. It was wonderful to discover the delights of a techie son-in-law and remote access though. After a little bit of fiddling about, we got the remote access working and I went to bed on Saturday night and by the morning the programme I needed was installed and running. Yeah! He'll be pleased to know that I even got a map nearly prepared to finish an exercise on it. My lecture went well this afternoon and the course leader was pleased with the added perspective I brought to the students. He liked my ideas to demonstrate some of the difficulties experts face when trying to decide who the people are who have an interest in the development of a project and how hard it is to separate them into groups to help when interviewing. It was simple really, I gave each group a set of card with details of a person, such as an indication of how long they had lived there, type of job and any affiliations to groups. With those three simple details it was hard to think who would be most likely to work with who and why and there were always the problem ones who won't fit into a group. I think the course leader enjoyed trying to sort them into groups more than the students did.

Is this edible?

Whoops! Bella looks on as Sofie tumbles off the logs

Ian and I still watch a DVD on Saturday nights together if we can, even though we haven't been up to our other place for a bath since the radiators burst- don't worry we have a shower too. At the moment we are watching the War time farm DVD and it has been quite an eye-opener. I hadn't realised some of the issues facing folks in the countryside in the war, such as the culling of livestock and the millions of hectares of land ploughed up for food. I knew about the dig for victory drive, but hadn't realised the sheer scale of it. It has also made me realise how far the English society had come from knowledge of the land, I didn't realise how unusual my own grandparents knowledge was of natural plants and some of their remedies, never mind my parents. Here I am telling Latvians that people my age don't often know much about their natural environment and in reality the rift had started even further back than that. Here it is not unusual for people to know at least a few natural remedies, a good number of edible mushrooms and berries and they actively seek them every year. Around in rural Latvia, it is more unusual if someone does not know how to grow vegetables and it is not because they are poor, it is because they like the taste and they like to be close to nature. So obviously much more in touch with nature than even the Brits before the Second World War.

Still a tad muddy! It is amazing where
all this water comes from though, as
we haven't had much in the way of rain.
This must be the water frozen into the
ground after the miserable autumn days