Summer?

The skies finally cleared this evening

The sun and the heat is beginning to feel a bit like a distant memory now. After the rain last week the skies have been pretty overcast and the weather cool, just not necessarily raining. We have had damp days with very fine drizzly showers and a lot of wind. This is not helpful when the plants are so parched. They need good drenching rains. At least today there was enough of the drenching rain for the garden but not enough to fill up the ponds by much. We will have to pump water from one pond to the other one outside our greenhouse, just so we can water the greenhouse plants. I am pleased we only have half the greenhouse planted up this year so that we could hold felting courses in the other half. I went into Riga this morning so that I could drive a friend's car back. It means we have an extra car over the summer, which should be helpful. The rain this morning at least meant there were no outside jobs to be getting on with.

The pump hose is above the water line now

The overflow pipe is now quite far from the water level

Ian outside our greenhouse

The wind has been playing havoc with the plastic on our greenhouse. It is getting to the stage where the plastic needs replacing and holes are beginning to appear due to the flapping about. Just about every day Ian has been up the ladder putting on some tape over more holes. It is a good job he managed to find some tape that actually sticks after having a frustrating time trying to find a tape that really did the job. Just because it says greenhouse tape does not mean it is up to the job.

A grass seed head

Enjoying the late evening sunshine

We had a late request for shearing up in the very north of Estonia near Tallinn. Our usual alpaca sitter is away and so we had to ask another friend if she could come and help. It's a good job we have more than one option to help out. The last occasion we were shearing that far north was fraught, this time it was more leisurely with time to sit and chat. We could only get up there for about mid-day so we stayed overnight as we knew we wouldn't finish very early and they had a very nice cabin for us to stay in. Shearing was still a little fraught though as we found a similar problem to the first time we were up there and that is the animals get a huge amount of grit in their fleeces due to the geology of the area. The problem is that this blunts the shears very quickly. Whereas Ian might get nine animals or more sheared with one comb by sharpening the combs between every three animals, with these it is more like three animals per comb, as they needed changing each animal. Still we managed and at least this time Ian has a portable grinder.

A sad day for Ian. He has put his old racing bike up high on the
wall, as he probably won't get the chance to use it anytime soon.
He used to use it on rollers in the apartment due to the lack of
routes he could take. It is only dirt road next to our farm and
not exactly suitable for a road bike.

Smack xxxx

On the way back we realised we closer than we thought to some alpaca breeders we hadn't visited in a while, so we phoned up. We expected them to be quite busy and not have time and so were surprised that they were open for a visit. We had a very good chat about shearing and got to see how their place has changed over time. They showed us their shearing table that they had built. It was very ingenious, but rather large for transporting. If we went down that route we would have to take the horse box with us and that would add to fuel costs, but maybe one day we will go down that route. We'll see.

The pests are making an appearance

But so are the good guys. 

My squashes are looking happier today thanks to the rain
and lack of wind. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the
chicken of the woods, you will just have to take my word for
the size of it.

Despite the parched landscape there are still things to forage and some plants growing well. Ian picked some wild strawberries that I had spotted. If you have never eaten wild strawberries, you should give them a try, they are so different and very fragrant compared to the ordinary strawberries, although far more fiddly to pick. There was also a humungous chicken of the woods that has started to grow on our very old oak tree on the hill, which gave me 2.5kg of mushroom to freeze. It is a bit sad really as it means that the tree is dying, although it may last for many more years to come. The plants that are growing well in our garden are fat hen, which although a weed is an acceptable spinach substitute and turnips. I am actually quite surprised about the turnips, I thought they would not have done well at all, but some are a reasonable size and hopefully the slower ones will continue to swell. So our diet, whilst not that varied from day to day, it is changing from season to season.

The second sowing of buckwheat is doing well now too. We
just hope they outcompete the docks.

Sorting out the bags of fleece

With the cooler weather I have been trying to write another paper that has a due date by the end of the month and Ian has been doing some admin. It is nice for me that Ian is doing this now. I used to do all that sort of thing, but since I take regular trips away it is much easier if he will do at least his own admin related to the farm. We also took the opportunity to sort out fleeces, We have a backlog of older fleeces that need dealing with but first of all we needed to know what we had. We have set aside fleeces that will be used for feltmaking and hand spinning, then fleeces that we think will spin well using machines and so will be sent away and finally those that might be useful for making duvets. Well that's the plan.

The grapes in the greenhouse

Freddie is so inquisitive

We've had a few moments when we were sat in the greenhouse and looked up to see our girls not where they should be. Today Mari and Agnese were outside the paddock and somehow got through the fence. Not what we want our pregnant ladies to do. Ian calmly got a pot of food to entice them back in. Aggie as usual was very good and followed Ian straight through the gate, Mari was not quite so ready to be enticed back in. When I could see she was not in a compliant mood, I went up to help. It's not that I was being lazy but often it is easier for Ian to go up and get them back, only if they are not cooperating do I get involved. We got her in eventually anyway.

Perhaps too inquisitive at times

Chanel

Ian was not quite so calm about the first incident of the week though. We have started mating Chanel with Mr, P.. Chanel has really recovered well from her health problems and put weight on and her fleece is growing back nicely. Ian has the routine of taking Mr. P up to the girls' alpaca house first thing in the morning before letting them out for the day. The rest of the girls are put on one side while Mr. P. is mated with Chanel on the other side of the fence. We wait for heads to appear at the door, which means finished for the day, only on this particular day there were flashes of white on the side where there should have been no white alpacas. You should have seen Ian run. We were worried about Lady V. as we do not want her getting pregnant. Fortunately, true to form, she was having none of that sort of thing and was busy spitting him off when Ian got there.

Mr. P has been rather eager to go on his morning walks. There
is no stopping to eat the grass on his way across.

Would adding a picture of Brencis help do you think? 😀

I found out that this week that Facebook doesn't like me. If I post a message in Griezites Alpakas announcing an event, the figures are abysmal for the reach to other people according to the stats. We decided to try out an experiment. I posted an update about the next felting course we are running in August and there were only about 34 people reached. Ian re-posted it about two days later and it reached 196. Hmmph! Not helpful.

Turbjørn in contemplative mood

I have had a phrase niggling around in my brain all week and that is the old making space for the new. It seems a bit ironic with respect to the old oak tree that will one day have to make way for the new oak trees around it, but there is a time for everything. The old has to make way for the new one way or another and sometimes it is good for the older generation to clear the space to allow the newer generations the space to create their own way forward. I wonder what that will look like for me, or for us here. Will it change what we do or where we focus our energy? Are their things I am doing that is hindering the new generation? How do I create space for them? I don't know at the minute, but I will be looking out for opportunities to do what needs doing.

Oh so dry!

The road that runs along our land is a bit rough again. It was
graded after the rain, but now it is dry it is like a washboard
again

I know last week's title for the blog was "Oh Sweet Rain!" Well it was nice while it lasted but it sure was not enough to make much of an impression on the land and the vegetation. We have had no rain since then either. Certain trees and shrubs are beginning to show signs of a severe lack of water. Where the vegetation has not been cut, it is still hanging on in there - just! But where the grass is cut, then the ground is looking distinctly parched and brown patches are appearing in what should be green grassy areas.

There have been lots of interesting wee beasties
and I'm not entirely sure what they are, as they are
not ones I have seen before or rather noticed before.
I'm trying to make sure I take pictures so that I can
check to see if they are friend or foe.

About the only moisture we saw this week was the dew on
the ground due to one particularly cool night

As I mentioned last year, we are chronic weather watchers these days and we can often be seen checking the weather forecast, but it is so demoralising. There will be a forecast for a good dousing of rain for about a week ahead and as the day draws nearer, the amount of rain forecast gets less and less and less until there is nothing. We have seen some quite dark clouds, but no rain on our land. On the radar we have seen rain to the north of us, rain to the south of us, rain to the east of us and rain to the west of us - but none for us. Even so, it is still dry over much of the region and the regional head office has asked the government to declare a drought. We have about a days worth of water in our well for our day to day use and will soon have to bring it in from our apartment for our animals. It definitely makes us careful in our usage.

These are friends, these are dock leaf
beetles and are currently making lacy
dock leaves that will weaken them.

This is a bag I started ages ago, but the front flap went all
wrong and ended up way too big. With Heather's help I have
been modifying it. It is still a work in progress but it's getting
there.

Heather our current resident felting tutor returned from showing our Latvian Alpaca Adventure guest around Riga on the Wednesday. Since then she and I have been doing some more felting - or rather Heather has been doing some serious felting and working on some interesting pieces and I have been pottering around finishing off bits here and there.  Heather has been putting together a themed collection of pieces and the more we work with alpaca fibres the more we realise that alpaca is definitely not like working with merino wool. There is a lot of serendipity about it, which has caused some consternation from time to time. Just when we think we have the measure of the fibres they do something unexpected. This has meant some re-working of pieces to get a result we are happy with. It has also meant some fascinating pieces too - but you will have to wait for our photo shoot to be completed to see a glimpse of most of them.

This shows the bit of the flap that I cut off and it will now
become a pocket, that I shall sew on. That is the next bit to do

This is the finished shawl I was making last week using
George's fleece. It is a cobweb felt, so is super light with
lacy holes in it. The collar is doubled over and sewn so that it strengthens it.

We have been really careful throughout the process though to try and use as little water as possible and Heather often took the articles back to the apartment to rinse out after the hard work had been done on the pieces. We hope that we don't have the same issues when it comes to the next workshop, otherwise we are going to have to bring in water.

Sewn collar detail

Cute curly pieces

Ian with tractor and trailer to collect the bales

As well as felting, Ian and I have been getting the hay in. Ian does the cutting and baling with the tractor and then I help him with the collecting and stacking. At least I did this year, last year I managed to book on a conference at the end of July, which ended up coinciding with baling time. I'm pleased I didn't manage that this time around, boy would I have been in trouble. We haven't finished of course, but we are hanging back on cutting the rest and waiting for some rain to help the grass to grow. We don't want to risk killing all the grass if it doesn't rain. At least we have nearly enough hay now for the whole year, as we still have a reasonable amount leftover from last year.

Heather gave me a rose last year
and I wasn't sure if it had died or not
over the winter. It came back from
the root and so isn't quite the same
but it is still purple and has a lovely
smell, so I'm quite happy with that.

Dew in the morning on a spider's web. I love the colours

The lack of rain does make it difficult for moving electric fences for the animals. The other week Ian managed to snap an electric post because it was set like concrete into the ground. He did manage to move the fence for the girls though, so they can eat the grass under the trees that still looks lush, in reality though it is actually quite sparse. We are just hoping the grass lasts until the rains - when they come. At least we noticed the buckwheat that Ian planted has sprouted. I think the bit of moisture from the rain last week and a good dew one morning seems to have helped. If the forecast holds for rain, we will plant up another area of buckwheat. The idea is that it will outcompete the docks that have taken over those areas. That's the plan anyway.

Another wee beastie. Very unusual

Sitting on the fence.

We made some progress this week on some admin to do with the sale of our apartment. This was our registered address and so we needed to transfer it to our other apartment. We went into the big town and found the right office. Despite it being the immigration office, however, there was no one there who was fluent in English. We managed though, with the help of a friend via mobile phone and my little bit of Latvian and the admin lady's little bit of English. At least it is all official now, that we live at our apartment that we still own - although we don't because we spend more time out on the land than we do at the apartment, but this hasn't got an official registered dwelling yet!

Also sitting on the fence.

Not a photo of Sofie but Eyre, our grumpy looking cat. She
is not quite so good as Sofie at catching things, but she
managed a lizard today, which I would rather she didn't, as
they are good to have around.

We have had some laughs this week. Over the course of a couple of days the front of our greenhouse became like mole city motorway, with soil pushed up between food bins and all along the entrance. It was making getting the chicks out a bit of a challenge. We were eating our evening meal one night when Heather spotted one of our cats with something in its mouth. Sofie was obviously feeling left out and had decided to bring her own meal - yup! Mr, or Mrs Mole. It was not exactly what we call fine dining and not much appreciated and so I had to shoo Sofie away to eat the poor beast in peace. At least we don't have a mole problem any more.

My lupins are looking good

Grass on a dewy morning

Samples to test the feltability of the boys fleeces. George
felts very well and Frederiks is okay but requires more work.

The chicks are getting big now

This started out as a felted cuff but it made
a handy holder for the herbal teas I have been
making. Here is a mint tea