Writing and raining

Just awwww!

Writing is going well for me at the moment. I've recently had two more articles published in Dispatches Europe, this time encouraging people to travel slowly through Latvia and visit places outside of Riga. I also encouraged people to visit our own farm of course, nothing like doing a bit of self-promotion while I'm at it. Having said that, it is not something that comes easily to me, but I recognise that if we want people to visit, then we have to take what opportunities come our way.

Herkules gets fed up of the heat and the flies. He's probably
enjoyed the rain just lately.

It was a relief to hear that a paper for an academic journal that I have co-authored was accepted the week before. I am not the main author on that one, I just added a section and polished the English before the second review. I haven't actually taken a look at the last revision as I haven't had time really. Although I now have three full published papers which kind of qualifies me to get my PhD, they are not the main bulk of my work.  I am still waiting to hear the results from that particular paper, but since I only submitted it on the 17th June it is not surprising. I hope to hear soon though. Apparently the turn around is very quick. Then I can get my thesis sorted. Now that will be good.

The baby swallows, still hanging around

There have also been three papers submitted for the EU project I'm involved in. I am only named as first author on one of them and co-author on another. Being first author makes a difference, it basically means I have put the most work in to it, after that it just means I contributed. Anyway all three got rejected. The editor though requested we have a Skype call with someone to help us with the content so they could be resubmitted, as they like the idea of the project. That at least is promising. During the Skype call we found out that the one I had mainly written was basically okay but the others needed re-wording to get accepted.

This bug was rather reluctant to
give up it's hold on the
meadowsweet flowers but I had
plans for these in a dessert, so he
had to go. There have been some
amazing bugs just lately.

We found out today what the minor the changes that were needed were but they are so minor that we should be able to sort it out by tomorrow. It takes a little bit of time to coordinate with my colleagues since we are not in the same office and in this case relying on emails but we get things done. Still it is progress. Published papers can be very important for academics and some places demand many publications to keep your job. Fortunately that is not the case for me and the job I'm doing, but having publications is still helpful for the future.

Our view for our evening meal

Of course, being summer, my time is not taken up just with writing it is also usually tied up with working on our land collecting hay, doing something with the alpacas or chickens or the gardening. So we are quite relieved that the drought is mainly over. We've had a reasonable amount of rain, but still not as much as elsewhere. It seems Riga is flooded in places, so we are grateful that it wasn't that bad for us. We have had enough to give the plants a good soak, but not enough to create a mudbath. Still it has rained most days this week, so I haven't done that much in the way of outside activities. I did get the chance to do some weeding and finally stake up some peas because I can get the sticks in the ground. I also started some seeds off in the greenhouse so that I can get some of the quick growing plants in for salads and some perennial plants for next year. It is much easier when I can get water without a great palaver.

After the rain 

We've actually been able to harvest rainwater to water plants and stock up on our own water supply. The ponds are still too low to water the greenhouse though. I have been taking the water first from a reserve we pumped from the only reasonably full pond earlier in the season and then I have been getting the water from the collapsed greenhouse. It was covered in black plastic and just happens to make a good rainwater catcher. Now there's an idea.

Still a very pregnant alpaca

We are still waiting for Chanel to have her baby. There have been odd days when she's looked uncomfortable but most of the time she looks rather too relaxed. We had hoped that she would have given birth before we start on the process of getting the other girls pregnant for next year's babies. Instead we just had to get on and hope she doesn't go into labour while Ian was supervising the mating process. We have never mated five girls in the same period before and it takes some planning. Not all of them can be mated to the same stud. Ian made a gate to separate the alpaca house into two so we can use two studs at a time and keep the girls separated to some extent.

Just how though can she bend round that far whilst pregnant?

Mr. P with a faraway look in his eyes.

One of our concerns is Mr. P maybe passing on some genes for rapid teeth growth and a possible asthmatic tendency with dusty hay. Not ideal for an alpaca. They are cute babies that he produces but not much good if they are then going to be a health liability. We are giving him a try again to see what happens next year. Meanwhile we decided to give Tellus another go. He's starting to get old, but then he gave us one very good baby in terms of fleece, George, a very, very sweet natured but not good fleece, Freddie and a reasonable fleece but rather large alpaca, Brencis. All of them are lovely natured, so we'll see what happens there.

The sweetest natured alpaca of them all I think. Only his
fleece is not very fine at all. He does produce a lot, so it is
a shame that his isn't fine too.

Brencis having a good scratch.

We've also tried Brencis now he's old enough with one of the girls, which has been interesting. Poor guy, it is his first time and he doesn't quite know what to do. He has needed some coaching by Ian to at least get on the right way around. He was fine the first time but must have got over excited the second time around. We have had to stagger the mating, as there is not enough room or appropriate accommodation to have three stud males. We also need to know who is mated when so that we know when to expect the babies next year, hence Ian has to supervise. Some of the girls have been rather resistant and we even considered trying Tellus instead of Mr. P with Vanessa, as she is a feisty lady like her Mum, Veronica. The reason we didn't is that we realised they both had the same father and so too close a relation.

Veronica might be old and a bit unsteady on her legs at time
but she is still feisty

Don't let this sweet, innocent face fool you.
She wasn't so innocent looking as she was
spitting at Mr. P.

Is it safe to come out?

Female alpacas will sit down if they are receptive and being around others that are mating helps them to ovulate and therefore be more receptive. This is the reason for having so many of them in the alpaca house at the same time. It's all a bit mind boggling really. We are hoping that Vanessa will respond to the mating going on behind the gate before bringing down Mr. P because otherwise he is just getting absolutely covered in spit. We are not sure she likes him really. Vanessa is on the older side and because we can't mate her with Tellus or Brencis because they are too close a relation, and George is too young, we are kind of stuck with persevering with Mr. P.

Amanda is such a cutie

Our boys can be very relaxed and calm

Normally our boys are fairly chilled. About dusk there maybe a bit of a fracas but rarely anything serious. However, the other day there was quite a to-do. I can't remember who was chasing who but they all seemed to be at it and this was before any of them had been to see the girls. Eventually Ian had to separate Mr. P. off to cool down as he was the one that seemed to be the main instigator. He seems to be picking on George at the moment and it seems to either set the others off trying to stop him or off on their own disagreement with another alpaca. There are probably hierarchy issues as the young ones grow up. Still, most of the time they are calm, so we just wait and see.

I love how Herkules, our deaf old man is still the boss and
will sort out the youngsters

Even Turbjørn tries to keep order, despite being the grumpiest
alpaca we have. No one, but no one invades Mr, Turbjørn's space

Jakobs is too young for faraway looks in his eyes. 

It was our time for a flat tyre or at least a soft tyre this week. One of our friends has had to repair three tyres on two cars due to the state of the roads and our visitor last week had a flat tyre. The washboard dirt roads are not good on cars. It's a good job our village has a tyre repair place, so not too big a job to deal with. It just meant it was one of those weeks when we were backwards and forwards to the village. I went back one day and realised I'd forgotten the key to the apartment and so had to drive all the way back to get it. There are traffic lights in our village because they are doing some major renovations on the main road and since the traffic lights take a long time to change and were on red when I got to the junction, I turned in the opposite direction and did the shopping first before heading back for the key.

Jakobs  does take after his Mum, Mari though. She's the one in
the foreground with Aggie behind.

Munching away on the hill

There are not many Brits in Latvia, around 400 I think, not too sure of the exact number, so it is almost inevitable that we will know a fair proportion of them or at least know about them. One guy we had met a while ago after I found out via a blog he had written that he lived in a town that wasn't very far from where I grew up. I even worked on the edge of the town where he used to live when I was a teenager working for my parents before going to uni. His son and grandkids were visiting and so he decided to come and visit us again. Funnily enough one of our previous visitors recommended our place when our friend posted a message in a Latvian expat site to ask for ideas for places for his grandchildren to visit. It is nice that someone recommended us. The weather could have been better but at least the rain held off and wasn't nearly as bad as forecast, well not over us it wasn't. It was amazing to find out his son and grandchildren live quite near to one of the places where we had the best holiday ever. One that nearly ended in disaster but made good by the open hearts and generosity of strangers, but maybe that's a tale for another time.

I know Aggie isn't pregnant but it is still unreal to be able to
scratch your nose with your toes.

We got the results back on the alpaca fleeces. We are a bit puzzled with some of them. Not sure if it is a problem with the testing or our sampling. It turns out that Turbjørn's fleece has got a whole lot finer, but we didn't think it was by that much. Also a sample we took from a young alpaca to be tested because we wondered how fine her's was, didn't turn out to be as fine as I thought it was. We shall have to compare them with next year and see what they show then.

Squelch!

A selfie in my new raincoat. Good job I got
it really

Is that the sound of a babbling brook I hear? Or the gentle running sound of a waterfall. Errrr! Yes! Not that there should be on our land. We have swamps and streams that dry up in summer but not exactly babbling brooks and there definitely shouldn't be a babbling brook near our greenhouse, but today there was. Actually there was a torrent of water running down into our ponds. We also have a stream running across our lower field and the drain from the road is under water - we didn't venture near to find out by how much though. In one or two places we had to back track from our investigations because the water seemed to be rather deep.

The top pond into the middle pond. We could
have had trout instead of carp in this pond. Mind
you at this rate we could end up with carp in the
middle pond if those carp have spawned.

The middle pond flowing into the bottom pond

Sweet little Frederiks

We haven't had as much of an issue with escaping animals this week, as our neighbour has now put up a more permanent fence with wooden posts and barbed wire. It seems to have done the trick anyway. Frederiks though, bless him did manage to end up on the wrong side of the fence. He seemed almost relieved to see Ian, as went up to him - they are usually quite shy still at his age. Winter seems to change that as they get used to being fed with grain. Ian wasn't able to actually get hold of Frederiks so I helped to corral him and he jumped back over the fence since it was down in places. The electric went back on to remind him what it is for.

George's fleece looks wonderfully soft, it will be interesting
to know what it will be like when he is sheared next year

Herkules has now remembered what the electric fence is for
since this photo was taken

Our usual suspects, Herkules, Mari and Veronica have all been eating through the fence to get to the greener grass and so the fences have been switched on at various times. They get through the green stuff at a much faster rate at this time of the year and fences need moving more often, especially when it has been as wet as it has been this week. We don't have them on permanently as we get through too many batteries otherwise and so use them judiciously. The sheep fence is always on though and gives a hefty kick, they wouldn't stay behind it otherwise.

Our babbling brook next to the greenhouse

Aggie's fleece interestingly showed the time she was sick
with the tooth abscess. The fleece diameter  declined quite
steeply at one point and so she must not have been not eating
properly for longer than we realised. Good job she made a
good recovery once we realised she was poorly and knew
what the issue was.

We found out an interesting fact this week as we got the fleece results back. We found out that our animals tend to get fat over winter making their fleeces not as good as they could be. The hay and probably lack of exercise does not help - just like humans really. Looks like we might have to run them around the paddock this winter to ensure they don't overeat. At least we don't have to worry about the quality of the hay, it is obviously more than adequate to keep them going and this year we do not have as much worry about not having enough like last year.

Down the side of the greenhouse. Ian had
to lift the extension cable out of the water

Ian had to move the water buckets that catch the water off the
roof so that the water could drain away

Frederiks with his mum, Chanel

Our friends from the Alpakafarm in Estonia visited us this week too, so there was plenty of alpaca talk. They were visiting Riga for shopping and called in on a bit of a detour. Mind you at least it saved us a trip as we needed some more alpaca feed, which they supply us with as they are distributors. They have stopped using the Estonian company for their own animals though and reverted to the more expensive Camelibra, produced in the UK. They weren't happy with the quality of the feed. We are also going to try the Camelibra and we shall see what effect it has on our animals as some of them are getting skin issues again and it could be linked.

We also discussed mating issues of alpacas with our friends.
We don't seem to have had a problem with Mr. P. though. Ian
checked one last time to see if the girls were pregnant and they
were definitely not letting Mr. P. anywhere near. He looks quite
calm here for a jilted lover

I love the purple colour of this mushroom

It hasn't been wet all week, just very wet when it has rained. On the dry days we try and get as much done as possible. I've picked more peas, taken up plants, cleared veg beds and sorted out areas for Ian to dump the alpaca poo over the winter to rot down into the nice rich soil we get from it. I have also been on caterpillar hunts as they have finally started appearing, which is a pain as the cabbagey type plants were doing quite nicely up to that point and really started to get going. This is also the time of year for collecting seeds from poppies, dill, mustard and hemp. I did leave some hemp though as I kept being told off by a Willow Tit (at least that is what I think it is) who was feeding off the hemp seeds. I thought it was just one, but it turns out there are two of them and they are bold little chaps.

The little fella is up there on the bean pole giving me a good
telling off as usual. That jungle passes for a vegetable garden

Our rather full and murky pond

A rainy day job, sorting out the ditches to
make sure the water runs away from the
buildings. A bit of a problem when our land
is so hilly

Since it seemed so wet for most of the week, Ian has been ticking off some jobs that needed doing. He fixed the boys feeder which got broken and one day he finally made me some shelves to fit the Ikea shelving units that I asked for earlier on in the year. He even came with me into our village to fit them. It was only when we got there though that we realised we hadn't got enough of the screw bolts. Doh! Seems like I will have to wait a bit longer to finish putting up the shelves and sorting out. He also spent a whole morning trying to scan receipts so that finances are in order before he heads off the UK. You can tell how wet it is when he spends time doing this before he needs to, he would rather be outside.

At least Aggie does not put her head through the fence like
Mari and Veronica, but she still likes to nibble the grass on
the other side

Such pretty mushrooms. Apparently they
can be eaten once parboiled first as the poison
is water soluble, however I'm not going to try
it. Too risky for my liking.

Still Ian has managed to get outside on those dry days and he has been doing a lot of strimming in the forest to make it easier for himself in the winter when he does the forest maintenance work. He also cleared a path through the forest along the edge of our border, so we know where the border is and it makes a nice walk too. We did try mushroom hunting again this week and we found a few, but not the huge numbers we expected due to the damp conditions. I am beginning to wonder if the nights have been too cool. If it warms up a tad then I think there will be more.

More of the pretty Fly Agaric mushrooms. Of
course I was telling someone I hadn't seen any
this year and then we go and see lots of them

No Veronica. you are not supposed to be eating the leaves off
the oak tree

Before the babbling brook got started in earnest

Mystery solved?

Such a sweet little alpaca.

We went to Estonia again to shear alpacas. We managed six out of ten on the first day and Ian became more and more frustrated. The shears were just not cutting well and seem to be blunting very quickly. Not all of the alpacas were with year and a half long fleeces, which are challenging in themselves (some of that fleece was about 20cm long and tangled together) but many of them had fine fleeces. It still should not have been that hard. We ran out of combs and cutters again - something that should last many, many more animals.

The black alpaca paces up and down the
fence each and every day eyeing up the
ladies. He once broke through the fence
but made a mistake and ended up amongst
the beef cows, who are not so friendly.

Sharpening our cutters and combs

We ended up travelling to see a lovely guy who had a slightly hippie look about him with his long bushy beard. He was a shepherd who had about four hundred sheep (if we remember correctly) and despite being on the older side and living in an out of the way rural place, he spoke quite good English, which suggested another side to him that we didn't have much time to enquire about. We did find out that he had been to Wales to shear a few times. He had also taken part in competitions and taught on shearing courses. His son was a champion shearer until he came down with Lyme's disease. He sharpened our shears at a fraction of the cost that it normally costs us in Latvia and he agreed that some of the combs were quite badly scoured, suggesting that the grit in the local area was causing us problems.

While Ian was observing to pick up tips, I marked some
students work, so this was my office for the day. Amazing where
you can work these days

Wile looking very smart with his new haircut

We got to our friends who have a large alpaca farm and managed to shear all but three of their alpacas, theoretically leaving us enough combs and cutters to do ten the following day. We should have been able to do all of them, but it was all taking too long and Ian's frustrations bubbled over at one point. Added to Ian's woes the transformer broke and so we couldn't cut teeth either. Our teeth cutting machine is American and so will not run on European voltages. Despite all the problems though, we have been well looked after along the way. We have been fed well and treated kindly, with many paying Ian extra for his work in appreciation.

Our hobbit home for a few days. It also has a sauna, but we have
not really got into saunas, but it made a lovely place to stay.

The girls looking shadows of their former selves

Alpacas and ponies

The last place we went to was a farm with ten alpacas and forty horses or ponies. The guy had a look at our transformer but could not see what the problem was, so he pulled out an old Russian contraption. It looked rather alarming and I was relieved to see a modern tester also appeared before Ian plugged in the tooth cutting machine. The guy even had something that would take an American plug to attach to the contraption. There was something about the chap though that made us think he knew more than the average person and in our chats later we found out he was a retired physicist.

Back at home Estelle is getting bigger every day

Trying to keep cool during the day.

We managed two alpacas before Ian's machine was starting to struggle, but earlier the guy had said he had also bought some shears, but just didn't know how to shear with them. Ian asked to borrow his to see if it would do any better and showed him the technique along the way. It started off well but before we had finished the whole animal it started to struggle - it wasn't Ian's machine then. It must be the local environment.

The rain has encouraged the barley to germinate

Barley poking through - at least where the crows have not
been digging it up

Buckwheat too has started to show through

The left hand side is where the girls were and the right hand
side is the newly fenced off area

We didn't shear any more but we sat down to a lunch of salmon soup and discussed alpacas and life in general for the rest of the afternoon. It was a perfect way to finish a frustrating few days. He did mention that he hoped people in the UK would see "common sense" and vote to stay in the EU. He could not comprehend why the people in the UK would vote to exit the EU at all. This shearing venture has cost us more than we would like, but we have learnt a lot and also met some great people along the way. Most will have us back too because Ian is the only alpaca shearer in Estonia and there are even problems finding sheep shearers, one person we met is working her way through around 50 sheep by hand. Our friend with the large farm felt it was easier to sort out the fleece when Ian was shearing, as sheep shearers do not shear the blanket - or the best wool- first. They also shear so fast that it is hard to keep up - not one of Ian's problems yet. It will be different though when he gets a grinder to sharpen the cutters and combs on-site. It will quickly pay us back just in reducing stress and wear and tear on the car.

Spring planting of broad beans, kale, mizuna, beetroot together
with cucumber and peppers for the summer. 

Strawberries in the greenhouse

 Ian emailed the people where he took his shearing course to see what they said. They suggested that it could also have something to do with the fleece density. Our animals have quite dense fleece - apart from the crias who are notorious for collecting grass, muck anything in their fleece and so it means that the dirt does not get right down into their fleece. We also do not have the grit and these two factors explains why Ian doesn't have as much of a problem with our animals and has been having so many with some of the fine fleeced Estonian ones. So I think it is mystery solved now.

We shall have grapes

Fencing off the garden to protect it from wild boar who love
potatoes

It is still dry here and we haven't had any significant showers since last week's rain. Of course that rain was enough to encourage plants to put on some growth spurts and so Ian has had to mow paths and strim around many of the areas that need to be kept neat and tidy. We attempted to put up the fence around the garden and got over half done before the mosquitoes drove us inside. We will finish that off in the morning when they are not so active. I have also been trying to finish planting up the tomatoes but not quite got there yet. At least I have finished off my herb bed and most of the vegetable plots are tidied.

Chanel and her happy quizzical look

There is water to drink, honestly! So of course she has to drink
the rice water that I drained onto the path

Brencis 

Thank goodness our land does not have lots of gritty areas.
Alpacas love to roll

All of them do and the whites end up looking grey at first

Not quite sure why Sofie has taken to sleeping near the
chickens. She was not a happy cat today, we had to give her
the second dose of worming tablet. She is the only cat that
I have not been able to get a tablet down successfully
in no more than two attempts. She was even trussed up
 in a towel by Ian as I attempted to get the tablet down her
throat and then wash it down with water. Even tried cake!
There is no kidding that cat and she can foam out a tablet.
Still we sort of managed in the end.

We had some visitors over the weekend too. They are neighbours to us, well 2km away, which counts as neighbours in a rural area. They have wild horses and come every weekend to see to them and had heard about us, so paid us a visit. She was thrilled that we love working here in such a rural place. In her words she saw through our eyes what a wonderful place the area is. Like in many things, it sometimes takes an outsider to see the extraordinary in what to us is an ordinary place.

Outdoor broad beans and onions for onion leaves

Showing the advantage of pre-soaking carrot seed and the disadvantage
of sowing them too thickly. I obviously should have added more peat
to spread them out more

Cherry blossom time

Had to mow a path down to the office

I found out today that my presentations for the end of each year of my PhD have been very favourably received by the people doing the evaluations. All I knew was that I had passed each year without too many questions or hassles. I only found out because my supervisor asked if I had any presentations and ideas that other students could follow because of the positive reflections he had received on my presentations. Nice to know I am doing something well.