From somewhere

A frosty morning in Tartu

What a week! Now let me get this straight, I'm in Estonia, it's 8:33pm at night on a Monday and therefore blog night. Right I think I have that all in order now. Can you tell it's been one of those weeks? It started off on Tuesday with one of those freezing cold days where the wind blows through you, just perfect for a train journey that didn't go completely to plan. I have two wonderful conductors to thank for making sure I got to my destination of Riga, otherwise I am not sure if I would have. One young man collected the train fare, but he didn't seem very confident with me, yet very chatty to all the other passengers, later I found out why. Just before I got to the station Valmeira in the north of Latvia, he came up with another conductor who spoke English and he told me that the train was stopping and we would have to take the bus for four stops. All well and good, but it wasn't immediately obvious which bus, that was because we ended up waiting about 20 minutes in the freezing cold for it to arrive. When I realised that it wasn't coming immediately a minor panic set in as I was meant to be meeting with someone. The nice young chap helped me work out what time I would arrive and I contacted the anthropologist I was meant to be meeting to make sure he knew I would possibly be late. The conductor chappy also made sure I was off the bus and back onto the train and alls well that ends well on that one, apart from being made to wait again in the cold before they let us, including the conductors, on the train. I was freezing by the time I got to Riga.

A beautiful but unwanted guest to our land. Stories abound
of these little fellas getting into chicken houses and causing
mayhem as they go into a frenzy and kill every sleeping
chicken in the hen house. This one will not be
causing mayhem

The meeting with the anthropologist went really well. It was nice to be able to talk about my observations of Latvian life and hear some extra pieces of information that made so much sense. It was also nice to hear it from someone who was firstly Latvian but also used to deeply observing his own culture. That's not to say I go around minutely observing my friends and neighbours you understand, it is just observations from trying to make our way around in a different culture to the one we grew up in. It is also the sort of observations made in trying to work out plans for ways forward in our community. We have both, observed the tendency amongst the authorities and NGOs to call something participatory, when all it is doing is ticking boxes for consultation with "the public" in a very loose sense of the word. I am glad we both agree that something has to improve for people to be given a genuine say in what is developed in this country of Latvia. I will see where this link takes me and I am pleased to have someone to contact to be able to ask questions when I am puzzled about something or need confirmation. Certainly worth having to catch the later bus for.

Three happy grandchildren. It was about the closest we got
to all looking in the right kind of direction with a smile

You may have guessed this wasn't a usual Estonia-Latvia backwards and forwards type of week, I have also fitted in a visit to the UK too accompanied by my lovely hubby. Only he wasn't very lovely this morning as I woke him too early. He was tired bless him, and we just arrived back from the UK yesterday (oh yes we missed THE storm) and so while it meant we actually got to lie in an extra hour yesterday and so 4:30am didn't seem quite as bad as it could have been, it did mean by the time we got back home we were not bouncing around and for probably the first time in our married life, he did not change the clocks before we went to bed, hence me being up too early. It was really 5:30am and not 6:30am like I thought. Heh ho! We'll live. The reason for visiting the UK was a chance over the course of the weekend to meet the family, our kids, their spouses, their children, my parents, my sister and her family. It was a bit of a take over, we took over a house, took over a cafe, took over a park (okay not really a took over as there was plenty of room) and took over a pub. I guess that's what happens when families expand. It was sad it couldn't be longer and I hope we can have some more times when we can meet, but for this season we take the opportunities as they arise, no matter how short.

Café takeover. We squeezed in, just with all the strollers

One of the things about travelling is you begin to realise how important toilets are. Not a delicate subject I know, but you know this is the stuff of life. Tartu train station in Estonia has toilets that are immaculate, up-to-date (apart from having to chuck your loo paper in a bin -trash can- rather than down the loo due to the inefficient drain systems) and they are free. Riga train station in Latvia has a lady who collects your 20 santims and next to her on a stick is a toilet roll from which you take your toilet paper before heading to the loo. The toilets are clean and yes you have to put the paper in a bin and not put it down the loo again, but why can't they trust you with a toilet roll? How much would it cost them to put loo roll holders in each toilet? Rome has a problem with the drains too and so despite the fact that Rome airport has modern looking toilet facilities that are regularly cleaned, the smell is awful - at least it was in the middle of summer when I was there. Modern and clean looking toilets with access to loo paper, preferably free so you don't get caught short without enough change says a lot about a place I feel. It reflects well and reduces stress. It made a difference today to visit a nice little cafe whilst driving back up North to Estonia which had lovely toilets. I badly needed a coffee to stay awake and the fresh out of the oven biezpiena cake (sort of like a cottage cheese cake) was wonderful, a log fire and clean toilets too - what more could you ask for?

The park takeover, yes they are all our kids and families,
well some of them anyway. I didn't manage to get
a picture of the pub takeover, I was too busy stuffing myself. 

Our animals played up for us, both before and after we went away. They seem just like children when the babysitter is about to arrive, making life difficult for the parents. Before we left, the boys escaped their fence and took a lot of rounding up and persuading to go in their shed and the girls were difficult too. The day we came back, the chicks didn't all go in without a bit of persuasion, the girls led us a merry dance around the paddock before we got them cornered and leashed up to lead them in and two of the big chickens got left out for the night as they weren't cooperating either. The boys had to be persuaded again to go in. Apparently tonight though, all but our cockerel were well behaved. From now on our cockerel shall be named chicken stew, his days are numbered. Think we've worked out why one of our chickens is missing this week and it doesn't bode well. Ian was working in the barn threshing buckwheat, which our chickens adore, when suddenly the chickens hurtled into the barn. Ian stood up to shoo them away, thinking they were after the grain when he realised that there was a bird of prey chasing them and got within a metre of one of them. Fortunately the bird saw Ian and executed an about turn and headed away, meanwhile our chickens went very quiet. We do wonder if that is the reason for the disappearance as they chickens have seemed a little subdued just lately.

House in Tartu

Not quite on the subject of animals or families but certainly something to do with the land we manage, we declined some bags of chemical fertiliser. We were offered several large bags of the fertiliser and we had to weigh up the pros and cons of whether to use them or not. A one off application, probably wouldn't do a huge amount of harm, but we decided that the possible risk to the soil organisms and the possibility it might just fertilise the weeds instead of the grass meant we decided against it. We'll stick to rotating our animals around more instead. We just have to work out how to do that and teach them to follow Ian to new pastures. May take time but I think we are getting there.

They're here!

APH2 (alpaca house 2 of course) complete with new
fence and gates

We had 203 sheep last week! "What! How did that happen?" is maybe racing through your brain at this point, especially if you have been following this blog. I had even hoped to have a picture of them, but that was not to be. You'll have to take my word for it. One of our neighbouring farms has lots of sheep and was running out of space to move them to and asked if they could put their sheep on our ski hill. We were delighted to accommodate them as it meant that we could finally get some mobile manure depositors up there, to put some added fertility into the ground to enhance the grass we grow next year. We have taken hay from the ski hill for the last four years and put nothing back into it and so it was more than ready for that. However, if you have been following this blog, you will know that we were expecting to get our next group of alpacas and sure enough they have arrived safely and I am assured they are tucked up nice and snug in their new accommodation, which Ian finished off this week.

Meet Estelle, Snowdrop, Veronika and Alicia.

The transfer in Riga! Helped along by some willing helpers
dragged out of the comfort of their beds on a Sunday morning

Come on girls this is your new home. You'll like it here.
Honest!

I had hoped to get to see the girls before I took off to Estonia again, but it wasn't meant to be. It was partly my fault that I didn't. I have done that much research on the internet to try and find transport that matches up that I got a bit confused. I had decided to go in with Ian in the morning, see the alpacas and then catch the train, but since the ferry came in at 11am and my train, so I thought, was setting off at 12pm, that didn't give a lot of time. I did catch up with the transport people to tell them where they should be as they had set off in the wrong direction and fortunately parked up not far away, but I didn't really feel like asking for a peep to see what they were like, because I didn't want to disturb them too much and it was at the edge of the old part of Riga .... and I had a train to catch. We had already been joking with people that if they heard of some escaped alpacas in the middle of Riga, they would know they were ours, so I didn't want to tempt fate too much. I got to the train station and realised my mistake, after thinking that maybe I had missed it for a brief moment. Arriving early at least meant I got a cup of tea, a bite to eat and a much needed loo stop. Some friends of ours also came with us into Riga to help make sure the girls were loaded properly since I wasn't certain about being available to help and it meant they were there to help at the other end in the unloading. I gather it went without a hitch and even better than our boys last year. At least I have pictures and they are so sweet looking.

Hmmm! Nice grass! What do you think of our new place?

Veronica! She is pregnant along with Snowdrop

Our animals have been a bit odd this last week, I understand it is something to do with the time of the year, heading into winter and all that. Anyway maybe you know the scene from Chicken Run when the farmer says "They're up to something" well they were, some of our little chicks made their escape, some flew at the door and some tunnelled out. Ian got them back into the ark quite easily with a little persuasion of some food, unfortunately not necessarily the right ones in the right ark, since we have two from which they had managed to escape. We were intending on keeping them separate for breeding purposes and this made it a little tricky. Fortunately there are differences, but we are not confident we know them all yet as Ian hasn't spent the winter in the greenhouse studying them in his spare time. We did manage to work out the majority though - those that were being picked on were in the wrong ark. It was also noticeable that there weren't so many brown chickens in one of the arks, as previously there had been more or less equal number of brown and white ones. The little chicks weren't the only ones misbehaving, James our male chicken went for Ian and was swiftly reprimanded for it, but then he took off and we couldn't get him in. After a few minutes chasing him around and since Ian wasn't feeling well at all we decided to leave him to it and if he became fox food then so be it. The following day, the majority of the chickens including James did not stray far from their hen house for a change but one of the big brown chickens went missing this time.

Snowdrop, step sister to Herkules, one of our boys. Can
you spot the resemblence?

Alicia, she is the oldest one of the group. She was going to
go into retirement and hasn't had a cria (baby) this year but
her condition has improved enough for our seller to say she
maybe able to get pregnant next year. We do hope so, as
it will be nice to have some different colours amongst our
herd.

The chickens weren't the only ones making their escape this week, on the same night that James was acting up one of our alpacas was sat outside the wire fence when we came back to put them away. Ian had spent the day at home because of not feeling well and I had been sorting out our home, trying to make some sense of the mess in it. Fortunately Herkulees didn't run off, just sat down on the wrong side of the fence and when Ian went up to sort him out by laying the fence down for him to walk over, he walked straight in, almost as if to say "I've been waiting for you to turn up, so I can get back in." Somehow the wire was snapped, but not sure that Herkules our alpaca would have done that, maybe it was already snapped and Herkules being Herkules would have eaten his way under the other wires and before he knew it would have been on the wrong side of the fence.

Estelle, the baby of the herd, she is 2 years old and her
wool is incredibly soft. She will be mated for the first time
next year. Notice the sturdy fencing, that is to keep the
male out as much as anything. Or to keep the girls in maybe

New glasses! Not the most flattering picture, but at least I'm
smiling

We both got new glasses this week. Mine are varifocals and so I had to wait a while between getting my eyes tested and them being ready, Ian just needs some reading glasses and they were ready in about 20 mins. While we were in town we also got the piece of paper sorted out that allows us to get buildings registered on our land and hopefully they will now send the tax bills to us, instead of another place where they often get delayed, before finding their way back to us to pay. At least this is progress, we can now both read small print again and we get a step in the right direction for house building, well kind of...

Our giant orange pepper. It is getting to the stage where
the peppers need harvesting, green or not!

Ian having a chat with the new arrivals

The next piece of news is a little difficult to explain, but we ended up buying another apartment. We didn't set out to do this, but someone asked us to help, as theirs was being repossessed by the bank and they would be homeless otherwise. We don't intend to own it for long, otherwise our own dream of building a house will draw even further away, but we didn't feel we could let this family down, we tried to think what would God want us to do in this situation. Hopefully their circumstances will change soon and we can sort something out, but until then we now own three apartments and before you think us very rich, they are not expensive being situated in very rural Latvia. We did feel a little bit down as we knew we were risking our own house build, because savings won't last forever anyway and it was already beginning to look like we might end up living in just the basement of the house with no hope of building further up, but at least it would be warm, dry and cheap

Ian dug out the dried up pond a little more
so that we hopefully have more water next
year,. It looks a bit of a mess at the
moment. Still it is starting to fill with the
damper atmosphere and the occasional
rain. Still more is needed to recharge the
wells of locals before the winter. 

The Stockholm-Riga ferry which our girls arrived on

It was at this down point a strange thing happened. Ian had been playing hunt the trays that he uses to feed our male alpacas with, this is a regular game as they bury their feeding trays under the hay ... I'm sure they don't do it deliberately, or maybe they do ...... anyway on this particular day, Ian was looking at the gap at the base of the shed to see if the alpacas had hidden it there and spotted a whole load of eggs. Our chickens have been laying intermittently, which is only to be expected at this time of the year and so weren't too surprised that we hadn't seen many. Ian occasionally has a look around to see if he can find any, but not spotted many in odd places for a while. The little dears though had managed to accumulate 22 eggs and as Ian carried them back up to the caravan, the word that came into his head was nest egg! So call us daft or whatever, we think we will find a nest egg sometime, maybe when we aren't looking. So that raised our hopes again anyway.