Normality restored

Winter wonderland

Just kidding! Normality! What's that? Having said that, it has been a quieter week. There was a trip to pick up some roofing sheets to get ready for putting the caravan outside but under permanent shelters as soon as the weather improves - although that will not be any time soon by the look of it, but it could be when I go away, so it is best to be prepared. Another reason for the trip was also because the horse box needed to go for it's technical (trailers also need to have roadworthiness tests here), so it was just a matter of going from the testing station to the builder's merchant close by. It therefore saved a journey another day.

Lots of paths need to be kept clear by Ian. I don't get out so
often as writing on the computer in temperatures of just above
zero is not too much fun. 

I love the laciness of the trees 

Having said that, some like to sit outside in it. 

We were a bit worried about the brakes on the horse box because they have been freezing up. We now leave the horse box parked without the brakes on, to stop them freezing onto the wheels - a problem we had last year. This time though we were worried that they would freeze in the off position and not stop the box during the test. We were relieved that it wasn't a problem at the test station and it passed all the tests. The problem was when we got to the builder's merchant. As we got out of the car there was a strong smell of rubber and the wheel was quite hot. In doing the test on the brakes, they had frozen on. Fortunately the heat unfroze them and on the way back it wasn't a problem. Mind you Ian stopped several times to check.

Our wood pile and hay stack are disappearing in the snow

Narnia?

You can see the sore patch under Aggie's chin that needs the
magic cream. At least the lump now seems to have
disappeared from last year's issue with the tooth abscess

I've had to go out to the land twice this week to apply the magic cream to the girls. The milder weather seems to have resulted in an early onset of the mite issues that we get plagued with from time to time. The magic cream is just comfrey and plantain infused olive oil with a few essential oils in it and that seems to do the trick. The girls loved it on the first day as the cream was still warm from having beeswax added that morning. You could almost hear them go "Hmmmmmm! Arrrrrhhhh!" I think they may have been a bit disappointed the next time it was applied, as it was much colder.

Freddie smiling

We had blue skies and sunshine too, just not on the day that
I was out on the land of course

Ieva Prane's workshop

My next trip was to our Latvian felter on the outskirts of Riga to discuss a project for the next felting course in June. It is exciting to see what she is planning and we discussed how she can best use her skills to encourage people to develop their design work. We didn't manage to finish the article but at least we got a feel for the project and the potential it has, so I am looking forward to seeing the finished product and to see what it looks like on. On the way back to pick Ian up from the caravan where I had left him at lunchtime I saw a racoon dog and a deer on the road not far from our land.

Our project with an alpaca fleece fringe

I love the colour of this little oak tree that has clung to its
leaves all

It is a good job the snow isn't as high as it was about 8 years
ago, our sign would have disappeared too

Much of the week I have continued with my writing. I actually feel like I am seeing the end of the tunnel and it shouldn't take much more to actually get them finished, which is a rather nice feeling. I am still waiting for a reply to the last one I submitted and will probably hear in the next week or two. My supervisor and I have even started to discuss when I defend my PhD, although I do have to get some sort of conclusion to these papers first though. Preliminarily though we are talking about a pre-defence in September. This is the time when the glitches in the thesis should be ironed out and is the hardest part. Then it goes in for a period of a re-write and hopefully defended in November. If all goes well on the day I get my doctorate. Well that's the plan! Let's see first how things progress - as the Seto people in Estonia say.

There's a pond in there somewhere 

Eyre out and about in the snow

Brencis spent sometime reflecting on his own this week. He
must have had a fight with Tellus before Ian arrived to let
them out.

One of the nice things about our life at the moment is the access to good food. We know where the majority of our food comes from, since we have watched it grow. I have even started off onions and peppers to get a head start in the spring. The onions should be fairly hardy but the pepper just seem to take too long to come to maturity and so starting them early might help and we will keep them inside for as long as possible. We did try overwintering some but not sure if they have enjoyed the cool conditions in our other apartment.

Preparation for next year's tasty Latvian potatoes. I am
always so sad as I pile the potatoes onto Ian's plate and
then put a small amount on mine. I do love Latvian potatoes

One day our evening meal consisted of our own lamb, dried rhubarb, dried tomatoes, dried chanterelles, herbs, beans, peas, onions in a nice rich stew, all from our land. You might wonder at the dried rhubarb but it adds a tang a bit like adding lemon to a meal and cheaper as it means we don't have to buy lemons. Another day we had a go with Rocky Mountain Oysters - I will let you google that one, but suffice to say they were surprisingly tasty. I have also started making our own chocolate bars. In essence they are really more like a very rich cocoa butter icing I suppose, but it hits the spot, is cheaper than a bar of dark chocolate and we don't have as much problems getting the ingredients as we do trying to get dark chocolate in our village.

Mr. P is much easier to photograph these days

 Low fat, low calorie Ice-cream! Yum

I suppose I should add that all this good food has not done me so much good over the last year and some of my weight has crept back on. To be fair it tends to leap on when I go away and not drop off afterwards so readily, especially in the winter months when I am much less active - fear of ice does curtail activity to some extent. It has now got to the stage where it seems to be interfering with blood sugar levels again, so the weight has to come off and I need to sort out those things that affect the levels the most and cut down on them. Heh ho! Still at least I have more idea than I did when I first started measuring the sugar levels, what does and doesn't affect them. Dark chocolate is still okay - in moderation of course, okay in a loooot of moderation!

A bit of a wobbly start to the first skiing session of the
season

That's better on a roll now

You may have heard of slow food! Or slow fashion maybe!
Well this is slow skiing aka Nordic skiing with Grandma Oh Oh!

A little running around

We'll be good, honest! At least I hope so.

I'm looking after the alpacas this week as Ian is in hospital. Ian went in for his scheduled surgery today and had four bladder stones removed. He had been expecting major surgery as he was told keyhole surgery was not an option and he would be under general anaesthetic. Instead they did not make any incisions at all and it was done with an epidural. Hopefully if all goes well, he will be home by Wednesday.

Narnia struck again!

I'm not going out in that!

He was expecting to be in a week and he wasn't sure if that was a seven day week or a work day week, so only two days is a bonus. I had to leave him at the hospital this morning as they wouldn't allow me in while they prepped him for surgery. I did get a text to say when his surgery was going to be and was rather surprised to get another one from him in the afternoon. I was expecting the hospital to ring, as I was still expecting him to have a general. So why the change? I have no idea and will probably find out more later on in the week.

Half alpaca, half mountain goat. None of
the others do this. 

It might be a nuisance, but snow does make for nice pictures

At least this does mean that the six-eight weeks I was planning on being home to see to the alpacas might not be necessary. It was funny to see the alpacas today, they obviously sussed that I was not in treatment mode, but there to look after them, as they weren't running away at all when I arrived with the bucket and shovel to clean out their alpaca houses. In fact I had a hard job trying to clean out the girls shed, because they kept getting in my way and coming to see what I was doing. At one point Agnese nearly poked me in the eye with a straw she had in her mouth because she was being so nosy. The sheep also decided I was their best friend and I ended up getting soaked because they kept brushing up against me when I was giving them some feed (their fleece is obviously holding a lot of water at the moment). One of them let me scratch her on the nose too.

The pond near our apartment building

The pond out on the land

This last week though has been a sorting out week with lots of running around trying to get all the pre-op tests done. First Ian had to go and get a blood test taken, then the following day an ECG and an x-ray - fortunately these were all done at the local village hospital. After that we had to take a drive to the big town to see an anaesthetist. It is all rather different to the UK system, or at least the way we remember it. There was a bit of an issue with a few of the results not being available when we saw the anaesthetist but fortunately they had them at the big hospital. He was warned that if all the results were not there he would be sent home, a trip of nearly two hours, because the regional hospital where he would have the operation was even further away. The distance is one reason why I won't be visiting until it is time to pick him up. It is too far and too costly to drive there and back and not really an option with animals to see to.

I was good and cleared around the barn as
instructed by Ian. The problem apparently is
that when it melts it leaks straight into the
barn, so needs clearing to keep the barn dry

Herkules looking more perky now

The regional hospital was half way between us and our Estonian alpaca friends, so we decided to call in there first and get some of the new feed, they have developed with an Estonian feed merchant, to see if Herkules continues to improve on it. His skin seems to be looking much better and beginning to get hair on his legs and ears again, He lost a lot of hair in those places due to a mite problem. He also looks brighter in Ian's opinion. As Ian had to be in hospital at 7:30am we also decided to stay overnight in a hotel nearby to the hospital. It is the first time in my life we have spent Valentine's day in a hotel. The hotel was lovely and the evening meal was delicious but not exactly a romantic weekend away.

A moody sky this afternoon before putting away time

The boys like to be out in the snow even if the girls don't.
Well when I say snow, they don't mind being out in the snow,
just not when it is snowing - sensible types. Sometimes!

As a side note, the meal had potatoes with it, three large ones and I thought I was going to have a high sugar reading in the morning. I didn't! In fact I had one of the lowest I have had for a while. Either I have to go back to the drawing board to work out how that happened or put it down to the fact we missed lunch, albeit a piece of fruit cake due to our travels. Working out what makes my blood sugar levels high or low is a nightmare. I wish it was simple.

Peekaboo

Prepping for early seed time. I put black
bags on these today to melt the snow,
because it still hasn't melted completely
after two days. We will grow hardy
greens, peas and broad beans to get an
early start on fresh veg.

The other major news this week is we made it onto Facebook. Or rather Griezītes alpakas has made it onto Facebook (you can see it and like our page here - link). That was nearly more traumatic than the thought of surgery. Ian will be running that mainly, because he can upload pictures on a regular basis. Ian is not a fan of Facebook and so trying to explain how it works and also trying to work out what a page does and does not do myself has been well...... trying at times. Little by little we will get the information out there about what we are doing and hope to do, as well as getting to grips with what we can achieve with having a Facebook page. We have a few ideas that we are hoping to organise over the summer, so keep in touch, especially if you are in Latvia.

Spinning tales

The sun looks glorious through the
frosted trees

Well we have some good news this week, Eyre the kitten has recovered. She did have a trip to the vets and was given a drip and a course of probiotics, apparently she had gastroenteritis, but this morning she was bouncing out of the greenhouse to greet us as we arrived in her normal bouncy way. Such a relief, because at one point she wasn't even interested in drinking, just sleeping on the radiator.

These are the chickens that were free range and we brought
inside. They have settled in well and apart from one flying
out at night because I put them away in the wrong order, they
have stayed put in their enclosure.

We did however, lose another chicken. This one was regularly picked on by the four older ones in the same ark and never really fitted in. Again the prolonged cold spell we have had, must have been hard on it. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case maybe it is starting to warm up, with temperatures forecast to be above freezing this next week. So we are either going to have a dumping of wet slushy snow or wet soggy fields and we are not quite sure which is worse, especially when I shall be on snow clearing duties at our apartment block this week if necessary. I'm glad I got a bit of skiing in this last week while the snow was good. I found out that the tractor trails up to where we buried Snowdrop were ideal for skiing in because they had a light covering of snow, the ones that were fresh in the morning were too slippery for me and my cross-country skis as I'm not a confident or competent skier.

Such a cheery face. Mari is really getting quite bold now and
coming up to say hello. We think she will make such a lovely 
therapy animal with her gentle nature

We both attended another Soil Science seminar this week and it has given us a lot to think about in terms of how we manage our land to protect the soil. I have known for a while that too much digging damages the soil, but how to manage land in a practical way to produce food was not covered in those kinds of academic circles, just the worry over the loss of microbial life and soil structure from conventional farming techniques. The seminars we attended this week were more practical in nature with remedial action that can be taken to correct problems and suggestions as to how to limit the damage. Now we just have to work out how to practically incorporate the details into our own set up.

Chanel is shyer but still such a smiley face

We have been out and about a lot this week it seems as today we took a trip to our friends at Raksi camelid centre. We haven't seen them in a while and we wanted to pass on the new information we have on the situation in Estonia and the opportunities for greater collaboration and training that we have. It was a good time to share our knowledge as they have looked at using alpacas as therapy animals but it didn't really fit with their operation, so they abandoned that idea. It could work for us though and so they will pass on what they know. We also had a good time looking around their place. They have new camels and they are very gentle animals and like some attention and a good nose scratch. Shame we forgot to take our camera. It looks like Ian might have another shearing job though in the early summer, providing of course he recovers well from his operation next month. He will have to be on best behaviour to make sure he does.

One of the dyed t-shirts

The rest of my week was spent preparing for my evaluation for my PhD which happens next week (sometimes in the car on the way somewhere, thanks to a mobile internet) and dyeing wool hanks and t-shirts. The t-shirts were all getting a bit yellow with age and so I threw them in with the wool hanks I was dyeing to give them a new lease of life. Ian's week has mainly consisted of looking after the animals of course, spinning wool and trying to mend my mixer. A slightly eclectic life we lead! Ian seems to be getting quite good at the spinning, he looks so relaxed as he either cards the wool to prepare it for spinning and then just gently peddling away as he spins the wool. I knew he would be good at it, at least he isn't tapping his leg all night making an irritating noise now, he is being productive in the process. The yarn is also getting better and more even as he practices.

Two of the dyed hanks of wool

A while ago I mentioned that I was testing my blood sugar because it seemed to be going to high at times, well after about four months of testing and adjusting my diet to the findings I have lost about 8lbs (about 3.5kg) in weight. I am nearly at the same weight that I got down to about 13 years ago when I had gall stones and had to monitor my fat intake religiously or suffer dire consequences - you could wave chocolate under my nose and I was not interested, unheard of for me and of course didn't last once I had surgery. I spent one week or so doing regular tests throughout the day to see what it was that was sending my blood sugar up and then used that information to adjust my diet and now just test in the mornings to make sure the diet is working. Scientists are beginning to see how individual our responses are to foods and it certainly showed in the differences between Ian and me. I have found that I cannot eat more than a small potato at night, or a small portion of carbohydrate rich food, but potatoes are the worst, whereas they didn't seem to affect Ian that much and he needs more calories than I do.

Our sheep have responded to the cold by putting on a lot of
fleece. They must be well insulated as that snow doesn't
melt off their backs

Timing is also important I can eat two of my own home-made breadrolls for lunch but not in the evening. I found that out this week after a rather high reading one morning. It makes sense when we remember that our bodies have a diurnal rhythm (daily rhythm). I take my time making bread and so it is more of a sourdough recipe, which also helps, I did find out though that shop bought white bread is only for emergencies, as the blood sugar rise is quite alarming. It is annoying though that if we run out I have to spend so much time reading the labels on bread to see which does not have added sugar - a good job I have new glasses and can see all the small print now and a good job that Latvians like a sour-rye bread and so easily available, even if I do have to hunt for it.

Yes we still have our Christmas tree up, but
it will be coming down at the end of the 
week. It is now starting to drop needles but 
it has been such a lovely addition to our 
lounge that it seemed a shame to throw 
it away too early

Paradoxically fruit is great and desserts are okay as long as they have protein in it, so small piece of cake (and I mean small) and custard - no problem. Ice-cream - fine! Once in the hotel I asked for just ice-cream and they gave me the ice-cream with baked banana in caramel sauce and nuts and the next day my blood sugar was not too bad and certainly not as bad as I had been expecting. If it had been two potatoes, that would have been a different story. Of course the initial rise may have been high - I didn't test that, but it did come down again by the next morning.

Our chain harrow disappearing beneath the snow.

I can also eat porridge in the morning, which not every person struggling with blood sugar can, but I do wonder if that is something to do with making a big batch of 4 or 5 grain porridge. If pasta is better cooled and then re-heated for blood sugar control, then maybe the carbohydrate structure in porridge also undergoes a similar transformation. I have found the same effect with both milk porridge and porridge made with fruit juice or fruit purée (we have a lot of berries in the freezer). I eat my porridge with apple sauce and kefirs and only add honey to the fruit porridge. That all worked out fine without any dire blood sugar spikes. One morning I made the porridge and ate it that same morning and my blood sugar rocketed up.

We don't like leaving these out, but not much choice unless we
build barn number two

One of the advantages of the revised diet is that it has pushed me into using some of the grains we have grown such as quinoa and amaranth. These are actually classed as seeds or pseudo-grains rather than actually grains (grains being the seeds of grass plants) and so higher in protein than the traditional grains. The quinoa is the easiest to process but harder to grow successfully, so we haven't as much of that. Amaranth is very easy to grow but far more fiddly to process because the seed is so tiny.  Quinoa makes a great substitute for rice and is quite tasty. I made a nice mix of the quinoa with fried carrot, peas, sesame seeds, linseed, apple, blackcurrant and gooseberry. The fruit was just warmed through but not enough to disintegrate. It was nice cold later on too. I think we will definitely have to work on upping the production of that this next year.

The girls have a new hay feeder, a special long one so more can
eat at the same time

The amaranth though is more difficult to use and needs to be treated more like polenta. I am also going to see if it works as a porridge for the morning, as this will reduce the total amount of starch I eat. I made flour from the amaranth to use in a crumble for a savoury squash dish and that worked okay and I will have to find out how much I can use amaranth as a substitute for flour. I already use a commercial pea flour to substitute a quarter of the flour in bread sometimes, so I can work on playing with that recipe.

A corner feeder too. Obviously well appreciated

The reality though is that overall the one strategy that has kept the weight coming off more than any others is portion control. I use the same plates I have always used, but instead of filling it, I use the circle that edges the pattern on the plate as my guide. My evening meal has to fit within the circle. A very simple technique. The next part of the portion control is that instead of half being carbohydrate, now it is a third or less. It is easy to visualise and keeps me on track for blood sugar control. After that I eat exactly the same as Ian does. Despite the fun of playing about with new recipes, I do find it hard sometimes. What I really miss though is toast when I feel like a snack, so I can relate to this video of a song from my childhood (forgive the overdone specimens of toast in this clip though, link here). Hopefully over time though my body will recover from its insulin resistance and I won't have to be quite so careful, as long as I keep the belly fat off.

I cannot get enough of the stunning
colours of frosty wintry landscapes

To finish off with, we have just realised that I missed an anniversary last week. It was 8 years ago on the 18th January that I wrote my first blog. We were still in Colorado then and just preparing for our move to Latvia. We didn't know what we were setting off to and certainly had no idea that eight years later we would be caring for alpacas and working out how to process alpaca fleece, along with managing 13ha of land. I had no idea then that I would be studying towards a PhD either. Amazing what you can do when you set off prepared to take the adventures that come your way.

I'm home - for now!

The site of the Latvian University of Agriculture. Well part
of it and the site for one of our lectures and lunch
on Tuesday

I never did find the kettle in the hostel I was staying at, but at least I did find out that there was one at the place where the course was being held... well eventually anyway. It was only a small course and the other students were lovely. The people who ran the course got on very well and it shows, with the lovely friendly atmosphere. In the afternoon there was always a themed break, such as chocolate break, apple break and cookie break and I ended the week with a rather high blood sugar reading when I got back home. Note to self - stay clear of the sweet stuff. That is going to be so tough for me, I do have rather a sweet tooth. Fortunately I also like fresh vegetables and there were plenty of those too for lunch.

Apple break by the river

Ironwork on the bridge over the river

A dowry chest in the old tower

The hot flushes have started up again and it is getting a little annoying to be talking to someone and then feeling myself suddenly getting rather hot and starting to sweat (okay you didn't want to really know that, but unfortunately that is the reality). Occasionally even my glasses start steaming up, thank goodness not too often. I just laugh though and say "It's my age!" I don't want people to think I'm embarrassed or anything like that, because I am not. I used to be easily embarrassed when I was younger, but not so much now.

Examples of old spindles made by young
men to demonstrate their prowess in
woodwork to the woman he wants to
marry

Traditional patterns Zemgale,
a region in the South of Latvia

This is where I spent much of the week and is called
Valdeka palace

Overall the course was good, not because I particularly learnt much new. I did finally get the idea that cognition does mean, life the universe and everything, as I thought it seemed to do. The title was Landscape Cognition and as I mentioned last week the topic was a part of what I have been studying for over a year now. The problem was that I was always a little hazy on what the cognition part meant. I of course looked it up in the dictionary and tried to get my head around what it meant, but it just seemed too vague. I explained to my course mates that I too struggled with the word cognition, as they did, because it is not a word we use regularly. On the last day though, the Norwegian visiting professor pointed out that while it is true we do not use the word cognition very often, we do use the word recognition. Finally it made sense. When we look at a landscape our brain is matching the elements in that landscape to our knowledge, past experiences, our cultural understanding and so much more. Our brains are constantly trying to make sense of our surroundings and that is basically what cognition means, so it is life, the universe and everything.

The room was painted to recreate the
original interiors of the place

The wild horses

The course was not all study and we had a couple of excursions, one to see a spit of land in the river that regularly floods every year. They keep wild horses there to keep the meadow from turning into scrub. The horses are actually quite gentle, but are free to wander around, hence the term "wild". The gentleman who cares for the horses explained that they will be selling some of the young males off because they have too many stallions this year and so I have got his details in case we ever decide to get one. They are quite sturdy creatures and very hardy, because they effectively grow a fur coat for winter and so can be kept outside with some shelter, but not necessarily a shed, it can be a hedge, even in our harsh winters.

Furniture in the tower museum

The remains of the wall of the old church

The other excursion was to an old tower that once was attached to a church, but that part was blown up by the Soviets. The tower was kept to store explosives and the idea was that they would eventually demolish the tower. The problem was that it has really thick walls and by the time they were ready to blow it up they had built housing around it. To blow up the tower would have meant blowing out the window of every home for up to 300m around, so the tower was kept. It now has a nice glass roof on top with impressive views over the surrounding area. Our guide for the day was quite a lively young man, with ambitions on being a president one day. At least he has a positive attitude to life in Latvia, which is promising.

The greenhouse in the morning light

The cold weather has meant our two cats are now tolerating
each other much more. Cuddled up for warmth

One of the ladies on the course dropped me and another student off in Riga. On a previous trip through Riga I purchased a bus ticket, but I didn't need it as it was a celebration day and all public transport was free; fortunately it came in useful this week as we had to catch the bus to the bus station so I could get the last bus home. I got there in enough time to catch the bus, but not to buy a ticket for that trip at the station. Fortunately the last bus home on a Friday is not as full as the earlier one and so I got a seat. The earlier bus is usually standing room only for those who have not already bought a ticket.

The wine we started a little while ago

My first day back at home I sorted out the green tomatoes from the red tomatoes, sorted out the apples and removed the bad ones. I then cooked down some tomatoes, made green tomato chutney and made a batch of apple sauce and juice using the steamer. I also got two loads of washing done and read through my paper that was returned with amendments just before the course. It doesn't sound like a huge amount in one day, but it took ages to sort through the large amounts of apples and tomatoes alone. Cooking them was the easy bit.

Because there has to be pictures of alpacas :)

Ian working on the roof panels

The next day we decided to stay out in the caravan so that we could get on with jobs out on the land. The alpacas needed toe nails cutting and Aggie needed an injection, all jobs that I need to help Ian out with before clearing off to the UK for nearly a month. I also helped him with the roof panels for the new alpaca house. We have been joking that it is big enough to live in and it is seriously tempting to make it into a small house to stay in.

If we had a window in the new alpaca house, this would
be the view towards the road

One side finished

The mouse storage compartment revealed

One job we didn't plan on was spending rather a long time cleaning out Larry our Lada, but had to after we discovered that a mouse had been relocating alpaca feed into the roof space of the car. We thought that Larry had developed a leak as the roof liner was sagging, but when Ian drilled a small hole into it, no water came out, just dust. The mouse had shifted about 17kg of grain into the roof space - an amazing amount of storage for such a small animal. We had to cut open the fabric cover for the roof space to clear it out. We plan to feed the grain to the wild birds over winter, as we can't feed it to our chickens or alpacas and we don't want to tip it somewhere as that will encourage the wild boar. Sadly we had to put some poison out to kill the mouse as we don't plan on feeding mice all winter with alpaca food. It is a last resort as we haven't managed to catch it with a trap and we can't just lock the cats in there.

Some of the grain that was stored in the roof

Building inspector