Better late than never

Our chicks were getting quite big and smelly and so it was
time to move them out to the land. This time they weren't
going straight outside, still a little too cool in the evenings
so we put them in the greenhouse

Right now where was I? I had some time off this week at last. So what did I do on my first day off? Cleaning! Oh I know how to enjoy myself. I got so far through the cleaning though and realised I wouldn't have enough window cleaner to finish, so I had two options, the first was to nip out and buy some and the second was to look on the internet to see what I could make up for a spray on window cleaner, rather than make a mess with lots of water and washing up liquid. So the internet won and I found a recipe that actually worked and was better than the bought stuff, as I now have smear free windows. Only I didn't have rubbing alcohol, as in the recipe, just some cheap lavender infused vodka - well it worked and I have lavender smelling windows. Here's the link if you want and you do have to shake the bottle otherwise the cornstarch (cornflour for us Brits) does settle and don't spray too much on the windows if the sun is shining, otherwise it is harder to rub off the cornstarch and may need a re-wetting.

Amazing how fast they grown in just a few days. They are at
the silly stage where they are strutting about and facing off
with each other, which looks very amusing when they haven't
got all their feathers yet and the last ones to grow are on their
heads

The woods are beginning to green up now with a wonderful
carpet of flowers

I also got my academic paper submitted this week, one thing less to do. My supervisor was happy enough with my re-write that I didn't have anything further to do on it. Yeh! Now I just have to wait and see what the journal editor says and then probably wait months for the reviewers to finish with it. Maybe by next year it will be published, maybe!

Here's a close up. I know this is an annual event

Ian's water filter, to filter the pond water

I also finished off an exam or rather a series of questions related to making maps for one of the courses I have been doing this semester. It was an open book without time limit type exam, the only criteria was not to cooperate with another student. Easy enough as I don't know anyone else doing my level at this point in time, even if I had got the inclination to collaborate with someone, which I don't. Now I just have to write a review article on a topic of my choosing, so I am going to write on making maps with people and for people - well that's the gist of it and not exactly what I am going to call it, although maybe that would be a good strap line. I downloaded lots of papers to help me write the review and I can look at those while travelling later on this week, not up to Tartu this time but Tallinn - somewhere I haven't been yet. At least it feels like I am finishing off projects and they are not all mounting up the other end.

The cherry tree is beginning to open its buds

It is my birthday today, half a century old. Even sounds old when you write it that way and I wonder how I came to be 50. Time hasn’t slowed down since moving away from dear old Blighty either (England for those who haven’t heard the term Blighty before). I had my 40th birthday in Denmark and it doesn’t seem that long ago, but that’s life. I certainly would never have dreamt that we would not only be living in Latvia, which is what we hoped when we left the UK, but farming - even if it is hobby farming and that I would be studying for a PhD. I would have laughed if you had told me, probably hysterically at that. 

Mizuna seeds coming through in the greenhouse

My two cookbooks from my daughter. One is about bread
by Elizabeth David. It is a book I've heard a lot about and
now I get the chance to read it. It is more than just a lot of
bread recipes but also about making bread in general with
lots of information. The other book is in a similar vein and
is a book called Prairie Home Cooking and has plenty of
anecdotes sprinkled amongst the recipes. Fascinating reading

Since yesterday was Easter Monday, I thought that it would be a better day to celebrate reaching this milestone and I invited a few folks out to our land for tea and cakes. I didn’t want to stay in all day back at home, although that would have been easier for entertaining, as it wouldn’t have worked well for Ian and I would have been bored, so that is why I chose a tea and cake do. Cakes at least can keep in a cool barn, well in a fortress of plastic crates, weighted down to keep the cats off they can. Or maybe that should be cat? One is worse than the other, exemplified by the evening bbq where the dear little darling, kept creeping in to nick off with what ever she could before anyone noticed - only we did and she was evicted numerous times. Still didn't get the hint though.

Of course this is Latvia and so there were flowers

Not just one lot, but three lots and some hyacinth bulbs.
There was also sweets, chocolate and wine. Along with
more cake and so Ian has plenty to keep him going over
the next few months or weeks or maybe days.

Anyway, apart from the eviction of said cat on numerous occasions, things went rather well. Although I said anywhere between 10am - 8pm as I wasn’t sure what people’s plans were, most turned up in the late afternoon. Some of my friends are farmers and so fitting in visiting with animals requires a certain amount of flexibility. In fact everyone timed their visit so nicely that we were only just seeing off one group when another group turned up and we only eventually left the land as the light was definitely disappearing from the sky and we could only just about see to get packed up for the night at around 9.30pm. Oh the long days are upon us.

The annual picture of the caravan outside for the first time
of the year

At least the timing of people’s visits to wish me happy birthday worked well with Ian. We got the caravan out of its winter quarters in the greenhouse and outside in the morning, which also gave me time to give it a bit of a clean. That job is always a sign that we are heading into our busy time of the year. He also got most of the land graded or flattened out from all the pig damage and molehills and just needed a bit of time this morning to finish it off. This afternoon he switched to harrowing, which is like a big comb to just break up any clumps left after the grading and it also helps to clear some of the thatch of grass.  Now we just need a bit of rain to be forecast and then he can spread grass seed on some of the bare patches and it will mean our pasture will look much better. Hopefully the pigs won’t dig it up again, but there are no guarantees on that.

We have green grass

On a different note one of the things I have learnt over the last few years is the importance of transparency. It is a difficult balance between respecting people’s privacy and giving access to information of interest to others, but it is so necessary in public life. Vulnerable people, of course, need to be protected and those wielding power for their own benefit be exposed; too often it is the other way around. There were a couple of calls for transparency in Latvia recently, one was an open letter calling for the Maxima tragedy to be investigated transparently albeit partly so investor confidence can be restored, but at least it does mention others who need to know too. Another call for transparency was from Madara, a cosmetics firm that makes their product from natural ingredients, which has called on both businesses and the Latvian tax authorities to be more transparent in their dealings. The businesses may or may not be hiding something and unfortunately is a possibility - but where isn’t it? The state tax authorities seem to assume that everyone has something to hide though and can be quite aggressive in their practices and this doesn’t help.

Fence posts at the ready. We let the girls out for a bit of
spring tonic. There isn't a huge amount of grass, but one is
 still sick and two are pregnant and so need all the vitamins
they can get. The boys are still confined to quarters to give
the grass chance to grow

It doesn’t help when the Corruption Bureau is having issues, but this is between staff members who don't appear to be able to get on. If those at the top cannot sort themselves out, how is it expected those further down the line will? Not only have Latvians to contend with internal issues of lack of transparency and inability to get on, they also have to contend with outside interference too. Russian speaking activists have been defending the need for Russian speaking schools. Fair enough, you may say and I maybe inclined to agree with you, but not when it comes to aggressive policy of misinformation and propaganda from Russia. There is a greater need for encouraging integration of the Russian speaking population, so that there isn’t a repeat of the issues that Ukraine are having, but it won't happen with aggressive finger pointing from Russia. 

One hen nestling under the cover of the hay feeder. Our
dear alpaca here is being so lazy that he can't be bothered
to even lift his head or stand to eat.

Our lovage is beginning to reappear to as well. This seems
to have burst through in the last day or two.

Having said all that and recognising that it is hard for ordinary citizens to show the way, it would be a start. It is a risk when the state tax authorities breathe down people’s necks and people must account down to the last cent and I kid you not on that. Not the nearest $10 or £5 but the nearest €0.01. But there has to be a better way forward and trust will only be gained when there is a great deal more transparency in dealings and not the sort that costs a lot to obtain, which is often the way here. You can have all the information you want but it will cost you dear! Oh! Does that mean you don’t want the information? Sorry can’t help you there then! - Well that's just not good enough I'm afraid! Information needs to be out there and people need to be more transparent all round, then we can start to move forward. Well here's hoping for a more transparent future.

Glutton for punishment

Our buckwheat field is flowering. That is going to be a lot
of buckwheat seed. Help!

We are definitely heading into the season of gluts. One day I am dealing with the blueberries which we were kindly given, next it was half a bucket of blackcurrants - which might not seem much of a glut until you realise that you cannot eat a half bucket of blackcurrants before they go off and so they have to be dealt with. At least they could just be washed and frozen so that wasn't too much hassle. Our next glut was gooseberries. As the currant bushes haven't been so prolific this year we didn't expect much from our gooseberry bushes ...... until we went to start picking them that is. We picked a full bucket of gooseberries from two gooseberry bushes and thought we had finished, but on standing up we spotted another bush of gooseberries also loaded with the little hairy fruits (they had to wait as we only had one bucket with us). You can tell we are not sure what we have yet can't you! We have three separate plots that we manage and we kind of forget from time to time what is where. We also had the lurking courgette, the one that kind of blends into the background until is of monster proportions. Happens every year but fortunately so far they haven't been that prolific and so wasn't too much of a hassle... give them another week or two and it will be courgette this and courgette that even with just three plants.

Theatre at the outdoor stage at our annual celebrations

I am beginning to get the hang of what to do with fruits though, especially of the berry kind. De-stalking or topping and tailing is as you can imagine, if you haven't done it before, is really boring and very tedious and so any form of mechanical processing is a major time saver (for the uninitiated who haven't a clue what I am going on about, de-stalking means taking all the stalks off the berries as they get stuck in your teeth otherwise and topping and tailing is taking the flower remains off one end of a gooseberry and the stalk off the other - which is the top and which is the tail is for you to decide). For half the berries I have used a gadget that goes on my Kitchen Aid mixer and separates the pulp from leaves, stalks, skins and seeds and saves a lot of time sorting it all out, I froze that in ice-cube trays for ease of use later. The other half complete with stray leaves and stalks I have steamed using a natty device that allows you to collect the steamed juice, and from that bottled two 1 litre jars of juice and three jars of jam from the remains which were then put through the strainer. Have to say that the juice is a little sharp so not quite sure what we will do with it - may have to mix it with something else later or let Ian drink it all as he can take sharp tastes including rhubarb without sugar (Bleh!). I also found a recipe for gooseberry vinegar so giving that a go - might just end up with a mouldy mess though.

A dyeing workshop

Time seems to fly by and I am left wondering at times what exactly have I done. I seem to spend a lot of time processing food, so that we have plenty for over the winter. I also spend some time in the garden weeding, but perhaps not as much as I should judging by the amount of taming I had to do today. I gave quite a few plants a hair cut to tidy them up but decided to leave the marjoram that is lying about all over the place as there are rather too many bees on them to start wading in there. If I am not processing food I am processing plants for their seeds, as we are trying to learn the art of saving seeds for growing the following year, sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is not. Trying to stop seeds going mouldy can be quite hard. I did manage to finish reading all my academic papers about wild boar or conflicts between wildlife and people, so at least I can start the process of writing up a proposal for my thesis. I even came up with a title which I am going to run past my tutor, "Wild boar: Friend or Foe?" I have also spent a lot of time chatting with our youngest on Skype, in fact once I had to given him a big hint that even if he is finished for the summer hols and is getting bored, I haven't and I was struggling with interruptions, (so son, if you are reading this, I have finished reading the papers now) just typical that he hasn't been on for days, obviously found something else to do. I have also finally managed to finish some knitting for my nephew and niece, what's the bet that by the time they get it my little nephew will have grown to big for his cardi? (No pictures yet until they have seen them first though)

Wild boar numbers in Latvia. As you can see they have
increased rather rapidly in the last 15 years

Going back to the wild boar, the numbers have finally been released by the Latvian Statistics Office and it is estimated that the numbers decreased this last winter, which is only to be expected really, as there was a lot of snow - not that they decreased much mind as you can see from the graph. After the severe winter the numbers fell by 300 ie from about 67,200 to 66,900. How accurate these numbers are is difficult to say as the statistics have to rely on information from hunters, as the forestry personnel cannot collate all the information necessary. The smaller numbers will not be of particular encouragement to farmers though when their land is dug up. We are pleased that so far the damage has not been in any new areas and in out of the way places on the whole. We do not want to spend lots of time filling in pig holes or ploughing up areas to level them.


The referendum took place this Saturday to decide whether to dissolve the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) and the result was overwhelming, 95% of those who voted decided to oust the current government. If that doesn't give a hearty signal that the Latvian people are fed up with corrupt politicians I don't know what will. A friend of mine though did voice the quandary that it was all well and good to vote this time to say "enough is enough" but in the election to elect a new government will anything change? Will there be enough untainted politicians to vote for? Will the parliamentarians act with integrity once they are elected? Time will tell, but the Latvian people have spoken very loudly and very clearly - they don't like corruption. 

All natural dyes and the labels are all written on pieces of
birch

The referendum was not the only event in our village this weekend, there was also the annual celebrations. As is normal in Latvia, most things happen around an outdoor stage and involves lots of singing, dancing and acting. It was quite amazing to see a guy from the local garage acting, one of our neighbours, a man in his early 20s, dancing, and the local owner of a joinery company singing in the choir. In the UK it is not often you come across young men who do folk dancing and to be honest they would often be laughed at by their mates, but here in Latvia it is not unusual and nothing to be ashamed of and rightly so too. Good for the Latvians I say. There was a troop of older ladies dancing too, the only complaint was not the fact they were dancing and at least keeping fit and enjoying themselves, but the youngsters who followed them were getting rather cold waiting for their turn. I would show you a video but of course I turned the phone on its side and was too far away to get a good picture, another time perhaps! This year the event highlighted the local businesses in the area, a local tv personality interviewed the business owners to find out what they do and so one of our friends explained about the company she had set up exporting firewood and another of our friends talked about making goats cheese and the rabbits she raises, she even sold out of all the cheese she had made. So many folks were surprised to hear of the local businesses and took business cards away, let's hope that is the start of a robust local economy. 

Can you spot the blueberry dyed wool?

There was also a workshop on natural dyeing at the celebrations and it showed what wonderful colours can be generated from local weeds. Fat hen gives a gorgeous clear green and is a frequent weed in our garden, the blueberries give a stunning purple and dyer's chamomile can give an intense yellow or orange. The amount of skills in the area in terms of dyeing, weaving and spinning is astounding and certainly bodes well when we get the alpacas. I am looking forward to seeing what products we can make between us. Latvians can be so creative and have not lost many of what we could consider old skills, the knowledge is actively used and so people really know what they are doing, which also means there is great scope for holidays learning about these old skills in some lovely Latvian countryside. 

Translation: Wood colours

Unfortunately while we were enjoying the celebrations others were not having a good time; this weekend has had its fair share of shocking news. The young talented Amy Whitehouse succumbs to her addictions, such a waste of a life, such a lack of hope. The news from Norway was shocking not just from the sheer scale of the atrocity but the unexpectedness of it. It kind of feels like there is nowhere safe today, even when things are bad elsewhere there is a hope that there are places that are not accustomed to such horrors, but this illusion was shattered over the weekend. I have to admire the response though from the Norwegians where the voice of reason arose strong and clear, that they will not give in to fear, that they will refuse to be a hostage to it, but will continue to live their lives with openness and transparency. I do pray that they can indeed live up to that call. And then there is Somalia, people dying once again due to famine. This is not just about a lack of water causing a drought, this has to do with how the powers who control the areas deal with the issue. Famines need not happen these days, bad weather, yes, food shortages, yes, but famines no! It is the lack of political will and power mongering that causes famines. I at least learnt that on my development management course.