Gone! At last!

They may have got a little damp in the rain.
They look like they are on a mission though.

There are somethings I wish could be said had gone at last, but I can't and I'm sure you will guess to what I'm referring - namely a horrendous situation in another former Soviet country. What I can say though is that the snow has finally gone. There was still a bit in the forest and bits in the fields that face north until a few days ago, but now it has melted in the rain for sure. It feels really weird seeing the land re-emerge from under its white blanket after so long. Even after so many years of watching the snow come in the winter and leave in spring it still feels like rediscovering old friends... and foes! The land has many areas covered with molehills and vole and mouse runs who have obviously been having riotous parties under the snow cover during the winter. The voles and the mice have been making their runs between the snow and the soil and so there are many tracks running across the fields, along my herb beds, along the paths of my vegetable garden and probably along the vegetable beds. 

15th April

17th April. So close! Nearly gone!

 

25th April. Gone! And now it's wet.

Weird lighting effects from the setting sun

With all the open runs it is no wonder that Ginger Tom has been out and about and getting rather rounded in the process. Obviously he's well fed on mice. Rocket Ron, however, is all skin and bone. Ian took him to the vets last week as he just seemed to keep losing weight. Not sure yet what the problem was, but with another round of different worming treatment, probiotics and vitamins, he seems to be turning around and filling out. Perhaps it was all the Jerusalem Artichokes he was eating! He kept helping himself to the bag that was meant for the chickens through the winter. Or maybe just too lazy to go and get mice in the snow. He seems to have rectified that though now and also been tucking in. He very proudly showed a mouse off to me last week. Not quite the vegetarian cat we were beginning to think he was.

More weird effects. They look like ghostly trees

I think this is the handicraft output from a potter
wasp. Aptly named if it is. Pity the pots are so
small.

The other aspect about spring that is a bit annoying is that the animals all go daft, especially the boys. In the last couple of weeks we've had to separate the young cockerels after they were harassing the females too much (and some people think that they could all live together as one happy family!!!!) and the most dominant cockerel started knocking seven skittles out of the other two, going for their combs and jumping on the back of one as if to mate with it but more aggressively than with the females. The two less dominant ones are now in a bachelor pad waiting for an appointment with the freezer and the atmosphere in the arks is more peaceful. The alpaca boys are not so easy to deal with, the young ones have started fighting again. Freddie is the worst offender, the gentle, timid one! Unfortunately for him, his fleece isn't so good and so he's got an appointment with the vet this week. Hopefully the small operation will calm his hormones down and we will have the sweet Freddie back.

Sweet little Freddie. His squealing isn't so sweet
though

The storks haven't been to our fields much but
we've had our annual visit from a pair of ducks.
They never stop long as the pond is too small to 
support a nesting pair - they would be easy 
prey for a fox.

The fence posts

We've had rain, for much of Sunday, but that's okay as after the snow went, the ground started to get quite hard and the usual worries started about a drought. It is often dry at about this time of the year and makes putting in seeds a nightmare. I try not to water, but sometimes needs must. I prefer it if nature does the job for me. The ground was at least just about hard enough for Ian to get a delivery of fence posts in preparation for creating a fence for the girls. We hope that will stop the boys from getting in and having a repeat of last years escapades. We also want to extend where the girls can graze. We daren't let them out over the hill where we can't see them unless it is fenced in. It desperately needs grazing over there to keep the diversity of the plants. Sometimes we don't get the chance to cut that side and so to have them graze it instead will help. 

Last year's wasps' nest. Ian took it
off the side of the barn so that we
don't have any more wasps nesting
in it.

My birthday cake

Ian also got a welder and has been teaching himself to weld using YouTube videos. In fact he got more presents than I did on my birthday. I did get a cake though, that my daughter ordered. It's great that she can order at our local bakery even if she is half way around the world and very nice it is too. We are still wading our way through it. 

Our summer cabin will be where the sticks are. 
Those sticks had snow about 3/4 of the way up them.
That was a lot of snow.

Scruffy kid!

Unusually my birthday was a very sunny day and so I took the opportunity of flexible working to take the day off and plant potatoes. It was nice to be outside and the work isn't too hard with the manured raised beds that Ian creates over winter. Saturday was nice too until it started to cloud over in the evening and so I also cleared out one of the chicken arks, threw some parsnips, beetroot and marigold seeds in and started the process of clearing the winter debris off my flower and herb beds. I wasn't confident any of the seeds are viable so just decided to mix them in and rake the ground over before giving it a thin covering of hay to keep the moisture in and stop the seedlings when they germinate from getting bashed about. 

Obviously a trend

17th April and still some snow in the forest.

One of the nice things about gardening is having time to think and I've been mulling over the responses of the European heads of government to the war in Ukraine. I don't envy them on the one hand, but I know there are some of them who have got to swallow their fear of economic impacts and ditch the oil and gas. It will harm the economy but so will the continued addiction to oil and gas. Globally we have waited too long and now we need a rapid change away from oil and gas for the sake of Ukraine, for the sake of our children and the planet on which we live. Will that harm the economy? Probably! But how it is done affects the long-term effects. We can pull together, we can cooperate and support each other, we can grow food wherever we can - if we can do it in a war, we can do it in peacetime (whatever that is). In many ways it is part of a war effort, a war against greed, a war against authoritarian governments and a war against the harm to our children's future. So let's get digging for victory - victory of peace.

Ian gets his second hand t-shirts from his son, not
quite sure what the World's Strongest 'Oys are but
it makes us giggle. I have cropped the picture as
Ian shut his eyes when the flash went off and he 
looked rather dopey in the process. Nothing personal
really!

Yup! Ian's boots. This was an accident with my
phone camera but I thought it was funny how the
cats were sat there looking out as if they couldn't
quite believe the snow had gone too. They've been
going daft as well and running around fighting.

A doctored image of me holding a mushroom. We 
used it on a promotional picture as a background
for a seminar. 

The bacon's in the cat and other tales

Sofie earlier on this year in the greenhouse

Oh yes! Sneaky puss! It took me ages to work out why there was no bacon in the bag that I had brought for our lunch. I thought for a while that I must have been having a senior moment. If it had been our other cat Bella, the evidence would have been all over the floor, but not Sofie. Since Bella is still missing it could only have been Sofie. She is so sneaky that she gently takes the food out of bags and so the only evidence was an empty bag inside another larger plastic bag. Unfortunately it meant our guests over the weekend had to have an egg and veggie burger instead. At least for one of them that was fine, as she is vegetarian.

January 3rd and our snow has nearly all gone

So with that introduction you can tell that we have indeed had guests over this last week. It was my crazy young friend, who I meet up with from time to time and her boyfriend, who I haven't met before. We had a good few days, despite the rather miserable wet weather we had. The snow that fell last week left us under the rather relentless rain that heralded the New Year, but it did fair up just enough for our friends to pay a visit to the alpacas of course. Our new friend is a chef and so he commandeered the kitchen one early evening and made his own version of pumpkin pie and rather nice it was too. He can come again anytime.

January 4th and it is back again

I love the way that the frost has made a star pattern on our
barn door

Because the weather was rather dreich (I do love that Scottish word, so evocative of wet, miserable weather) that we were sat in the caravan for much of the visit to our land, but while we were sat there, two of our cockerels who had just started crowing, decided to start a fight. Normally when our cockerels fight, it is because a slow developing bird suddenly finds its voice and tries to challenge the top cockerel. The challenger then finds out that it is a stupid idea and rapidly backs down. These two though, appeared more evenly matched and after a couple of minutes we realised neither of the cockerels were giving in. It wasn't pleasant to watch at all. Ian had to step into the ark and grab one of the cockerels and isolate him. As the weather was still mild, he was eventually placed in the horse box and we dispatched the pair the next day, as neither were for breeding, although we had hoped they would put a little more weight on. Still tonights tea (I'm northern, so it is still breakfast, dinner or lunch and tea in our house in that order) was roast chicken, roast veggies, mashed potatoes and steamed beans, all home-grown and very tasty.

A frosty morning

Our hens seem to be responding to the longer days and the relatively mild weather we have been having, by upping the production of eggs. We even had four eggs one day from our four very productive hens that have been keeping us in eggs over the winter, normally we have been getting been one to two per day from that ark, occasionally three. Another chicken from one of the outside hen huts has also started laying and I'm not sure if it was shock or fear, but one of the young hens started laying for the first time that was in the ark where the cock fight happened. Maybe they took me seriously that they would end up as stock or soup if they didn't get a move on and start laying.

I made this felt waistcoat from Tellus' fleece. 

I have been enjoying some down time over Christmas and getting some presents made. I know, I'm a bit late - No I'm very late actually! At least I feel on a bit of a roll now and I feel like I have sort of got the cleaning under control in our apartment, which leaves me freer to create. I have been fine as long as it was handwork, such as knitting and hand embroidery, but eventually I managed to get organised to do some sewing on my sewing machine. Unfortunately that didn't last long as my machine started to mangle up the stitching. The bobbin case cannot handle the old cottons I have and the annoying thing is that even when I have bought supposedly new cotton from the local shop, that wasn't new enough either. I am not happy with my machine, a BabyLock Quilters Choice - so not a cheap machine and I am beginning to regret buying it. When it works, it is very good, but not much use to me if it is temperamental over the cottons I use. I did a little research on the internet and I think I can buy 10 bobbin cases for my machine from China for the same price of two in Europe or America and then I can use a silicon spray on the threads to stop them snagging on the bobbin cases. If that doesn't work, I will be very annoyed. Only thing stopping me, is that I have never used Alibaba before or bought anything directly from China before. Hmmm! At least today, four parcels were winging their way across the waters to the UK with some belated Christmas presents.

A close up of the alpacas that I cut out and sewed onto
the waistcoat front. I love the bobbly texture of the felt.
Not quite sure why it did that, but it works I think!

Some felt Christmas tree decorations. The wooden bead
heads were also turned by Ian on his pole lathe

I said last week that the snow had come and gone and come and gone again. We have had a little of the same weather again this last week, as you may have gathered, but there was at least enough snow to finally get my skis out. I don't think I got them out at all last winter. The wind was a bit keen and the snow not so perfect, so I didn't ski for long, but at least I did manage something. The snow blower has also had another couple of outings, as we try to keep the greenhouse clear. We are perhaps a little paranoid about it not falling down, but one 18m by 6m greenhouse falling down in the snow is quite enough, thank you! There was also enough snow to get our car stuck, or rather enough ice underneath the snow to get it stuck. Fortunately it was out on the land and so Ian just got the tractor out and dragged it out while I tried to steer. It was a little difficult to get it heading in the right direction, but we managed.

More snow blowing duties

Making a path up to the sheep

My exercise for the day, clearing the
snow from around the greenhouse
that had slid off the roof.

Today I feel like I have spent most of it, trying to organise a meeting. It had been due to happen tomorrow, but the longer distance travellers were reluctant to travel for a one and a half hour meeting when it takes them four hours to drive down and the lady we were meeting up with has to work, so couldn't meet for any longer. I was a tad annoyed that I had to cancel it at the last moment, but in the end it works out better for me, as it means I can get a lift back up to Tartu and so fits in better with my timetable. Some you win, some you lose!