Home!

A choir of celebration, in training for advent

I've actually been at home a whole week now and I'm not going away again for a few more weeks. Gosh! Home is still the caravan surprisingly. The nights are long and it makes cooking an interesting experience. Sometimes in the cold greenhouse lit by the outdoor light or inside the caravan with our new acquisition, Robbie Mark 2. Robbie is a halogen oven, we nicknamed our first one Robbie for some reason. We missed the convenience of it so much we got another one. We kept Robbie Mark 1 going for as long as possible but eventually the plastic disintegrated. It didn't help that it's been in the greenhouse for much of its life and the plastic is obviously not UV resistant. We'll not make that mistake again. The halogen oven is good for Ian through the winter as it means it is easy to heat up a pie or bake some potatoes.

Tellus hitting those high notes and Freddie smiling benignly

There's nothing like a bit of snow and sunshine to show
how grubby our alpacas are. These are supposed to be white

At least Vanessa is close-ish to white that we get.

Baking in the caravan at least adds extra warmth, not that we are cold. A single oil-filled radiator on one bar is mostly sufficient with the occasional boost from a fan heater on the chillier days (the one bar is for safety reasons as we've had too many switches cook when switched to two). We are not particularly hardy and it is warmer than our old apartment used to be when the heating company blessed us with a rather cool but constant 16C. We'll be heading back to the apartment soon though but at least this apartment is warm as we heat it ourselves.

Cheek! I don't think Valeria cares what colour she is.

It has been a bit cold. This is the ice out of the water troughs.
Ian has been using the well water for the animals, which is
filling up again nicely. Along as it doesn't get too high and
freeze, we are okay.

We might be toasty here in our caravan but our older barn cat, Sofie  has decided to up sticks again and move up to our neighbour to live amongst her cows. Our other cat misses her company or maybe just the heat. They tolerate each other during the summer months, but in the winter they are best buddies. It is a dilemma, because, Sofie also hates the heat of the apartment and we are not the type to share our bedroom with animals, it disturbs me too much. I guess we might have to create a cat cave or I make one from our alpaca fleece - only that takes time and just at the moment I'm really busy with deadlines to meet. It will probably have to be a cardboard box and hay then.

Perched on top of the kettle after we had made our morning
coffee.

Aggie enjoying the sunshine

Ilvija growing up fast. She wasn't very sure about the snow
though. Not lke Josefs and Jakobs who used to love it.

Although I'm home I still have a lot of work to do. I have been writing, writing, writing and errrr... writing. I've now got the first draft done of my PhD thesis, so now my supervisors need to read it and give me some feedback. Once that was done and I had sorted out some admin type things with work I then started on another academic article. Technically the deadline was December 1st but my priority was to get my thesis finished and they did say that a short extension was allowable for the article. I hope to have that done in the next day or two. My supervisor is going to love me as there will be so much to read.

Show off! 

Such a look of innocence. Even when he's not cooperating
he kind of looks sweet. He just won't let us do what we need
to get done.

So apart from loads of writing there has also been the usual stuff, like laundry. Now when we live in our apartment that isn't a particularly onerous task, but when we are in the caravan it means a trip into the village to spend a day there. At this time of the year it means we can heat the apartment through, so we don't have burst pipes and I can also check the post, do some shopping and bring meat from the freezer. Well I can't waste time now. The alpacas also all got their Vitamin D injections this week, except Brencis who wouldn't cooperate as usual. We used to struggle with his uncle, Turbjørn, but even he is relatively well behaved these days. At least Turbjørn is smaller and I can hold him down, Brencis is just too tall for both of us. Ian cannot lean over him even, which helps to keep them under control.

And this is Brencis' uncle, Tubjørn

Here he is being his usual grumpy self.

That according to the ancient texts, is the sun!

Outside it is Christmas card white. We had a proper dumping of snow/a dusting/some snow - depending on your perspective and your expectations of weather at this time of the year. Since I have friends from Finland to Spain, perspective matters. It's not likely to last though and it is due to disappear by the weekend. It did look pretty for the first Sunday in advent and we even got to see the sun. I think it might have been October when Ian last saw it and I only saw some because of visiting friends in Spain - at least when I was on the east coast of Spain that is.

A dusting of snow

A day later! It was a bit more than we were expecting. 

I forgot to mention a bit of excitement last week. One of my Tartu friends asked if I was going up to the university before Christmas and I told her that I probably wasn't. She asked for my address, which I gave her and then mentioned I was actually passing through Tartu on the train. We agreed to meet there. I say meet, I mean in the few minutes the train was at the station. The train pulled in and there were two of my friends waving at me. That was a surprise. I nipped off the train, but only briefly as I didn't want it to go without me and all my bags were still on the train. I also didn't want to lose my seat as people were piling on. There was enough time though for my friends to hand over some presents and give me a quick hug. That was kind of special!

Another one enjoying the sun

And the snow

Magical frost on the snow

Lady V had her vitamin D injection before the rest. We were
waiting for an order for some more to give the rest there's

What's that stuff? We are not coming out!

Well maybe we will come out but we are not going down
there in that white stuff. We need to get them in the
greenhouse like the other ones, but only just got the other
ark out of the field. It's been too wet to get it and it needs
repairs before it's habitable.

Jakobs out for a stroll in the snow

Our Christmas tree has been decorated by nature

We went for a walk in our magical forest

Beautiful. It never ceases to amaze me that we actually own
a forest.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the wild boar can dig.
The ground is not frozen and so they can still turn it over. This
one has obviously not succumbed to the African Swine Fever.

The view on the way back from picking up my milk from my
neighbour this morning.

Reappearing things

The remains of the polytunnel and our reappearing tractor
equipment

Good job I make notes from time to time about the things I will blog about, I had forgotten most of what happened this week as I have been doing my assignment for my course allllllllllll week. I think the problem was that I couldn't really get my head around the essay question which made it really hard, but at least I think I have done enough to pass so that should be okay - I hope! I really have to say I admire those who do the course I am doing but work as well, as I am not sure I could manage it. I certainly couldn't manage two units per semester and stay sane at the end, if I was working too.

We think one of the neighbours dogs is on heat and so we
have lots of local dogs wondering about, fortunately they
are not aggressive and as you can see, this one was soaking
up the sun

A neighbour called around one evening to talk some more about a project to make clothes and accessories from local materials and as soon as she walked in she remarked how peaceful it is in our apartment. I guess it helps that we no longer have three small children running around since our children have all flitted the nest now, and hers are still so young, but it is funny what atmospheres people pick up on and I think it is lovely she finds it so restful in our home. We had a great time surfing the net looking for possible machinery to help in producing fabrics for the project, from felting machines to looms. Do you have any idea how many different types of weaving looms there are? I didn't! Neither did I realise that I would have to learn a whole new vocabulary, never mind my friend who struggles with English sometimes. I love all things crafty and seeing the long pieces of felt that can be made on one machine had me hankering to get some more craft projects done, all I need now is a free day!

Returning swans

Poor Ian hasn't been able to get out as much this week, not because the weather has been bad but because it has been so nice and spring like, which means the snow is melting away quite fast now and making everywhere quite muddy. It is really strange to stand in the kitchen hearing the water gushing down the drainpipes while the sun is shining, just doesn't seem right somehow. I'm not complaining though, because I have been busy and Ian hasn't had a lot to do on the land, he has been cooking some of the meals and cleaning the house. I could get quite used to it I think, but I've been told it won't last, as soon as the land dries out a bit Ian is out there. Still it made a wonderful change to come home from studying at the other apartment to be greeted by wafts of cooking and a lovely cleaned hallway. And before anyone feels too bad for Ian, he hasn't been totally confined to the house, cooking and cleaning, he has taken the time to build some nesting boxes to encourage even more small birds into our forest near our ponds (the more birds the less mosquitoes, I hope!) and he has also been out on the land  a little bit and one day while he was there he saw many migrating birds starting to return and in one morning he saw geese, swans and the storks coming back. Our own storks that nest opposite our other apartment, that we can watch from the kitchen window, have also returned and we saw them heading up that way whilst sitting eating our evening meal. It is such a thrill to see them return as you then know then that spring is definitely on its way, well that and all the other birds chirping away.

This scene was similar to the one I wanted to take last week
just before we had another four inches of snow dumped on
it. More and more grass is beginning to show

Ian was out on our allotment opposite our apartment to see how deep the snow was and if any of the things we had left in had started to reappear and met another of our neighbours out there. I was quite proud of Ian as he asked our neighbour in Latvian about his greenhouse (siltumnica in Latvian) as we can see that it seems to have suffered a bit in the snow as the plastic is flapping about, to which he replied so so - or the equivalent of that anyway, he then presented Ian with a small smoked fish that was still warm from the bucket he had in his hands. It would seem he must have a smoker out in his greenhouse and he was smoking the results of his ice-fishing expeditions. Yes people are really still ice fishing here, even though there is a thin film of water on top of the ice. I know the ice must still be quite thick really, but I must admit I wouldn't trust it.

With the disappearing snow comes the puddles

We were quite relieved that this year our car passed its technical (MOT for Brits) without a hitch. Last year we suspect the mechanic checking our car was so brutal with it that he shook the front suspension enough for it to fail the technical - a bit odd for a two year old car. Anyway this year the mechanic was much more thorough in checking the car, even checking seat belts which we haven't seen before, but he didn't shake it to bits. The poor guy though had to put up his hood while checking under the car as there are still bits of ice melting off it. The problem in the winter here is that there gets to be quite a build up of ice underneath that may never melt off until spring - not good for the fuel economy.

Reappearing ponds too 

I mentioned two weeks ago that our English lessons were finishing early for the summer as one of our ladies was going to Ireland to see her husband for two months. I was so pleased when it got to Thursday and I was still doing my essay that I hadn't got any English to prepare, but it was amazing that this week we bumped into a local headmistress that we got to know late last year and she asked us if we would help out in school with preparing the oldest class for exams with some conversational English. Such good timing! Good from the point of view we haven't got our other English lessons and good timing as we don't normally go to the hotel to eat on Mondays, but went tonight as I couldn't really face cooking as I am so tired after last week's marathon essay write (I hasten to add that I wasn't writing the whole time I was doing some writing, lots of reading and lots and lots of thinking). It will also give me a chance to find out where our village is in relation to development, to see what is happening and what is not happening here.

Reappearing geese

As you can imagine I haven't been on the net much for anything other than studying and unless you want to know about the World Bank then there is not much I can tell you but I did find one interesting piece in my trawl and that is the work done by the daughter of a Nazi soldier. Her father died a hero of the Nazi regime and was a part of the terror that happened but interestingly she sees it is important to confront the past and to help in educating the school children that these things did happen and they shouldn't happen again. I somehow think something like this needs to happen here in Latvia, for people to honestly confront the past. Some bad things happened and some good things happened in the past, both in the far past and in some of the recent past, truth and reconciliation would be very healing here. Mind you, wonder how much healing many of us would experience if we confronted some of the things in our own personal past.

Reappearing roads. This one is outside our apartment
as you can see we have been driving on several inches
of ice all winter. 

One nest box awaiting new owners

These bushes were barely visible
earlier on this year.