It's over

A rainbow! That means rain.

I started to write this late August and then events and work overtook me. So well over a month later and an era is over with the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II making the title I chose back then seem even more relevant than ever. I'm not much of a monarchist and if anything rather ambivalent to the whole pomp and ceremony aspect. I didn't even watch the funeral as I had work to do. I didn't have a bank holiday since I work for an Estonian University and funnily enough it wasn't high on their agenda. There is still a sadness though, as I did admire her Majesty's dedication to duty and I expect at times that it was a very onerous job, but she also had the perks of a rich heritage and plenty of money to compensate. When I see the millions that go into electing a President in the US, I do wonder if a monarchy is cheaper but I think the election of a head of state by a Parliament as they do in Latvia, is perhaps the best option, although with the current crew in charge in the UK, I'm not sure about that either. What I do not like to see is gross inequality that is highlighted with an old fashioned monarchy. I guess we will see how it works out for the next generation. I do hope that some of those resources will now go towards serving the ordinary people better. 

It's over! They're heading south!

I think we all miss our lovely intern, who was such
a fabulous help over the summer. 

Oh no! Summer over?

So back to my original start of the blog, summer is done! I'm back to work; the hay is cut, stacked and under cover.; the leaves are starting to turn and the nights are getting longer. The summer heat continued for a while longer after the last blog and we were still suffering a drought but the cooler and longer nights meant more dew on the ground in the morning to keep things ticking over. We'd barely had enough rain to wet the ground in quite a while and so the plants were not exactly accelerating away, apart from some of the squash plants that excel at sitting there for months and then suddenly exploding in size over night. But the rain put an end to that and then the early frosts arrived As I headed up north to Estonia for the start of the academic year, I dressed for summer but packed for winter (well slight exaggeration, autumn).

Now a race to the finish. I think Marvin's ahead
by a nose.

Just lazing around

In all the years I've been with the Estonian University, both as a student and then member of staff, this was the first time I've been there for the start of term. I was there to introduce myself as the head of the masters programme, so they would know who I was. I then went on a field trip with them the next day to see parts of Estonia I haven't seen much of before, which I really enjoyed. I took the precaution of wearing a mask on the bus, glad I did! I was the only one though. The following week on another trip several staff members became sick with COVID. Not sure if the mask would have been effective on that trip but decided that in small confined areas or rooms, I would wear a mask now that I'm starting to mingle again more. 

Two falls and a submission

Lake Peipsi, Estonia

Another view of a lake in Estonia. Forgotten which
one now - guess I'll be in trouble!

A textile exhibition in a manor house

Just starting to turn colour

Back on the farm it's not been a great year for the garden. First the spring nights were cold that meant everything got off to a late start, just in time for the period of neglect when other jobs take priority. So generally the paths are barely visible and some beds look like a jungle. Fat hen the prolific but tasty "weed" was a staple in our diet for quite a bit of the summer, along with herbs which seem to be doing okay and the volunteer potatoes that taste awesome (volunteer as they sprout up in places where they were not deliberately planted). Our lawnmowers in the orchard have been the chickens this year as we've moved the arks around there rather than cut the lawn around the trees. Consequently we have suckers coming up from the plum trees in various areas. We will have to decide whether to cut them back or keep them I guess. Now the chickens are starting on their slow trek to the small greenhouse for the winter.

What are you two arguing over? Tis the season of
arguments amongst the animals.

Then the next minute, all is calm and they are 
sitting down ruminating.

Frosts? What are those? You are about to find out
little chap.

I do wonder how much we will get before the heavy frosts set in and just as everything is starting to produce. The tomatoes had only just started turning and before I set off for the start of term in Estonia we'd only had the grand total of two up till then but with lots to come. The beans were and are still flowering away and there are signs of some small beans but they haven't amounted to much over the last month, we had a handful one meal time. Some squashes were romping away but others are sitting there rather demurely. Oh the joys of a neglected garden. I planted some more seeds for some autumn veg and was hoping with some watering and the extra week of heat, they would get going but they have been slow too. I'm always loathe to water the garden as I prefer a rain-fed one and mulching - less effort and more sustainable. At least we are not using municipal treated water, just the water we collect from the run off from the barn roof or pond water. 

Ian's birthday mug

Rather vibrant fungi

Talking of sustainable water collection, I read an article recently where they used plastic mesh to collect the moisture in the air to irrigate new trees to repopulate an area damaged by fire. Maybe that would work in my garden to ensure the moist air is trapped. It might also mean that the wee beasties are kept off the plants and might provide a bit of protection from low overnight temperatures. I will have to experiment I think, but I think that might be an experiment for next year now.

Socks completed by our friend for a
customer

Little Betty. We keep her in the cage at night, as
we wouldn't want her to become a little snack. 

I mentioned in the last blog that we seem to have lost GT. He still hasn't returned and so we fear the worse. However, we now have a new kitten. Ian phoned me from the place where he had gone to do some late shearing and said they had a kitten they needed to re-home, did we want it. I said yes, and so we welcomed Betty to our farm. She's quite a sweetie, very affectionate. Not wild like the previous two were as kittens. She can be a bit feisty too though. She is not afraid of Rocket Ron and poor Rocket Ron didn't quite know what to think of her at first. She sometimes chased him off, but he started to fight back a little eventually. Nothing serious, just a paw to say, "Keep off!" or "Enough!" It was hilarious to watch this tiny little kitten chasing a cat three times her size. Generally they just sniff each other though, so that's a relief and now they seem to be fine together.

What is that scary little thing? 

Chanel, our temperamental, stressy, spitty alpaca
but she's sweet really.

Chanel is still causing us some issues. It has been too hot sometimes to wash her as she would boil as she dried out. Then there's been the times when we are cutting the hay and there are just not enough hours in the day to sort her out too. If she was an even-tempered, easy-going alpaca like her son, then we could have done more with her, but because she is so temperamental and difficult to handle then we cannot work on her as much as we would like. Unfortunately the last washing she had meant the skin was soft enough for the flies to start working on her again and she got some nasty sore spots. Blue antibiotic spray followed by turmeric and garlic powder worked well. The patches at least now look dry. She was too sore tto carry on the washing programme and now it's perhaps too cold. Sigh!

Over? Really?

Well never mind, there's always hay!

Our summer house progressed slowly but now the main structure is finished and we even have an electric supply to it. The roof boards and shingles were put on before the rain started thank goodness. There was some frustration as there were days of rain forecast that didn't actually materialise or there was so little that it hardly dampened anything. Frustrating when dry weather is needed to get a job done, even if the water was needed for the garden. So this is the worst of both worlds. Now the damp days with bits of drizzle is holding up the work to get the outside preservative on. Most of it is done now though, so it isn't so stark and dominant. We chose a dark colour to help it blend in. 

More flying south

I got Ian to take some photos of
me for work, but thought that
I looked rather like my 
grandmother. I think it's the 
colour of the jacket. Quite scary
really!

The week I went up to Estonia some of our family arrived for another visit. It was lovely to see them again when I got back from work and Ian enjoyed the company of our grandson every morning as he got up early to help with poo clearing again. We were really grateful to our son for helping Ian with the flooring but we didn't think he needed to test the strength of the membrane and netting that we put to stop mice nibbling through. I hope his leg is okay now, he did get a bit of a bruise from it. It seemed like everyone had a good time though and the kids got plenty of opportunity to play outside in a sandy patch and play with the kitten (I'm sure she misses them).

Well the colours are better I guess!

One haircut, my favourite colour purple
and a black wall at work. Well that's 
better!

All the fun of playing in the sand with an auger!

All too soon it was time for them to go home and and me to head to Poland. I decided to drive down to Kielce. It was quite a journey and so opted to stay in a hotel in the north of Poland before heading for the event the following day. I think I've said this before, as we drove to the UK for our son's wedding years ago, but Poland is big. It also has some very pretty places and a lot of new roads. I can understand them building the new roads, there was so much traffic, but it is sad to see them carving them through forests and green belt land. Nice to drive on but not good for the environment. I would have taken the bus down but I just could not face an overnight journey to Warsaw, I long for the Rail Baltica project to be completed and for Europe to get their act together with overnight trains. During my time in Poland it was also time for our Ukrainian guests to leave for the UK. We will miss their borscht, smiling faces and our spotless apartment. 

Weaving linen in Poland

The workshop room for the workshop
I was hosting

A view from the tower of the workshop room. I got 
stuck in there as the lift stopped working. Had to 
find the service lift, but thankful that the guy who was
also stuck up there was Polish and could contact the 
service crew.

Already for the workshop

The not so beautiful view of the grain silos 
situated next to the hotel I was staying in. The
hotel was quite posh and had lovely breakfasts, 
so all was good.

The rather grand bed on my way back from Poland

The t-shirts were a gift from our intern. Spit 
happens is a common phrase amongst alpaca
owners but it genuinely never occurred to me
that it might resemble another phrase that I 
would not really use! Sigh! How naive I can 
be at times!

I did appreciate being able to see many familiar faces and make some new acquaintances at the conference I went to (The European Rural Parliament), although I still feel uneasy about the consumption of resources to cover such events. Out of the new networks I've made I've  been asked to speak to an online lunchtime seminar in the UK about my research and one lady said she would love me to go to Iceland - not holding my breath on that one though and the uneasiness over travel by plane concerns me for its impacts on the environment - so difficult when I do actually still like travel. I was slightly alarmed on this trip though that I developed a cough but in the end decided it was all the chemicals they use in the air-conditioning systems and the cleaning fluids and it was setting off an asthmatic cough. Once I was outside my coughing subsided. Anyway, in preparation for a flight to Spain I got my COVID booster. That's enough flights for one year anyway. Planting a hedge to screen the alpaca boys from seeing the girls seems like a good idea and would offset those airmiles - and yes I did add extra for offsets to the air tickets, which is a concept I hate. So many dilemmas to face.

Progress on the summer house

Winter preparations underway

A glorious day to be out. As you can see the alpacas are still
doing nothing but eat, eat, eat. Stocking up for winter I think

Well the weather improved this week and it finally stopped raining. It is cold though, but I'm not complaining, I would rather see the sun and dress warmly than have continuous precipitation that stops everything and means we have to leave the car near the road. We have even managed to drive onto the land properly these last couple of days as the ground has firmed up enough. Visitors have also been turning up, encouraged by the sunshine. We haven't had visitors to see the alpacas since late August due to the bad weather I suspect and yet over this past week we've had 5 lots of visitors and one lot came twice.

Here you can see the two beds on which the chicken arks
will rest over winter. The one at the front has had the soil dug
out about 20cm below the logs. Over winter we will add
hay like the one at the back and it will gradually rise up until
we have a mound to plant next year's greenhouse crops in.

We have been busy preparing for winter and that has meant sorting out the greenhouse to get the chickens inside. We got tired of shifting the chicken arks about and they were that heavy from the rain and getting so old that Ian has had to repair broken handles on two of them this week. I think the chickens were much happier too as they are now in the dry with fresh bedding and plenty of dry soil and straw to scratch about in. All that straw to scratch about in last year yielded several bags of compost and mounds of soil in other areas of the greenhouse in preparation for next year's crops.

All three arks inside and all plants removed to make way for
the caravan

Happy hens scratching in the hay and leaves

Even if the chickens are not laying many eggs (it seems we have one that is faithfully laying every other day, the rest think it is time for a rest) we are at least getting compost and any veg that is not worth preparing for us to eat, they are gladly dealing with. It means that we have the problem of too much soil in the greenhouse and will probably have to take some out next year, rather than the opposite where the greenhouse soil is depleted after growing in it too much or having to bring in compost from outside. At least that is a good problem to have.

At the moment the cross pieces are above the
level of the hay by a good way. By the end of
winter we will have to dig them out.

They are so happy they were not standing still
enough for me to photograph them

I kept trying!

Veronica looks a bit old in this photo with her wobbly legs

The day after the chickens went in the greenhouse we got the caravan in. In some ways it is sad as it is one of those marker points of the year that heralds the onset of winter, but in another way we are pleased as it is a bit warmer in there than outside. We are still living in the caravan but the nights are getting long and so it won't be for much longer - probably after I get back from Estonia if not before for Ian. This will be the last year we do this though as we plan to move the caravan once more and then build a protective and insulated structure around it. The caravan is also getting old and so it needs a permanent place to be able to out of the summer sun as well as winter rains and snow.

She can still do alpaca yoga and scratch that itch though

I think Chanel looks like she is glad to see blue sky too

We have also been getting on with a lot of end of season gardening jobs. Ian dug up the rest of our potatoes that were under the sprawling squash plants just before the heavy frosts set in. We've had a few nights where the temperatures have been around -5C overnight. I dug up the beets and a third of the carrots. Yesterday I just layered hay on top of any other roots that weren't dug up as I haven't got the time to carry on digging them just yet, as well spreading hay on top of the beets that were just piled up waiting to be processed as the pile only had a couple of layers of fleece on the top. We have too many other urgent jobs to get done before winter too.

George is getting more inquisitive as time goes on but he
wasn't so happy for me to hold on to him while Ian
checked his toe nails. He was nice and cuddly though. Holding
onto cria is one of my favourite jobs

I also managed to get in about two bucketfuls of bean pods from the short bush plants. They have been frosted but they will be fine to eat, unfortunately that was only about a third of them too. There was no point in pulling up more as they would probably just rot before we could process them. At least the tall bean plants I could cut and then I just carried them on the pole that they were tied to  after removing all the leaves and hung them in the greenhouse to carry on drying out, even if that is freeze dried.

Frederiks is a little shyer than George but he still comes up
to see what we have to offer. I thought he was going to eat
some beet leaves from my hand, but he just sniffed to see
what they were. We also checked his toe nails and they needed
cutting as they were already curling round. He has a lot of
fleece on him and it is light on the outside and gets much
darker underneath. We wonder if he will be the same next year

This will be the first winter for both boys, but at least they
have plenty of fleece on them

This summer has just been such a slow a growing season that things weren't ready in time or were ready when it was raining too much to do anything about them. The short beans weren't ready the last time I looked and so have only just finished growing before the frosts came. We won't starve though, as we usually have a backlog of food from the year before, just in case. I also got three bucket loads of apples from our neighbour's tree that he said we could have. I shall just throw all those in a large pot to cook down and bottle or freeze for apple sauce or apple pies.

Just how does Aggie manage to do this contortion? We cut
Aggie's toe nails this week but also started putting cream on
her foot as she seems to be having mite problems again.
She complains when she sees me but she actually seems
to feel relieved when I put the cream on.

Ian has also been shifting hay around so it is stacked in more convenient places and sorting out the batteries on the car. All winter preparation type jobs. The car seemed a bit sluggish to start but the terminals were not connected to the second battery, which is needed in the colder months. I think it just got forgotten about when the starter was replaced, not many cars have two batteries.

Eyre doing her grumpy cat impressions, despite the lovely
weather

As I mentioned one lot of visitors made a return visit and the little girl had a large carrot in her hand for the alpacas. I chopped it up for her and put it in a bowl and she carried it all the way up to the girls with the biggest grin on her face. She is nearly three years old but she made sure as far as possible that each of the girls got a fair share of carrots, it was so sweet. Her mum had come back to buy fleece from us and she is going to try knitting in some of the loose fibre from Mr. P. to give a tufted look to her knitting. I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like. It sounds interesting anyway. She also took some of Veronica's fleece to learn how to spin it with some sheep's wool.