Our old oak tree covered in snow and lit by the sun looks so pretty
After a week of Narniaresque type weather with beautiful snow covered trees, it rained. The snow is still here but it looks rather drab and dreary now. Such a shame as it all looked rather festive, although it did keep Ian busy clearing paths with the snowblower. Of course there is still plenty of time for snow to return before winter has finished, but for now the dark days are back.
Chanel with a bit of festive frosting
A path made with the snowblower
This time of the year is one of beginnings and ends. It is the end of the milk season for one of our milk suppliers. We have two sources for our lovely, thick and creamy unpasteurised milk. One has milk all the year round, presumably by staggering her cows delivery dates and the other opts for time off in the winter. I can understand that, as milking animals is quite demanding. Our friend the goat farmer looks forward to the rest she gets at this time of the year as she prepares for her goats to start kidding.
Mr. P shows up much better against the snow
The ponds are frozen but our well was still filling up until a few days ago
The lighter days with the snow has meant some of our hens have started laying again and they seem to have got over their autumn moult. When the cold weather really kicks in the number of eggs usually drops off but come February time they should be starting to lay more consistently. We are going to buy some eggs this next year to raise more stock. We have managed to breed out consistent egg laying out of them, but some of them are a decent size for meat birds, so not all bad.
Eyre or Floss as we usually call her has got a good long coat on now. So long it is starting to get all matted again. She isn't so patient as Sofie but she let Ian comb out a huge chunk of matted fur with the new super duper combs that have rotating teeth.
Lady V checking out the weather before heading out ....
We have our first booking for next year, on the first of January from a Russian family. We subscribed to a site that advertises rural holidays and activities but also puts tours together for individuals and groups. It will be interesting to see what else comes of this. We really do need a shop building for our products rather than bring them backwards and forwards from home though.
... for a roll around in the snow. I mean! At her age too
Investigating the old jar of oil
On the subject of buildings, we were discussing our wish list and besides a shop we would like a purpose built workshop. I would love to have a round building that looks out over the alpaca paddocks with an offshot kitchen. The shop would be next door to that and then a barn at the end nearest the greenhouse. We were thinking of putting the barn nearer the alpacas but I think it would be nicer for people to have the possibility of seeing the alpacas better whilst doing some felting and not just when Ian brings them on a walk or far away in the distance. We would need to find funding for this though and so will have to submit proper plans, which is not too much of a problem, but we have to get organised and although we are getting there, we are getting there slowly.
Sunbathing father (standing) and son (sitting down). Brencis is getting huge, he looks like he might be bigger than his father. Let's just hope he remains a laid back sort of guy like his dad.
I thought of decorating this tree for Christmas, but I think the snow did a better job of it
Last year we made some wine from our grapes. It was not a stunning success and the wine was at best palatable, however, it does make some rather nice gluwein. Well we like it and since we have plenty of bottles of the red stuff, we have been having a cup of gluwein on a rather regular basis. If we haven't had gluwein, we have had a hot juice drink with similar spices. We have plenty of juice from all our berries to get through but we are not big juice drinkers. We go through phases. I would rather have a hot drink though and so this makes a good alternative.
It was nice to see the sun this week
A bit cold for using the outside loo these days
I noticed that a friend of ours had what looked like a turkey one mealtime and I asked her where she got it from. It turned out to be a goose and she got it from a friend of hers. I thought that would make an interesting change for Christmas and asked if she could help us get one. She gave me a number for someone called Martinš. We know of someone with same name and it sounded like they were in the same direction and so wondered if it was the same person. The name was on the noticeboard in our caravan with the number, so Ian checked and no it was not the same Martinš. A few days later I asked Ian to phone to arrange for the goose for Christmas, because I wouldn't be home. Eventually he remembered to phone, but the person who answered was not Martinš and neither did they speak English as we expected. Whoops! Turns out Ian had phoned the number on the board, it may have been Martinš' number before but not now and it wasn't the one I asked him to ring. Finally he got the right number and the right Martinš and so we are definitely having goose for Christmas now.
I would think the chickens are grateful to be inside these days. This was meant to be removed and put under cover
Blackcurrant bushes forming snow sculptures
I have been busy trying to process some apples that were a bit past their best and squashes that were not going to last long. We had run short of jars but after a sort out of various jars with small amounts of jam or chutney in them I managed to free some up, a friend gave us some more and after sorting out the boxes of empty jars I managed to find some the right size. Amazing what a little sorting out will do while procrastinating a writing project. So there is blackcurrant and apple jam, wild strawberry and apple jam, there is spiced squash and dried fruit marinating waiting to be turned into christmas puddings and some orange peel being turned into candied peel. There is also dried squash and dried spiced squash.
You can just about see the sign
Tree and snow art
Another reason for the sort out was that we need to free up freezer space for lamb. We cannot keep the male lamb as his mother was the best mother of all our ewes, she gave birth unaided and took good care of the lamb, hence his good size. The other two were rotten mothers, one didn't even attempt to feed her lambs and the other was not much better and her lambs didn't really thrive. We hope it is just inexperience and next year they should be better. I say next year, they are all pregnant again and we don't know when they are due. Whoops! If the lambs from this round survive then we will cull the ram, if they don't they have one last chance before the ram has to go.
I thought I might try to cover the Brussel Sprouts, they are about pea size now
Aggie with her dusting of snow
Such is the farming life and trying to at least maintain some genetic integrity and not inbreeding them. Next year we plan on making a better shelter for the sheep at the top of the land for routine husbandry and hopefully what was the old alpaca house will be strengthened and repaired or replaced for winter quarters. We'll see what we actually manage. It is a problem when the alpacas are our focus but the sheep do a valuable job of providing us with mowing services on rough ground and provide us with some meat. The idea is also that the fleeces we get from them will help with making felted or knitted items. A little bit of sheep's wool helps alpaca fibres to felt or hold its shape.
A bit more obvious on Chanel and looks like that fungus that kills bats. Fortunately this will not do any damage
Digging for Jerusalem artichokes
At least this week I managed to get some skiing done. Last winter season I managed to get my skis out only once in the whole season. I hope this year to get more opportunities than that. It is always with a bit of trepidation that I get back on my skis and I always practice out of sight, well mainly out of sight. Of course the bit where I started to wobble was in sight of the road, just as a car was going past. Despite the snow, the ground is not frozen and so I also managed to dig up another bucket load of Jerusalem artichokes, so the chickens will be happy and I brought some home for us to eat. There is not much else I can do on a winters day out on our land, Ian had made all the paths necessary.
A full bucket and deep snow. Good job I had ski trousers on
Bath time! Yeah! You all wanted to know that didn't you? Yes we have had showers, but a bath is a treat. Bath time, of course, means that the radiators in our other apartment have finally been fixed and are working properly, ten months after they blew in the freezing cold weather at the end of January. There maybe a small leak, but only to be expected with the rather inadequate components often available here in Latvia. The radiators were fixed just in time too, as winter is now upon us and we will have to make regular trips up to the apartment to make sure it doesn't freeze. We have had our first snow fall of the year. Only about 5cm though, so not a huge amount, but enough for children to throw snowballs and make snowmen. The night we had a bath, the children from other apartments were playing outside and lighting up the snowman they had made, with a bright LED torch and according to Ian it looked rather eerie. The apartment we live in though has been rather cool at about 16C, which I don't mind as long as the costs for the heating reflects that. We will have to wait and see.
The view from our other apartment
Ian used the black geotextil type of fabric to let the hay
breathe but keep off the snow. He thought it will probably
last longer than the white garden fleece he used the last
time. It has lasted quite well, but hopefully this will be
better
Ian has been busy preparing for the winter and got the sticks in to mark the road. He was a bit worried that it might already be too frozen, but it wasn't and the sticks went in easy enough. The ground is pretty hard though where it has been compacted. He has also put up the cathedral windows over the greenhouse windows (you can see here what I mean) to stop snow from drifting into the greenhouse and the sheep pen has been moved into the winter sheep field, before that was frozen into the ground. The sheep haven't been moved into their winter quarters yet, as it is still early and the snow could well disappear - then again it might not! They have plenty of hay to eat though, so they won't go hungry, although they might try and convince someone they are with all the noise they make. The can hear the rattle of a tray no matter how quietly you try and fill them and they are a good few hundred metres away from the greenhouse where Ian prepares the trays.
Turbjørn enjoying the hay now the snow is on the ground
I mentioned last week that Agnese was being weaned from her Mum, to give Snowdrop a chance to put some weight on before the next baby is due - well hopefully she is due, but she still needs to put some weight on regardless. Agnese decided that she had had enough of just hay today and jumped the fence to get to her Mum. It is better to have more distance between them, but Snowdrop isn't that bothered and normally neither is Agnese, so normally it is fine, just occasionally she wants her Mum again. Agnese is obviously another alpaca that hasn't read the manual that they are not supposed to challenge fences, especially not by jumping them. I finally got the video of Agnese eating an apple this week, as well as the morning routine of letting the alpacas out - well the girls anyway. Take a look at Estelle who is on the far right of the video being let out the second door. She is not a morning alpaca and always is bleary first thing.
Here is a video of Agnese eating an apple, with Estelle getting in on the act
Tellus looking unperturbed
We tackled toe nail trimming again this week and it was less traumatic this time. I seem to be getting better at holding onto them and have discovered that if you stop them from dropping their head, they are less able to buck to get away. We managed all seven alpacas between the two of us, which I'm rather pleased with and that was without any toe nails coming into contact with my rear end. It was a little painful the last time. The only thing that got damaged were my over trousers that got a tear in them. Annoying but never mind, it will sew up. It is amazing how much their toe nails have grown in just over two months. We are wondering if that is an indication of the better condition they seem to be in this year and the amount of fleece they have on them. It would seem that they have settled down and probably adjusted to the local diet better this year.
The chicks are getting rather large now
The cats finally got their vaccinations too, only a month later than they should have, but we got kind of busy. The vet was happy enough with them, but she did say Sofie was kind of skinny. I am not sure she will ever have much on her. She charges around so much when she is feeling active, so there can't be much wrong with her. We also finally got around to moving chickens around. There have been nine in Ark 2 and they have got too big for that number in the ark for our liking. We are still well within regulations for the available space, but we like to give chickens more room to move around. They were also getting too mucky with that number in such a small space. We were waiting to make sure which were cockerels and which were not, partly because it was important that one of them was big enough to defend himself with a group of more mature hens. Anything less than a boss would not last five minutes with older ladies.
This old lady has been laying regularly too. The only one
in the chicken house that is. She is also the mother of
the ones that are laying in the Arks
We decided that this week they were big enough to fend for themselves and set about moving them in the evening. We put one cockerel in with four ladies in Ark 1 and put one cockerel in with the three chicks in Ark 3. The cockerel in Ark 1 had been a bit bossy in Ark 2 and as we suspected he has taken charge, but we have to wait and see if he will calm down with the ladies. It is a bit of a worry as the ladies had really come into lay again this week and we were regularly getting one or two eggs a day from them. One day we even had four, although we suspect one egg may have been hidden in the hay and not laid that particular day. There was one point we thought we were going to get 5 because one of the hens seemed to be in and out of the nesting box all day, but she must have been having us on. We think that the number of eggs will go down until they settle and so Ian will just have to monitor the situation. The chicks have been getting aggressive with each other, not because they lacked space, but must be the hormones starting to flow and so we hope the cockerel will actually calm them down a bit. We put him in early, because he seems to be a more mild mannered cockerel and didn't want the chicks to get too big and bossy before we put him in. He is also the biggest of the cockerels and so we hope a good one to breed from for meat birds. Oh this breeding lark gets a bit complicated as we try and breed robust hens for meat and for egg laying, without too much aggression.
The boys enjoying some good grass before the snow
I got told off this week by one of my son's, well more a mild rebuke. Last week I posted a picture of Ian's bike on a stand that allows him to use the bike in the house for exercise and not have to brave the weather outside or roads in poor condition. Anyway I called the stand a roller and it's not, it is a turbo trainer. So after me, must repeat, turbo trainer not rollers, turbo trainer not rollers. Have we all got that now? I suppose that's what comes of having a bike mechanic for a son, he should know his stuff. Just to prove it I noticed that the Bike Store, where he works, is now doing BikeFit to make sure that the bike fits perfectly, which is good when no one has the perfect body shape that is perfectly symmetrical.
The fleece is looking good and thick
I finally finished off writing up lessons for the Sociology course that I am tutoring, so that is one year's worth of lessons written, one more year to go. All I need to do now is to think of a short project that would be fun to do, or how to enthuse students to do one and then sort out some revision topics or again how to get the students to do it for themselves. Any suggestions gratefully received. It has been an interesting exercise as I have almost come at Sociology via the back door. I haven't graduated through the stages of school exams, college, university, research, I have sort of done all of that backwards. Most of the work for the course has been looking at different aspects of society from a gender perspective, a marxist perspective or an ethnic perspective with a bit of social class thrown in. It is fascinating that they have picked on these particular aspects when examining issues and how education, families etc. is viewed through those lenses. I have to assume those are the dominant thoughts within those fields, despite not really coming across the marxist perspective much in my readings, the ethnic and gender are quite important in development for sure.
Snowy fields and frozen ponds
Anyway the final thoughts for this week centre around a phrase that kept coming into my mind all week, "Remember me!" We have met quite a few folks along our journey and we all get busy and get on with other things, especially for me in the academic field. I could really do with a few contacts coming through though and so that phrase keeps coming to mind. I found it amusing therefore, when one email that came through this week had the first words "I haven't forgotten you." Immediately after that email came through, a brief foray into facebook and a friend had posted a song by Amy Grant "I will remember you." So I guess the promise is there and I haven't been forgotten, but I still have to wait for contacts to bear fruit into something that will carry us into the next phase of life, with me earning a living.
I couldn't quite believe this little chap, crawling across the snow
The stream is melting and water beginning to flow off the land into it
I am back to lectures this week and fortunately it is my last compulsory course. It is funny that the lecturer comes from Boulder, Colorado just 55 miles away from where I used to live in Fort Collins in the US, he even sounds like one of my friends from there. He managed to make part of the lecture entertaining by getting us to devise a rapid experiment to practice setting and testing a hypothesis. I felt it was a little basic, but at least we didn't have to sit for two hours and it made the point pretty well. In fact I think, with a longer time frame, it would work very well with even high school students, at least with a bit more support along the way in setting up the test hypothesis. We had to devise an experiment and hypothesis in 15 minutes, so no Einstein type of experiments here. One young chap came up with the idea of testing if it was quicker to go downstairs than to go up the stairs. So for the next half an hour five of us sauntered up and down four flights of stairs, we walked normally up and downstairs and then lastly we took the stairs at speed; only I had to repeat two of the experiments because on one I had managed to turn off my stopwatch and on the second a woman beat me to the door which ruined the experiment and being the conscientious sort, I repeated it. And the result of our experiment? It is quicker to go down the stairs in sauntering and normal mode, but in a rush it is quicker to go up than down! You can draw your own conclusions on that one.
Our winter barley is looking a little worse for the wear after the winter. Not sure if it will survive or not due to the freeze without much snow cover and now being swamped
These three are in bad books, they have been escaping, after discovering finally the electric fence wasn't actually switched on due to the cold. It is ON now though. Downright ungrateful if you ask me, after all that effort of making their pen better by covering all the poo with straw
The week didn't go quite to plan though, as there was a miscommunication with the mapping training I wanted to do - this is not a compulsory course, but one I feel will be useful to my research. I got to the computer room on Tuesday afternoon just as four people were finishing off some maps and no teacher. Apparently it was dropped on for that period because the week before only one person turned up. That means I have had to travel up to Tartu on Sunday again to do the course on Monday morning. At least it is only three or four sessions, although at the rate I'm going it will be more as I learn how to use a dratted Windows computer and mouse. Even failed on turning it on, but that is partly because I have never used a computer with a separate screen before and a long time since I have used a mouse and not a trackpad! Rather basic I know. I'll get there though and I'm sure I will speed up. It only took me for the polygon I was drawing, to disappear on me three times, before I found out the shortcut to extend a drawing, so I didn't have to keep getting nearly to the end of my drawing and then it disappear, I could part draw it, save it and then extend it!
Snowdrop showing her portly belly. She has been a little uncomfortable this week and Ian was wondering if the baby has been moving around a bit. Seeing the size of her makes us wonder how our little Alicia managed to carry Benedikts without showing that much.
Electric in the barn, finally
I had a pleasant surprise when I got on the bus to travel up to Tartu at the unearthly hour of 7am (okay it is not really that unearthly, except it was a Sunday) my neighbour was driving. I have been travelling on buses from the company he drives for, for over six months now and never met him once. I told him I had a two and a half hour stop before I caught the next bus and so when we got to the end and I was preparing to get off, he told he I didn't have to, as he wasn't going on the next leg of his travels for a half and hour. At least sitting on the bus was warmer than sitting in the un-refurbished station of Cesis. He also told me about a cafe nearby which was open on Sundays, so when he had to go I trotted across the train tracks (as you do here) and headed for the supermarket that I hadn't realised was a supermarket. I also found out they had free toilets and the cafe was quiet, so I managed to get some work done, really pleased about that. I was also grateful as well that the snow, that was coming down quite heavily when we set off, fizzled out to rain and then stopped by the time we got to Cesis. I had had visions of me turning up in Tartu either freezing to death or looking like a snowman and fortunately neither was the case.
And now we have light
And chainsaws have new shelves because the electric cable runs up behind them
I have lots of work to do this week and it wasn't helped by a trip to the big town to try and sort out the paperwork on our greenhouse. We mistimed that badly as we arrived 20 minutes before the office was due to close and so she was not best pleased, so much so that she said we needed all sorts of stamps, codes and signatures that actually were there, but she hadn't looked properly. We got sent back to our local office and fortunately when we got back to that office, the guy was just heading out the door as there wasn't much to do and he was less bothered about having to go back. He was bothered though by what he was supposed to do and in the end rang up the lady in the big town and basically asked "what on earth do you really want, it looks fine to me." He added the code that was needed to the front page of our paperwork, so she won't miss it this time, added a stamp and signature and a few scribbles, just for the sake of it I think and we should be okay to get the greenhouse paperwork sorted next time we go back to the big town- more fuel and more time! Arrrggh! This time, mark my words, there will be no prevaricating, she will get it sorted, of that I am sure, otherwise she will be dealing with a very disgruntled foreigner and she won't like that. At least to compensate I managed to do quite a bit of reading on the buses, as I travelled and in the cafe. It did make me realise though why a tablet computer is useful, a laptop on a full bus is a bit of a squish with bags.
We also have running water. Unfortunately this isn't a permanent feature
Full ponds again
There is a worrying rise of anti-immigrant sentiments across Europe at the moment. I'm an immigrant! I also don't speak the language of the country I live in, or at least not fluently enough to hold a conversation! Two criteria that should mean I'm ostracised, which thankfully I'm not. It is easy to make immigrants a scapegoat. It is easy to blame them for all the violence and crime without looking at the reasons. That is not to say that those who partake in violence are justified in what they do, but some of them are desperate, some of them have been brought up badly, some of them reflect the society that they immersed in, let's face it residents are sometimes no angels either and their behaviour can lead to retaliation too. It won't do any good to point fingers and throw verbal stones. We have to start looking at fairness and justice, both in the countries we live and the countries where the immigrants come from. Sometimes it is economics that make them move, but why? What part has our European nations had in creating the problems? Our corporations are bad enough in our own countries, you don't need to look far to see the lack of taxes paid and diabolical wages whilst they doing nothing to address this state of affairs. How much worse do you think they will be outside of Europe where the restrictions are not the same? Our European history has created unnatural divisions of nations all over the world, our past has not dealt kindly with the nations on other continents and left a legacy of what? Some good and a lot of bad? Can I suggest before reposting news stories that put immigrants in a bad light that we think carefully what it says about us as people? Are we scapegoating by reposting them on our facebook profiles and the like? I shall not get down off my soapbox.
Estelle looking rather mucky, because she has been rolling in the mud. Goodness only knows what her fleece will be like to clean after shearing. Hard to think that this time next year, she will hopefully be pregnant.
On another note, the EU have introduced one of their not so helpful laws (some of their introductions are I think fair, and some aren't) they are set to lower the limit for benzopyrenes in foods, which sounds good since it is considered a pollutant and carcinogenic, however it is not good news for small local smokeries, using traditional techniques that abound here in Latvia. Smoked food is not eaten in large quantities, but then again they are eaten by children, so there is a dilemma. Cigarettes also contain benzopyrenes but that just means that adults are allowed to kill themselves with the effects of the pollutants. The other sources though are gas roasted meats, over-fried foods and the bbq. The black parts being the worse. Some of our friends were thinking of selling smoked food and so are not happy with the new law. I have done a little research and found an article that says marinating food and adding herbs for their antioxidant properties maybe helpful and so hopefully that might be a solution and make the food healthier into the bargain. I do hope so!
And because I don't know where else to put this, our hens have finally started laying again! Yay! Fresh eggs.
A shaving horse, no not for beards, for shaving bits of wood
Ian walked in one evening and said "We have a horse!" My first thought was that a neighbour's horse had got onto our land or something, the next thought, albeit fleeting, was "What has he done!" Fortunately all was revealed, when he explained that it was a shaving horse. I bought Ian some books on Roundwood Timber Framing and Coppice crafts and together with a book bought many moons ago called Green Woodwork he finally got around to making a contraption that helps him to make various wooden objects. It's quite impressive really and made solely from wood from our forest. Neither is it nailed together, but uses wooden pegs. All it took was some time. For those who don't know what it is, a shaving horse was described as the Black and Decker work bench of its day in "Tales from the Green Valley" (the DVD I was talking about last week).
Now that's what I call a hammer!
Ian has been busy all week making things. Added to the shaving horse is a pole lathe, or rather an adaptation of a pole lathe. The problem with a pole lathe is that it uses a pole which would mean going into the forest to look for a pole, not so easy with the snow and then the pole needs anchoring into the ground - not easy now it is frozen and so that aspect will be used in summer. Ian has been experimenting with different set ups to make the lathe work, using bicycle inner tubes, bungee straps and different ropes and string to experiment with. Each day he has come back with something different to show me, a mug rack - which unfortunately split in the warm house, a spoon and a rudimentary turned piece of wood. He promised me an oak table and high back chairs but I haven't seen them yet. I think they may take a little time to materialise.
A treadle lathe
Oooh the stress we've had this week! Not only walking on sheet ice to post a letter, but trying to decide on a combination microwave. Now buying a microwave could be quite easy, just look it up on a Which report, see what's available and what suits us and buy it! No chance! The models available in different countries are well..... distinctly different. One microwave we looked at only had information in Russian, another one was available elsewhere and so wasn't too bad to look up. At least the Which report gave two companies that we can find here in Latvia gave the thumbs up for the ability of their microwaves to actuallycook- a useful feature I find and so it was narrowed down to a Whirlpool and a Panasonic. In the end we went for a Whirlpool, because its bigger, unfortunately it did not arrive today as expected. Heh ho! Delivery companies! Don't you just love them! I suppose I shall have to ring tomorrow and find out what has happened to my microwave.
The blue rope turned out to be better than the traditional hemp rope. We must have the wrong sort as it kept matting up. You can also see Ian has started on turning the wood. Not perfect yet and I think we have a way to go before I get that table and chairs
Our seed order is completed this year and I managed to narrow that down to just two seed companies this time, instead of four like last year - mainly because I have saved many of our own seeds and I still have seeds leftover from last year. I did a grand stocktake to make sure I knew what I had, which kept me busy on a winter's day. I couldn't purchase solely from one company,MoreVeg, that I have used for a few years now, as they didn't have Sweet Meat squashes, which I am reliably informed can last a whole year and so something we want to try, as it is something to fill in the hungry gap when other things are past their best and before the salady things start coming through. I have used MoreVeg for a few years now, because they are excellent for small packets - I mean who wants 100 cauliflowers? The small packets are often around 50p which means it is possible to try out many different vegetables at relatively little cost and since we are still finding out what works for us, that is very useful. Someone emailed me this week via a post I had made on another blog, because they were struggling to source Sweet Meat pumpkin seeds within Europe, so I am making sure I give out the link and for the Styrian pumpkin (which has seeds without the hard coat) as they are a bit scarce too. If you know of anywhere else please feel free to post a link at at the bottom. Anyway the link for the Chiltern Seeds is as follows Sweet Meat - http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item.php?id=1351A Styrian Pumpkin - http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item.php?id=1362G
Their veg catalogue is a lot of fun too, with some interesting illustrations, their website is quite boring by comparison, but still it does what it has to do and that is provide information about seeds.
Even a three legged stool
We thought we were on a roll with the eggs, as we were getting two a day for a little while but we are mainly down to one a day - from 9 females! Actually coming from one ark only. Not stupendous really, but it is still early in the year and it has gone chilly again, so hopefully soon they will start to produce more soon. It turns out our suspicions were right with one of the birds we weren't sure about, it is a male and he reliably informed Ian of that fact with a cockle-doodle-doo, well kind of, give the guy a break he is a novice at it. Mind you, he just signed his own death warrant with that noise, we have nowhere to keep a single male in these temperatures and he is starting to flex his muscle, which will only lead to fights in the ark eventually. For the time being we will leave him as he adds extra heat, but any fights and he is out of there. The other bird we weren't too sure about has laid the eggs and so we are pleased we were right with her, as she is a lovely looking bird and obviously a good layer as she is the only one to be consistently laying eggs at the moment. So all in all, we didn't do too badly when we separated the chickens out, we were only wrong with one of them. Still miffed at that! It would have been the best layer of the lot.
Just to prove I really did get the skis out
I finally got the skis out this week and made my own track for cross country type skiing out on the land. That way there is no one to watch when I fall down, which fortunately was only once this time. It was only a small track and only took about a minute to get around, but at least I could practice the movements, which is what I was most bothered about. I now have to sweet talk Ian into making me a track maker to make the tracks a little easier to make and then I can make an even bigger track out on the land.
Enjoying the sun
I must be getting emotional in my old age, or it's my hormones at this time of life, but the new song by David Bowie made me cry. It just spoke to me of a world weary from crisis and I just wanted to put my arms around the singer and say "It's going to be okay, there is hope." His singing reminded me of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, a man full of wisdom who explored life to the maximum and yet at the end of it all opted for the simple life.
The Final Word. Besides being wise himself, the Quester also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs. The Quester did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth. The words of the wise prod us to live well.They’re like nails hammered home, holding life together. They are given by God, the one Shepherd.But regarding anything beyond this, dear friend, go easy. There’s no end to the publishing of books, and constant study wears you out so you’re no good for anything else. The last and final word is this: Fear God. Do what he tells you. And that’s it. Eventually God will bring everything that we do out into the open and judge it according to its hidden intent, whether it’s good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 The Message)
The alpacas are much more confident with Ian now. Here is Hercules eating straw from Ian's hand
David Bowie has lived a life full of variety, never conforming to the norm, an intelligent man who experimented with life, which echoes Solomon's quest for deeper meaning. At the end of the day, it seems both have found some kind of answer in simplicity. Being wise, being the great experimenter, living life to the full for both men was never the answer, both seem weary towards the end of their lives.
Sunday was such a beautiful day
A song came back to me this week from the dim and distant past "Through the barricades" by Spandau Ballet, that talks of love through the barricades in Northern Ireland. On the 13th January 1991 the Latvians built barricades to protect various sites in Riga, a sign to the Russians, "this far and no further". There are times to build those kinds of barricades, to declare "this far and no further!" And there are times to love through those barricades. For many people here in Latvia, they have barricades in their hearts, built through years of suspicion and corruption, barricades of mistrust. No one can blame them for they have been much abused in the past, but I feel it's time for those barricades to come down now and for people to love each other through those barricades. So that is both my prayer and my goal, to help bring down those barricades.
The frost was an inch thick on trees and wires. It's difficult to select the best pictures of the day
