Such times!

I know people are meant to stay home Chanel, but really you
can go out into the paddock. 

I wonder what we will make of these times in 10, 20, 30 years? Will it just be a distant memory like the 2008 economic crash? Mind you that was an event that happened at a slower rater than the few months it has taken to descend into chaos across Europe with the Covid19 virus. Yet it doesn't feel like chaos out on our land, well not yet anyway. It has been a rollercoaster of a week though and I know that I'm not the only one. It is times like these that make it hard to be away from family, but then again, even if we were closer, the need for self-isolation would still make it difficult to gather everyone around.

It's no good hiding at the back Mari, get out into the sunshine

Coltsfoot: an old remedy for coughs

One of the reasons for the rollercoaster of a ride, besides wondering about family is that I hadn't heard anything about my PhD pre-defence (like mock exams for PhD students) until this week. For this I have to do a presentation with an Estonian opponent who will look through my work, critique it and ask me awkward questions in preparation for the final defence. This is supposed to be face to face with my supervisors present, but of course that is not possible now, because one of them is in the UK, one in Estonia and I'm in Latvia and none of us can cross borders. So it looks like we will now be doing this online, but I only found out on Friday. I got an urgent text and email from one of my supervisors to ask me to complete my thesis and send it to him to pass onto the opponent. And the defence? April 7th, so not long either.

The boys still enjoy a Christmas tree

Mr. Tellus had a sore eye again this week. He does seem to
get regular problems with them. I made up a slightly salty
thyme and hyssop tea and wiped it with that and he seems
better today.

So as far as possible we've stayed away from people so we aren't responsible for bringing a disease from Riga to our village and trying to stay healthy at the same time. Of course we have been to the supermarket on a regular basis, mainly because our neighbour is still not in milk production mode yet and therefore we still need to buy regular supermarket milk. Supplies are a bit lower in our little village shops, but there are stocks of most things, just maybe not every brand they normally have and a few spaces in between but at least it hasn't been as ridiculous as elsewhere.

Freddie getting his vitamins

Before Ian got ill he was preparing the area for the base of
the new greenhouse

Our panic buys from last week of a tent and greenhouse arrived, thankfully. Ian also got sorted out with supplies so that we...errr I mean he can get going on that. At least he will be when he has completely recovered from a stomach bug. Fortunately it wasn't the dreaded disease. All I can say is it is a good job we have toilet paper though. We had decided to go and stay in the caravan but that was nearly reversed so that we could take advantage of the better facilities at the apartment. In the end, we weathered the problem and Ian is feeling much better now. This is not the time to be ill though for sure.

George soaking up the sun and thinking about fresh grass. It's
growing, although the heavy frosts of the last two nights will
not have helped

Aggie

Despite being closed to visitors, we have still had a few people turn up, only they weren't coming to see the alpacas exactly. The first group, three young men, came around 7 in the evening. One of them swore when I asked if they spoke English, so he got a reprimand. I don't like swearing at the best of times and I most certainly do not like someone using English swear words when they don't speak much English. He did apologise though. I must still have the withering look that was perfected over 20 years of doing children's work. It was not used all the time, but was effective when needed. Anyway, apparently they just wanted some diesel because their car had run out about a1km away. It was better for us to deal with it than let our neighbours run the risk of meeting young men who should have been at home.

Lady V reaching for the tastiest morsel of grass at the back
of the feeder

So hard to tell Chanel and Ilvija apart now

Our next visitors were neighbours and members of our local hunting organisation. We did get a phone call to see if we were in isolation and we were careful to make sure we were close enough to talk but not too close. There was no shaking hands and after signing the papers to renew our hunting contract with the organisation and taking receipt of our cans of moose meat we washed our hands. It is a good job that it is the soap that is the most important part of hand washing because our water is very cold at the moment. It might be beautiful and bright during the day but we have seen some of the coldest nights this winter, only it is supposed to be spring now.

Antonia sunbathing. Looks like she is
sporting a rather unusual hat though

Sofie in all her fluffy glory. In reality she is a felted ball of
fluff here.

Sofie decided to pay us a visit too. She's been at our neighbours most of the winter but made regular visits back. This time though she didn't seem so well. I had to get some worming tablets as she has obviously been making a big dent in the mouse population judging by her fat belly and the tapeworms she's managed to pick up in the process. She is usually a very skinny cat. She is also not a practical cat for a farmyard. She's a great mouser but her fur mats up so badly, very quickly. This time I think she could hardly move her neck. It took me ages with much patient cutting away of great wadges of felted fur. I've given her a day off before I start on the ones down her side.

Come on Amanda, you also can at least go out in the paddock

I think our kombucha tea should be ready
by now. Surprisingly refreshing

As I said, it all feels very weird for so much chaos going on in the world and yet all is calm and peaceful on our land, well kind of. Hearing the cockerels crowing is normal in the countryside and we tune out the noise they make. Even from day one of sleeping in the caravan with the cockerels just outside they haven't really disturbed us that much. However, the cranes are definitely back and oh boy are they loud. The noise they make rings clear across the valley.

Tubjørn and Brencis making sure they are more than 2m apart

That's right girls. When outside remember the social distancing
rules.

I was playing about with making felted balls. These didn't
turn out quite right but thought they would make some fun
little guys.

So which tomatoes were the first to make an appearance? The
ones labelled "mystery" of course. Typical!

We are not likely to run out of eggs. Our hens
have started producing again. Not brilliantly
but enough for what we need. 

Oh so quiet! Not!

The first time one of our alpacas looked like the one in the
middle, we thought he'd died. But no! Alpacas like to
sunbathe. In fact two of them were doing just that before
the photo, but one decided to sit up, just as I was taking it.

It's all quiet down on the farm, well if you ignore the roar of the tractor, as Ian digs up tree roots and the clacking of the two wheel tractor as he does another marathon grass cutting session. At least the work is paying off as the invasive ground elder is slowly disappearing. There has also been the sound of hammering as Ian continues on with the new alpaca house. Also in the distance there has been the continual yap of a neighbours dog - wait a minute, it didn't used to, maybe they have a new one, must pop round one day and find out. I don't have any tales to regale you this week on our attempts to capture escaped animals. They've been quite well behaved. Well that was until this afternoon. Some of our chicks were looking under the weather yesterday, and one we call Ronnie Runt for obvious reasons was quarantined for a couple of hours in the caravan, but then he/she picked up again and was sent to rejoin the flock. This morning they were all looking fine, but by this afternoon one had died and Ronnie Runt and another chick are back in quarantine for the night. It was about this time last year that we had similar problems and so we will have to try and work out what's going on with them.

The side view! If you look carefully, you will
see that the top looks like it has ventilation
between the uprights, but Ian is putting a
second layer on over the gaps. Don't want the
beasts getting cold now do we!

We do have more news though on the alpaca front, the deposit is paid for our new girls and we have agreed a possible date or range of dates with the transport company who brought our boys across. So far so good, but this is Latvia and we don't get too excited until the animals are in their paddocks (and not escaping everywhere). At least Ian is now getting on well with the alpaca house and he went to a local shop and found they actually have the kind of OSB sheets that he wants - amazing. The next big job will be trying to find the right kind of wire to do the fencing. These little darlings will have to be well and truly fenced in, to stop the babies escaping next year and one of our dear boys from joining his potential girlfriends. We do not want winter babies!

The pipe with a plastic cover and this is only about 10m
from the house (updated as promised)

Ian took his tractor up to a friend of ours this week to help him dig up a broken sewer pipe. Our friend did a test dig and discovered that it was crushed and needed to be dug out some more to see the extent of the problem. Boy! Was a sight to behold. It's a fairly new installation, but it would appear that the local company charged for pipes not even put in (prior to our friend's buying the place that is) and the pipe that was put in was not even a sewer pipe but a pipe to drain water from the land, in other words a pipe with holes in, and so the result was that instead of carrying away the water, it has been leaking overflow sewage from the septic tanks into the ground - fine if it was into sand and if it wasn't so close and uphill from their well or so close to the house. The result is that in spring the garden is a smelly swamp and they are not very sure about the quality of the water from their well. Ian dug a trench away from the short pipe that had been put in, along a line that could have been the result of some previous excavations and there was some more pipe, just not connected to the other sewer pipe. Is it any wonder that this local company, owned by the local pagast (council) is forever digging up around our village! And does this sound familiar? A company owned by the pagast, i.e. owned by the people really, who does shoddy work for the very people it is supposed to be working for?

The pipes used, not sewer pipes at all

The trench that Ian dug and the new pipes
ready to go in.

Showing the inside of the panel

We've had more visitors out on the land this week, at this rate we'll need to produce guidebooks. One couple have been meaning to come and visit since we got our alpacas last year and we have just not got organised. That isn't to say we haven't seen them or visited them, just not got our act together for them to visit us. One comment that was made, that we've heard a few times is that they had heard our stories, but until they had visited they couldn't really imagine it properly. So the moral of the tale is: if you've read the blog, or heard us ramble on and on, come and see for yourself what we are really doing. See the pole lathe and have a go, come and spend a few hours cutting grass - you'll never complain about cutting your own lawn ever again, come and chop wood or how about using the solar dryer, since it now works - although perhaps maybe next year, it is getting towards the wrong end of the year for that now. We also had a visit by a possible builder for our house, but there are still costs to examine. At least we should get to know what type of ground we are dealing with as he will borrow a drill to drill for soil samples. Looking forward to that.

Autumn is here and so are the smoky fires.

I have been having a few Skype chats with my grandchildren this week, the wonders of technology, well kind of. It is odd how frustrating it can be when the picture quality is not so good and yet a not so long ago not even that was possible. Our littlest granddaughter gave me plenty of smiles, until she got tired that is and then she went crabby, we nearly gave up on the chat, but she fell asleep and so we just continued on. Our grandson looked like a little old man at one point sitting on the floor with his hands on his knees watching his dad set up the tv with us on. It was very comical to watch, we were crying with laughter at his faces. Our rubber granddaughter (now for this you need a bit of Swedish. Apparently it is a term of endearment for an adopted into the family person, so our friend was called a rubber mum by her partner's Swedish son after he visited them for the first time) anyway as she was on her way out she shouted out "Bye Grandma Jo," whilst I was talking to our youngest son. I guess that makes me a rubber Grandma then. Languages are fun aren't they with their little quirky sayings.