Almost there

Our young helper in the tractor

We have passed several milestones in this last week both on the land and some personal ones too. We managed to get the baling almost finished at our neighbour's place. There is still some hay left to cut but they are in awkward places and so were not cut with the majority of it. Our young helper came and she helped Ian by rolling the bales together for collection while I prepared our greenhouse for the felting course that happened this weekend. She was tired when we took her back home, but she did work hard. She even got to ride in the tractor and bale some hay. All good training.

Practising baling, slowly of course.

An oven in a greenhouse! Doesn't everyone have one?

Collecting leaves ready for the following days dyeing

We had to rush to get the hay under cover though. It meant unstacking the bales that were in the trailers and re-stacking those ones under plastic. We then had to get the bales from the field and stack them before getting a second load. We finished off in the rain but at least the bales weren't soaked. Our young helper thought I was very strong, but this is the third round of collecting bales and my muscles have grown in the process. If it had been the first round, maybe not so much. I still love the fact I can clamber around on our tractor trailer when putting on the tarpaulin, I hope I can still do that in years to come. I maybe have to take up some form of exercise over the winter to keep up my strength. Hahaha! We have around 350 bales of hay or more, so about 50 more than we need, which at least means we should have some left over to see us into next year if hay season is late or for any other reason we need more.

Chilled out alpacas.

Sofie, ace mouse catcher.

The roadworks around us are still continuing. They have made some improvements to a bad corner and put in culverts where the road often floods, so at least that is progress. The road also dries out quicker, which is another improvement. We are still hoping they improve the camber of the road though, so we don't go sliding off into the ditches in the winter. Not sure how much further they have to go; they certainly have still got to repair the collapsed section of the road that fell into the river a while back. Apparently after a chat with the foreman today, the collapsed road is another project but we might get some better access to the land and our fields, just maybe not yet. We have a phone number anyway. We also found out why they hadn't contacted us beforehand. Apparently this is just road maintenance and not full roadworks. To them, it's just a little job, to us a major work. A matter of perspective really.

We had to move the spades and forks
further down the greenhouse to put
the oven in

Mr. P. now often spends time longingly gazing in the direction
of the females.

Ian is still continuing to take the male alpacas for mating with the females, although these are more checks to see if they are pregnant. As I have mentioned before, it is generally accepted that females will spit off the males if they are. We suspect that Vanessa is pregnant, or at least we hope so. It is difficult to tell with her, as she is so feisty and doesn't seem to like Mr. P. anyway. She seems more adamant though that he's not coming anywhere near and so that is an encouraging sign, not for poor Mr. P. though who gets covered in green spit. The others may also be pregnant, but some are more compliant and so we have the other problem of there not being a definite sign of a "spit off". We will be more certain when we have a scan done by a vet around November time. Once that is finished that will be it for the year and that could be as early as next week.

A very cheeky George.

Galina explaining to the participants.

We had our only felting course this year at the weekend. There were a multitude of reasons for not running two this year and my recent employment for an EU project is one of them. It was good to welcome our tutor Galina back for her fourth year and she brought her friend along as well again. Galina always feels like it is a holiday for her. Her friend made me some fabulous slippers using some of Herkules' and Freddies' fleece. She used the template I used to make some slippers earlier on in the year, but made some slip ones this time. Great for the morning when clambering out of bed. 

Preparing the fleece for felting my slippers

The slippers I made are on the right and my new slip on
ones on the left.

Galina giving me a telling off and telling me on the first day,
no experiments. Do what I'm supposed to do. She was only
joking, we had a good laugh afterwards.

Preparing a t-shirt for the dyeing process.

The weather was surprisingly good this year. Last year we baked in the greenhouse, this year, it was warm enough to work in and not as much rain as forecast. In fact, we had just about enough rain water to do all the dyeing and felting without having to bring it in from our apartment. We just needed to bring in drinking water. It is good to use the rain water for dyeing as there is too much iron in our apartment water and it affects the results of the dyeing process.

Preparing a pre-felt for adding to the dyed silk shawls. A
pre-felt is a piece of felt that is not fully felted but enough
to cut up into shapes to add to a felting project.

A salad made by Ian from the flowers and leaves I had
collected from our garden.

I organised the food again this year and everyone was welcome to join us. I do not provide food for the participants exactly, it is up to them if they bring their own or contribute something to the meal. In previous years we have used the hotel to provide food but it was more stressful and far too expensive. This way we use food from our own garden and freezer with the addition of some local cheese from our friend, cakes from the local bakery and some sausages from the local butcher. Of course with potatoes, eggs and my own home-made bread the food goes a long way and there is plenty to share. 

Bread fresh from the oven.

Ready for lunch.

Giving instructions on baking bread and scones.

Preparing food was even easier this year as the daughter of our friend who makes the cheese came to help, so brought the cheeses with her (she is the same one who helped us bale the hay earlier in the week). I love the fact that as soon as she had put her bags into the caravan, she went into the greenhouse and started washing up. I didn't even have to tell her, she just knew it would need doing. In fact she was so good we asked if she would help again next year. I do hope she can. It did mean I got to do some felting myself this year

Boiling potatoes.

Local goats cheese.

Lunchtime. A lovely view!

Looking the other way at lunchtime and you can see the
grapes ripening

The wind was from the south this year, which meant we
could leave the doors open and not risk our fleece flying
everywhere. It was also a little overcast most of the time
which meant it was cooler. 

The other milestone was hearing that the final academic article that I needed to go towards my PhD was accepted. I found out on Friday lunchtime and my ecstatic reaction surprised everyone. I am not usually one for enthusiastic outbursts but I was surprised there was no further work to be done on it, apart from a very few editing issues or clarifications before publication. We clinked tea and coffee cups in celebration together. I also heard that the costs for this open access publication will be met too, Yay! I was half expecting to have to pay for it, so rather pleased I'm not, as it amounts to nearly a month's wages and this was one of the cheaper ones. I've seen some astronomical costs for open access papers. It does mean you read it though - if you want to that is (link here).

Wetting the fleece and starting the felting process.

Nooo! Don't go. The storks gathered to leave as we were
eating lunch.

Once the fleece is wet, tables were moved outside to work on.

A shawl with pre-felt leaves being added

Monday meant dealing with the aftermath of washing. Five washing loads were done, albeit in a 4.5kg washing machine and not a big one. Some of it may seem bizarre, such as bubble wrap. My neighbours at the apartment must have wondered why I was washing plastic when they saw it hanging on the line, but it means it is ready for use again. Some of it was catching up with clothes washing. One load a week is our usual, two at the most but I hadn't had the chance to get that done for over a week, so that had mounted up too. There was also bedding from two lots of guests. Still it is nearly all done and the rain held off to get most of it dried. The rest of the wet washing is hanging up in our greenhouse. Sitting around waiting for the washing machine to do the washing meant that I had time to get the final amendments to the paper ready for publication. So a productive end to the week.

Rolling, rolling rolling.

The finished shawl and bubble wrap drying.

Dyed t-shirts and pillow case.

Galina with her sample scarf, a piece of cotton fabric she
dyed for me while I was busy and a participant's t-shirt
dress that was dyed with the leaves from our land.

Carefully felting

Felted bookcover in the process

Galina and participant working together.

My finished shawl, or is it? I haven't decided yet. I think I
might work some more on it.

Two rather well fed pussy cats.

Another shawl made by one of the participants.

Feeding Brencis.

A little chat with Brencis.

Wearing our garments.

Always the way, too many things to hold
onto and finding it difficult to sort it out.

Showing off our garments to the boys, not sure if they were that
impressed but they did like the dandelion leaves.

I was given the shawl a long while ago
but didn't like the colour. Will have to work
out what to do with the dyed material that
goes quite nicely with it.

The boys.

I look so small 😂

End of the course!

Moving on

It's been a bit damp just lately, can you tell? 

This has been a week at home, wherever that maybe. I have spent much of the week tidying up the paper I am writing and so nearly finished to the point where I can send it to my co-authors to go through. It has taken far too long to reanalyse and re-write, I shall be glad when it has gone off for review, it will be such a relief. I also heard that I should be getting the other one back soon that has been in for review since about April I think, so good timing as it will probably need more work on it, they always do. I shall be very shocked if it does not. Some jobs seem to be never ending but one day this phase of life will be over.

All our leaves have gone from our trees  now

Where has all the grass gone? Shock! Horror! 

It would also appear that my students have been catching up on work too, as I have had what to me is an avalanche of work to mark. I did find out though that for some students, if they get more than three weeks behind, they lose privileges and that might have had some bearing on the sudden influx. One piece of work was remarkable in its brevity, but I had to laugh as it reminded me of one of my own children and the problems I had in getting him to focus on work enough to get it done. It was a challenge to get the best out of him when his mind was somewhere else completely for much of the time. We got there in the end and I hope we do with this student too.

Teaching a class to wet felt. Some had done needle felting
before and maybe some had done wet felting but never
with alpaca

This week I went to do a bit of felt tutoring for a friend's ladies's group. It was good fun and I had seven ladies altogether. I did a little presentation of the different alpacas and they were amused to be deciding who's fleece they would be using to felt with. Some pieces worked better than others and some decided to finish off at home, but we all had good fun. I didn't charge a huge amount as it was a bit of an experiment to see how it all works. It was also a good opportunity to introduce myself to someone who will hopefully be selling some of our stuff later on in the year. Mind you I have to get my act together and start making some things. I have some ideas anyway.

Not quite the glowing brown colour

The tutoring was in the evening and so I joined my friend during the day, as we don't get much chance to meet with each other. We go back a long way as we have known each other ever since Ian and I first visited Latvia. She and her husband were some of the workers in the camps where we used to go to to teach English and that was before we even moved to Latvia. We have also stayed with her in the apartment we now live in when it used to belong to her and her husband and we helped with their camp preparations. She was also the one who owned the land where we now have our alpacas. So a lot of history really and so much has changed over the time we have known each other. My family have grown up and left and having their own children and my friend got married and has her own rapidly growing family of three boys in the time since we first knew each other 17 years ago.

Mr. P without his over long teeth. He doesn't look such a
toothy alpaca now. His teeth will continue to grow, so
may need trimming again at shearing time.

As it was going to be a late night and I needed the car, Ian stayed in the caravan and I went back to the apartment. The next day though I had to get out to the land, to help with the boys' pedicures and a little dentistry on Mr. P. We managed quite well with most of the boys but Brencis was just such a fidget and is now so tall that I couldn't hold him still,. In the end we had to put a harness on him. When he does have the harness on, he is much better and doesn't need so much holding. Quite a relief really that he is such a gentle giant really, but he's almost as big as a llama now. Poor Mr. P though had to be fully restrained so we could do his teeth. He needed his front teeth trimming and his fighting teeth removed. They have grown such a lot since shearing time, which is surprising.

Freddie running through the puddles at the bottom of their
field

Ian was reading an article about family friendly attractions in Latvia a short while ago and noticed that there was a mini-zoo with alpacas that we didn't know about. He wrote an email to make contact and this weekend we got together at their place. We spent about 2 hours chatting and had a really good time of sharing information and we got to see their zoo. It was the first time that I have ever seen porcupines, especially close up. I was quite amazed at their quills and I was given a fridge magnet with a picture of them and Ian was given one of angora goats. They were interested in Ian's shearing services for next year, so that is good. It is nice to be able to help and for Ian to get to use his skills.

A picture from the minizoo's own website of one of the
porcupines

Our track, if you can call it that! More like mud bath. Our
well has been filling up slowly but after the rain over the
weekend it jumped suddenly by 40 litres, instead of the 7
litres a day before that

On this snowy Sunday I made my way to the old station where there was a meeting to talk about projects that people had completed and the process they went to. I didn't understand much of it at the time but it was nice to just let the Latvian language wash over me and absorb the flow of the language, as well as have fun trying to pick out words I did know. I got a summary of it at the end though on the way home. What was lovely was that the lady who lead the meeting, told me how encouraging it is to have me at the meeting because it meant that people from the "world" were interested and actively wanting the best for our village. It made sitting there much more meaningful knowing it was encouraging someone. I was also encouraged that people were sharing experiences with a view of helping others and so they could learn how to develop their own projects. It is much needed in this area.

If you look carefully you can see how much bigger that
Brencis is compared to the rest. He's the one on the right.

It has been a bit of an odd week too. I have had two emails that surprised me. One was from the place where Ian used to work in the UK. Why it came to me, I have no idea, but it was to request an address to send an invitation to a retirement party of his old boss. This is bearing in mind that he hasn't worked there for 14 years. Ian sent a message off to his boss to fill him in on life since they last had contact about 12 years ago, so errr quite a bit. Another email was for a request for me to give a lecture. It seems to be a bit out of the blue, but the title was not quite my field and so I probably won't be going. There are lots of spam type emails within the academic field but this one I think arose from my presentation (a bit different to an actual lecture as it is only 15 mins) to the planners in Estonia the other week and so intriguing.

Brencis' wet, soggy fleece

He might be the biggest but he's still our friendly one

One of the thoughts that has gone through my mind just lately is "God remember me" as I felt a bit like Joseph in prison where no one remembered him. I have had people thank me for my input and had great conversations taking a look at different topics but it never seemed to go anywhere and it is not helpful for planning the future and which direction to take, especially as I am coming to the end of my PhD. These emails this week therefore seemed to feel like finally something is turning. I don't appear to be the only one as someone we know from our days back in the Pioneer church in the UK has also gone through a season where he felt forgotten, even forsaken and is beginning to feel like he is finding his voice again. Even my new grandson's name means "God remembers" how awesome is that?