Something new

I think Ian managed to capture my water lily beautifully this
week. 

This week has been defined by one exciting event and the rest of the time I have been stuck to my computer writing up my PhD thesis or answering emails. The nights are drawing in and so by the time I've finished working, made our evening meal and put the animals away its dark. The garden is finally getting into glut season, just as it should be winding down - the warm autumn days are prolonging the season. Even the chickens are back to full production and I'm desperately trying to think of ways of incorporating eggs into everything. My next experiment will be a low fat rowan berry curd. Basically rowan berry jam with eggs really. If it doesn't work it will get incorporated into a cake, so it won't go to waste.

These girls have got into the daily routine of heading up the
hill to feed all together.

A peaceful sunrise

Our land is peaceful. I have a reminder on my computer to switch off from time to time. One suggestion is "Close your eyes, what do you hear?" Errmmmm! I hear nothing or mostly nothing. Perhaps the guys working with the chainsaws in the distance, or a plane flies over head, sometimes a fly buzzes past, sometimes the wind in the trees, but most often - nothing! We had visitors this weekend who remarked on how peaceful it was on our land. Even our animals are quiet most of the time, not like noisy sheep or goats. Okay my hearing is not great, but I'm not deaf either. Even now when I'm not typing it is so quiet.

Aggie in the zone.

You argued? How could you with such a cutie like me
around?

Most of the time we are peaceful too. We are not ones to argue much but occasionally I blow up and this week was one of them. I have a lot to think about and I was getting frustrated with Ian not getting on with something that I felt he should be doing. Ian himself will admit that he sometimes takes a lot of motivating to get something done. He's better than he used to be. When we were first married, if I didn't organise him, nothing got done - well maybe that's a slight exaggeration but not entirely untrue. I had to do a lot of consciously standing back and letting go. I try not to jump in and try to hold my tongue but sometimes it all gets a bit too much. The point was made anyway. Resolved? Maybe not, but for now we are back on a more peaceful footing.

An early morning feed. Ilvija is growing well and Chanel
is definitely a more relaxed mum this time around.

A foggy morning on our land

This week's politics has not had the flow of peace through it. Well more specifically in the UK. I would rather not follow the ins and outs of UK politics now that I have left, but Brexit changed that. Its tendrils creep across the waters, poisoning the atmosphere. Challenging our identity, our security, our home. On the whole, we are fairly confident we can stay in Latvia. There is no reason to remove us, but then I hear of those EU nationals denied settled status in the UK. People who have invested their lives into UK society. Not benefit scroungers, but people who have worked hard, paid their taxes, raised children and so on. They thought they had invested into a secure country, not envisioning this tainted environment that sucks the joy and replaces it with fear. A doubt then drops into my head, will the Latvian government do the same to us? Will our investment of time, money and above all love of the country crumble into ashes? How can we be sure. We thought we only had to worry about Putin, not the UK. It's embarrassing.

The damp mornings have given an extra curl to Mari's eye make up

Writing my placard

With all that in mind a call from a fellow Brit in the Latvian ex-pat Facebook group to ask if anyone would be willing to join him in protesting outside the British Embassy had me thinking. In the grand scheme of things, Riga is not far - an hour and a half by car or 2 1/2 by bus. But I have so much work to do, there's the garden too. There are so many jobs stacked up right now and I'm away next week for a meeting. How can I fit it all in? I dithered. In the end though I decided that I could not live with myself if I did not join the protest. Even Ian nearly came with me, but someone had booked to visit us at the last minute, just before he was going to announce we were closed for the day. So I took the early bus into Riga and worked on the bus and in a cafe in Riga before joining the protest.

Can you believe I actually won a bottle of
gin for the most appropriate placard for
encapsulating what this is about. It's about
families and freedom.

A bee on the echinacea flowers

I also had time to wander around Riga. It was quiet early on. Many who live in Riga head out of town on the weekends and it was the last glorious weekend before schools start back, so many obviously were making the most of it. I wandered along the park pathways and saw a waterfall catching the sunlight and producing a dancing rainbow. I also saw a little kid in a pushchair taking no notice of his surroundings as he was absorbed in his Peppa Pig magazine. He reminded me of a little old man and his newspaper.

We are definitely seeing some strange mushrooms this year. I
couldn't find out what this one is

Chanterelle mushrooms amongst the wood sorrel

Puffballs

Not sure but I haven't looked them up yet anyway

A chewed boletes

These I have definitely never seen before. Such a vivid colour
and deserving of their name of verdigris agaric. Some books
say poisonous, my Latvian one says edible. We'll pass on
these though, even though they are growing by the side of
our greenhouse

Our small but significant protest outside the British Embassy in Riga

It wasn't a huge protest and the policeman that attended were not really taxed too much. The one in charge did insist we didn't block the pathway - despite the fact there was plenty of room on one side of the pavement, but no there had to be two gangways. We were so few in number it didn't really matter and once he had got us to move the picnic blanket he left us alone. We held our placards for the photographers who had come, I suppose it did help that one of our group did work for national media. Even so we were the most westerly protest and the nearest protests to us were in Copenhagen about 900km and Berlin, over 1200km away. We weren't the most northerly protest though, that honour goes to Lerwick. We did at least get a mention in many of the major UK news outlets.

Cranberries in our forest

Ian has been working on clearing a path around the edge
of our land in the forest. It means we can walk along not
battle our way through with a machete.

After that we stood around and chatted for an hour. I chatted with an Argentinian sculptor most of the time and we found much in common. People living together peacefully from different countries was one of them. He had been to the UK a few times and liked being there, so he thought he would come and support us to demonstrate his concern about the polluted politics of the UK. Standing in solidarity with us. Two people from nations that were once at war, within my lifetime. That didn't matter though, it was of no interest to either of us, what mattered now is that we could stand around chatting and enjoying each other's company. Maybe our paths will cross again, maybe not. Again that does not matter, it does matter that we committed ourselves to a peaceful demonstration.

Maybe a bit big and too old to move, so Ian cut through it

We still find it hard to believe we own this, well, technically
Ian does.

It was all very polite and enjoyable as we enjoyed our tea and biscuits. Maybe you would not understand the rage that we actually feel, but some of us were out there doing something we have never done before - publicly demonstrating our rage and embarrassment at British politics. Making a case that we were concerned. Even though we had chosen to live in another country, we still had ties to the UK in family but also nationality. To change our nationality is not something we would do lightly but will there come a time when we have to make that decision? It is not something I had ever really wanted to contemplate. Nationality does not bother me, but I am who I am. Why should I have to choose? Or even think about it.

Forest canopy

Some chainsaw work

So why did I demonstrate? Above all I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye in years to come and tell them I tried. That I was not so far away that I didn't care what happened to the country they live in. That I fought for them to have the same freedoms I enjoy now, the freedom to live in another country, to travel to many others. To live in a peaceful Europe. I know I mentioned I didn't keep up with the ins and outs of politics until Brexit, but I did still care about the country that it is becoming. I wanted to be part of a Europe that will make a difference, a reformed Europe yes, but one that still does at least pass laws for the benefit of the ordinary person on the street. On that note I will finish.

A tomato plant on the manure heap

It has even got tomatoes growing on it

Brencis trying to pretend to be a tree

Herkules with his mud facepack

Ilvija's half brother, Freddie. They both seem to have a sweet
nature anyway and neither do they seem to be as spitty as
her mum can be - although their mum has calmed down a bit

This was once a bird box, but the wasps
seem to have other ideas.

Diamond moments

A close up of our old girl, Alicia.

You'll be glad to know that I didn't have a meltdown this week. Thank you for so many kind words and words of care and concern for me, I do appreciate them and they certainly helped. Fortunately I bounce! Not that I'm up and down all the time, but I don't tend to stay down for long, I'm too much of an optimist/daydreamer for that. Having a meltdown though, did send up some red flags to me, that I needed to get a little balance in my life and so I have been looking for the little diamonds that make me smile and there seemed to be a few of those this week. One moment was sitting in a chocolate shop between meetings and eating a lovely dark rich chocolate cake and drinking a pot of tea, with the wafts of very chocolately smells enveloping me, a heavenly moment for sure. The moment was brightened all the more when a slightly portly chap, with a distinctly white bushy beard and red checked shirt walked past the window - Father Christmas! Well that was the thought that came to me. The next amusing moment was when a young chap strode into the place with a resonant "labdien" (good day in Latvian) to the ladies at the counter, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a handlebar moustache on a strikingly tall young man. I had a job not to snigger into my tea. He definitely seemed a theatrical sort and maybe he was, as we were just across the road from the opera. I did my best not to stare as he turned around to face me and sat down. I suppose I might incur the wrath of other handlebar moustache wearers for my response, but it isn't every day you see a young chap with such a distinctive moustache - although, maybe he was wearing it for Movember, hadn't thought of that.

The boys looking grubby this week in the rain

It was nice to get an assignment finished on the Monday and the teacher happy with my work, that is another course done and dusted. There was also no homework for this week as we had a guest lecturer from America in. He was a nice enough chap, but I did have the feeling that the stuff we learnt could have been said in the first hour. I also cringed a bit at being told to stand up and take a breath every now and again, to keep us awake, as well as cringing at the comedy show excerpt from something called "The Big Bang" but then again I have never been a big fan of American comedy shows anyway. I expect others found it more entertaining than I did.

The alpacas have been attacking the hay this week. We are
wondering if we will have enough, or whether to buy some
now while it is cheaper. The jury is still out on that one.
At least we haven't had any chicken losses this week.

I said I had two meetings this last week and they were good, well worth trailing back into Riga for. One was a young chap who is looking at the results of participatory development meetings and we chatted over the things he had found. It confirmed many things I knew about and suspected, I was also able to add some insights of my own. I am hoping that he does keep in touch and I can see for myself some alternative ways of doing the meetings that might have a more productive outcome. Currently the meetings are just really stone throwing matches, with no real dialogue and certainly not the point of participatory meetings. The clue is in the title, people are meant to participate in a meaningful way and it just ain't happening. The second meeting was more a getting to know each other meeting and the outcome was I have now been invited back to do a guest lecture towards the end of the month. Very exciting! 

They turned the section that Ian had
recently dug for electric cable into a
mud bath with deep footprints in it.

Unfortunately it was Ian's turn to flip out at me. He had had a bad day, first of all he was greeted by the sight of a small herd of cows out on our land, they made rather a mess of the place in some areas. They are definitely harder on the land than our alpacas and sheep are. At least they left us some manure in places, but also some rather deep holes from their hoofprints. It's bad enough with the wild boar, without some neighbours cows joining in. Ian had to take a trip up to the neighbour to see if she could ring round and find out whose animals they were and later on a couple turned up to collect them. Ian said the cows were quite tame and even came up to him in a timid sort of way, just at the point though where he was trying to drive them away from our greenhouse, the owner turned up and called to them, as well as rattling a bucket and off they ran to him. They obviously knew who fed them.

Put huge footprints through our new blackcurrant plot

Dislodged old hay bales

Ian then had to go around to check on any problems they had caused. He found they had dislodged a hay bale from our hay stack that then got soaked in the rain. He couldn't put it back on the stack and so decided to chuck it over the fence into the alpaca paddock so he could put it out of the rain in the overhanging area we have. In doing that he caught the fence and managed to not just snap one fence post, but four. Fortunately he had some spares from making APH2 paddock, but it was a job he wasn't really wanting to do that day. To absolutely cap his day we had a miscommunication. I went into Riga with some friends and after eating we were coming back together that evening, Ian though had asked me that morning if I was coming back on the bus and apparently I answered "yes!" I obviously misheard what he said (I really need a hearing aid) and only found out when a slightly irate - no, a very irate husband rang to say "where are you?" My reply of I'm on my way back with our friends did not go down too well. We have made up since though and I am forgiven.

At least they left us some useful manure, just not always in
useful places. This is in the middle of a tractor track and
not actually on the field where we would want it.

The rain means our stream is beginning
to flow again

There were other diamonds to glimpse this week. I travelled up by bus again this week to Tartu, so that meant a 2 1/2 hour wait on yet another fairly grey day in Cesis. I bought my ticket for the bus and then set off for a trip around and an explore of parts I haven't actually seen before. It was still a fairly dead place to be on a Sunday morning, but I did go back to another chocolate shop that I went to last week, where there are no drunk people asleep and had a black coffee and a piece of cake. I would prefer tea, but I am okay with a cup of coffee in peace than tea with a group of loud drunks first thing in the morning. On my way back there was a lady at an ATM, just as she was finishing up getting her cash a cat walked up to her meaowing away. You could almost imagine it saying "Got any money for a bag of cat food, love? I'm rather hungry this morning. Not many mice last night to be had." On one of the four buses I took that morning I spotted a lovely woodpecker pecking away at an apple on a tree and the rather grey day at one point broke and I had a glimpse of blue sky. The sunset was also gorgeous, with the sun setting bright orange in an early wintry way behind a house and tree. Even two of the bus drivers were very pleasant guys. All of these moments I drank in and let them water my soul. 

The light wasn't good but the red topped sticks mark the
channel. The last one in the row marks the site for the
proposed well. Convenient for the animals anyway,
but means a channel scarring the land up to the house for
water pipe and electric cable for the pump.

We had one of those dodgy guys out to our land to tell us where water is flowing. Not quite sure what to make of it all, but around here the water diviners are even used by companies to detect water and electric cables. You will of course be pleased to know that our proposed house site meets with his approval and is not sited in an area of bad energy. He also says our land drainage must be blocked as it isn't flowing, not surprised really it could well be blocked, but also there hasn't been much rain over this last year and so even the drains we know are not blocked have not been showing signs of water until this week. He said we have got somewhere where there is water and it starts from an area where we have our tractor trailer and Lada parked, but at that point it is about 15-20m down, it then runs along the hill in the direction of our ponds and is about 3-6m down at that point. Well we won't know until next year when we start digging, but Ian has mapped out the channel of water that he pointed out. Half of us is sceptical and it's all hocus pocus, but the other half does wonder. After all how many of us are really attuned to the electrical fields around us? Water running has an electrical charge, can someone be sensitive enough to feel it? As I said, we'll find out next year when we start digging.

Hay feeder constructed in APH2 for the
girls. It means they should have plenty
of access to hay no matter what time of
day or even if it is raining. We need to
keep the two pregnant girls in good
shape

I can't finish without mentioning something that I read on the BBC website about some Afghan troops working in one area and the General said

"When the US forces were here, they used to nickname the Pech Valley as the Valley of Death, now we are calling it the Valley of Peace."But one has to fight and work hard for peace, it does not come cheap."

What a positive declaration that is. How easy it is to nickname something in a negative way that can then influence how you perceive a place or even influence others. In the Bible, names of places could carry very strong messages and this sounds the same. I also agree with the sentiment about the need to work hard for peace. I am reading a book by a Latvian MEP, Sandra Kalniete, called "Song to Kill a Giant" and it details the time of transition of Latvia from the Soviet system to independence. It makes me sad to realise how much dignity and restraint was exercised in making the transition, they fought with words, with singing and holding hands, not violence and bloodshed and yet the transition afterwards has been fraught with mistrust. There is much discord between people as the distrust they held for others before the transition from the Soviet times, resurfaces in many ways, making it difficult for people to work together, one example being our apartment block, as the rumbling issues continued this week. If only they could work together in the same way they sing together. That would be worth fighting for.

Ian has put shelters over the hay for the girls on the outside too

Salt and water in safe places