A change of scenery

The boys sunbathing in the snow

I know it is probably showing my age, but it still amazes me what can be accomplished through the internet at times. It is so easy to moan about all the bad things that are achieved that it can be forgotten the good that can also happen. I was doing some embroidery on a felt piece and at the same time chatting to a guy in Uganda about permaculture and farming. He asked me if I knew how to grow watermelons as he hadn't grown them before. I haven't had any success as they require a long hot season but I knew someone in the States who I thought did. I sent a message off in my American friend's direction and within half an hour had a reply with instructions on how to grow them, which I duly passed on of course. The internet has been a great source of inspiration and knowledge for us, since there is so much that can be researched on the net. Of course we also have to learn how to sift the good from the bad, but it is often worth it.

Lady V looking very regal as usual

We do feed our animals, honestly. There is also
some rather nice fresh hay to eat

I have spent time unpacking the boxes we took to our other apartment last week and then re-packing boxes with more stuff from the apartment we live in. At least the unpacking didn't takes as long as I thought it would. So far it is working okay and I am finding homes for everything, which is encouraging. I also got the cellars sorted and vacuumed at the one we are moving into - good job we have a heavy duty vacuum cleaner to tackle the thick layer of dust/soil that was in that cellar. The new owners of our apartment had arranged for someone to measure up for a new kitchen, as we plan on taking ours with us. This is partly for cupboard space, as there is a lack in our other apartment and partly because we spent quite a bit on it and it was made by our friend to order. Hopefully he will be back soon for a holiday and therefore help us to take it down. It helps when the person who constructed it helps to take it apart.

A downy birch tree

George is getting quite fluffy now around his face
and we are obviously going to face the same issues
we had with Mari when it came to shearing time
of how to shear around the cheeks and under his
chin

Some of my waiting this week, that I mentioned last week, is over, as I heard that my application for the job  has been rejected without an interview. I wasn't really anticipating getting an interview and so wasn't too distraught, but it would have been convenient if I had, as the interview date was while I was still in the UK and it was one of the reasons why I took a chance and applied. I was encouraged though as some of my friends sent me messages of support when I told them they wouldn't be needed as referees.

Even though the snow is still down on the ground
you can tell spring is on its way due to the redness
of the branches of the trees. We also heard the first
cranes of the year and saw some swans

It can be a struggle at times to get
my work done with a certain little
boy giggling in the background

I don't think my supervisor was too upset that I didn't get the job either, as I think he was worried that I wouldn't have time to finish my PhD. I mentioned last week that I was also waiting for him to finish reading my papers I had written, which unfortunately he didn't have chance to do as he was at a conference. However, the good news is that he did get an unexpected opportunity to submit a paper with a faster turnaround. He would like me to contribute to that paper too and that would give me the third paper I need to finish. The problem is that it needs submitting before the end of this week, which doesn't give us a lot of time and it is a bit inconvenient as I am currently in the UK visiting grandchildren. I am pleased I did get a good start during my flight over and in the morning during a quiet spot of yet more waiting.

Mind you sometimes my little
grandson is engaged in other
activities like getting to grips
with car racing using the console.
He did choose a rather nice
purple car

I had a meeting with a professor today who was visiting the university in the city where my son lives. I have been using her work to analyse the situation in the villages that I have been studying and so it was great to be able to chat about my findings and encouraging to hear someone who has been thinking along the same lines I have in terms of development in rural places. I didn't feel like I had to start at the beginning to explain where I felt the challenges and opportunities in these villages lay, she understood where my ideas were going and agreed more work needs doing in the areas where I am doing the research, I still just need the funding to keep it going though.

Ian asked for captions for this on Facebook and one
of our friends put ""My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Unaccustomed as I am ..." I thought it was very funny

Not the tree in the city but out on our land which
often has the type of lichen that shows our air
quality is very good

After my meeting my son's partner came to pick me up but she needed to get a blood test doing (nothing urgent), so we went off to a walk-in-centre. It was not a problem for me to look after the kids while she went in, but what we didn't anticipate is the waiting time before she even got to go in. After two top-ups for the car parking charges, one drink time, one snack time, a drawing game, a drawing squares game, playing with playdoh, a walk outside looking at lichen and maple leaves later, she finally got to go in. It wouldn't have been so bad, but the school age granddaughter had an unexpected day off as the electric and heating was off at school (there may have been some dancing of joy in the morning from a certain young lady and despite the teasing she assures she wasn't responsible for the electric fault).

Mr. Herk looking good these days. His hair is keeps
growing back so well now.

We spent our first full afternoon in the park
and as you can see it was warm enough for
an ice cream

It is nice having little grandchildren but it is also nice having a nine year old step-granddaughter who has a curiosity about life. We've talked about all sorts of topics, discussed complicated words like Ostinato - a musical term that had my son and I looking up musical terms because she could remember it was to do with rhythm and began with an O but had forgotten the actual word and we hadn't got a clue. I've already baked a cake with  an orange icing drizzled on the top with her or rather supervised as she baked, as well as played the waiting game at the walk-in-clinic today. While outside we also discussed making maple syrup from the sap of maple trees and using lichens as an indicator for air quality. She is quite the bright spark.

Getting his vitamin D. The days are sure getting
longer now in Latvia. I am quite surprised here in
the UK when it seems to be dark for longer, even
taking into account the clock change

Ian is home alone looking after the alpacas once again. I did go out a couple of times before travelling to the UK to help sort out a few things and check up on the skin issues we have been having. We decided to give Chanel the heavy-duty stuff to try ensure the mite issue is well and truly under control. She has stabilised but we cannot risk a deterioration while I'm away. Our snow is gradually going so Ian is still on the winter jobs of cutting trees and taking the alpacas for a walk. Ian often times his walk to coincide with one of the buses going past our land, as the driver always gives an enthusiastic wave as he goes past. The bus driver even seems to make sure the passengers knows they might see Ian walking them, as occasionally he has been seen pointing out the alpacas to someone on the bus.

I had to take a picture of the ivy on the rock, we
don't have that in Latvia or at least it is fairly
rare, but here in the UK it is everywhere

Spring is obviously further on in the UK than it
is in Latvia and the celandines are already out
here

The nicer weather over the weekend, meant that we did have some visitors. Typical how they wait until I go away, I try not to take it too personally (only joking). Talking of visitors we have had lots of virtual visitors too, both to our website as people begin to search for things to do in Latvia on their holidays but also to a video I posted online about two years ago. The video shows our younger girls pronking around the paddock. Pronking is a technical term for the stiff legged way they bound about sometimes, antelopes are known to do something similar. It seems that it appeared on searches after someone on American Idol said they wanted to win the competition so they could realise their dream of owning an alpaca herd. Last time I looked the video was up to 17, 680 views - a bit different to the views we normally get. You can see the video below

Tyre-ing week

A bull frog 

Not been a good week for tyres this week (tires for my American friends). One of the mud guards on our tractor keeps getting stuck and jamming against the wheel, this time  it ripped a hole in the side wall of the tyre while Ian was trying to fil in pig holes. Not helpful at this time of the year. Fortunately here in Latvia there is a make-do-and-mend type attitude and the tyre will be fixed, just takes a few phone calls to the right guys and a few days. Saves a very expensive replacement anyway.

Pretty field flowers

The next time we had tyre problems was rather inconvenient too as we were on the way to the airport to pick up two guys who have come to see what we get up to here in Latvia. Fortunately we had left plenty of time to get to the airport and we got there on time, just! It was still a little worrying as we had forgotten to organise swapping mobile numbers in the process - not very organised of me. Fortunately Ian had swapped the tyres around earlier on in the week and so it was a back tyre that went, we only knew about it when the road noise seemed to get incredibly loud and a van went passed us and the folks in the van were gesticulating madly to us and pointing downwards to tell us we had a flat. We pulled off the road and Ian backed up to a spot where there was some tarmac to give a firm surface for jacking up the car. There was a slight issue with the area as it was an area where giant hogweed was growing and if you don't know about this particular rampant noxious plant it is dangerous because the sap from it can lead to serious burns when the sun gets on it - not good on a sunny day. The large leaves were not an issue as they were easy to see and set back from the road, it was the small plants that were gradually getting a hold that were problematic, as it was just the area that Ian was working in to get the spare wheel off the car and clean up the very mud encrusted wheel. Ian had some plastic in the car for such occasions - experience is a wonderful teacher, so it saved him from the chance of actually lying on the plants. At least we managed to get sorted.

Pond beetle sunning itself in the sun

Our guests are new friends we have made via the internet - well kind of! One of the guys, Paul, is a guest blogger on another friend's site and he became interested in what we were doing when I made comments on his blog, his travelling companion, Geoff, is a recent friend to him and since Paul enjoyed Geoff's company on a recent trip to Sweden he invited him to join him on this trip to Latvia. Well we waited at the arrivals gate, wondering if our friend Paul, looked anything like his pictures on facebook and wondering who this other guy was. The glass rolled back and two guys who were obviously looking for someone walked through, sure enough Paul looked like his pictures and the guy next to him! "I know you!" he says and sure enough his face was very familiar to us. We have to back up quite a few years though, but Geoff was from a church we had visited many years ago, as it was in a town not so far away from Ian's parents, so when they used to meet together at the leisure centre in the town and we were in the area we would join in their meetings. Paul talks about our life's journeys and joining the dots up and this seemed to be one of those occasions, reconnecting of connections made many years ago in some very different and unexpected ways. I love the way God works.

Our paddy field with the river running through it

Well that was yesterday, as for the rest of the week! I mentioned last week that we had a very peculiar thunderstorm that just seemed to roll on and on, we also had a shorter one on the following day, but with plenty of rain and one of our fields ended up looking like a paddy field - maybe a good job we decided not to plant seed last week. We literally had a river running from a land drain that drains water from the road right across our field and unhelpfully pooling in the middle of it. Ian spent quite a bit of that morning making ditches to drain the water away. We found out later that a wild boar had got stuck and drowned in the drain, not many tears were spilt over the animal I'm afraid. Still got to find out what we are supposed to do about it though.

Ditch digging to drain the field

Had one of those really sweet moments this week which really brightens the week. My neighbours little son, he is lovely. He was the one I babysat for last week, he is such a helpful little guy. He helped me take some dahlias, that his mum was giving me, in his little wheelbarrow to our basement to await being planted up. I think he would have carried on carrying them in his little wheelbarrow, backwards and forwards as long as it took if I hadn't got my much bigger wheelbarrow out and helped. He's one of those little chaps who is older than his years and he makes me laugh in many ways and gives cheery waves that really give a lift to any day. Mind you that is such a change from a year ago, he really struggled with the fact we don't really speak Latvian and was incredibly shy, now he just chatters away and has even got another little girl chatting away to us too. I still have no idea what they are saying but I continue to nod in all the right places, so we get on well.

Our pond was turned a very strange chocolate colour after
the heavy rains

People think we are very busy, but I have to confess to cleaning taking a back seat at every opportunity and so sometimes I am really pleased that people come to visit as it means that it has to move up the priority list and get done. So floors washed, windowsills cleaned after they had got grubby from growing plants ready for the allotments and a general spruce up and we were set for our two guests. I like housework when there seems to be a purpose to it, but not the normal run of the mill stuff. All we want to do at the end of the day is generally flop and so we try to ignore the housework for as long as possible, bar making meals and washing up.

Peacock butterfly

Continuing on from last week's concerns highlighted by the UN about the problem that Latvia faces as the economically active population moves away, France24 ran an article too highlighting the demographic challenges. The bottom line, however, is that there are few jobs for the young and the authorities are not very good at enabling businesses to start up and mentor them to keep them going, hence they move away. To stem this tide takes a different kind of investment from encouraging big businesses to invest in the country, that is the lazy option and not a very helpful kind of investment. It looks good because many jobs can be provided on paper, but the truth is they are often poor quality jobs as the top jobs go to outsiders. Investing in an entrepreneurial types at local level with local connections requires investments in schools to foster the right ways of thinking - not state dependent thinking and it requires bold initiatives and infrastructure changes and is not popular in an age of austerity. The other problem is that an entrepreneurial labour force is not an acquiescent work force but active and so they are not as easy to deal with. Much easier to deal with a docile people, who accept the way things are run now.

Out on the land

The European Commission has issued warnings on a slightly different note regarding the trading atmosphere in Latvia and the warning runs like this :-

 As is often the case with the Latvians, when presented with a straight-forward competitive bidding process to upgrade and modernize its rolling stock, they have turned the procedure into a thriller, and a potentially costly and wasteful one to the taxpayer, due to narrow and well-connected special interests. 

This sounds like fun but it is not in the best interests of the nation. Hopefully there will still be thrillers written about this nation, but it will be one where they show how they can over come the problems of the systems they have with an ability to cooperate and see through changes. I would dearly love for the Latvians to commit to holding hands across the nation again and sing in changes to the old order of things. They did it before in the Baltic Chain and they can do it again.