A title?

So what do you think Aggie? Have you got an opinion? Yes!
Aggie does have opinions and usually it is "What are you
doing here?" When she sees me. I guess she was relieved
today that I was not putting cream on her feet. She's doing
pretty well this year.

How do you title a week like last week? From the minutiae of daily life to potentially life-changing events over which I have no control. Life has been full of the little things and one of the extraordinarily large ones. Little things like we now have a working electric smart meter. I no longer have to make sure that Ian gives me the reading from our land to send to the electric company, it updates our records automatically. That won't stop Ian from checking on a regular basis though - Mr. Excel-man. If it's measurable, it's in an excel sheet somewhere.

Frosty mornings

Ilvija. Baby alpacas are cute. She looks like she is going to
be much darker on the top of her head than her mum.

There are also the little things like having to put my magic cream on the legs of two of our alpacas. Lady V must be starting to feel the immune-suppressing gloom we have had just lately, as this is the first time I've had to put cream on her in ages. Freddie, unfortunately has inherited his mother's over reactive skin problems and it is starting to spread, so he is a regular for my cream. Little Ilvija has started eating out of Ian's hand and so it gives him the opportunity to start the training to accept a halter. First he gets to tickle her under the chin and then stroke her face. The more used to touch the better as we do not want another spitty alpaca that hates any form of contact and lets everyone know about it within a 2 metre range, like her mother. Don't get me wrong, her mother is a lovely alpaca, just not when you have to try and put cream on her, or give her an injection or at shearing time and so on.

Lady V in contemplative mood

Freddie, the other recipient of the magic cream

Eyre, not Sofie. Eyre is the one usually in trouble, but not
this time

There are also the little thing challenges of having a cat, who is determined to get out. We had been keeping Sofie in our greenhouse to stop her going up to our neighbours, but she clawed her way through the plastic when she couldn't get out of the hole in the back of the greenhouse that she dug out years ago and Ian had blocked up. Ian taped up the hole she had made at the weekend, only today she tried to go through again in two separate attempts. This was despite the fact that the hole was unblocked and Ian showed her that she could go through after the first attempt. Not happy was he!

It's a good job she will be darker on her head than Chanel. It
will be difficult to tell them apart otherwise in years to come.

Ilvija is still feeding but Chanel is not giving her enough
to keep up with a growing alpaca, so it is nice that she is
now eating the feed like the others. She gets her own tray now

Ian finished off the repairs to one of the chicken arks that had sat outside in the rain until recently. We had managed to collect it one frosty morning and take it down to the barn where he could work on it. It needed a new base as the old one had rotted through. As the ark was in two pieces we could easily slot the components through the gaps beside the caravan and set it up in situ. Finally we could bring the last group of chickens inside the greenhouse. The last few days they have enjoyed not being rained on or sitting huddled in their hutch all day. We even got a blue egg today. The hen that lays the blue eggs hasn't given us an egg in ages. Unless of course she's been eating them. I wouldn't feel too sorry for them though, the stupid chickens quite often refused to go in and would sit up on top of the ark, in the rain and even the snow, rather than go in, or even sit underneath the ark where there was shelter. It has also been relatively mild, but it is nice to get them inside before the real winter weather hits.

Has someone been sitting down?

The alpaca pruned Christmas tree

Not the same Christmas tree. Ian cuts down Christmas trees
for the alpacas to eat. Plenty of vitamins. These are the weed
ones that need taking out to let the grass grow, or other
trees to thrive

Snow clouds gathering over the girls' alpaca house

Talking of weather, the snow has come and gone again this week. Now we are just back to gloom and wet soggy land. Ian even had to get the tractor out to sort out the roadway and create a run off to take the water away as it was just getting more and more boggy. This of course made a right mess, but hopefully in the long run it will improve. He now has the water running into the ditches the road company made. At least the rain means the water table is high and hopefully soaking its way into the underground stores, keeping the pressure high in the springs and water bearing sections of our land. 150 litres of water went into our well yesterday and once again it is close to the top. This represents quite a force to keep the water at near ground level on a slope. The actual water bearing layer is about 2 metres down.

A gloomy day, but not as gloomy as today after the snow has
melted

Hello Mr. Tellus, how are you today? Good? 

We took a trip into Riga this week. I planned to visit the Latvian Aquatic Ecology centre to see someone I had met in Helsinki. Ian took me in so that he could get some tyres for the car. Here in the sticks he would have had to order them from one place, then organise to get them fitted at our local garage. In Riga we can just go in and get them fitted quickly, without waiting weeks, but of course it costs in fuel and time to get it done. At least this way it was an opportunity for me to visit without an early start or having to hang around for buses. So while he was getting the tyres fitted I had a tour of the small centre. Despite its size, the centre had a range of labs for testing numerous aspects of the Baltic Sea. Heavy metals, toxicology experiments, algae experiments, nutrient load etc. I think there were about 8 or so small labs. It was fascinating to see the work that up until then I had only been reading about.

Hmmmm! Sunshine. Mr. P doing a bit of winter sunbathing

Minimalist headgear worn by Josefs.

The people in the centre were also a lovely bunch. I'm not sure they get many visitors and so they were quite keen to show me around and tell me about what they are doing. I got to talk about pharmacology and the issues with pharmaceuticals in the water with people who understand the issues. In our EU project that I'm working on, I'm the only one with any pharmaceutical knowledge and my knowledge is a bit antiquated. At least I understand the concepts and the risks and so it was nice to talk with people who shared my concerns and to confirm that I wasn't way off base in my thinking. Meanwhile Ian arrived back and talked to some of them about alpacas, as you do.

All attention on a little, teeny, tiny cat!

Jakobs often looks like he's wearing make up

At least this was on a day when I needed a bit of a distraction. It was election day in the UK. Up until recently I only kept a distant interest in the ins and outs of the UK elections since leaving. I didn't think it was fair to inflict my choices on those who still live in the UK. Now it feels unfair to have choices inflicted on me with no say. I left the UK over 16 years ago. After 15 years I have no opportunity to vote, whether it affects me or not. The saddest thing I saw was a lady who had worked on behalf of the UK government for over 20 years being denied a vote that would mean her job disappeared. She was settled in Belgium, her children were there. Now! Who knows and who in the UK government even cares.

That is a serious eyebrow work there, but maybe a bit hasty
with the lipstick.

George, Jakobs half brother is not into the make up though.
He's more into the natural look

It was with a degree of schadenfreude that I saw Anne Widecombe was denied a seat in Parliament. She will shortly be leaving the EU Parliament, where she and the rest of Farage's team only seemed to offer stupid comments. At least she and Farage will not be able to walk into another parliament to utter further ridiculous pronouncements. I doubt they will suffer the heartache that many will feel who will now also be losing their jobs for certain in all the EU agencies. All those jobs rested on being from an EU member state. About the only bright point is the uncertainty will end, but not the negotiations. Finished by December 2020. I think not! Democratic decision? No way! How can a democratic decision be made when over 80% of the output consists of lies? What kind of democracy is that? Something is definitely broken in the politics of the UK. I hope and pray that this galvanises a rise from the grassroots level to put it right. Meanwhile I will be looking at learning Latvian to see about Latvian citizenship. I pray my brain will cope.

Soaking up the sun

Jakobs mum

Antonia also looks like she likes a bit of make up. More the
Egyptian eyeliner look though

Going to be a frosty night

These next three photos look like they have had a filter put on them, but this was the colour in the sunset. So weird. These were taken about 13 days ago when we had more snow.

Normality restored

Winter wonderland

Just kidding! Normality! What's that? Having said that, it has been a quieter week. There was a trip to pick up some roofing sheets to get ready for putting the caravan outside but under permanent shelters as soon as the weather improves - although that will not be any time soon by the look of it, but it could be when I go away, so it is best to be prepared. Another reason for the trip was also because the horse box needed to go for it's technical (trailers also need to have roadworthiness tests here), so it was just a matter of going from the testing station to the builder's merchant close by. It therefore saved a journey another day.

Lots of paths need to be kept clear by Ian. I don't get out so
often as writing on the computer in temperatures of just above
zero is not too much fun. 

I love the laciness of the trees 

Having said that, some like to sit outside in it. 

We were a bit worried about the brakes on the horse box because they have been freezing up. We now leave the horse box parked without the brakes on, to stop them freezing onto the wheels - a problem we had last year. This time though we were worried that they would freeze in the off position and not stop the box during the test. We were relieved that it wasn't a problem at the test station and it passed all the tests. The problem was when we got to the builder's merchant. As we got out of the car there was a strong smell of rubber and the wheel was quite hot. In doing the test on the brakes, they had frozen on. Fortunately the heat unfroze them and on the way back it wasn't a problem. Mind you Ian stopped several times to check.

Our wood pile and hay stack are disappearing in the snow

Narnia?

You can see the sore patch under Aggie's chin that needs the
magic cream. At least the lump now seems to have
disappeared from last year's issue with the tooth abscess

I've had to go out to the land twice this week to apply the magic cream to the girls. The milder weather seems to have resulted in an early onset of the mite issues that we get plagued with from time to time. The magic cream is just comfrey and plantain infused olive oil with a few essential oils in it and that seems to do the trick. The girls loved it on the first day as the cream was still warm from having beeswax added that morning. You could almost hear them go "Hmmmmmm! Arrrrrhhhh!" I think they may have been a bit disappointed the next time it was applied, as it was much colder.

Freddie smiling

We had blue skies and sunshine too, just not on the day that
I was out on the land of course

Ieva Prane's workshop

My next trip was to our Latvian felter on the outskirts of Riga to discuss a project for the next felting course in June. It is exciting to see what she is planning and we discussed how she can best use her skills to encourage people to develop their design work. We didn't manage to finish the article but at least we got a feel for the project and the potential it has, so I am looking forward to seeing the finished product and to see what it looks like on. On the way back to pick Ian up from the caravan where I had left him at lunchtime I saw a racoon dog and a deer on the road not far from our land.

Our project with an alpaca fleece fringe

I love the colour of this little oak tree that has clung to its
leaves all

It is a good job the snow isn't as high as it was about 8 years
ago, our sign would have disappeared too

Much of the week I have continued with my writing. I actually feel like I am seeing the end of the tunnel and it shouldn't take much more to actually get them finished, which is a rather nice feeling. I am still waiting for a reply to the last one I submitted and will probably hear in the next week or two. My supervisor and I have even started to discuss when I defend my PhD, although I do have to get some sort of conclusion to these papers first though. Preliminarily though we are talking about a pre-defence in September. This is the time when the glitches in the thesis should be ironed out and is the hardest part. Then it goes in for a period of a re-write and hopefully defended in November. If all goes well on the day I get my doctorate. Well that's the plan! Let's see first how things progress - as the Seto people in Estonia say.

There's a pond in there somewhere 

Eyre out and about in the snow

Brencis spent sometime reflecting on his own this week. He
must have had a fight with Tellus before Ian arrived to let
them out.

One of the nice things about our life at the moment is the access to good food. We know where the majority of our food comes from, since we have watched it grow. I have even started off onions and peppers to get a head start in the spring. The onions should be fairly hardy but the pepper just seem to take too long to come to maturity and so starting them early might help and we will keep them inside for as long as possible. We did try overwintering some but not sure if they have enjoyed the cool conditions in our other apartment.

Preparation for next year's tasty Latvian potatoes. I am
always so sad as I pile the potatoes onto Ian's plate and
then put a small amount on mine. I do love Latvian potatoes

One day our evening meal consisted of our own lamb, dried rhubarb, dried tomatoes, dried chanterelles, herbs, beans, peas, onions in a nice rich stew, all from our land. You might wonder at the dried rhubarb but it adds a tang a bit like adding lemon to a meal and cheaper as it means we don't have to buy lemons. Another day we had a go with Rocky Mountain Oysters - I will let you google that one, but suffice to say they were surprisingly tasty. I have also started making our own chocolate bars. In essence they are really more like a very rich cocoa butter icing I suppose, but it hits the spot, is cheaper than a bar of dark chocolate and we don't have as much problems getting the ingredients as we do trying to get dark chocolate in our village.

Mr. P is much easier to photograph these days

 Low fat, low calorie Ice-cream! Yum

I suppose I should add that all this good food has not done me so much good over the last year and some of my weight has crept back on. To be fair it tends to leap on when I go away and not drop off afterwards so readily, especially in the winter months when I am much less active - fear of ice does curtail activity to some extent. It has now got to the stage where it seems to be interfering with blood sugar levels again, so the weight has to come off and I need to sort out those things that affect the levels the most and cut down on them. Heh ho! Still at least I have more idea than I did when I first started measuring the sugar levels, what does and doesn't affect them. Dark chocolate is still okay - in moderation of course, okay in a loooot of moderation!

A bit of a wobbly start to the first skiing session of the
season

That's better on a roll now

You may have heard of slow food! Or slow fashion maybe!
Well this is slow skiing aka Nordic skiing with Grandma Oh Oh!