Oh, it's Tuesday!

Lolly

Are you confused by the days of the week too? Most of us are at this time of the year. I had fully intended to blog again this week on Monday night, like I used to, and completely forgot. I spent the evening revising some Latvian and writing an email to my Latvian teacher instead. All of which takes time. It was nine o'clock at night before I remembered.

A sun pillar. Apparently it means
it's cold.

UFO? No! Sure looks eerie
though

Last week I worked up until Thursday. I managed to get all the proofreading done and an invoice sent off before the deadline, along with my regular work completed. The money made will come in handy as a deposit on the car that I mentioned about the other week. I won't be looking forward to finding a space to park it though. There are so many cars around at this time of the year, more than in the summer. On Christmas Eve one of our neighbours rang the doorbell and complained that our car was parked in front of our apartment and I never cleaned the road of snow. I was really confused. I thought it was something to do with the fact they now had a baby (which I hadn't realised) and maybe it was difficult to get the baby in and out on the opposite side of the road. 

Brencis

Not sure that the lack of sow makes this look
any less weird. It looks more like the skeletal
remains of cabin than a hunting tower.

I was also confused because of being accused of never cleaning the snow. I certainly hadn't done it this winter due to working non-stop trying to get things done before the end of the year. I knew the neighbour upstairs always cleaned the road and he never complained. That day was the first time I had even seen the complaining neighbour's boyfriend actually cleaning any snow anyway. I did find out a few days later that the complaining neighbour's car is always left with a pile of snow around, because they had been quite awkward, so no one clears around their car. They don't actually clear the road, just enough to get themselves out and they were obviously disgruntled they had gone to all that effort and Ian had had the audacity to park in "their" spot because they had cleaned it. I did find out the neighbour upstairs is fine about cleaning the rest of the road as he likes to get out and do a bit of exercise. I helped him the other day as I wasn't working and he was very nice about it. He made sure I left the snow around the complaining neighbour's car though.

The snow has come and gone and come again
over the last week. The temperatures go up
to above freezing and rains and then drops and
snows. Still we did have a white Christmas, but
as a FB friend said, not quite sure if Bing really
knew what he was singing about when he sang, 
"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas".

Wintry scenes do have a striking beauty but it puts
stresses and strains on the the people and animals. 

Chanel

I spent Friday decorating the Christmas tree, that Ian had helped me set up the night before, and preparing food. I can never decide if we have a celebration meal on Christmas Eve, like our Latvian neighbours would be doing, or Christmas Day. In the end, we kind of did both. On Thursday evening we went to our goat farmer friend and she gifted us four goat legs, some wonderful aged pepper goat's cheese and some goat milk soap. I decided to first pressure cook the goat legs to make sure they were tender and then slow roast them in the slow cooker (also it meant I could fit the legs in the slow cooker, which they wouldn't quite do when fresh). 

A field of diamonds

Looking towards the neighbours

I cooked some kale, cabbage and leeks in white sauce to go with the meat. Normally I just do leeks in white sauce but certain little pussy cats kept trying to use that area for a toilet earlier in the year. It nearly drove me potty driving them off, but they still managed to dig up most of my leeks, so I only had about three left for Christmas dinner. That is why I had to eke the leeks out by using the kale and cabbage. It worked nicely anyway. We also had roast parsnips which we sprinkled with the pepper cheese, mashed potatoes and stuffing balls. I meant to make Yorkshire puddings too and forgot and then I forgot again the following night when I slow cooked a ham that I had prepared. Oh well! Maybe New Year's Eve instead?

People often ask he how the alpacas do in the snow.
Well? As you can see! Not so bothered. Deep cold
can be an issue, but a nice sunny day and they'll 
be outside.... sunbathing!

See!

Lolly is now adept at alpaca yoga.

The rest of the goat meat went either into a pie or in the freezer. Ian does like pies and it is a great way of making meat go much, much further. I put the rest of the veg in, added some onion and some dried mushrooms - which incidentally I found in a drawer that were leftover from the year before. I was worried we didn't have enough dried mushrooms this year, but apparently we have more than I thought. I only found them because I was looking for somewhere to put something away. I can't even remember what I was trying to tidy away in the excitement of finding a stash of stuff I had forgotten about. I'm not getting more forgetful, honest. I've always been forgetful about where I put stuff and constantly looking for things. I like things to have a place, I just never quite remember where all those places are. At least Ian has been enjoying the pie, as that's the nearest he gets to a Christmas present these days.

Investigating the snow.

Jakobs outside eating the snow

I had intended to do my usual Christmas trip out to see the alpacas, but there wasn't much point. It snowed quite heavily on Christmas Eve and so Ian spent Christmas day snowploughing the pathways and he did it again on Sunday, and again on Monday. Today is my second day out on the land this week though. Today Ian helped some neighbours collect a cow from the Daugavpils area, a trip of about 2 1/2 hours each direction. He wasn't be able to feed Lolly and do all the other jobs around the farm that need doing in the morning, so I'm standing in for him. 

Ian had spent quite a bit of time clearing the
paths on Christmas Day. Then it snowed!
You can just about see where he had been. The 
tracks are down the side so he doesn't trample
the path and make it more difficult to clear the 
proper path.

All cleared again. Although it almost looks the
same, I never get tired of seeing the snowy pictures.
Not sure Ian is as happy. He agrees it's beautiful 
but the extra tasks get old quickly.

Freddie eating the snow outside.

I was standing in for him on Wednesday of last week too. Ian was on his laptop first thing in the morning and after putting it down to get ready to go out, it switched itself off. When he tried to switch it back on, it only showed a grey screen. He managed to get hold of the computer technician and arranged to take it in. He had to come back to the apartment to pick me up first though so I could feed Lolly while he was away and put the animals away. I had a meeting that couldn't be rearranged and so I managed the first half hour, went to put the animals away and came back to my meeting. Again, it is good to have understanding colleagues. I think most people these days get the need to do something at home during online meetings, whether it is take kids to school, sort a child out or in my case, put animals away.

Accumulating against the greenhouse

Looking at the snow from inside the greenhouse.
Not sure how much will disappear over the
New Year weekend as it is forecast to warm up
for a few days before getting cold again.

I bet my Christmas tree is bigger
than your's! Mind you, this one
is a tad bit taller than the one we 
have inside the apartment.

He seemed to take a long time in Riga, but he said the traffic and roads were horrid. The roads were in a better state here in our rural municipality. Apparently the roads in Riga were not cleared and were full of slush, which is about the worst type to drive in, especially in heavy traffic. He also hit rush hour on the way back to compound the problem. At least the computer problem was fixable. They checked it over, gave it a clean and adjusted the connector to the battery. The battery connector was the problem and nothing more. So €25 and the diesel to get into Riga seemed cheap compared to the deposit on my car disappearing.

Looking towards the more pristine side of the
land

A rosie glow as the sunrises

Ian had to clear a path down to the barn.

More rosie glows

Normally an untidy spot but now covered in a 
blanket of snow.

A nice wide pathway so Ian can
drive on and get nearer to the
caravan in the greenhouse

The view from the boys paddock

You can see the pile of manure that Ian is building
on the left for planting our potatoes into in spring

The haystack. Hope that new cover
works.

Outside our apartment. There is a road over there
in front of the bushes.

Autumnal

A soggy Mari. I will be glad when her hair grows back, it
will look much better. Still it had to be done to get out all
the muck out from the top of her head

The weather at the moment is dreich - that great Scottish word that sums up dreary, wet and windy weather that can go on for hours, days or even weeks. Well let's hope it is not the latter but certainly the weather has been rather dreich for the latter half of this week. It is not cold, thank goodness, but certainly looks autumnal with the nights closing in.

A soggy Frederiks too

The first half of the week wasn't too bad and we had a visit from some friends with their children. The boys and their father had popped in from time to time, but their mum hadn't been for ages. The land was officially hers up until three years ago and so it was nice to show her all the changes since the last time she had been. They also helped Ian load up the trailer with the roofing panels that he would need to fix the alpaca boys' roof.

Not sure what this plant is, so if anyone knows
then please let us know. 

Lady V will definitely not be having any more babies, she
is officially retired now

The roof has been leaking badly all summer due to the prolonged rains we have had. At first we didn't fix it in the hope the swallows would come back, they didn't, then we were busy with hay and then it rained. Sigh! Finally we had a few days forecast without rain, although that is still not a guarantee of anything. The forecasters are really struggling to give an accurate weather forecast even a day ahead these days. Ian prepared all the beams and battening in the hope that it would only take a day to take the roof off and then replace it. Unfortunately it took longer but it worked out in the end.

A soggy Lady V

While Ian took the roof off and with not a lot else to do, I got the chopped wood stacked in the horse box so it was ready to take to the apartment that we have to heat with our own wood supply. That took me most of the day. In the meantime Ian got the roof off and put the beams on, although he did have company. The local building inspector, aka Sofie would appear on the beams every now and again to inspect his work. When I finished stacking the wood, I got the screws out of the old roofing boards - well most of them. They were hard to see and we found some I had missed as we stacked them onto the trailer to take away. I also cleared up the broken bits of board lying around and bits of  wood offcuts, leaving Ian free just to get on with the roof. We only had time for some egg sandwiches that evening and Ian worked into the night to try and finish the roof, working by tractor lights.

George running around

One side did get done and we tried to get the boys into the half finished building while there was still some light, but they weren't happy about it. They ended up staying outside for the night. At 10pm Ian called it a day and rang me to ask me to help him clear up for the night. I had taken the opportunity to finish off some marking for my online students, since there wasn't much point in standing around in the dark. It wasn't easy ensuring the place was safe for the boys overnight by torch light but we managed. At least the tractor lights are very bright so that helped.

A handsome young chap outside his alpaca house with the
new roof on

The next morning Ian got back on with the roof despite being tired as the forecast was for rain by midday. There wasn't much I could do and I ended up sorting out his trip to the UK to attend a parasitology course later on in the month. He's going with the Hungarian alpaca owner who visited us over the summer so they can share costs. It is a bit pricey to do it on your own, so this way makes it a bit more affordable and hopefully the money we save on parasite testing and the peace of mind of being able to check all the alpacas will outweigh the costs in the end. He will also be taking the chance to see the kids too, but he can sort out that on the wet days.

A matching set of red roofs now

New beams and battens too. Ian even managed to save the
old swallows nest. It's a bit hard to see in this picture
but it is there saved from the old beam and fastened onto
the new one

The afternoon, however was not as bad as the forecast, in fact it turned out to be quite nice. So nice we took the afternoon off - well sort of. We pottered about and then went to collect mushrooms in the forest. We even found a chicken in the woods, or chicken from Tescos as it got nicknamed. The mushroom has quite a meaty texture hence the name. We first just tried a bit fried first of all because some people react to it, but we were fine and so it was made into a risotto the next day. It went well with the other mushrooms we had collected and some peas and beans from the garden.

Not one we would pick, based on the fact we
don't know what it is and better safe than
sorry

Chicken in the woods

Hopefully pregnant and eating for two. It is amazing how
at this time of the year the alpacas spend so much time
eating. I think partly because they are not plagued by the
flies so much but also because the winter is approaching
and soon the grass will turn and not be so nutritious.
They must sense it

Mr. P has been to visit the ladies again, but we think they are all pregnant now, judging by the fact that Ian got caught quite a few times in the crossfire. Mari just runs away, she is not a spitty animal at all. She will occasionally spit but not regularly. Aggie, however, is a little like her mother used to be and can spit when she is pregnant. She has been so lovely just lately, it almost seems a shame, but now she is back to being her hopefully pregnant spitty self. Chanel is a bit more of a spitter normally, although better than she used to be. She was sitting down for Mr. P. again, which makes us think that maybe she got pregnant but then lost it, but now she is back to putting up a bit of a fight - hence Ian being covered.

Herkules looks grumpy when wet, but not sure he is really

Feeding or hiding from the rain? 

Since that lovely afternoon the weather has rained on and off and more on than off at times since. I managed to gather broad beans and peas to shell for drying - at least the shelling can be done in the greenhouse. The rest of the time we have both been catching up with either admin or online work. I have now managed to finish writing up the lessons and assignments for Development Studies and Ian has been working on the adoption updates. We now have five adoptees. I had some encouragement in the tutoring with a lovely email from one of my students who finished Sociology in June. Despite a horrendous year with family ill health she did well and she wrote to thank me for the way I had tutored her through the course. She mentioned that my style of marking had encouraged her to work harder and she was now going to take an A level Sociology because she had enjoyed the course so much. One of my other students may also take the A level and I will help her through that if it all comes together.

Turbjørn always looks like he's trying to work out how the
world works in an intelligent thoughtful kind of way

An elegant if wet Turbjørn

We enjoy having visitors and like to see our neighbours, but there is one person who always makes us groan when we see her. She is our local eccentric. She had come about a fence, that was as much as I understood clearly. I worked out she wanted to put up a fence to stop another neighbour's cows from coming on her land but the details were beyond me. There was also something about deer and winter, but I got a bit confused about that. She tried to phone people, but they weren't answering. I managed to get through to one of my friends and she must have already heard because she immediately told me what she was trying to do. Our eccentric neighbour can make a lot of work for people, which does not always go down well. It turns out she wanted to put up a fence and was firstly checking to see where our land finished - yet again! And then she was checking to see if she could attach her temporary fence to an electric pole that was definitely on our land. We gave her permission and went on our way. Phew!

Sunshine and snow showers!

Melting snow, yet again! But it does look pretty

We've had another of those weeks with a dusting of snow, then melting and just when we thought we had seen the back of it, it snowed again. Saturday was a lovely day, not sunny, but warm enough to get in the garden and dig over a bed. It was lovely to work the soil, as it was noticeable that the edges that had not had much treatment were sandier and not as rich looking as the middle of the bed. It shows the straw bedding, the wood mulch and alpaca poo are all working wonders to make lovely rich vegetable beds. Since the beds are not frozen and the forecast was only for rain over the coming week, I thought I would plant our onions. The rain would help them swell and they wouldn't come to much harm in the cool nights. It was nice enough to take my coat and hat off as I worked. I got the onions in and went to see Ian to see if he was ready for a cuppa. As we sat and chatted in the caravan I noticed what looked like big fluffy flakes of snow falling. Sure enough the ground was white again. Seems like I was just in time then.

Planting onions

This old lady is still a good egg layer. She was born in
June 2012 and still produces eggs most days

Just take a close look at that fleece! Agnese has been rolling
around in the hay again. She is absolutely covered.
Goodness only knows how we are going to get that out

While I was working on preparing the onion bed Ian had some visitors and he was stood chatting to them for about half an hour. Of course Miss Observant me, never saw them, although he could see me. He didn't want to shout, because he would have scared Agnese who he had on a lead and besides the chances of me not hearing him were high. He would have phoned, but of course I forgot my phone that day too. The people had been walking down the road and saw the alpacas and had stopped to look. Our alpacas noticed the people and so Ian who was walking Agnese at the time went to have a look to see what the alpacas were so interested in. He invited them over to meet the alpacas and stood chatting to them, since there were younger members of the group who spoke reasonable English. If there is one thing that Ian loves to do, is to share his enthusiasm with other people and that was something the group definitely picked up on. He thinks they were some more of our neighbours, it seems the alpacas are proving quite a draw.

If you look closely, you will see the evidence of a certain
alpaca and her tendency to stick her head through the
fence and eat the grass on the other side. That is despite
the small holes in the fence, specifically to stop them doing
that

Whistle! Whistle! Goes Lady V as we often call her, as
she sneaks away. At least that is what it sort of looks like

Who me? Innocent me?

I said it was wet! We have our temporary lake back again

The rest of the week has been a bit wet and so Ian has had to get yet another new pair of wellies. The wellies don't seem to be lasting very long at all no matter how much he spends on them. It is a near constant moan in our house when shoes or wellies go and he has to get a new pair. He just got a cheap pair from the local shop for the time being and they are not the steel-capped ones he usually gets. In fact they seem a bit soft, but maybe that's a good thing, who knows. The wet weather also means he has been doing some of the early season wet weather jobs like servicing the two-wheel tractor and the chipper. In between the showers he has been removing stones from the fields in readiness for a new rotavator he has ordered for the two-wheel tractor. The other one only really needs a new belt, but finding them has been impossible. It also cuts out on a slope if it is facing the wrong way, which is not useful on our hills. At least it means just taking one machine when we go to work our apartment allotment and not two. It should also be more robust than the other one and adjustable. Ian has also been taking lots of photos, since there is more time in the day to get things done and not enough jobs because it is still too early to get much done.

Did I tell you it had been wet? The road
is now like tram tracks

The evidence of the tractor using our land for a short cut

Ian's alpaca visitors weren't the only neighbours that he hadn't met before that he had some interaction with this week, only the next encounter was not quite so pleasant. We have noticed that one of our neighbours has been going up and down our ski hill in their tractor from time to time. This is not something we wish to encourage, because it will damage the hay and we do not want ruts running up the middle of our best hay field. Ian noticed fresh tracks on the road and went back to get his camera, he took some photos and then went back to work on a frame for our grapes. As he worked he heard a tractor, so ran to the top of the hill to see the tractor coming down the hill with a trailer, so Ian ran to get the car keys and the camera and drove quickly to block his access at the bottom of the road. He got out of the car and asked if the driver if spoke English and he said "No!" So Ian beckoned him out of the tractor and showed him the tracks and said "Nē, labi" (not good) and then showed him where he would let him come on and off our land. A compromise anyway. He didn't seem particularly upset and they even shook hands on it. Hopefully he understands and hopefully he stops using our land as an access point.

The new grape arbour

I love the contrast of the bright green against the logs

We are a bit worried about some other neighbours too. We have some new neighbours at our other apartment and I had noticed they have a husky which the young woman took out for walks. Yesterday I saw the husky on the loose with another dog I haven't seen before and they spent the whole time digging in someone's compost heap. It seemed to be also encouraging other dogs to join in, as there was a little dog that I often see and it was black from digging, something I have never seen it do before. I somehow think that explains the big holes that have recently appeared in the flower bed outside our apartment. I am quite annoyed because I had only just got Ian to bring some wood chip mulch for it to keep the weeds down and it was looking neat and tidy. If dogs are just going to dig big holes in it, I am not going to put the effort in to put some more plants in that I intended to do this year. It also does not fill me with hope for later on in the year with the allotment. The reason for keeping that on is because we have the wild boar digging up our land and don't want to risk all of our produce being eaten by them. Somehow I will have to convey my concerns to the house manager, that will be fun! Not!

A nice moody shot of our comparatively highly strung alpaca.
This is Turbjørn. He is lovely really, just rather nervous.
He is also very curious, just not curious enough to come
right up. He still only eats out of a bowl, even for Ian. He
certainly won't eat out of your hand. He also has a way of letting
Ian know when he wants something like a drink. He will come
up close to Ian with a look on his face as if he wants to
tell hims something. He is also the alpaca we deal with first
if we need to give injections, because otherwise he gets too
panicky to handle. 

The gooseberry bushes are sprouting

Had a little excitement this week on top of meeting neighbours. Oh we live the high life. I thought we were going to get our new bin. I mentioned previously that I thought we had organised a new collection for out on our land and cancelled the one at the apartment. I wasn't 100% sure, but all the signs were good. I didn't receive a bill for the next three months for collection at the apartment, so that must mean they got the cancellation and understood it. The next good sign was getting a contract, that was signed and sent off. The only thing is I had a nagging feeling I should have put a friend's phone number down for contact details or at least mention it was only if someone could speak English and sure enough this week, I had a phone call from the company and the guy did not speak English. At least I understood who it was who was speaking. I got my friend to ring him back, but they decided that we were too far out of Ergli for that particular run and they decided that they will deliver the bin next week instead. Nearly there then!

More signs of spring

I said it had been wet! This is the drainage pool from the barn

The start of a hedge. These are maples
that we transplanted a couple of years
ago. We are also going to put in hazel.
The hedge will be to deter the wild boar
from digging around our blueberries

Much of the rest of the week has been the usual current routine for me of writing a second paper. I have written about the writing process before by using a quote from Winston Churchill, that talks of the process turning from a lover to a monster. I am not sure that I could say that I start off that enthusiastically, but this current piece is worse. I think it is because I have only just finished one paper and this one has to be completed fairly rapidly that it feels more like a monster already, with each sentence being wrenched from my brain. In the process of writing the idea of trying to get the egg residue removed from a frying pan with glued on egg becomes a source of intense interest  - not that I enjoy cleaning glued on egg remains but anything becomes more interesting than sitting at the computer trying to conjure up the perfect sentence. And yet in a macabre sort of way, the process has its points of elation when a sentence or paragraph finally comes together and makes sense. I have also noticed that after the slow dragging out of each sentence there comes a point where desperation leads me to almost throw in various quotes and random sentences, hoping that something will stick and somehow come together in some coherent form and amazingly this is the most productive point of the process. Then comes the long and slow editing. From what I understand, I am not unique in this process.

The newts are appearing again too

Babbling pond overflows

Let me out! I'm sure I see green grass

New silver birch seedlings. At least I think that's what they are