After the rain? More rain

The radar for Tuesday July 1st. More rain

A certain song has been going around my head just lately

"I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the  rain there's gotta be a little sunshine sometime"

 - wait shouldn't that be the other way around? Shouldn't it be "along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometime"? Indeed it should. The rain just kept on coming, as you can see from the picture and we didn't get the worst of it. There has been a change though recently, a yellow ball like object appeared above with a cloak of blue. We checked the ancient manuscripts and the yellow ball is called the sun and the blue is the sky. The only problem is that the forecasts are still not entirely settled and on days forecast to be dry, we've still had some showers, even though at least we did see some sun. The last two days have been dry and now the ground is not covered with a layer of water and we can think about haymaking. The problem is that to do the ski hill we need five straight days of dry weather to cut, turn, bale and collect the hay, four at a push or just a short shower when they are baled with good sunshine afterwards before stacking. Too much to ask for? It's looking that way at the moment.

Finally a day of sun. This was taken about 9:30pm

The rain has meant that Ian has been confined to the land, because he was worried about leaking roofs and collapsing plastic that he tacked up to try and keep the animals dry. He managed to sort out the girls roof, but so much water was running off the roofs, it was just running straight under their accommodation and saturating the thin layer of bedding. It hadn't been built up after the clear out due to the mite infection and we are rather lacking dry bedding as we are on the last few bales. We still have enough for feed, but dry bedding is proving a headache. The boys, ironically for being at the bottom of a slope and the leakiest roof have the driest accommodation, partly because Ian has dug a channel to divert the rain away at the front door and another in the alpaca house itself to drain away behind the shed. The girls are on a flatter piece of land, but at the top of the hill and so it would be expected to drain by itself - but no!

We have three new chicks. These ones are hatched from
some large eggs that we collected from the chicken house,
so we are assuming that they are progeny from the chicken
we named Big Bird, our large white broiler chicken. They
are definitely the progeny of the cockerel and so it will
be interesting to see what they will turn out like

The respite in the weather though meant a chance for a much needed trip to the big town to deal with paperwork. I text a translator who lives in the big town to see if he was free and he was, so we organised to meet at the land office after we had put the trailer through its technical. Of course there was a long queue at the technical centre and a trainee on duty, but at least it passed and we weren't horrendously late for our meeting, not by Latvian standards anyway. We had gone to get our buildings registered on the land book finally and asked the lady about transferring the land into our name while we were there. For those who don't know, it has not been possible to buy land here in Latvia, unless you are a Latvian citizen, but that exclusion ran out on May 1st. The land was still in the name of a friend of ours and we just had power of attorney to do what we liked on the place. I knew the government were, or had, amended the law to make it more difficult to buy agricultural land and I wasn't sure if we qualified or not. As we talked she said if we wanted the land, we should buy it or have it donated to us on that day and not leave it and then she explained what we needed to do. Apparently the following day the government were voting on the new law and she wasn't sure when it would come into effect.

The father of the chicks

As you can imagine, that caused all sorts of difficulties. First we had to decide if our friend was going to sell or donate the land to us, she had given it to us anyway as she was unable to look after it and that is why we had the power of attorney. Whatever we did had to be the least hassle to her and not cost us more than it needed to. In the end we decided on a donation to Ian. I represented our friend and signed it over to him and he will have to declare his "income" at the tax office and pay the 24% tax on it. Fortunately cadastral prices (prices of land as assessed by the government) are pretty low and so it won't cost us lots of money in the grand scheme of things, but still it is money. To set the whole process in motion we had to have a notary agree to write a contract of donation, then we had to run home - a journey of 90km - and pay the remaining land tax that hadn't been paid earlier on in the year, back to the notary to have the papers drawn up, back home again as it was getting late and back to the land office in the morning. Within 24 hours we had the land in Ian's name and no further worries about any decisions that the government would make later on in the day.

Not sure if you will be able to see, but
the little chick at the end of the tray
has feathers on its legs. The father
doesn't and so not sure where that comes
from. Ian also showed one of them to
our granddaughter on Skype and she
tried to stroke its nose. Sweet! 

We did find out later that the new law was agreed and meant that either a person had to have more than three years farming experience - and that could be difficult to prove for some, or an agricultural qualification with attendance of more than 160 hours on a course in a relevant subject (I wasn't sure if  Masters in Rural Development was classed as relevant or not). There would also be a requirement to show a return of some sort of income after one year and no individual or company can buy more than 2000 ha to stop massive buying up by agricultural companies or rich individuals. It was also only due to come into force on November 1st I think, but that doesn't sound so dramatic. One of the humorous points about the whole episode was a statement that if we didn't show enough gratitude for the gift, it could be demanded back by our friend, her children or her grandchildren. This caused much merriment and I sent off a suitably grateful email to our friend to let her know the land was now officially in Ian's name and not hers, she now feels rather over appreciated.

Hopefully this is their mother. She looks a bit cross here,
but she is a gentle soul and will even let us stroke her. I
think this is partly because she is so big and can't escape so
easily. She is quite old for a broiler chicken, besides the fact
that most end up on the plate, it is rare for them to live
past the age of 18 months because they either get to big
for their legs or die of heart attacks. She is not so good on
her legs and limps a bit, but still seems able to get around

As we had gone to the big town we also got some feed in for the animals. We had to fit that in between seeing the notary and going home, but Ian didn't have enough time to store it away while I paid the tax at the local government office. On our way home that evening there were places that looked rather wet and dark clouds ahead. In fact it was raining rather heavily when we got to the land and exhausted and thirsty though we were, we had to swing into action to get the bags under cover, they were wet but not saturated. Fortunately we think they survived, but definitely not something we want to repeat.

A close up of the swallows nest in the alpaca house

The following day after our trip back to the big town to finish off the paperwork we took a bed, that belongs to some American friends of ours that had been residing in our other apartment, to Sigulda where they will be staying when they visit Latvia again. That meant catching our three cockerels that have been living in the horse box and putting them in a cardboard box while we were away. The cardboard box was put into the tractor trailer, but I was a little worried about the sun overheating them, so I rigged up a tarpaulin to keep the sun off and then off we went. We got the bed to its destination no problem and then went to collect an old Soviet cast iron piece of machinery for another of our friends. All went fine and Ian and the owner managed to get the machine into the horse box, but as Ian fastened up the horse box, he felt his back twinge. The horse box was then taken to the next house to fill up with bee keeping equipment, also for the same destination. We stopped for some home-made bread and a cup of tea and then set off to make the next delivery. This supposedly dry day, also turned out to be showery, fortunately not while the bed was in the horse box as it leaks a bit. It was getting late in day, but we delivered the iron piece of machinery and after some false starts and with a bit of teamwork, eventually we managed to work out how to get it out using the tractor and pieces of wood to slide the machine on. Our poor friend at the other end though had to wait until we had gone before she could milk her goats and she has a long enough day as it is. We did get a couple of rounds of goats cheese and some milk for Agnese.

If you saw the blog last week, you will
know that our neighbour downstairs
reported a leak that he thought was
coming from us. This is the mess we
have after checking to find out it wasn't
us at all. There has been a lot of noise
coming from the roof space this week
and so we think our suspicions are correct
 that actually it was running through gaps down to him.

When we got to the land at a rather late hour we could see it had been raining and to greet us we could see three small heads in the tractor trailer. The cardboard box had obviously collapsed in the rain and under the weight of the logs that Ian had used to make sure the cockerels could not escape from the box. We decided that since they hadn't got away to leave them in there, but strapped the tarpaulin more tightly across the top to try and ensure they didn't make a break for it in the night. We put the animals away and crawled into bed in the caravan. We are so grateful for that caravan, it was one of the best investments we have made. The next morning we dropped the tarpaulin down onto the cockerels and caught them and put them back in the horse box. We determined then they had to go and decided Sunday would be the best day. It didn't happen, neither of us felt well enough to go through the hassle of boiling up the water, removing feathers and then gutting them. Ian's back was still twingeing and I came down with a virus. Fortunately we are both feeling better, but something we could have done without.

Agnese growing up, she is not always around her mum now

On a completely different note, Sofie, one of our cats came up to Ian this week and dropped a live mouse in front of him and backed off. This live mouse, also had a baby hanging on with its teeth. Of course they then ran off and Ian and Sofie then tried to catch them. We were laughing as this is the kind of action of a mother cat with her young to try and teach them to hunt. We now know that Ian is a failed cat! You can almost hear her say "Stupid boy! Can't even catch a mouse!" Wonder how she will continue on with the training?

There are plenty of grapes on the grapevines this year

It may have escaped your notice, well some of you anyway, but a certain rather large cycle race set off from Yorkshire this last week. Ian loves to watch the Tour de France and nothing gets in the way of the final day or the stage where they tackle the alp d'huez, unless it is a done deal anyway and this year he made a point of watching the stage going into Sheffield. He would like to watch more but it is a bit complicated at times to manage it. I glimpsed at the race a few times and it was lovely to see all the well-remembered scenery, after all we lived in Sheffield for five years and about 10 miles south of it for 15 years and so we know the area well. There was one point where the cycle route crossed his old route to work and in his mind's eye he was heading once more into the Northern General hospital along that familiar route. He was rather surprised at the end to see a face he knew, one of the guys who he used to chat to about the Tour when it was on, is now the nutritionist for the Sky Team.

All out and ready to start cutting hay tomorrow. We both
had the brain wave that if we cut only half the ski hill, we
might be able to get it done before the forecasted rain on
Thursday. 

Chickens can't swim

Our sheep have been given new quarters, over the hill and
far away. Well not quite, but far enough away to not hear
them so often now. Ian went to see them yesterday and they
had their heads hung low, like naughty children, he was
sure they would be saying "we're sorry can we come back
now?" They can't come back, they have a job to do of
eating grass and weeds. That side of the hill needs a
chomping down and so our biomowers are at work.

Our chickens have been causing Ian some consternation just recently and their wanderings are getting further. Ian was none too chuffed, as we say, when he found them scratching around in the patches that he had seeded with grass. That stuff ain't cheap! As soon as they start their wandering ways they get locked up in their shed now. Don't worry, there is plenty of room and more than many barn raised chickens get that you will find laying eggs for the supermarkets. We would still like to let them out though, as they are good for keeping the insect population down, especially ticks and our cats are getting plagued by them at the moment. Obviously our cats are not wandering in areas where the chickens have been. We have been trying to think of as many possible solutions as possible to give them more freedom, but the type of freedom we can cope with and the type of freedom where we are not going to lose our crops or the alpacas their grass. The Jury is still out on that one.

Good job we put some trees within their field enclosure.
We're too soft on them 

A rather splendid blue beetle. Not sure of its proper name

There are supposed to be three cockerels at the moment in the chicken house, but of course one has the upper hand and won't let the other two in, so they wander around at night. The little brown cockerel was for the pot, we just wanted him a little bigger though, only now we are not sure if he has been well and truly chased off by the larger cockerel that is second in line to the throne of top cockerel. Oh the shenanigans of the chicken community. The brown cockerel went missing for a day but turned up again yesterday afternoon, we had wondered if he had become fox food or osprey food. He was quite close to the road and so I went to herd him back in the direction of the chicken house, well he went high tailing further along the road side of our land, until I climbed down the steep bank onto the road and shooed him away from that side. Finally he went in the right direction, squawking his little head off in indignation. He then went towards the pond and I watched with hilarity and disbelief as he tried to walk on the grass that is growing in the pond after last year's dry spell. It is the closest I've seen to a chicken trying to impersonate a duck taking off from water. I gather he didn't know that chickens can't swim! Now he thinks he's a sheep, as that is where he seems to have taken up residence, well the last time we saw him he had.

I do know what this is though! A dragonfly nymph. These
wonderful creatures eat mosquito larvae and so are a very
welcome sight in our ponds. This one was caught in the
bucket but we made sure it went back

And so the cutting season begins. Ian was cutting down
the dandelions before they go to seed. 

For those who have followed this blog for years forgive me for repeating myself on the planting front. farm life/gardening life is kind of the same every year and kind of not. Key crops are markers for the year such as potatoes. They are all in now and I think we beat the neighbours to it - one of the advantages to not having fixed jobs. I woke up on Friday morning and said to Ian, since it is supposed to rain later on today and for the next few days shall we get the potatoes in in the morning? Fortunately we did and before the rain to water them in. Our drought has well and truly finished now, as it has rained most days since last week and the ground is getting sticky. We managed to get those potatoes in after a day (well afternoon really) where the ground had had a chance to dry a bit and judging by the forecasts it would have been nearly another week later before we got another chance. The spring barley we had sown is starting to sprout as well as onions already planted. The last of the onion bulbs have gone in now too, another marker crop. We have also started on planting the tomatoes into the greenhouse and so it is looking less like a store house cum chicken refuge and more like a greenhouse again, especially as that meant the little chicks had to move outside now.

We have a lot of dandelions and so a lot of cutting. This is
the first of three particularly bad weed infestations. The
next is cow parsley, then ground elder. Once they have
finished flowering, Ian will let the grass grow longer

Err where are we? And why are we so high up?

Scramble!

Well you will put your head there! (No chicks were hurt in
the production of this blog)

Cherry blossom, nicely off set against the manure heap.
Well it is a farm!

I have decided to offer to teach Sociology online with an organisation called Northstar Worldwide this next academic year. Feels really weird as a previous science student, as I must admit to looking down on the "soft" sciences. But as one of my lecturers noted recently, sometimes scientists end up researching such a narrow field that their studies have little impact on the rest of society and the whole point of the so called "soft" sciences is to have an impact on society in someway. He also noted that sometimes it is much more difficult to ensure getting good results, much easier than my test-tube chemistry and that was difficult enough at times. I have actually been working for this organisation for ten years now, firstly as the net nanny and now as senior online community facilitator, which is the posh title for being the person responsible for the student cafe monitoring by ensuring the young lass who took my place has somewhere to go if problems arise and also just to check in every now and again. I have other roles of course but that is the main one at the moment. Oh yes! And just in case you are wondering if I am qualified to teach Sociology after all that, is yes I am, as my more recent qualifications and research these days is Sociology based in one way or another.

Asparagus is coming through. I reckon by next week asparagus
will be on the menu

Plum blossom. The first time this tree has flowered in the
number of years we have had it.

We finalised some paperwork for our barn and greenhouse-this last week, or at least I think we have! We often just feel like we have finished something and then we get told there is another step. We just seem to keep shunting paperwork around in the process - keeps someone busy I suppose. We also started shunting paperwork around to get planning permission for the house to be built out on the land. We decided though to go for the maximum period possible and opted for planning permission to be over 8 years. We found out in the process though that our architect is now working at the council offices, instead of the older lady I fell out with a couple of years ago. At least she is capable of drawing up plans herself, which you would think all architects should be able to do.

My office for today

For my friend Roger. The autumn
raspberries he gave us

I was reading my friend Mavis' blog "Give us a clue" and it reminded me of a conversation that Ian related to me. A while ago he met someone at the car inspection centre who then came out to see our alpacas. He was also interested in sheep and so Ian arranged to take him to the nearby Christian camp who also raise sheep. It turns out he knew one of the guys there and they got chatting. Somewhere in the ensuing conversation it was related to Ian that word in our village is that Ian is a pastor. Who his congregation to pastor would be is a bit of a mystery, well in the normal traditional way of thinking. In the course of our lives though, we do chat with folks about life and faith, although not so much these days. Life on the farm means not much time to chat and much work to do, but it is a season and quieter times will come again. Times to reflect on life and faith once more. So who are we? Who do others say we are? Sometimes that is a fascinating question to ask and sometimes that is scary.

Quiz time. What do you think this is?

Getting things done!

Our sheep are climbing again!

I managed to finish my homework after the blog last week, but boy was it late for me - 11:30pm. Talking with some of the other students in class, it appeared I wasn't the only one. Typical student I suppose, only I hadn't left it to the last minute to do the work, it was just that it was a difficult topic to do and I had other priorities first, much like a lot of my fellow classmates. You don't usually do a PhD course just for the fun of it, although doing something you enjoy or are passionate about is fun, but because you are very interested in learning and are quite committed about it, just the compulsory courses are not always high on our agendas.

Who? Sweet innocent us?

At least my classmates from Latvia were heading back after the lecture and so I got a lift back to Valmeira and treated to lunch. I had had a sandwich on the way down, so decided just soup would do. The soup of the day was lamb soup, which is not common in Latvia and so I decided to go with that, only it turned out to be more like a stew than a light soup. Tasty though and the lamb was very tender. The trip back also involved two buses and meant a longish wait again in Cesis, but the discovery of the cafe in the supermarket near the train station and even better I discovered it has internet access and that makes the wait just fine. A cup of tea is also just 50c, so not bad! After two cups I was feeling human again after my late night and even better I got to get home one day sooner.

One of our balls of fluff. No wonder they didn't want to
come home to a centrally heated flat, they were roasting
in these coats. Only problem is that they are not the
most practical for barn cats and need a little disentangling
at times.

We went to the big town again this week to take the paperwork for our greenhouse. Amazingly the paperwork was fine this time! I was ready for a fight if it wasn't. Our translator did say that the lady did get a bit worried last time when I asked her to write down the things she was asking for. She refused to do that and insisted that we write down what she said, obviously she had no wish to go down on record. I wished I had remembered that I had my audio recorder in my bag, that would have worried her even more I think. At least the process has begun again and they will leave it until nearly the last day, before sending out someone to survey the greenhouse. What a performance for a plastic covered greenhouse! It even costs us more than the barn, because it covers a larger area.

The new Estonian trains on the right at Valga station. The
old Latvian trains on the left. 

We had a house meeting this week. It wasn't a pleasant affair, as it was a meeting to remove our house manager. We are now in the stupid situation, where there is no house manager to take responsibility for the household dealings. We do have a treasurer who will take the money and she should be receiving all the paperwork, which really makes her the de facto house manager, but she doesn't want that job and who would when people can be quite nasty with their bickering? Fortunately one older man, spoke up and although the majority vote was to remove the house manager, he did say that we need to be kinder to each other and take more responsibility for the house, instead of leaving it to one person. He even volunteered to take on the responsibility of making sure the heating is regulated properly and since he is an engineer, he should be able to handle that okay.

Sitting in the sun waiting for the bus

I went out to the land twice this week. Now it has warmed up a bit and feels more like April than February, it means that it is warm enough to work in the caravan, which also means I can go and help Ian for a few minutes. He needed help giving one of our alpacas an injection, as he has an infected eye, probably the result of bumping into something or banging heads with one of the other boys. He had managed the day before, but an extra pair of hands is always useful for these kinds of tasks. The following day I didn't do any studying, as it was supposed to be a nice day. I say supposed to, it was a foggy start and the sun didn't put in an appearance until late in the afternoon - unlike today which has been glorious of course and I was travelling. All the alpacas needed their toe nails cutting and that is not a job for one person. We decided to halter each alpaca up and tie them up to a hook to make it easier for me to hold them, while Ian trimmed their nails. It is a tough job, as those nails are hard. I half wonder whether they should have a gravel path to walk on to wear their toe nails down, but wonder if this might in turn damage the soft pads on their feet. The alpacas are much better now since Ian has been reading up on how to train alpacas. A lot of it seems to be working, at least most of the time, but like the book says, sometimes you just have to manually restrain the animal to get things done, not everything can be done by coaxing the animal to cooperate and cutting toe nails is one of those jobs. Maybe in months to come, even that job might become easier, but for now there is a certain amount of resistance from time to time and so a little alpaca wrestling was in order, when they started bucking a bit.

The gouges left in the field as Ian pulled the horse box.
At least he got the horse box off, which is more than he
thought he would do at one point. At least we know the
ground will heal, it usually looks worse than this after
winter

As I said, it feels more like April than February and so our snow has disappeared and the land is thawing out, which means mud! Our winter barley looks like most of it did not make it through the winter without its protective coat of snow and parts of the fields are full of moss - not good. Ian has been manuring the fields with alpaca poo by hand and that should help and this year along with the sheep that poo everywhere anyway. He is also going to try rotating the animals faster through the fields, so that the grass has a longer chance to recover in between being munched and he will also let the grass grow longer - which possibly means more fly problems, but some you win, some you lose. We'll see how it goes. Ian has been busy trimming trees in our fields over the last couple of weeks, he doesn't like removing them all, 1) that would lead to erosion and 2) it provides shelter and feed for the animals. He has also helped move one of our neighbours calves for them. Calf? This was no mere youngster though, it was a strapping 18 month old calf. The roads were also muddy and Ian was worried about getting stuck or sliding off the road a few times, but he managed and the neighbours were happy.

Trimmed tree and trimmings ready for shredding. The sheep
will be put down here as soon as the grass is growing properly
then it can be manured and weeds held back in check - well
hopefully, that is the plan. By putting the sheep on early in
the season, we also hope to set the cutting season back a bit
on this section. It is north facing so takes longer to mature
anyway and with an early munch the time to having to cut it
will be longer. Again that is the plan, to make it easier for Ian

The newly refurbished Valga train
and bus station

Today (Monday) is Estonian Independence day which is why I have only travelled up to Tartu today, as there was no GIS training this week. I wasn't sure what would be open and what would be shut. I also thought the buses maybe quieter than usual - not likely. It was busier in Latvia because it was not a public holiday and it was busier in Estonia as people were returning to the city after a weekend away, and students were returning to universities and colleges. The roads were especially bumpy on the first leg of the journey because they are not tarmac roads and that makes annotating pdf files very tricky and made me sleepy into the bargain. The other legs were either too short or too cramped for working on a lap top, so not much work got done today. Still I got some done and that's better than nothing.

There and back again

The stream is melting and water
beginning to flow off the land into it

I am back to lectures this week and fortunately it is my last compulsory course. It is funny that the lecturer comes from Boulder, Colorado just 55 miles away from where I used to live in Fort Collins in the US, he even sounds like one of my friends from there. He managed to make part of the lecture entertaining by getting us to devise a rapid experiment to practice setting and testing a hypothesis. I felt it was a little basic, but at least we didn't have to sit for two hours and it made the point pretty well. In fact I think, with a longer time frame, it would work very well with even high school students, at least with a bit more support along the way in setting up the test hypothesis. We had to devise an experiment and hypothesis in 15 minutes, so no Einstein type of experiments here. One young chap came up with the idea of testing if it was quicker to go downstairs than to go up the stairs. So for the next half an hour five of us sauntered up and down four flights of stairs, we walked normally up and downstairs and then lastly we took the stairs at speed; only I had to repeat two of the experiments because on one I had managed to turn off my stopwatch and on the second a woman beat me to the door which ruined the experiment and being the conscientious sort, I repeated it. And the result of our experiment? It is quicker to go down the stairs in sauntering and normal mode, but in a rush it is quicker to go up than down! You can draw your own conclusions on that one.

Our winter barley is looking a little worse for the wear after
the winter. Not sure if it will survive or not due to the freeze
without much snow cover and now being swamped

These three are in bad books, they have been escaping, after
discovering finally the electric fence wasn't actually
switched on due to the cold. It is ON now though.
Downright ungrateful if you ask me, after all that effort of
making their pen better by covering all the poo with straw

The week didn't go quite to plan though, as there was a miscommunication with the mapping training I wanted to do - this is not a compulsory course, but one I feel will be useful to my research. I got to the computer room on Tuesday afternoon just as four people were finishing off some maps and no teacher. Apparently it was dropped on for that period because the week before only one person turned up. That means I have had to travel up to Tartu on Sunday again to do the course on Monday morning. At least it is only three or four sessions, although at the rate I'm going it will be more as I learn how to use a dratted Windows computer and mouse. Even failed on turning it on, but that is partly because I have never used a computer with a separate screen before and a long time since I have used a mouse and not a trackpad! Rather basic I know. I'll get there though and I'm sure I will speed up. It only took me for the polygon I was drawing, to disappear on me three times, before I found out the shortcut to extend a drawing, so I didn't have to keep getting nearly to the end of my drawing and then it disappear, I could part draw it, save it and then extend it!

Snowdrop showing her portly belly. She has been a little
uncomfortable this week and Ian was wondering if the
baby has been moving around a bit. Seeing the size of her
makes us wonder how our little Alicia managed to carry
Benedikts without showing that much. 

Electric in the barn, finally

I had a pleasant surprise when I got on the bus to travel up to Tartu at the unearthly hour of 7am (okay it is not really that unearthly, except it was a Sunday) my neighbour was driving. I have been travelling on buses from the company he drives for, for over six months now and never met him once. I told him I had a two and a half hour stop before I caught the next bus and so when we got to the end and I was preparing to get off, he told he I didn't have to, as he wasn't going on the next leg of his travels for a half and hour. At least sitting on the bus was warmer than sitting in the un-refurbished station of Cesis. He also told me about a cafe nearby which was open on Sundays, so when he had to go I trotted across the train tracks (as you do here) and headed for the supermarket that I hadn't realised was a supermarket. I also found out they had free toilets and the cafe was quiet, so I managed to get some work done, really pleased about that. I was also grateful as well that the snow, that was coming down quite heavily when we set off, fizzled out to rain and then stopped by the time we got to Cesis. I had had visions of me turning up in Tartu either freezing to death or looking like a snowman and fortunately neither was the case.

And now we have light

And chainsaws have new shelves
because the electric cable runs up
behind them

I have lots of work to do this week and it wasn't helped by a trip to the big town to try and sort out the paperwork on our greenhouse. We mistimed that badly as we arrived 20 minutes before the office was due to close and so she was not best pleased, so much so that she said we needed all sorts of stamps, codes and signatures that actually were there, but she hadn't looked properly. We got sent back to our local office and fortunately when we got back to that office, the guy was just heading out the door as there wasn't much to do and he was less bothered about having to go back. He was bothered though by what he was supposed to do and in the end rang up the lady in the big town and basically asked "what on earth do you really want, it looks fine to me." He added the code that was needed to the front page of our paperwork, so she won't miss it this time, added a stamp and signature and a few scribbles, just for the sake of it I think and we should be okay to get the greenhouse paperwork sorted next time we go back to the big town- more fuel and more time! Arrrggh! This time, mark my words, there will be no prevaricating, she will get it sorted, of that I am sure, otherwise she will be dealing with a very disgruntled foreigner and she won't like that. At least to compensate I managed to do quite a bit of reading on the buses, as I travelled and in the cafe. It did make me realise though why a tablet computer is useful, a laptop on a full bus is a bit of a squish with bags.

We also have running water. Unfortunately
this isn't a permanent feature

Full ponds again

There is a worrying rise of anti-immigrant sentiments across Europe at the moment. I'm an immigrant! I also don't speak the language of the country I live in, or at least not fluently enough to hold a conversation! Two criteria that should mean I'm ostracised, which thankfully I'm not. It is easy to make immigrants a scapegoat. It is easy to blame them for all the violence and crime without looking at the reasons. That is not to say that those who partake in violence are justified in what they do, but some of them are desperate, some of them have been brought up badly, some of them reflect the society that they immersed in, let's face it residents are sometimes no angels either and their behaviour can lead to retaliation too. It won't do any good to point fingers and throw verbal stones. We have to start looking at fairness and justice, both in the countries we live and the countries where the immigrants come from. Sometimes it is economics that make them move, but why? What part has our European nations had in creating the problems? Our corporations are bad enough in our own countries, you don't need to look far to see the lack of taxes paid and diabolical wages whilst they doing nothing to address this state of affairs. How much worse do you think they will be outside of Europe where the restrictions are not the same? Our European history has created unnatural divisions of nations all over the world, our past has not dealt kindly with the nations on other continents and left a legacy of what? Some good and a lot of bad? Can I suggest before reposting news stories that put immigrants in a bad light that we think carefully what it says about us as people? Are we scapegoating by reposting them on our facebook profiles and the like? I shall not get down off my soapbox.

Estelle looking rather mucky, because she has been rolling
in the mud. Goodness only knows what her fleece will be
like to clean after shearing. Hard to think that this time
next year, she will hopefully be pregnant. 

On another note, the EU have introduced one of their not so helpful laws (some of their introductions are I think fair, and some aren't) they are set to lower the limit for benzopyrenes in foods, which sounds good since it is considered a pollutant and carcinogenic, however it is not good news for small local smokeries, using traditional techniques that abound here in Latvia. Smoked food is not eaten in large quantities, but then again they are eaten by children, so there is a dilemma. Cigarettes also contain benzopyrenes but that just means that adults are allowed to kill themselves with the effects of the pollutants. The other sources though are gas roasted meats, over-fried foods and the bbq. The black parts being the worse. Some of our friends were thinking of selling smoked food and so are not happy with the new law. I have done a little research and found an article that says marinating food and adding herbs for their antioxidant properties maybe helpful and so hopefully that might be a solution and make the food healthier into the bargain. I do hope so!

And because I don't know where else to put this, our hens have finally started laying again! Yay! Fresh eggs.

Philosophising - well maybe!

My first piece of felt from our own alpacas. It is not as
flimsy as it looks here. It is quite a sturdy piece of fabric

I had a spare few minutes this weekend, or maybe actually I was avoiding reading vast numbers of papers for my next course, so I decided to make my first piece of felt from Herkules fleece. Herkules is not our best fleece producer and the part of the fleece I used was probably the roughest bit, but at least it  did work. I got a decent size, if itchy, piece of fabric that felt tough enough to use for something. It also came up nice and white in the process. I am not wonder woman, felting is really easy and I even used to teach it to children, quite young children sometimes too. All you need is the type of wool that felts easily, some washing up liquid and as hot water as you can stand or lots of energy if you can't use hot water. Without any extra equipment apart from your hands, it is possible to make felt balls, with a bamboo mat it is possible to make fabric like in the picture. The only problem was that there was fluff everywhere from the process. I will have a go at making some more pieces and see what I can do with them. 

Reunited with the flock. Do you like the Google animation
on this? Clever isn't it!

Our sick sheep has improved and was reunited with our other two sheep. Ian thought it was quite important to do this as it seemed to be developing quite a bond with the brown chickens. Ian lets the chickens run around in the greenhouse for some of the morning and they head straight for a pile of buckwheat and so did the sheep when they were let out. She put her head close down to them and just stood there. She didn't do much, apart from lick a chicken from time to time and they let her do it too. Strange kind of bond, but we decided that she was probably lonely and needed the company of her own kind. We will just have to see how she gets on for the rest of the week. 

One of the brown chickens that the sheep had bonded with

Looking good

All our animals were given vitamin injections and worming injections this week, apart from one errant sheep who Ian couldn't catch. The vet came to help us do this since it was our first time and she also take some samples of skin from two of our alpacas just to make sure they haven't got mites. She loves our alpacas and thinks they are so easy to deal with, even if she had to avoid one of them every now and again, who was registering her displeasure about the skin scrape and injections by spitting. At least she had good reason for spitting, but next time I will knit her a spit bag, so she can't spray everyone at the same time.

Sitting down on the job! The job of eating that is

More snow this week

We re-visited the camelid place this week. I went along mainly to make sure Ian did not come back with a camel or a llama. Well that is what I told everyone. It was a good chance to talk to the ladies who run the attraction place and find out how they look after their animals and what they do to make sure they are healthy. We feel we are on track, but we are going to start giving monthly vitamin injections for the winter, and we are trying some different vegetables to see if they will eat them. So far only the older one likes veg, which actually works out really well as her condition is not absolutely brilliant, she is a lot older and this might account for it, but we would like her condition to be better next year, so she can have one more cria (baby). The others tend to muscle in if there is the sheep concentrate on offer, but the veg they don't care for and so our old one gets the chance to eat all she wants of that, with no interference from the others. 

Sunrise on a winter's morning

Even the lake is starting to freeze in our village

Ian would still like a camel though and wondered if it could be trained to pull a plough. Now that would make folks stop and stare. They are bad enough stopping to gawk at our alpacas. Good job the road isn't a particularly busy one or they would cause an accident. One thing we learnt about camels is that they live for 50 years, so if we did get one, our kids would likely inherit it! Now that would make for a funny reading of the will. The other thing we learnt is that young camels like to play! They jump about and skip and try to get people to join in, only they are bigger than me. I think I will stick to cria, at least baby alpacas are only small. 

Snuggling up in the alpaca house. Unfortunately another
chicken that was doing the same has disappeared

The travelling continued this week. I took the train back to Riga as usual and they are still working on the train tracks, which means getting on a bus for part of the journey. Getting back onto the train though is like mountain climbing, the train is so very high up from the platform at Cesis. I can barely get up with my rucksack on my back and handbag in hand. The lady behind me was struggling even more, she had a huge and very heavy bag. I stopped to give her a hand and between the two of us, we managed to get the bag up onto the train. Makes me wonder how they would manage with a wheelchair - there is space for one on the train with a special restraint for the chair. The travelling is much easier now and time just seemed to fly by. I got work done on my computer and was at the various stops before I knew it. In my weekly travels though, I am always astounded by the ability of young men to fall asleep. They get on, pay for their ticket and then nod off. Youngsters just don't seem to have the stamina these days! (only joking by the way - I need emoticons on this)

Thornless berry leaves

I had a last minute meeting with a lady who is monitoring meetings between a government department and ordinary people. It was quite fascinating and very encouraging to hear about. It seems like the work is going in the right direction, at least in some departments anyway. I had to wait a little while for her to arrive for our meeting and I waited in the doorway of a shop and was much amused to watch two young women photographing a willow structure reindeer with a parcel balanced precariously on its back. They moved the reindeer successively towards the door and then eventually out of it? It was even more amusing to watch them trying to keep the parcel on its back when it was obviously just made out of cardboard and it was windy outside. But what that was all about, I have no idea. As I said the meeting went well and we were chatting and chatting, eventually I said I really have to go and she showed me to the lifts. I didn't know my way around the shop very well and when I got out of the lift, I obviously headed in the wrong direction and came out on a street I wasn't expecting. It took me a little time to get my bearings and ended up running for the bus - well part of the way anyway. I turned up, just in time to see the bus pulling out of the bay. I was just very relieved it wasn't the last bus home, otherwise I would have been in trouble.

Sitting around on straw in the snow seems to be the thing
to do

I have mentioned before that Ian is having to do some of the work that I used to do and this week he had to sort some paperwork without me, not easy. He was going to finalise the papers for the apartment we ended up buying, so someone didn't lose their home (explanation here if you missed it) and also to make sure the greenhouse was registered properly on the land book (the paper that notes all owners, past and present, not much of a book at the moment, but over the years I think it will be). The problem is that I sent him with the wrong file that didn't contain an important piece of paper, he also found out it could have been done at the same time as the barn project was done, which is annoying as I had mentioned it at the time we were trying to sort that out, but we had been told not to bother just then - not the bureaucrats fault this time. Arrrgghh! It means a few more trips backwards and forwards, which is very annoying for Ian, as his time is limited with the short daylight hours.

Tartu university, not the one that I go to, the other one

This week I was supposed to have a full week of "Philosophy of Science" and to prepare for this I was confronted with many, many papers to read of great length and some were really irritating to read. It was even more irritating when the tutor didn't show up in the morning. I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happened to her. Despite the irritations however, I do like some concepts, such as facts are not facts in a vacuum, they depend on our perception of them. For instance measurements are not absolutes they are relative - what do I mean by that? Measurements are just an aid to measure changes or how big things are, but it is based not on a fact but on a standard developed to measure those changes or sizes. You can measure using imperial measurements or metric, which are both based on standards developed, both equally valid, but different. If measurements were absolutes, the Mars orbiter would not have crashed into Mars because the measurements would have been fixed, instead there was a mix up between the imperial measurements and the metric. Whoops! Only a mere $125m mistake. Kind of makes the point though that which standard you use is important.

Tartu city centre Christmas lights

Scientists like to think they are neutral, that their work is purely based on facts, but they are not as neutral as they like to think they are. It came as quite a shock to me, coming as I do from a natural science background, to realise that my understanding of the world determined the results and outcomes as much as what I measured. I think I kind of realised that when I finished my degree in Pharmacology and Chemistry, as there was one thing I was absolutely sure about and that was, I was not going into the pharmaceutical industry, as I did not agree with the ethics. The pharmaceutical industry is not a neutral evidence based industry, but one based on the profit motive. Drugs are not developed for their effectiveness but for their ability to generate a nice fat income for the company, so forget those one off cures, they are looking at heart disease where the incidence is high and they can keep feeding people drugs for quite a while and don't even get me started on Statins.

Winter jobs, putting fleece around the hay to stop most of
the snow getting to it

Whilst on philosophy I can't leave without mentioning the passing of Nelson Mandela. I have a huge respect for a man who sought peace and lived out forgiveness. He was no saint and that in itself is inspiring. He was grounded in reality and worked hard to see his people walk in freedom. There is still a long way to go in South Africa, but it is inspiring how far he did take the country and not always from the seat of power, as he chose not to stay in that place but work from the outside. I wonder what his legacy will be?

Pathways, roadways and ponds are now marked out with
sticks so we know where they are in the winter when the
snow gets deep