A race against time

The Amaranth after the frost. Hopefully
the seed is still fine and I have started
processing it.

I mentioned that last week we had our first frost and this week we had our second frost early on in the week with the forecast for even cooler weather on the way, this meant we had to get motivated to sort out some of our crops. We harvested all of our climbing beans, they were all just about ready for harvest anyway and then we harvested the cabbages, although they will stand some frost the forecast was for up to -7C and that is a tad cold for them, so better in the freezer than destroyed. We also harvested as many apples as we could. In addition I potted up the basil to take home. All in one day. Not bad hey! Those geese were definitely in the know.

A peaceful scene, belying the fact that Herkules has been
escaping for much of the week. He has been forced to stay
in with a little help from the more powerful electric charger.
It is not as if there is nothing to eat, just not first choice and
since the other two in particular have weight issues they can
jolly well stay in that area until they have finished the grass

The caravan in its winter quarters

I did cover some crops up in fleece, as it was impossible to harvest everything, but it wasn't perfect. The autumn raspberries did okay for a few days, but the number of hard frosty nights we have had finished them off. Such a shame as there were still plenty to come and they had been ripening nicely. The hard frosts has meant we can empty the greenhouse sooner than anticipated and since I am planning to be away this next week and then about five days later I will be away for a whole month, we decided that the chickens and the caravan needed to be put away in their winter abode. Another one of those markers in the year, that tells us the seasons are changing.

Of course the chickens had to go in first, even though it is
still dry weather outside. I still think they appreciated the
move, one of them laid an egg and they had stopped prior
to this

I know you are not supposed to move
asparagus, but it was not working
where it was and so we have chanced
it and moved it to a sunnier spot. The
asparagus bed had also got weed
infested and so another excuse to move
them. They look nice and neat now

As many of you know who have followed my blog for a while we often have trouble with wild boar (wild hogs) but lately there has been African Swine fever making its way through the country. It is an extremely infectious disease apparently, so I had a look at the updated maps showing the spread of the disease and it appears to have moved into our area now. Not sure if that is the reason we haven't had much wild boar damage this autumn or it is because the ground is so dry meaning there aren't as many grubs to dig up and eat. Whichever way the decrease in pig activity has been very welcome. If it wasn't for the fact that wild boar will be suffering, I would even go so far as to do a happy dance.

Wish I could say all the beds were as nice and neat. Maybe
next year

Ian working hard and wrapped up against the chill

I am not sure it was a good idea to let Ian go to our daughter's, it seems to have had expensive repercussions. He suddenly found out that a laser levelling device, a laser measuring device and an electric mitre saw were the must have items for the newest constructions he is doing. Wouldn't mind but he has had to take back the laser level already, though it did start working again after a bit of tinkering at the shop and now he will have to take the measuring device back. Not good for Bosch products really. I always associated Bosch with good quality and now not so sure. I've told Ian that he will now have to build the house to justify the costs. Hahaha! I wish. To be fair though, he had already requested an electric mitre saw to make the building of the alpaca houses easier and faster.

The base laid out

I helped with the first two uprights and the rest, Ian has
been busy with while I'm away

It wasn't the only repercussion. Our daughter has a blood sugar monitor and since diabetes runs in Ian's family he decided to try it out. Our daughter informed him that he was showing signs of being pre-diabetic due to his fasting blood sugar levels (she is a qualified nurse). That meant he needed to buy his own monitor when he got back home, more expense. Fortunately the monitors themselves are not so bad, but it is the strips that rack up the cost. I decided to try the monitor one morning too and what was even worse was that my fasting blood sugar was higher than Ian's. At least I can lose some weight to see if my levels will go down. I have lost the usual weight over the summer but I would need to keep an eye on it over the winter. Ian doesn't really have any weight to lose and trying to keep his calorie intake up without overdoing the carbs is going to be a bit of a nightmare. Thank goodness fat is getting less bad press than it used to.

Our little pest. If she can get in the way
she will at the moment. At least she is a good
mouser, just wish she would not leave them
lying around all over the place

Tellus in the frosty morning light

It is quite odd really, as one of the ways of managing blood sugars is to use less carbohydrates that cause the sugar spikes. What is needed is a slow release carbohydrate or a way of slowing the release down. Many moons ago while we were at university, we took part in some studies to observe how to modify the sugar spikes from foods like apples and sweetcorn. It is as if the research we were part of back then is going to affect how we eat in the future. We did something useful after all. Wish I could say the same about the paper I have been trying to get published. It has been sent back again regarding the quality of the English. I know this blog is not always written in perfect English, I am often a bit tired when I sit down to write it and it isn't an academic exercise and so I am not always so careful, but really my English is not that bad, nor is my co-author and definitely not the lady who proofread it. I am really quite bewildered by the comment and thoroughly exasperated by the process. Oh well! At least the editor made the changes she felt necessary and so I need to go through them and find out what the problem is ..... again!!!!

Herkules our escape artist

Turbjørn looking quite jolly in this picture

We had a brush with the law this week too. The regional police have been doing a tour of the area looking to generate a few Euros by some accounts. We were travelling back from the land and there was a BMW behind us and Ian was expecting it to pass us once we got onto the tarmac, but it didn't. Instead a police car overtook both of us with lights flashing and then pulled up in front of us. The policeman was unusually brusque. Once they realise we don't speak much Latvian the Latvian police usually try and deal with us as quickly as possible and are usually reasonably polite, at least not rude. Ian wasn't quite sure what they were asking for and so I explained that it was the driver's licence, but in the meantime the policeman seemed to be muttering something about in Latvian speaking Latvian. I realise that we should, but it would have been quite rude if we had just been visitors and at the time he didn't know whether we were or weren't, apart from the car being registered in Latvia. The policeman looked rather disappointed that Ian had zero for alcohol when he used the breathalyser and they couldn't find anything wrong with the car either.

An empty space where a caravan once stood

Estelle. Now is she pregnant or not? We think she is

To wrap up this week, I am in Jelgava on a course. The course description is something similar to the research the students did for me earlier on in the year about Sense of Place - how people are attached to places and what they feel about them. Should be interesting to hear some different perspectives. It was a rather early start as normal when I catch buses and it was also a very cold start, as it was minus 5C (23F) this morning. So after that early start, I am now sat in one of the university hostel rooms, which is noisy from the traffic outside and that is with the windows shut and I can hear voices from the room next door, but at least I am not sharing a room and the bed is comfy. I am also longing for a cup of tea, but there won't be one until later on in the day tomorrow because they do not seem to have a kettle in the communal kitchen area. They have mugs, two cookers and two frying pans, but I cannot see a kettle.

Tragedy and joys

A stunning sunset

This week there was an immense tragedy at our house, Macbook Pro number 2 died. We bought Macbook Pro's just before we left America because Ian's old work one went on and on and on and still works even now, if a little cranky and needs to be constantly plugged in but it is 8 years old. We expected new ones to do the same, but oh no! The extra expense of buying what we thought would be a robust and reliable computer turned out to be a bad move. We don't know for sure if Macbook Pro number 2 died of the same disease as Macbook Pro number 1or not, aka a logic board, as we have to go all the way into Riga to take it to an apple repairer to find out, but we do know if it is then it is mega expensive to replace. So two computers bought a month apart both die within three months of each other, somehow don't feel like such an ardent Mac fan anymore.

A creative project this week. One of our neighbours isn't
sleeping well and is pregnant and a pillow like this helped
me all those years ago (over 21 now, help!) and so I had a
go at making one from fabric and pillows that weren't being
used for her. Kept me out of mischief for an afternoon anyway

Last week I mentioned that the majority of Latvians use a third of the electric we do which I found quite shocking, as I thought we don't use that much electric, but this week I am not so sure. A survey of households by a social and research agency found that only 4% of economically active Latvians use less than 100 KW/hrs per month, as unemployment stands at around 20% and if all of the unemployed used less than 100 KW/hrs then that is a quarter of Latvians in total not nearly half as Latvernergo stated. It does get complicated trying to compare the figures though as they are not comparing like with like and maybe the other proportion of folks are pensioners and possibly those out in rural areas do not use much electricity either as the study was done in Riga. What is for sure is that the rates are going up even though Latvernergo are not in any danger of making a loss, because by August of last year they were well in profit, but the bigger the profit the more tax so I guess the government or the IMF are happy. Just a shame those profits are not being invested in a better network, particularly in rural areas so that when the neighbours starts milking the cows the lights don't dim for everyone else on the line. The survey does call into question where Latvenergo gets their figures from though.

You have to trust me on this, I took this picture of the
sparkly diamond rain and would it show up on the camera?
No of course it didn't. Still you can see we have a lot of
snow still

We have still been having lots of glorious sunny weather and hardly a cloud in the sky for most of it too. The temperatures though have still been low, around -20s at night and -15-ish during the day but the last couple of days it has been gradually warming up and may have even briefly got to close to 0C today. Had to take a layer off just to shift some wood as I was getting too hot. There was one day this week it was so pretty as it looked like it was raining diamonds, just imagine a very slight drizzle but with the sun shining and instead of wet drops of fine rain, they are shiny, sparkly dancing, dazzling, lights shimmering their way down to the ground. It felt like another gift from heaven to remind me of the richness of God, a message to me to not worry about tomorrow because God has my tomorrows in his hands. At least the continued cold weather meant I finally got out skiing this week, I couldn't put it off any longer. I didn't do badly at all, I made my own little track around our orchard while Ian was busy digging in the snow with his tractor to clear a path down to our unfinished barn and I only fell down five times, twice in the first five minutes. One thing I did find was that getting up from a groomed track (ie one made by a skidoo and so compacted) was easier than trying to get up from the fresh snow of my home made track, every time I put my hand down it sank in the snow up to my elbow, and digging in my sticks didn't help either. In the end I found out that laying the sticks across the snow and leaning on them that way helped me to get up, difficult to explain and probably hilarious to watch, so glad none of you were there to see me.

Not sure what this is a footprint of but have wondered if
it was a lynx. One of the ladies I teach English too, saw one
while out skiing this last week.

We have had a fun time reconnecting with folks this week, about time too really as we have been back over a month already. Some friends were having a short break at the disney like castle quite close by and so we joined them at the end of their skiing day for a meal. Two days later and we joined some more friends for another meal round at their house - I could get quite use to this, saves me cooking anyway. On our way back, however, from the second meal we were stopped by the police, who for some reason were parked smack bang in the middle of the road outside our apartment, only we didn't realise they were police because it was dark, until we saw the reflective police stick that is, being waved by one guy indicating for us to pull over, although the road is that narrow that wasn't an option so we just stopped. It is quite normal to be stopped by the police here and it is nothing to worry about, we have been stopped numerous times, usually on the way to the airport but a lack of language here is a big help and all they want to see is driver's licence, technical documents and insurance documents - which should be in the car anyway. Often we get stopped during holiday times ie round about Christmas and Jani, the mid-summer festival time as they are checking for drunk drivers but they stop just about everyone then, so not a problem. What they were doing outside our apartment is beyond me though, as it is hardly a hive of activity. There is our apartment block of 18 apartments and a few houses on our street and hardly else anyone uses it, especially at that time of night and not all of them have cars either.

The view from the front door of our
other apartment

The update on our heating is that this week we have had good heat in our radiators despite the fact it has been so cold, so I am expecting a lower bill than the month before paradoxically. We shall see if our theory is correct that the lower the heat in the radiators the higher the bill because it is not high enough to switch on the recirculation pump, since we are charged for the amount of water pumping around the radiators and not necessarily the heat they contain.  The good news is that our house is sending off a letter of complaint this week as enough people have signed the letter and the heating company will now have 28 days to reply, should be interesting to know what they have to say. We shall not be paying for last months bill until it has been rectified that is for sure.

We feel like we have really made progress this week as we have finally just about finished off our other apartment and cleaned up the layers of dust from all the work. so if you were following last week I did get my sums right this time and we had more than enough flooring to finish the job off (Phew!). We are really pleased with it, as it looks very smart in a shabby chic sort of way. We have tried to use the original fittings where possible, which in reality means the doors and door frames and that is about it and we have taken the walls back to the rough plastered finish which is actually quite rustic in a way and I love the texture. It still looks a bit spartan and I have to sort out some pictures to hang up and we still have a few finishing off jobs such as beading around the laminate flooring as we didn't find any at the big diy stores (so it is not just our small local stores that don't have it in). I think we will try and make our own later on with our own wood and a router or maybe it will just not get done like the apartment we live in as we still waiting for skirting boards or beading to finish off the floors here too after nearly three years. So who is up for a visit now it is looking smart? One thing that is nice is that I now have somewhere that I can work which is not our bedroom and I can walk up to the apartment for a bit of exercise too. Unfortunately there is no internet there so I have to download all my work at home first to my computer so that I can read it when I get there, but perhaps it is a good idea there is no internet to distract me while I am there, probably get much more done.

This now has my desk and books in

We have had a few visitors to the apartment already, one day we left the door open as we were taking things up and down to the basement and an open door is an open invitation here, so one of our neighbours wandered in to have a look, she was impressed with the changes and my Latvian certainly stretched to "skaista" - beautiful, and the international "super" which was rather sweet. We also had young visitors today as unfortunately the lady we visited the other day for one of our meals out wasn't feeling very well over the weekend and is in hospital for a short stay and her son needed taking to basketball practice and then stay at our apartment for a short while to wait for his dad. I suddenly realised how out of practice I am with having kids around in my own place, there isn't much to do and not much in the way of things to drink but we coped and set them to work helping Ian take a load of wood down into the basement - as you do, nothing like a bit of child labour to keep the place warm. Actually they were very good and very helpful.

Looking back towards the front door
we have left these door frames unpainted
to match in with the doors. It means
the toilet door does not look so glaringly
modern compared to the others now

I love this mulberry colour in the living room. And do you
like the two little African guys in the corner, a present from
our son from his African trip

This is the bedroom and you can
see the door which had the paint
stripped off, sanded down and linseed
oil added