Do you smell gas?

Vanessa does look like her mother. 

I forgot to mention last week that there was a serious gas smell in the apartment and before you ask, no it was not me. It kept getting stronger and I even got up one night to check that I had turned the gas cylinder off. I was going to make Ian take the cylinder back to the garage where we had bought it from when he announced he had found the source of the aroma - a dead mouse under the kitchen sink. Phew! In more ways than one. At least the smell has now gone.

Vanessa's mother is Veronica on the left.

Not much in the way of blue skies this week

Something else I forgot to mention was that Ian had some visitors to the land, who arrived in the middle of a blizzard. Ian thought he could hear voices and went to investigate. There was a group of folks, well dressed for the weather, who were heading into our village on foot and had stopped to see our alpacas. It turned out it was our friend from the little village nearby who regularly brings his friends to see us. It was nice of him to pop in again and apparently they all stood outside for an hour and chatted.

And Ian has still had a lot of work clearing snow again

But it has also been melting and so the
drain cleaning work begins too

The first half of the week was back to reading reports and papers, at least I feel I have actually made progress this week and got into production mode. It is always hard to know when to stop. Just one more report! Just one more paper! Before you know where you are, that's another day gone and nothing written. That is certainly how it felt in the first half of the week, but over the last two days I actually got a whole section finished for my paper. Step 2 tomorrow.

See that! That's actually water in the top pond. Okay maybe
seeing water is not a huge deal to most folks but after the
drought this year and the snow, it is still always a shock to
actually see the liquid stuff.

I think someone is going to need their teeth cutting at
shearing time.

I could have perhaps progressed a little more if we hadn't had other stuff to do though. On Friday a specialist vet from Lithuania came. Our friends who live nearby were worried about their animals and a local vet was not sure what to do about an eye problem. We agreed to split the cost of the visit as we felt it was good to get an opinion from a specialist about our alpacas' health and ask about Chanel's skin problem. She suggested that perhaps one or two of them could do with extra zinc and confirmed that Veronica probably has osteo-arthritis and that is why her front legs are beginning to collapse but normal due to her age. She said as long as she wasn't in pain though she was fine but maybe at some point she will need anti-inflammatories. She has taken hair samples and a blood sample from Chanel and we are just waiting to see what they show. She said it probably started with one thing and then progressed to something else.

A cool pose by Silla

Look! Look! That's grass down there. 

She looked at Freddie too as Ian noticed that he had started twisting his foot again on the ice like last year. She said he had weak ligaments on one side of his knee cap. She thinks it is probably due to being damaged at some stage. We did suspect that. Aggie would charge him from time to time when she was in one of her foul moods (Oh! she does not do pregnancy) and had wondered if that had been the cause. It was either that and slipping on the ice but never noticed that happening. We do have to watch him though in case it causes him trouble in later life. Apart from that, all was good. Our own vet came along to chat and hear her opinions so she could learn. I am always so grateful for her desire to learn more about our animals and how to treat them. We couldn't ask for more.

This too will pass!

Jakobs looking cute as always and beginning to look very
fluffy around the face. At least it is not as close to his eyes
as his older brother, George's was when he was little.

In the evening we had a lovely visit from our neighbour from the upstairs apartment to practice her English. It was wonderful to hear about her love of music and how she enjoys playing in the church. She especially enjoys choosing music that she feels will lift the spirits of others. I love to hear her practice and so I can imagine how much others would enjoy it too. She learnt a new word, well kind of new, dissonance. Being a musician she knew what it meant and was happy to know she could use it in other ways too to explain those times when things do not fit well together. I certainly feel a lot of dissonance when listening to the Brexit debate.

George is growing up too. His face is taking on the look of
a more adult looking alpaca and losing his baby looks

Another candidate for teeth cutting.

The following day we were up early and off to Lithuania with our alpaca owner friends to meet up with another alpaca breeder and to pick up some alpaca feed that we are trying. Camelibra is great, but it is expensive. It is also small, which presents us with a couple of issues. Ian cannot use it for training, as it is too small, as well as expensive and it also means some of our alpacas wolf it down and then move onto the trays of the other alpacas. Larger granules slows them down a bit. We are noticing that our alpacas are doing well on Camelibra and so it was nice to see that the alpacas are also doing well on Alpamin. We couldn't see any obvious skin issues, which we would expect to see on at least a couple of them. The lady also said since using it that hers had been fine on it and the fleeces were good too.

The plastic on the greenhouse is starting to struggle with age.
Ian had to patch the great big tear in the middle of this section

We bought some alfalfa pellets to help the girls who are
feeding cria (babies) as they were getting thin, the problem
is that it was turning to powder. This is what it should look
like.

We spent a long time talking, with Russian, Latvian and English all being spoken. It was good for our friend who does not speak much English to be able to find out answers to her questions in Russian. Her daughter then translated from Latvian to English for us. We also spent some time looking at the alpacas of course and eventually we set off. We were in a rush to make it back before dark, which in the end, we didn't manage. Unfortunately Ian didn't slow down quick enough at the sign for the urban speed limit and was spotted by a police car on the opposite side of the road and clocked. Ian figured that we were about to be stopped as soon as they put their blue lights on and sure enough we were. Of course they were not in a rush and we figured that they wouldn't be terribly sympathetic that we had to get back to put our alpacas away. So the alpacas were put away by torchlight. Fortunately they were well behaved and went in reasonably well, even Turbjørn who often won't go in when it's dark.

A third of the bag looked like this though. Ian sent the bags
back but we are still waiting for replacements from the company
Dobele. Not good!

After the excitement

We have had snowy days this week and so Ian has had a
lot of snow clearing to do

I suppose this last week was a bit of a reality check. I was employed and I had work to do. Procrastination was not a good habit to encourage and so for most of the week I had my head buried in academic papers, only coming up for air to take a break or make our evening meal. I made notes, contributed comments by email and generally did what most office bound people do, only I didn't leave my Latvian apartment. I did find out some interesting facts about our sewage systems that are not able to filter out the vast majority of pharmaceutical compounds. This surprised me. I knew there were issues with hormones and recreational drugs appearing in our waterways and seas but didn't realise so much were getting through the water treatment plants. So folks, don't flush unused drugs down the sewage system.

Turbjørn 

Jakobs and his mum, Mari, obviously playing at who has
the longest straw

On Friday we were expecting visitors to our farm and so I decided to take the day off and go with Ian. First we had to go and get chicken food and I got my haircut at the same time, well, not exactly at the same time. I know this is Latvia, but animal feed operations don't normally also do haircuts. It is just the hairdresser and the feed place were in the same village. I did think I would have time to go skiing before our visitors arrived, but due to a bit of miscommunication we ended up hanging around a bit waiting for someone to show up. Eventually an old guy turned up and so I had to manage with my very rudimentary Latvian to get the right feed stuffs we wanted. The lady who normally works there doesn't speak English either but she knows what we regularly order. Anyway it worked. At least I can manage the names of the grains and I know the difference between flour, kibbled wheat and whole grains in Latvian. I might not be able to hold a conversation but our chickens won't go hungry.

Brencis and Freddie. It all looks a bit too much for Brencis

Josefs with a snow moustache

Our visitors were people who had stopped by our place last year and Ian had gone down to chat with them. They came bearing many gifts, such as chocolate, an enormous pumpkin, apple juice, apples and chopped carrots and apples for the alpacas. They had obviously been doing their research and knew quite a bit about alpacas. They were also used to interacting with animals and were patient with them. Something we will probably do in the future is to sell animals, but that will be very hard for Ian - it will be like selling his children. However the lady was very sympathetic and we jokingly said that references would be needed. She mentioned they maybe interested in buying some in the future and were welcome to go and visit them to see their farm so we would know what they would be going to. At least that is reassuring for Ian.

Snow moustaches were obviously contagious as Aggie also
had one

Mr. P though was having a snow bath instead

Just after we arrived home I had a text from our neighbour upstairs, wondering if we were home and if she could come and chat. I had mentioned the week before that if she wanted to practice her English she would be very welcome. She is a bit concerned as her exams are looming and she doesn't feel comfortable enough speaking in English yet. We agreed for her come down when we had finished eating and spent the rest of the evening having some great conversations. We were able to reassure her that she is very clear and I am sure with a few more evenings like that, she will improve a lot. I also sent her away with a Dorling Kindersley book on Russia to practice her reading. Plenty of text but also lots of pictures.

Meanwhile some were just having a sunbathe. I'm still not
quite sure who is who here and I'm not at home to ask Ian.
Ian has been having a job trying to sort out the doors though
on the new alpaca houses as they are getting stuck as the
ice rises. 

The early start was not helped by the unexpected dumping
of snow we had had in the night and it is starting to get
quite deep, despite the melt we also had one day this week

Saturday was an early start. We were out on our land just after 7:30am letting the animals out and feeding the chickens. We had a two hour drive to see some folks who needed some help with trimming an alpaca's front teeth and removing its fighting teeth. The job itself didn't take very long and we spent the rest of the morning talking about alpacas and eating the spread that their mother had prepared. Much was homemade from the bread, the meat, mustard sauce, jam, hazelnut butter, and sunflower seed butter. At least we didn't need any more for lunch. Ian dropped me off at home so I could continue working on papers that I had also been reading in the car - well when the car was on roads that were not so bumpy.

Chanel glowing in the sunshine

Ian messing about with reflections

In the evening a friend came around to talk to us a bit more about a job offer for Ian. Ian needs to be earning a sufficient income to help us with our residence situation after Brexit, if that does go ahead and working at the nearby camp on organising a garden and fruit bushes was one way to do that. He earns some money from shearing, EU subsidies and the visitors to the land, but it is not quite enough and he needs to top up really to ensure he is above the minimum wage. We are not sure how it will work out and the hours will be flexible but at least we can see how it goes. It is obviously only part-time and not far from our own land. Summer can be quite hard physically and so of course that is a bit of a worry, but we can only try and do what we can, like any other farmer.

A short while ago these were frosted leaves
now they are icicles

Larry the Lada car, gradually disappearing under the snow

Sunday was back to the papers and marking students work for my other job I have. It wasn't just reading papers though, it was also helping in the writing process. We didn't finish the one off last week and we got an extension to get it done. The idea was that I would do the polishing off as the only native English speaker working on it. I was going through the bits I thought were finished when I got a phone call from my supervisor to tell me to slow down. Not often am I told that. I went and put the heating on, made our evening meal, cooked a summer fruit crumble from our freezer stash of berries and some blackcurrant muffins while I waited. We finished the editing just before 10pm. Some of the conversations we had while working on the paper in the google chat got a bit silly, but at least we got the work done. So the paper is now safely resubmitted and we wait and see what the reviewers have to say about it this time around.

The softened contours around the pond. At least it might
fill up with water when it all melts. That will be helpful and
get our year off to a good start. 

The support for our outdoor grapes.

Today's lunch. Not bad for Estonian fish and chips

Today I am in Tartu again. This time I didn't have to wake up extremely early, as a friend of ours - the same one who offered Ian a job, offered to drive me up. He doesn't work as much at this time of the year and so happy to take me. It was beautiful day for a drive and the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the fields were covered in a glistening blanket of snow. Quite breathtaking. We met my friend who I stay with at one of the local malls to have lunch together and have more of a chat about life. It was so nice to set off in daylight and arrive in daylight - not something I do often. My friend hosts a bible study once a week and so I joined in with that. A pleasant finish to a pleasant and relatively relaxing day. Well it was for me, not so sure about for my friend who did all the driving, but it was much appreciated anyway.