Soggy

Surprisingly enough, no children were
out playing today. A rather soggy
playground

A rather large area of low pressure has sat over us for the last 24 hours at least, bringing rain for much of that time. At least it held off long enough for me to have a good stint in the garden to get rid of some of the weeds that were beginning to make my orchard plot unrecognisable. I have also started harvesting some of the squash, one sort is spaghetti squash which has grown in a totally unexpected place and the other sort we are not sure what type it is, they are bright yellow instead of the blue of sweetmeat squashes which is what we thought they might be. They have obviously crossed with another type. So it will be interesting to find out what they taste like. The onions are all in too, just in time by the look of them, if they had sat out in this rain, they could well have rotted away, as would some of the beans. Some beans are still nice and green, but others were starting to get the tell tale signs of needing to be picked.

Ian sifting buckwheat. We won't be bothering with sifting
all the buckwheat, the chickens will be doing that for
themselves. This is for seed next year

Having gathered in the hay, the barley and the buckwheat now, I feel that my life is gradually returning to a more measured pace, where I can get some studying done in peace. Actually it is not just the harvests that have been completed, it is also the fact that I have just about completed the paper I was writing and the lessons for the Sociology course I will be teaching online. All had to be complete by the end of the month and so it is nice to just have the tidying up jobs to do on those. I even finished a short piece on what I am actually studying for a doctoral colloquium - sounds absolutely pretentious name for a group of doctoral students errr I mean candidates sitting around talking about what they are doing. I do enjoy going to them though.

The sifted chaff

Before on the left and after on the right

Chanterelles for our evening meal

You can tell what season we are in by what we are eating, we are definitely moving into harvest time. One evening meal consisted of potatoes, carrots, sage and nettles taken from the garden (the nettles were cut from an area that had been cut down during the year and so were tender enough to eat), a couple of large beefsteak tomatoes from the greenhouse, lentils from the cupboard and smoked goat's cheese from my friend Santa. This was followed by windfall apple scones, with sour cream and roasted grapes. It was rather good, even if I do say so myself. Tonight it was mushroom risotto with chanterelles we picked from our forest, since the wild boar hadn't actually dug over our favourite spot this year and a cep - yes only one, but then they are quite large mushrooms. My breakfast is usually porridge, whatever time of the year and I often take it out to the land to eat, to save time in the morning, as I don't like to hurry breakfast. The nice part about taking my breakfast out there is that I can get fresh berries to put in it. The berries that are added changes throughout the year, from the strawberries in early July, through blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries to now where they are blackberries, blueberries and autumn raspberries - well that is if the wasps haven't snaffled them first. The wasps have been pretty bad this year, must have been the relatively mild winter we had I guess.

Franken-ramp! We used the shredder to process the grain
crops and it worked rather well, but it was hurting Ian's back
bending over feeding the stuff in. Not much better for me,
holding the sack over the outlet, so Ian built the ramp and
base so he doesn't have to bend over so much. It is also bolted
to the frame for stability

View from a different angle

Outside my office, stood just inside the caravan door

The article written about our life on the farm and put in the local papers resulted in another visit to our land this week. This time it was a relative of one of our neighbours. She had been meaning to come for a while but hadn't got our number or anything, so as my email was printed along with the article, she sent me a message to arrange a time to come. She even brought along her family, her two children, her father and her sister and her family who were visiting. They brought goodies for the animals to see if they would like them and as usual our boys were only interested in the grain but the girls enjoyed the carrots and apples and the chickens enjoyed the bread and the rowan berries. Once again the children were more fascinated with the chickens than the alpacas, but they still enjoyed feeding them.

My office this morning

We had a chuckle about the article the other day. The day was reasonably warm and so we took our morning coffee up to the spot where we hope to build a house one day and sat and chatted and watched the alpacas eating, when we remembered the title of the article roughly translated being "Corncrake alpacas and the hardworking English couple" (Grieze or corncrake being the name of our land or at least some derivative of that name), anyone looking at us at that moment in time, might not think we were so hardworking, but then again, I guess they don't see us the rest of the time.

The heater in the caravan went on today

About a month ago I sent off a letter to our local heating company complaining about the charges they keep adding to the bills. There is no explanation as to what they are and they are added in a fairly random manner. I suspect they add them and hope no one notices. I was fully expecting a letter to say the equivalent of "get lost and pay your bill" - well maybe not quite so rude, but they may as well put that for the replies we have had in the past. Anyway when I opened the letter I was in for a shock. It was very short and so easy to type into Google translate and basically said, "sorry we got it wrong and sorry for the inconvenience." I have never known that company apologise before, however, they only applied the reversal of the charge to the last bill we had and not the the many months of erroneous charges. So that means yet another letter making absolutely clear which charges I am referring to month by month. Obviously I will have to do the hard work for them, despite the fact I told them how much I thought they had added in error.

Religious chickens and not so religious musings

What's going on down there?

Our chickens are, or rather have been, quite religious, since they started laying they always had Sundays off. Not sure if they changed their religion this last week though, as they had Friday off instead. Mind you they at least gave us five eggs the day before and four the following day and so we are starting to move into the productive period now. Housing them in the greenhouse over winter has worked a treat. Even on the coldest of days in the minus 20s they have been fine after shutting them up in their boxes overnight. They have been scratching through the hay in their runs and turning it into lovely compost for us and eating up all the scraps we care to throw at them. Many people were worried that they would get frostbite without other animals to keep them warm, but this has proved not to be a problem. The problems we have had are keeping them watered with the tendency for it to freeze in their small water boxes, but Ian discovered just lately, they actually quite like snow and although we would have to watch it didn't make them too cold on the coldest of days, at least they won't dehydrate.

Blue sky! Looks good, doesn't it?

We are still running into problems with getting a house out on the land. This time it was the price of the architect. Unfortunately for us he is Riga based and prices are higher there than out in the sticks. It is a shame as we would have loved to have worked with him, but I am guessing that the solutions may also have been too expensive too. At the rate we are going, we may end up with another barn and not much more - only joking, but just! I am not sure how we are going to get it done, and we would only move step by step, but I do sense the need to be out there and getting involved in the farming community and for that we need a house. We also need a place out there as we are now tied with the animals. Fortunately another friend has suggested another more local architect and so we will try that route now.  I must admit that re-reading this paragraph makes it sound oh so sensible, but I did not feel oh so sensible when I read the quote from the architect. I knew it was going to be more than for the barn project, but felt quite shocked at how much more. It took me a day to pick myself up after that.

Not many candlesticks made this week, but look at the
potential candlesticks!

I have been emailing backwards and forwards a lot this week. I hadn't heard more from Tartu and decided to find out where they were at with my place. The paperwork should be done today, but lectures have already started. Fortunately they don't seem to be too onerous to catch up on, but it did mean that I had to get my act together to get myself up to Tartu this coming week. By the time you read this post I, hopefully, should be sat on a bus somewhere between Valmiera in Latvia and Tartu in Estonia. Seems weird to take a passport on a coach journey, but I have that ready too. To ease me in gently someone will meet me at the bus station and let me stay at her home again, an answer to prayer in itself. At least I can then find out exactly what will be expected of me in the next four years this week and therefore find out what my needs will be regarding accommodation too.

We found out recently we were supposed to making more
of an effort to thin out the forest from growth that was
stunting it and the weather hasn't been too bad, so Ian
has been making an effort to do some clearing. 

On the heating front, we are still plodding through with that. Our lawyer managed to get the papers done on Friday, which meant that we were able to take them down to the heating company this morning to get their official stamp and signature that they had received them. Hopefully now we might get some answers from them about the way they add charges to the bills without explanation and why they insist we owe money for inadequate heating. I'm not holding my breath though, the business is supposedly in such disarray they might not be able to. We'll see. The actual heating is also still a bit hit and miss. It was cool overnight with the radiators barely warm this morning - that was actually nice for a change as recently it has been too warm and this was reflected in the absolutely enormous bill we received. The bill was nearly 147 LVLs for one month. With average wages around 269 LVLs a month in our region (source Latvian Government statistics) and the minimum basket for foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs also at 113.36 LVLs (again according to Government statistics) that leaves 9 LVLs for electric, water etc. for a single person, nothing left for mortgage or rent. And they wonder why people can't or won't pay? We still haven't decided what to do about this months bill, there are question marks still over the way our heating is plumbed in and the new meter is suspect too. We would like some answers, not accusations.

This area is still to do and so you can see the difference.
Mind you when the snow clears we will have a lot of
tree stumps and it will be interesting to see how big
they really are.

I have had some interesting discussions via emails and blogs just lately. They have not necessarily been with people who I would agree with, mind you who could we say we agree 100% with, but it has been interesting to see my point of view challenged or supported from surprising sources. I think one of the big problems with the Christian church is its fear of challenge at times, its fear of facing questions and worse still the fear of not having the answers. Ian sent me a link to the Radio Two's "Pause For Thought" by Rabbi Shoshanna Boyd Gelfand. She talks about a Jewish tradition of Makhloket, which is a concept of arguing "for the sake of heaven." She says that the tradition was a way of rabbis to seek debate with people of different opinions from their own in a sincere attempt to get more in touch with the divine nature of God. It might even put a different spin on Matthew 18:19-21

Matthew 18:19-21The Message (MSG)^18-20 “Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”

I've been busy too. I finished off this baby sleeping
bag for grandchild number 2. It still needs some
buttons on the bottom but I can do that later

What happens if these were actually short, pithy statements, and not meant to be taken as an integrated whole. Point one, a yes on earth is a yes in heaven, point two, what you say to one another is eternal (would we think more carefully about what we say if we thought about this more?), point three, a prayer together of agreement connects together with God in some way that one doesn't, point four when two or three of you get together for God's sake he'll be there - it doesn't say if we agree on this point, but if we get together for the sake of God. He can be there in the debate, helping us to see more clearly the breadth and scope of his work, of his desire for us a human race, of his perspective that is infinitely broader than our human eyes alone can see. We should not be afraid of talking to people who disagree with us, we should be grateful to them for showing us a different way of thinking. That does not mean we have to take on board everything that others say, but it does mean we get out of our brains the things that we believe, examine them carefully in the light of what is said and at that point decide if it is something we should keep or discard. Life should be a process of growth, where we carefully think about our beliefs, our reactions to situations, how we live our life etc.. For me there are some absolutes, such as there is a God in Heaven who cares for us, enough to send his Son who is also part of God, to rescue us from the mess we are in, he overcame death to give us life and expects us to live in that revelation. I have taken those beliefs out and I feel they have stood the test of time, even become stronger in some ways. But how we live our "church" life, the beliefs in the church on various issues, I am not as strong on, sometimes I even think they are a hindrance. I have no desire to throw the baby out with the bathwater and so I am happy for people to continue living out their faith, in the way they see fit. So let's talk about it, let's discuss it, let's not be defensive about our faith. Let us examine together what we believe and why. Above all, let us discover more about this creator who wants us on board to sort out the mess we've made and make life beautiful again throughout the world. Utopian? Perhaps! Possible? Well I think so and I will put all my passion and energy into seeing this world transformed.

I think we might need to clear our balcony

A view down the road. Yes there is a road down there

Entertaining week

The snow piles outside our apartment block.
Any wonder I sometimes have a little laugh
to myself when I see the woes of those living
in England and having to deal with the
snow there. I suppose 

Our week started off with a visit to an architect. We arranged to meet in a cafe near to where he lives in a village we know. Being a small village, we were pretty sure we would stand out as the incomers, I mean we look so English don't we? Well perhaps not! Maybe we have assimilated, or maybe it was more to do with one of the local villagers recently acquiring a car very similar to ours and so the architect was still waiting for a new couple to turn up in a different car. Not quite sure how long we both sat in the cafe before the architect approached us to see if we were the couple he was waiting to meet. In the meantime we both had ordered drinks and something to eat. I was just about to text him when he came up and introduced himself. The meeting went well though and we talked about all sorts of things, we even talked about the house that we want to build. We did worry him at one point though. After spending quite a bit of time talking about how we felt that people should be paid fairly for what they do, whilst recognising the economic realities of Latvia that not all materials can be purchased with receipts, we then got onto talking about our barn and the costs of the architect to build it, he thought we were talking about the total cost of the barn, which was substantially more. Here was the poor man thinking how could he possibly come up with plans at such a low price. He was rather relieved when we got that point clear.

I was recently looking through some old pictures and saw
some of alpacas when they first came. They look quite
skinny compare to the thick fleeced individuals we have now

For those who have been following along with our story, you may know that in the last heating season the heating company sent cold water around to our apartment block. This is not much fun when temperatures are as low as they get here. Going out for a walk is not nice when you know that there is no warm home waiting for you when you get back. The heating company were also indifferent to the request for an increase in the heat, despite the fact there were babies in the apartment block and only 9C in the flats where they were, they also blamed the apartment block for their "faulty installation." That in itself was a joke because the "faulty installation" had worked perfectly well two years previously. The heating this season has been much better most of the time, so we thought that perhaps they had listened and we would start to look at what we owed and how much we were willing to pay back, having refused to pay the bills they sent until they sorted it out. We requested a break down of the bills and how they had been calculated, especially since they had added some strange, unexplained costs to the bills. We might be willing to pay for what we feel is justified, but we are not mugs. The answer we received back from that request was not helpful and in fact rather childish and so we decided enough was enough and go and see a lawyer. Of course the process of doing that is far more costly than just paying the bill, but that is what the heating company rely on. In fact the costs of getting the lawyer involved, as usual, is far beyond the scope of most people anyway. We decided though that the principle is more important and we acknowledge that principles do not come cheap.

Looking more rounded

The lawyer was a lovely women, who asked lots of questions and took our documentation to work through. She has also dealt with the company before and knows what they are like. During the course of this obviously serious meeting, Ian suddenly leapt out of his chair and started dancing around the room, clasping his leg. Snigger! You bet! The poor guy had cramp! It didn't stop any of us from laughing though, even Ian. Fortunately cramp translates quite easily and she wasn't left wondering what kind of clients we were. We also learnt a new Latvian word, but I would think that Ian would be really glad to never having to be the source for using the word in future encounters.

What you've all been waiting for I know. Our little man
(aka our first grandchild) with his mummy and daddy

During last year, we were chatting to a friend who was telling us that his wife had had a really painful arm and after various tests was still not sure what it was, either that or it was something more serious, I can't remember the exact details now, but what I do remember is that eventually she talked to a doctor who suggested a large dose of vitamin D and within days there was a major improvement. Ian had been getting sore fingers, which of course gets put down to old age and so I thought that perhaps he should try the vitamin D, plus of course we had a fairly damp summer too (not as bad as the UK, but not good either) and the autumn had been rather overcast and so a good dose of vitamin D was perhaps necessary. There has been a lot in the media about vitamin D just lately with suggestions that it is perhaps quite important in a range of diseases including heart problems too and since that runs in my family, thought that perhaps I should take note. Well I have to warn you, we think we have discovered a very serious side effect of this medication, it could lead to a serious case of a cheerful disposition, even in the middle of winter. Now I think our children will concur with me on this, Ian has been renowned for being a bit grumpy at times and winter can be okay as long as the sun shines, but this winter there hasn't been a lot of that, but there has been a difference in Ian. His grumpiness usually leaves around March, maybe even as late as May depending on the weather, but this year he is whistling and making cheerful remarks, even smiling to himself and it is only February. It is very disconcerting. I know he is a chap with a brilliant sense of humour, but general cheeriness is not his style. Makes you realise why Vitamin D is prescribed in the mental health hospital where my daughter used to work. So be warned, if you do start taking Vitamin D, you may become quite cheery! Imagine a world populated by lots of cheery people, quite scary really.

The little man sleeping in
the cocoon I knitted for him

We hopefully have the car finally sorted, they eventually managed to find four glow plugs which didn't cost 48 Lvls each, only 28 Lvls each (say it fast it doesn't sound so much does it, well maybe not). It is funny how these things can take time to get organised sometimes. We were in before Christmas trying to find out what the issue was with its poor starting in bad weather and it has taken them a month after the Christmas holidays to source the glow plugs which were the problem and getting us booked in for the service. Still it is done now and we will find out tomorrow morning whether it has cured the problem. One of the nice things about taking the car to Jekabpils for a service is they wash the car for us, bit of an expensive way of getting a wash though but at least it is no longer quite so ice encrusted as it was earlier on in the day, the second is much nicer, we had our customary fish and chips at one of the few places in Latvia that do a nice English style fish and chips. What more could you ask for?

A bit gloomy but very atmospheric

I have still been doing my liaising for the local timber company and some of those contacts are beginning to see results now, which is very satisfying. One thing my neighbour really understands, which is sometimes lacking in Latvian companies, is the need to ensure customer satisfaction. She is very flexible in adjusting her products to the requirements of the customer - the advantage of being a small company - and will always make sure that the load that goes is to her satisfaction as far as quality is concerned. Many companies realise the importance of good customer relations and realise that is what brings the customers back again. I see though that the Swiss train companies have forgotten this important piece of business. Fining customers who have tried to legitimately buy tickets but couldn't thought issues such as broken machines or because a payment arrived a little late for mobile phone payments. The article in the BBC beggars belief for such a well respected company. Revenue from fines is no compensation if you lose the goodwill of your customers.

Ooeerr! It's winter already

Here, what's all this white stuff? And who nicked all the
grass?

It is no longer squelchy under foot, in fact it is downright crunchy and am I happy about that? Well no actually. I have to admit to having been caught out by the snow and the cold this year. It is forecast to warm up soon and then we will have to get back on with our pre-winter preparations, but we feel rather unready for this rather early onset of very wintry weather. Ian continued on with his Franken creations and made a Frankenmanger (available for hire for Christmas nativity scenes, only you will have to fight the alpacas for it as it is a big hit with them). We had to up the alpacas feed a lot over the last few days and Ian was desperately trying to finish off the feeder for them as the snow was coming down, another pre-winter job that got caught out by the changing weather. Prior to that they were quite happy on the grass which is now under about 15-20cm of snow. Have you noticed though that Ian has started a trend with his Franken creations with the Americans heading for Frankenstorm? A fellow blogger also wrote to say she had reblogged our blog about Franken-items and described her own Franken-paths. I think he should have patented the idea!

Frankenmanger

You probably can't see but hidden amongst the hay is
Sofie. She jumped in when the alpacas got a bit close
and then she couldn't get out as they were eating from the
rack. It was very funny to watch the interactions

A right pain to have all this snow, but it does look pretty

Normally I welcome the onset of the snow as it covers a usually grim scene of mud, but the last week had been quite nice, but then it would be as my parents were here on holiday. My parents have rarely had any bad weather on holiday in the 49 years they have holidayed together, apart from the odd shower that is. I do seem to remember sitting in a tent with the rain dripping as a kid, but I must have remembered that because of it being so unusual for holiday weather. My parents, bless em' came prepared to help out and my dad seemed to enjoy trundling around helping us get veg beds sorted out for the winter and dahlias dug up, at least he knew what he was doing, I didn't (I hope the ones we put in the shed were alright as I wasn't expecting the intense cold and I thought I would have got them down into the cellar before the heavy frosts - for once this year the forecasts were pretty close to being reliable). My dad was also a great source of information as he has a lot of practical experience gained through being around farms from a young age, although never a farmer himself, family friends were. He even managed to help where the internet failed - so own up, who else knows how to prepare a duck for the table? What do you do with those little feathers? Apparently you use meths and set fire to it, to singe off the little feathers. It wasn't all one way though, we have gained quite a bit of information along the way too, such as cockchafer bugs make great chicken snacks, which my dad didn't know.

Cesis castle

We didn't make my parents work the whole time, nearly but not quite. They enjoyed going out to the hotel a couple of times and revelled in the fact it was nowhere near as expensive as the restaurants in the UK, we also took a trip to a castle and museum in Cesis. When we bought the tickets to get into the castle we were given lanterns to go up the tower, it was certainly steep and dark, but well worth it for the view out of the tower of the town of Cesis and surrounding areas.  We also popped along to a nearby camelid farm that had some alpacas. It was rather comical watching the staff try to move an alpaca that they wanted to trim the toenails of, because there was no way that alpaca was getting up so they could get to the toenails. It sat down very firmly on its haunches. Hope ours are a little more cooperative. They had an alpaca in from another farm for breeding and their male was at other farm, so it looks like we have scope for exchange for breeding purposes, only the alpaca brought in was so tiny compared to ours, we are not sure about breeding from that one, but they maybe interested in our alpaca male anyway. It will be good to have a little cooperation between alpaca owners in Latvia, it can only be of benefit to all of us. Mind you, I am not sure about Ian's new found love of camels, alpacas is one thing but a camel!!!! Noooooooo!

A view from the tower with Cesis in the
background

A park in Cesis. You can see what good
weather my parents brought with them

A view of Cesis from the new castle

The new bucket, just the right size for
making trenches

The big news from the last two weeks is that we have organised to get electricity to our land. We have paid for the cable and it is residing at the electricians house, we also organised our friend to make a bucket for the tractor and now we just need that dratted weather to warm up a bit to dig a trench so the cable can be laid. We are hoping to get the electric down to the greenhouse and then we can at least provide heat for our animals if it turns out worse than now. Our chickens are doing okay in the greenhouse and we have moved the caravan in, so that should provide a bit of extra protection as a heat source, if it absorbs any heat during the day that is. If the weather turns really bad then we will move the alpacas in there too to contribute to the overall heat of the place.

Our orchard plot at sunset

Talking of heating, our issue is still ongoing with that, but a meeting to review the situation got a surprisingly good turn out at short notice from the other apartment dwellers and a surprising amount of agreement at last. They seem to be beginning to see that the heating company is not acting fairly. In fact other apartment blocks owe more money than ours does and still got heat, but because we actually complained about the cold water they sent last winter they have decided to single us out! We did finally get our heat back on, just in time for the sharp drop in temperatures, after two council members stood up for us, but it was pretty close. Little by little we hope to sort out this situation, alongside others that is - we can't do it on our own.

Frost on the gate

Work has been better this past couple of weeks too, much quieter. Kind of boring again! Just the way I like it now. Actually it is not that boring really, it is still interesting to learn more about the students from all walks of life, something I still find fascinating after nearly 9 years of doing this job, but I will still settle for the quiet life in that department for the time being. There is one thing I am glad about in my job, is the fact that the director is great guy to work for, it made dealing with the issues the past few weeks much easier. My daughter passed on a blog regarding leadership and it is so spot on, I much prefer working for someone who recognises giftings in people and works to put a good team around himself, instead of a group of yes men. If you want a read it is by a guy called Steve McAlpine, another great guy, who obviously thinks a lot and yes I've met him a couple of times.

The chickens content in the greenhouse
along with our caravan

Franken.......

Frankenbarrow! Cobbled together from cladding from our
kitchen to provide a much needed extension. 

Squelch! That is the sound most heard on our land at the moment. It's wet! We did have a couple of days of dry weather and it had just, and I mean just, started to dry a little when it rained heavily again. Ian still has to go out to the land to let the animals out and so he has got on with barn jobs, tidying it up and creating Franken monsters. Franken monsters? Has he gone mad? Yep probably! I explained he felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein last week, creating his monster table named Frankentable, monster sink- Frankensink, monster shelves - Frankenshelves etc. Well this week he made his monster wheelbarrow, so meet Frankenbarrow. So why Franken...... ? Well Frankenstein was really just a recycled human, made up of bits from other people and Ian's creations are reusing material usually leftover from other projects or, to use the up-to-date phrase, "repurposed" At least the rain hasn't stifled his creative streak. It might not be in a beauty parade of garden and garage products but they are functional and are at the moment costing us nothing.

It was that wet our alpacas were looking rather grubby.
They look better than this now though

As for me it has been hard work this week and I definitely felt quite depressed at times, which is not me really. There was one day there was nothing for it but to reach back into the archives and dig out my chill out songs. Singing "break the chains on this land" (from Iona The Island) with the sun appearing for the first time in days lifted my spirits immensely. I also watched some birds circling in the air and felt "yes that's where I want to be" and I let my spirit soar with them and then watched in amazement as other birds started to come, joining them from all directions, I really felt God speak deep into my soul. At least now I have strength to carry on now! Plus the giggle from watching a coal tit that kept coming to the window and occasionally tapping on it as it tries to understand why it can't get at the squashes drying on the window.

Spiders webs in the evening sunlight draped across
the fields

One reason for feeling depressed were work issues. I normally just plod along doing regular checks and chatting with students on the online student café I moderate, all ticking along nicely for a few years until something changes and for some reason more issues pop their head up and more active intervention is required; well this is one of those years. The kind that demands rapid responses and then thoughtful planning to address the issues in the long term. It means that work is not boring at the moment and definitely challenging and normally I would relish the challenge, but not now. I and a colleague relish boring now, we have other things to do too challenge us. Then again for the sake of our students we will address the issues wholeheartedly and try to work out some good solutions that are helpful for all concerned.

Ian giving a little perspective at the top of the hill. He is
stood where the house will be with a 3m stick in hand
to give some sense of scale

I also had an interview with a journalist for a hunting magazine about my Master's thesis on the conflict over wild boar management in the area I live in. It was a bit nerve wracking really. I had to explain what I had done and why without giving away confidential information, but I also wanted this issue of too many wild boar in our area wrecking agriculture to get out and be highlighted. Some of the things I recommended were also covered. It was quite hard to strike the right balance, but we both agreed that it was really stupid that no one apart from me was doing research in the Latvia on wild boar management, despite the widespread destruction they cause, at massive financial costs to farmers. It will be interesting to see what is actually written though.

Our house in situ.What it could possibly look like

So have I done much else this week? Not really. Trawled the internet for biodigesters and such things, but really I have been too busy to do much else. The good news is that a recent frost has signalled the final stages of our harvesting, it really is all downhill to winter from here. Our chickens were moved into the greenhouse now it is virtually empty, at least it will be less draughty and a lot less damp in there. Moving the arks was made a lot simpler by the visit of some friends to see our alpacas, it is easier with four to carry the arks over longer distances rather than just two. Frankentrolley made earlier in the year would have got bogged down in the mud anyway. We also spent a bit of time walking through the floorplan for our new house to see where things would be, see if it would work and Ian got to talk with our friend who is an electrician to see how we would get electric to the house - unfortunately we can't use the nearest electric cable it is too high powered and would need a rather large transformer for domestic use, we have to use a lower powered one further away. At least it all looks feasible, so far.

Frankenseedboxes. Made from some wood which had been
destined for firewood but decided they were too good
to burn and used for making these instead. Other
pieces ended up as backs for coat hooks.

Our heating is still an issue. I wrote to the company this week basically saying that we are still not paying until the issue of the quality of heat is addressed in accordance with consumer regulations and if it is not addressed we will see you in court. It didn't say that exactly of course, but that is the general gist of the matter. Well in response the boiler is on ....... only heating the other apartment block and the school and not our apartment block, because we want too much. Apparently we should not expect water 
hot enough to heat our rooms to the temperature stated in our contracts, that is unreasonable and until we drop those unreasonable requests we will not be getting any heat. Well I guess we are going to have to see what the court says about that. Sigh! I really wish they would see sense and just heat the water hot enough. It is stupid that they cannot even provide what the contract states and try and shift the blame onto everyone else except themselves. Don't really see why the courts should be the place to sort this out either, but if that is the system then we will use the system. Don't worry too much about us though if your thoughts conjure up two shivering folks, trying to keep warm. We have a wood stove, we have oil filled radiators, plenty of layers to keep us warm too and if the worse comes to the worse and the temperatures drop far too much then we have another apartment where we have wood fired central heating. And our neighbours? Well some have already come off the communal heating system anyway a few years ago - the rest of us are stuck on the system, one more off, then all off. Many have woodstoves themselves and electric radiators, so the chances are they will be fine for the time being. 

Frolicking in the hay

120 bales of hay under that tarp, with Ian posing nicely for
a sense of scale 

We had a house meeting this week, I didn't understand a lot of what was said, but it is interesting watching people react and I knew some of the details already anyway, such as the issue with the heating inspector. The news is that the set up of the heating monitor is incorrect, but that is not the fault of the house, it is the fault of the heating company and in addition it has been an issue for the last three years and nothing has been done about it. The heating company are in the wrong also for not addressing concerns about the cold, they are meant to address the issue immediately on notification and not send a letter a month later. The company are also required to give one to two years notice of any termination of contract - not six months. Now it will be interesting to see what they make of all that.

Bella! "Wonder if I can get up there?"

This week was a quieter week as we didn't do much visiting, were not visited and I didn't have to help with the baling, so I have taken the opportunity of bottling up some of our harvest and now we have more bottles of cordial, jam, tomato sauce and chutney. It is interesting that the cordial I made, gooseberry, ginger and lemon tasted different to the jam I made from the leftover pulp. I love using the steamer to make juices and cordials, as it is so easy. For a juice I just pile the fruit in the steamer, stalks and leaves and all (washed of course) and then steam for one hour, what comes out is a lovely syrupy juice and these can be poured directly into warm, sterile jars and that is the end of that process. Cordials are similarly easy to do by layering in sugar as well. I use 6oz of sugar to 1lb of fruit and for the gooseberry, ginger, lemon cordial I put in 7oz of fresh ginger to 10 lb of fruit and the peel and juice of two lemons. I then put the pulp through the vegetable strainer on my kitchen aid, which works wonderfully when the right pieces are assembled together (not easy when I have several attachments in one box) and then add a little more sugar to the pulp to make jam. The cordial had a light refreshing taste that sort of reminds me of elderflower cordial, but the jam is much more lemony and almost tastes of lemon marmalade but without the peel and is a thick pulp jam not a jelly like consistency. Weird!

Our escapee alpaca, Herkules. Obviously the grass is
greener on the other side

Ian has continued to cut the grass and turn it this week and if we get a dry week it will be ready to bale. So far though it has been showery and so it is a good job that the majority of it is only fit for compost and we have already earmarked where it will be put so that is not a problem. So far we have 156 bales of hay stacked on the field where they were cut and have now moved another 120 to the hub of our land where most of our activities are. The alpacas have been given an extension to their paddock during the day when we are around. We have used the plastic temporary poles that they use for electric fences with a single wire but not electrified it and they seem quite happy with that, until yesterday that is when one of them found an escape route, fortunately the others didn't and they don't like be separated and so fairly easy to herd. They enjoyed finding all the dandelion leaves though, which we are really happy about but they don't seem so fond of ground elder which is a shame and so their paddock will have to be mowed to sort that problem out where they have eaten everything around them and left swathes of the dratted stuff. 

My surprise present! A rustic pergola for the grapevines

We had a lovely meal at one of our friends, cooked by an American family so that our friends didn't have to worry about leaving to see to their animals. Only trouble is that we had to leave a bit earlier to see to ours - such is the life of a farmer, albeit on a small scale at the moment. The meal was a fusion of tex-mex and Latvian as some of the ingredients are not quite what they would use at home and so we had crisps - the dorrito type, with guacamole and salsa followed by chicken enchiladas. It was lovely all the same and we also got to meet some new people, a kindergarten teacher and her husband who works for the electric company. It is nice getting to know more and more folks from our community and something we really enjoy doing, there is nothing better than getting to know folks sat around a table eating and chatting, beats the computer any day. 

Rose buds embroidered onto denim - a belated present for
my daughter's birthday

Daisies on denim

Close up of daisy

Close up of bullion knot roses

The rampant chilli plant. At our other apartment. I didn't
realise they could grow so big. At least it is finally
flowering. We have smaller plants of different varieties
 in the greenhouse

Our daughter and son-in-law arrived yesterday and so I thought I would make a banana and chocolate cake as you do. Well you know those stupid cook books that insult the intelligence by saying things like "first assemble the ingredients?" I should have used one of those as I found out in the process that I only had three ounces of flour. I can't ever remember running out of flour before. I probably have but it must have been so traumatic that I erased it from my memory. I had to blitz some cracked wheat and oats to make enough flour and I had to use bicarbonate of soda instead of baking powder. The resulting cake is okay, it does, but you can taste the bicarb and the cracked wheat wasn't totally blitzed and so there is an added crunch. Oh well! I tried. I also managed to throw a jar of roast tomato sauce on the floor and so wasted a quarter of a bucket of tomatoes. Hmph! Could have got the day off to a better start, but at least I got to see my daughter and lovely son-in-law.

Hoppy our hero. Hoppy due to being sick is used to being
handled and is quite small, so Ian took her on a trip around
the cabbage patch to eat all the caterpillars they could find

I saw a very entertaining video this week on the internet that talked about edible landscapes and reconnecting children with food, it was a wonderful talk with astute observations like

“There's so many people that don't really recognize a vegetable unless it's in a bit of plastic with an instruction packet on the top.”

The talk was about a group of people who have got together to encourage planting of edible plants in spare ground or in areas where they normally plant prickly bushes to keep people off. Instead they plant things that people can help themselves too, such as fruit bushes and trees, much more friendly.

One more piece of good news from this week, I have finally finished with the Inland Revenue (UK tax authorities). They owe me £4.25 and so I won't be spending it all at once but at least they got the message this time that we have finished with all connections with the UK