Oh so dry!

The road that runs along our land is a bit rough again. It was
graded after the rain, but now it is dry it is like a washboard
again

I know last week's title for the blog was "Oh Sweet Rain!" Well it was nice while it lasted but it sure was not enough to make much of an impression on the land and the vegetation. We have had no rain since then either. Certain trees and shrubs are beginning to show signs of a severe lack of water. Where the vegetation has not been cut, it is still hanging on in there - just! But where the grass is cut, then the ground is looking distinctly parched and brown patches are appearing in what should be green grassy areas.

There have been lots of interesting wee beasties
and I'm not entirely sure what they are, as they are
not ones I have seen before or rather noticed before.
I'm trying to make sure I take pictures so that I can
check to see if they are friend or foe.

About the only moisture we saw this week was the dew on
the ground due to one particularly cool night

As I mentioned last year, we are chronic weather watchers these days and we can often be seen checking the weather forecast, but it is so demoralising. There will be a forecast for a good dousing of rain for about a week ahead and as the day draws nearer, the amount of rain forecast gets less and less and less until there is nothing. We have seen some quite dark clouds, but no rain on our land. On the radar we have seen rain to the north of us, rain to the south of us, rain to the east of us and rain to the west of us - but none for us. Even so, it is still dry over much of the region and the regional head office has asked the government to declare a drought. We have about a days worth of water in our well for our day to day use and will soon have to bring it in from our apartment for our animals. It definitely makes us careful in our usage.

These are friends, these are dock leaf
beetles and are currently making lacy
dock leaves that will weaken them.

This is a bag I started ages ago, but the front flap went all
wrong and ended up way too big. With Heather's help I have
been modifying it. It is still a work in progress but it's getting
there.

Heather our current resident felting tutor returned from showing our Latvian Alpaca Adventure guest around Riga on the Wednesday. Since then she and I have been doing some more felting - or rather Heather has been doing some serious felting and working on some interesting pieces and I have been pottering around finishing off bits here and there.  Heather has been putting together a themed collection of pieces and the more we work with alpaca fibres the more we realise that alpaca is definitely not like working with merino wool. There is a lot of serendipity about it, which has caused some consternation from time to time. Just when we think we have the measure of the fibres they do something unexpected. This has meant some re-working of pieces to get a result we are happy with. It has also meant some fascinating pieces too - but you will have to wait for our photo shoot to be completed to see a glimpse of most of them.

This shows the bit of the flap that I cut off and it will now
become a pocket, that I shall sew on. That is the next bit to do

This is the finished shawl I was making last week using
George's fleece. It is a cobweb felt, so is super light with
lacy holes in it. The collar is doubled over and sewn so that it strengthens it.

We have been really careful throughout the process though to try and use as little water as possible and Heather often took the articles back to the apartment to rinse out after the hard work had been done on the pieces. We hope that we don't have the same issues when it comes to the next workshop, otherwise we are going to have to bring in water.

Sewn collar detail

Cute curly pieces

Ian with tractor and trailer to collect the bales

As well as felting, Ian and I have been getting the hay in. Ian does the cutting and baling with the tractor and then I help him with the collecting and stacking. At least I did this year, last year I managed to book on a conference at the end of July, which ended up coinciding with baling time. I'm pleased I didn't manage that this time around, boy would I have been in trouble. We haven't finished of course, but we are hanging back on cutting the rest and waiting for some rain to help the grass to grow. We don't want to risk killing all the grass if it doesn't rain. At least we have nearly enough hay now for the whole year, as we still have a reasonable amount leftover from last year.

Heather gave me a rose last year
and I wasn't sure if it had died or not
over the winter. It came back from
the root and so isn't quite the same
but it is still purple and has a lovely
smell, so I'm quite happy with that.

Dew in the morning on a spider's web. I love the colours

The lack of rain does make it difficult for moving electric fences for the animals. The other week Ian managed to snap an electric post because it was set like concrete into the ground. He did manage to move the fence for the girls though, so they can eat the grass under the trees that still looks lush, in reality though it is actually quite sparse. We are just hoping the grass lasts until the rains - when they come. At least we noticed the buckwheat that Ian planted has sprouted. I think the bit of moisture from the rain last week and a good dew one morning seems to have helped. If the forecast holds for rain, we will plant up another area of buckwheat. The idea is that it will outcompete the docks that have taken over those areas. That's the plan anyway.

Another wee beastie. Very unusual

Sitting on the fence.

We made some progress this week on some admin to do with the sale of our apartment. This was our registered address and so we needed to transfer it to our other apartment. We went into the big town and found the right office. Despite it being the immigration office, however, there was no one there who was fluent in English. We managed though, with the help of a friend via mobile phone and my little bit of Latvian and the admin lady's little bit of English. At least it is all official now, that we live at our apartment that we still own - although we don't because we spend more time out on the land than we do at the apartment, but this hasn't got an official registered dwelling yet!

Also sitting on the fence.

Not a photo of Sofie but Eyre, our grumpy looking cat. She
is not quite so good as Sofie at catching things, but she
managed a lizard today, which I would rather she didn't, as
they are good to have around.

We have had some laughs this week. Over the course of a couple of days the front of our greenhouse became like mole city motorway, with soil pushed up between food bins and all along the entrance. It was making getting the chicks out a bit of a challenge. We were eating our evening meal one night when Heather spotted one of our cats with something in its mouth. Sofie was obviously feeling left out and had decided to bring her own meal - yup! Mr, or Mrs Mole. It was not exactly what we call fine dining and not much appreciated and so I had to shoo Sofie away to eat the poor beast in peace. At least we don't have a mole problem any more.

My lupins are looking good

Grass on a dewy morning

Samples to test the feltability of the boys fleeces. George
felts very well and Frederiks is okay but requires more work.

The chicks are getting big now

This started out as a felted cuff but it made
a handy holder for the herbal teas I have been
making. Here is a mint tea

It's a process

No the alpaca house is not on fire, it is the sun. We did
actually get to see it on a couple of days this week. Unlike
today which was dreich. So dreich there are no photos of
the lambs because they are inside in the dark.

The news on the lambs is that they are all doing well but they and their mums are getting fed up of being cooped up in their respective pens. Can't say as I blame them as the lambs are getting bigger by the day. The problem though is the ram outside. He was getting more pushy with Ian and he would be a danger to the lambs, especially in the slippery conditions and so the ram went for an appointment with the freezer. In preparation I had to sort through our freezer at home to free up space, so I have made a batch of chutney and a batch of blackcurrant and apple jam. The problem is I have just about run out of jars again. At least after a bit of reorganising I had half an upright freezer free and defrosted ready for the next influx of meat, which we started processing tonight

So instead of sunshine today we had rain. It is a process
and its not pleasant when the snow starts to go, but one
we are sort of happy to go through. Ian has been on the
annual clear the ditches duty today as water was backing
up to the greenhouse

Mind you, even with the ram gone, the lambs won't get their freedom for another couple of days. The weather is awful at the moment, as it is raining. The last thing we want is cold, wet, soggy lambs getting sick. At least it means the snow is disappearing and the slow melt means our groundwater will start to rise again and fill our well up in a few days time. The well has been great over the winter, as it has meant that Ian hasn't had to carry water down the three flights of stairs from our apartment to the car every morning this year, but when the ground is frozen there is not as much water flowing. We don't know how much of a flow the well really has yet, we just know that it rises a lot a few days after rain or after snow starts melting. The other advantage with the well is the fact the water is mainly below the frost line and so only on one or two days did we have issues with the well freezing slightly. In contrast the ponds have at least a 20cm layer of ice on them.

I find this photo amusing, as it looks like Brencis is kissing
the wood, but actually he was chewing on it.

Water has been flowing onto the ice on the ponds and they
are even overflowing

We have been trying to think of ways of saving the water when it is flowing fast into the well, or how to harvest it off buildings, so that we will have enough even in the droughts that we get regularly. There is usually a dry patch sometime during the early part of the summer that nearly always affects sowing time or just when the new seedlings are starting to emerge. We mulch the plants and that helps to some degree, but at the end of the day they still need water. We haven't come to a conclusion on that one yet.

Veronica is doing very well. Her condition is about the best
we have seen in all the years she has been with us. Not
bad for one who will be 14 years old in May

Aggie continues to cause Ian some worry as she was a bit off
the last couple of days, but then again so were the others.
Today she seemed a bit brighter in herself again

On the planning front we have managed to agree on the areas that will be included and excluded on our first submission for EU subsidies. In fact that was surprisingly painless. We don't argue much but we don't always agree either. It can take ages for us to come to some sort of compromise agreement if we both feel strongly about something. At least with this we were able to decide what we were going to allow to grass over and what we were going to continue to work on for planting up. At least we did get round to deciding where the other buildings are going to go that we want to build. No we can't afford to build our house yet, but we are hoping to put in grant applications for a workshop and barn and at the same time maybe build a small cabin. We have decided not to put in a third plot to our garden as the three areas we have fenced off already will be plenty for the time being and the workshop and cabin will fit in there nicely.

Puddles everywhere

I love this photo of all the girls together and Aggie making
sure she is getting in on the act

Ian has been taking the alpacas out for walks this week. It is something he makes an effort to do in the winter time, especially when he can't get on with other jobs. It is too wet for the winter job of cutting down trees even when it is not raining. The snow and wet ground also means no building work either yet. He hopes to build alpaca house 4/storage area this spring/year/sometime. We have the wood for that all cut up and it needs using as it is still stored outside.

Mari looking very soggy, she seems to like sitting out in the
rain sometimes.

The boys all look like they are on a mission. 

I have been plodding along with the academic paper I have been writing. There was a point when I realised I needed some extra comments to complete the story of a village in development. Fortunately the people in the NGO that is helping the village develop are very helpful and so I was able to send of a short questionnaire and get the results back two days later. It wasn't a huge amount of data, but just some personal anecdotes from villagers about life in the village. It was lovely to read what people had to say and confirms much of what I have been observing anyway, so it all fits together nicely. I got the paper back from my supervisor tonight and fortunately he likes it on the whole, but there are a few things to go through again -that's tomorrow sorted then!

The boys poo pile has been taking on epic proportions
because Ian hasn't been able to get it cleared up as it was
frozen solid. He'll need to go up with a wheelbarrow soon,
as the weather is set to freeze again next week. Winter isn't
finished yet.

A soggy looking paddock

At least I did get a little bit of time over the weekend to start a sewing project. It was nice to be able to get the designs together and just play about with fabric. I have left our other apartment in a mess though, because there is no point putting away until it is finished, as I need to get on with them and have them finished in about two weeks time. I will be flitting off to the UK to visit grandchildren, which I'm really looking forward to. I also have one or two meetings lined up, well I do have to take the opportunity while I can.