No title!

A strange sight indeed, a clear sky!

A rather strange week. Now sit back, I want to tell you a story. A few weeks ago two ladies in Latvia with an obsession for plants put in an order to a dear lady who sells seeds at a reasonable price in the great kingdom over the water (MoreVeg if you want to know, highly recommended). The two ladies sat and waited with eager anticipation for the delivery. Time ticked on, no seeds. Eventually one of the ladies in distress emailed the dear lady and said, "Alas, our seeds have not come. Do you know where they are?" The dear lady got on the phone to the deliverer of letters and asked, or rather waited and waited because there seemed to be many on the phone. 

Time for a bit of sunbathing says Brencis

Josefs often has his ears down, rather like his
mother

Eventually success! An answer was procured from the deliverer of letters, the seeds were in....... Portugal. Portugal? Why are the seeds in Portugal? They normally travel via Poland and isn't Portugal in the wrong direction? All were aghast! Has someone mixed up the bags? Portugal is nearly like Poland isn't it? A tracking number was given and checked up from time to time, but apparently the seeds have decided they like their unexpected holiday in the sunshine and have not moved since the 18th November. It's not looking hopeful as they were ordered to ensure they arrived before the disaster befalls, aka Brexit, when seeds from the great Kingdom can no longer be procured. So it looks like we might just get a refund instead. Still three more days before we find out if they are officially lost or just on an extended tour. Typical though, this has never happened before and there is no time for another order now.

Like mother like son. Aggie, Josef's mother

Wonder if the three kings had three alpacas not
camels? Wrong continent and not a beast of
burden though I guess. You can see the family
likeness though.

Another story for the week was that Ian's computer went "pop". That's never a good omen for a computer. It has done some years, after all it is probably about 11 years old now, as it was a computer I bought for my studies when I first started. However, this incident caused much consternation and anguish and sire was a tad put out. Fortunately he has another cast off computer donated by our son-in-law but this sturdy beast, also built in the days of yore, is an ancient creaking beast that works well, but slowly. I added to sire's anguish by announcing that perhaps I could upgrade my computer for work and he get my cast off. For some reason he was a bit dischuffed. This has been resolved and I will get my new computer and he will get my cast off but things were a little tense for a day or two. 

Sunshine! Now why wasn't it like this yesterday
on my day off? I feel duped! The forecast said 
there would be sunshine. Instead the sky cleared
just as we were heading home, unlike today that
was nice and bright but chilly.

Soaking up some sun

I thought my food prepping days were over for the season, but for some reason the squashes are not lasting as well as usual and they are going off too quickly. I've been having to process them instead. I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks for an appley mincemeat. I repurposed the recipe to use squash instead of apples and it works well. I will have to work on some savoury versions though as we could do with the veg and not just sweet stuff over the winter. I will also have cabbages to process tomorrow as I picked them before the severe frost finished them off. I spent Sunday cutting spruce trees that grow like weeds here to use for protection of my new flower beds, celeriac and Brussel sprouts (sire is praying that the frost finishes these off really, he's not a fan). We'll see if that works. I know it works fine for the flower beds but have found it is best to let them get cold first before covering them, as they need to go to sleep. Covering them too early just confuses the plants I think. So far the hay bale and fleece covers are working on the carrots and turnips as they are still in good shape.

Me and my shadow or how many alpacas are there?

Now boys, no fighting over the Christmas tree

Today was a little different as I got an unexpected phone call from our youngest - just for a chat mind, nothing urgent. So we watched on my phone as our grandson bombed around the room, rather reminiscent of his father, always on the go. We also had a nice chat with our granddaughter who was looking smart in her school uniform. Generally the days rumble on pretty much the same, as we settle into the new regime of Ian going out to work on the land and I working in the apartment. Just before he comes back I light the fire and then we both have a coffee. This task gets a little earlier every day, but it won't be long before the days are at their shortest - the rhythm of the year is much clearer when at least one of us has a day set by the length of daylight.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, munch,
munch

Christmas tree. Yumm! Don't mind if I do

Me neither!

A little scratch, just there! 

Hmmm! That's better.

Definitely a good time of the year, foodwise

The fluffball, 

Three fluffballs

Off for a run now

What else do you do but sunbathe on a freezing
cold but sunny day?

Maybe a little snooze

Or maybe a run around to get warm

Not sure if it is the sunlight showing up the 
difference between Chanel and Ilvija. Normally
it's much harder to tell them apart.

The girls got their Christmas trees too

Aggie just soaking up the sun while she can

Valeria in inquisitive mood

This looks like one of those sepia shots to make
the picture look old, but it is just the colour of
the grass at this time of the year.

Silla likes to sit outside whatever the weather

Somewhere, down here, I'm sure there's some 
green grass.

Josef with his ears up this time. 

Jakobs looks like he's growing to me.

The warmest spot in the greenhouse, on top of the
caravan in the sun.

Another of the jobs this weekend was to raise the
chicks ark up onto its base. This gives the chicks
plenty of roosting space, especially welcome in the 
sunshine on a cold day. We had to be sure they
would all go in before setting the ark on the base 
as they would not be so easy to catch if they didn't
go in and we don't want to lose these to some critter.

Welcome to 2019

Let us out! Please! There were a couple of days of wet snow
and so they all got kept in, so they didn't get soaked before a
freeze.

Welcome to 2019. I must remember that as I have already managed to sign something with the date 2018. It was interesting to welcome in the New Year with friends this time. Quite often we have gone to bed before midnight. We decided to back out of the ramble beforehand, as we weren't quite sure what we would be getting ourselves into and it was quite a long time before the party, not easy on Ian who may have been outside most of the day anyway. I also realised that I didn't actually have the right kind of footwear for that kind of thing either. I have wellies for the land and I have hiking boots but not for cold and possibly damp conditions. Anyway, the party was good and the people friendly, so that worked well.

Please! Please! Let me out!

Brencis looking pretty dapper I think

At midnight we went outside and climbed a hill. It was surprisingly steep. I have no idea why I have never noticed this particular knoll in our village before. I guess it is mainly due to living on the other side and only really walking out by our land. We celebrated the New Year with a glass of champagne and a mixture of being wished "Laimīgu Jauno gadu" and a "Happy New Year" by fellow partygoers. The hill turned out to be an excellent spot to watch the fireworks before clambering down the hill, without managing to kill myself in the process (yes it was that steep) and rejoining the party in the old railway station.

Even old Lady V, is looking good

And of course Jakobs is just looking sweet

Later on in the week the friend who helped me with the felting workshop before Christmas came to help me make some slippers. We were both interested to see how it would work with alpaca. Due to the snowy conditions we had to collect her from her parent's farm where she is living at the moment. It turned out to be a very interesting journey there as the snow was quite thick out that way and we had only travelled that way for the first time in the dark the week before. The only way we found the road to her house, was to follow the sticks her father had put in to show where the road was. It was even more tricky on the way back as it had snowed some more during the day.

Finally time to run off some energy

Snow dunes in the garden

The slipper production went well. She worked on one slipper and I followed what she was doing on the other one. We even managed to get them to be about the same, which kind of surprised me. We made the slippers from Herkues fleece. As I mentioned last week, it is not the best for nice scarves, but worked well for the base for Ian's welly inserts last week and worked very well for the slippers this time, as it made a very solid finished product with a satisfying "thwock" sound. My friend left me some leather for the bases and waxed sewing thread. I was quite pleased with them, especially as they certainly kept my feet warm and toasty. Now we just have to see how hardwearing they are.

Sunrise in winter

The deer have been visiting the land. We weren't too
concerned as they don't dig up the land like the pigs, but
now they are starting to find our orchard and eat the trees
there. That we are not so happy about. They don't normally
come so close to the greenhouse area.

Most of the time has been spent doing academic work, so I decided to go out with Ian one day to help with giving Vitamin D injections to the girls, tablets for the boys and do some skiing. The skiing didn't happen. I went out to pick the Brussel sprouts I had grown, even though they were tiny, and on the way back my eyes were aching due to the northerly wind that was blowing. I decided that skiing was not a good activity for the day, so instead I sorted out our seed order for the year. This year we needed a lot of seeds to replace older ones and I haven't managed to do much in the way of seed saving anyway. I also want to ensure I have my seed order for the next few years due to Brexit when I may have to source my seeds from a mainland European country and not the UK. Latvian seeds don't always seem to be very good, although I might start looking around to see if there are other companies.

They maybe didn't get soaked but still a little dusting of snow
one day

Travelling up to Tartu by bus. This is Valka station

The following day I thought I had better stop in before heading up to Tartu and get my packing done. I thought I would finish off a piece of felting but then realised it was already felted enough and so started on a tunic instead - as you do! I didn't finish it and so ended up taking it with me to my friend's in Tartu. At least I got it as far as a stable enough fabric to move, even if it did mean I was weighed down with lots of bags to carry.

I then walk over the border into Estonia. The
little sentry box still stands to mark the border,
but of course there are no border checks here
nowadays. Over the border is Valga

Sofie, who is now on holiday

Our cat hasn't turned up to our greenhouse when Ian goes in the morning for a few days. We found out that she is on holiday at our neighbour's farm. I needed to order some milk from her and asked if she had seen her and she had. We were relieved she was up there, but we hadn't realised she was living the life of Reilly, as we say. Our neighbour's car had broken down and so her son rang us and asked for a lift home. Ian went to pick them up and as they got chatting he found out the life she is now leading. Apparently she is sitting next to the grain to eat the mice that come by, so at least she is earning her keep too. She is also being fed sausage and gets some milk, fresh from the cow, so not sure if she will ever want to come back home, maybe in Spring.

On the bus in Estonia

An old Soviet era train near the Valga train station

Recently I have been reading Wendell Berry's "Unsettling of America" in the mornings, one of a set of books some friends bought for me. His arguments are a little circuitous and hard to follow at times, but still there is much to ponder. I can appreciate the philosophical ponderings that overlap being on a farm and academia. He suffered the frustration of academic thought that gets locked in silos in the universities of his day- thank goodness that has moved on somewhat since his book was written, but it still exists to some extent and frustrates me at times too. Ideas and concepts can look good on paper but in the real messy world there are barriers to spreading the "pure" knowledge and rightly so. So my musings have centred on the issue of the distance between the cities and the countryside and the impact that has on society today.

George might be growing up, but he is still cuddly

Frosted hay

Cities seem to behave as if life in the countryside is unimportant. This is because those living in the cities have often lost the connection to the land and the food produced from it. They have also lost the connection to the concept of stewardship in the process, as land and people are consumed and not cared for. Food is consumed without thought of where it comes from and how it got there - until something goes wrong of course. Then it is the fault of the supplier or the farmer but not the supermarket or consumers for abdicating their responsibilities in the first place for sourcing their food in an ethical manner. Ethical to the people and the earth we live on.

Vanessa's crew's paddock surrounded by frosted trees

I love the look of these frosted oak leaves. Such potential for
some design work

The rise in veganism and the eat organic movement shows people want to care but not necessarily how to care. It is after all hard to do when the processes are so little understood. How can those in the cities understand the natural cycles on which their food supply relies unless they reconnect with the land in some way? How can this vast disconnected society be turned around? Who wants to work in the fields anyway? And yet maybe we should. We mock the totalitarian regimes that sends the workers into the fields - such a waste of talent we might think, such backwardness.

Someone else looks like she wants to get out.

I do not advocate enforcing people to go into the fields for planting, weeding and harvesting, but what happens if we re-value this kind of work? Physically getting our hands in the dirt as a communal activity once again? Many of the interviews that have been conducted in my research in Latvia and Estonia recall the times of communal activity that finished in a celebration, such as haymaking, potato harvesting and apple picking and processing. It was hard physical work, but done together, in connection with the land and the seasonal cycles that produces the food they need to nourish their bodies. Some still enjoy those activities with friends and family, but many also yearn to at least see some of that kind of activity again. Maybe it isn't such a bad idea after all.