Has it finished yet?

"Has it finished yet?" says Brencis

Well the madness and the circus continues. I think the EU have got the right idea, get your house in order and do it quickly and by the way you have three weeks max to do it in. I guess that should concentrate minds this week. Just in case you are from a planet far away and wondering what on earth I am on about, yes I am referring to Brexit. There will be some who think the EU are being unduly bombastic, but those in the EU are as tired of the whole thing as the British public, they have an organisation to run that has been snarled up in negotiations they had no wish for for the last two years with no clear route out. I guess they are as prepared for the consequences of it as they can be and now is the time to say, "Enough! This can't carry on!"

It is nice to see the girls outside enjoying the sunshine. Josefs
and Lady V are eating up the last of the snow

The boys field is just about clear of snow now

Josefs wearing his food. He is going to be a nightmare to
shear as he likes to feed from underneath the feeder.
That means he has hay all down his neck.

Personally I have still been ploughing through academic literature for work this week and that has kind of absorbed my time. I had to attend a Skype conference call on my own again, as both my colleagues were tied up in other meetings. After two hours my head was throbbing and I had to then gather my thoughts together to update my colleagues. Fortunately for me, flexible hours meant that on a sunny Friday I could head to our land and take advantage of some fresh air. I had to keep an eye on my emails since it was still a work day for others, but other than that, I got the necessary space to clear my head. One of the issues to clarify was who was going to get my tax, the Latvian or the Estonian authorities. I think that is now nearly sorted thanks to my wonderful bookkeeper who filled in the relevant forms for me. I also found out that my Estonian ID allows me to electronically sign Latvian forms too - that saves some issues.

Josefs is still feeding from his mum, but very soon it will be
time to move them to their new alpaca house with the other
boys. Ian has been training them on the harness, which will
make the transfer easier.

Even the snow in the forest is clearing

Chanel is our only pregnant alpaca this
year. Her skin situation seems to be
stabilised and her coat generally is
looking good, so we hope she is over
the worst and will thrive once she is
out on the fresh grass. It just needs to
grow a bit first.

The snow has nearly all gone even though we had a smattering fall overnight about midweek. It has been muddy of course and the ponds were full. We also had our temporary lake back. All signs that spring is finally getting the upper hand and banishing winter for the time being. Although as Ian said in a parody of a northern British saying, "N'er cast a shovel till May is out!" I had suggested that three snow shovels in the greenhouse was a bit excessive and perhaps they could be put back in the barn to reside until next winter. The actual saying is, "N'er cast a clout till May is out!" Which basically means don't pack your winter clothes away until May is over as you never know when winter might make a surprise visit. With a touch of snow forecast that is still a possibility but I still don't think it is going to be that bad that we need the shovels in the greenhouse. Anyway, I put them away so that now guarantees it will snow.

Jakobs chewing some bark

It has been a bit breezy this week and it makes Jakobs very
fine fibres fly about.

The seeds in the black boxes soaking up the sunshine.

I decided to risk setting some seeds away both in the greenhouse and outside. I had a bit of a brainwave of putting the seed pots in a black box to absorb the heat during the day and protect them overnight. We'll see how that works. They are all hardy type plants anyway and nothing precious, so should be fine. Even if it doesn't work, I can try again in a few weeks time. The ones outside have gone under fleece. The soil outside is nice and dark, so it should also absorb the sun. The soil has really changed over time and it was nice to see it had some worms already starting to work. I also found some parsnips that I had missed when I dug them up late last year. That made a nice change to squash.

Someone else soaking up the sunshine in the greenhouse.
Behind Eyre are the chicken arks. They are coming into
production properly now and we are even getting blue
eggs from one of the chickens. One group are heading
for the pot though as they are definitely egg eaters. We
have to watch them carefully to see if they are laying
and then wait for them to finish and whisk it away quick
before they get to it. We put a cockerel in there with them
so we will get some eggs for hatching from them and then
cull them. 

Someone else soaking up the sunshine.

It is still cool in the shade. This is ice that has formed in the
barn

This particular plot where I sowed the seeds had sheep in it over two winters a few years back, some alpaca manure and plenty of hay mulch. The soil in that area tends to have a high clay content and therefore not usually workable so soon after the snow. The addition of the compostable material has made sure that it dries out quick enough to work, but not so much that nothing grows in it. We work on a bed system with permanent paths, so that is another reason why I can get to work on the ground so soon after the snow has gone. I do not damage the soil structure by walking on it that way.  The beds are all narrow enough for me to be able to reach to the centre to sow seeds or to weed them.

A crocus. Ian was surprised to find this as we thought the
wild boar had dug up and eaten all our crocuses and
daffodils around this spot.

A snowdrop plant that I transplanted last year and one small
leaf of a self seeded Good King Henry plant - a spinach
substitute that withstands the heat and is perrenial

George guarding the door and Mr. P and Brencis soaking up
the sunshine

It feels very weird at this time of the year. It is so close to winter, the reappearing ground showing the effects of months under snow cover and yet the longer days means Ian is coming home later and later. This means we are close to the time where we need to switch to our summer abode, aka the caravan. The caravan and the greenhouse need cleaning and sorting first though. We also have to prepare the kitchen equipment we need to take out there and the clothes that we will need. I'm ready for the change and I'm not ready for it. I like my morning read in bed with a cup of tea before I get up. This isn't possible in a caravan when we have to pack the bed away each day. I do like though the opportunity to just walk out the door and be there in the middle of a field. I'm not sure why it seems so much easier than in our apartment when there is plenty of space to walk just across the road, but it is.

George always looks like a smiley alpaca.
He was popular with the girls today when
Ian took him for a walk to see them.

Onions starting to sprout. I always have a bed of old onions
to sprout the next year. They usually come through, just as
my old store onions finish

A lizard catching the sun

Our apple trees got a hammering this year from the deer.
They had only just started to really get established too. So
frustrating

Self seeded pansies

Ian has had to pump out the root cellar.
We obviously need to sort out the
drainage. Mostly it is underneath the
cellar but one day it rose quite high and
flooded the actual cellar. Not good!

Still waiting

Early morning sunshine

Gosh it has been busy this week. I half expected a Masters thesis to land in my lap to mark, so to speak and sure enough it did. There was not much time to mark it as it was just one more thing to add to the numerous things that needed doing this week. I did spend quite a bit of time on it though, because it was only fair to the person who had put so much effort into putting it together. I had to put off marking an exam for the course I tutored, as I knew I couldn't do both and the Masters student's work had a deadline for marking and a defence this week.

Morning mist

I also managed to get our apartment sorted into some sort of shape for a family to live in over the summer.  They are safely installed now, only they are coming and going, which has actually been a boon for us as we had someone help us cull two of our sheep this week and we needed to prepare them for the freezer. This was much easier in the apartment and being nice and tidy, it was lovely just to get on and sort it. Still took us until midnight before we were back in our caravan.

Aggie looking unusually alert in the cool misty morning.
Normally she just looks tired

The sheep were noisy, demanding things. We were half considering giving them away to a charity that wanted animals for work experience for ex-offenders but we couldn't give them these particular animals. It would not have been fair. Since they have gone the other ewe and the two lambs that were born earlier this year have just got on eating and not made much of a noise. There was no chorus at around 7pm demanding their grain. Actually chorus is too kind a description. The three that are left  just ran up tonight and followed me inside, good as gold. I even had the lambs eating out of my hand. This is preparation for moving them further away from the area they are in now. They need to be able to follow the food.

The alpacas are there somewhere

The week feels a bit of a blur and it is hard to remember what happened. I had time to Skype with my daughter and her three. The two oldest ones read me books, the eldest has memorised most of the books, but the nearly two year old just babbled along - most amusing. He still calls me MAM-MA at the top of his voice. I got a bit more done on my analysing of work to be done for a paper that needs to be re-written and I was so close to finishing that before the thesis landed on me.

A white rainbow

So other random things? We had another coach party. We had a visit from our neighbours who haven't been around for a while, in fact they haven't been around for a couple of year, so nice to see them again. I have planted tomatoes, but still have loads more to do. I have planted herb seeds. I have sorted out restaurants, car hire, invoices, helped Ian move the chicken arks outside onto the grass and done lots of weeding. It doesn't look like I've done lots of weeding, but I have honest!

Griezites-henge

Ian has been trying to get the place shipshape and looking good. He has mowed grass, but of course with warmth and rain it needs doing again. He has moved the tractor equipment away from in front of the girls paddock to near the forest. He fixed the toilet that was sinking in one corner and he started building the next alpaca house, or maybe workshop, shop, barn - whatever it is needed for basically.

Working hard

Impressive he can still get in that t-shirt. You would be
shocked how old it is. 

We both saw a baby moose with its mother. Ian saw it being chased by dogs and I saw them later. I wondered why I saw them in the day time and the baby was behind the mother. I stopped the car as I felt it was panicking the little one but it decided to go down the bank towards the river. I had no idea what to do, I couldn't go and check to see if it was okay, because a moose mum is not something to be messed with. I stood on the car runner and listened and I couldn't hear any distress calls from an animal in the water and decided the best thing was probably to hope it had found a safe place and let it's mum find it.

Looking rather skinny now after shearing. Mind you, Brencis
looks bigger than we thought he would. He's getting a big
chap now. He also decided to act up before shearing and so
he took quite a bit of convincing 

I don't normally mention what happens on Tuesday in a late blog as that is the beginning of a blog week (if that makes sense), but I will this week as it is destined to be busy again as our first felting course of the year starts next Monday. So today I nipped back into our village, picked up the milk, transferred some towels to our other apartment, picked up a big pot for making stock out of bones, kept my eye on some new chicks we have and so far we have ten, we have got the boys sheared, I planted fodder beets, beetroot, carrots, peas and then put the animals away - since Ian is back at the apartment mincing up the bits of mutton, finishing off the stock after our hot plate stopped working and getting a shower.

Still waiting to hear if he is the father of a girl or boy

So all of that and we are still waiting for cria to be born. We half expected one to go into labour today, especially since we planned to do some shearing, but no. Maybe next week.

This picture amuses me because the shadow looks almost
the same as Mr. P

How elegant! Having a roll in the dirt after shearing

Look what you did to me!

Now the flies can get a bit nearer! (Look carefully to the left)
One of the downsides of shearing

Sunbathing without the fur coat. 

Transition time

I think this is a great shot that Ian took of a stork
visiting our land. I never cease to be amazed by
the storks. Not sure I would want too close, they
make quite a mess but they are still fabulous to
watch while they are around

It is that time of the year when we transition from being in the apartment to out in the caravan more, in fact Friday to Monday this last week. It has been relatively pleasant, a bit windy and sometimes cool, but it has been nice to be outside more. So lots of pictures and not so many words

They even visit the pond on a regular basis to catch frogs.
I hope they don't catch the fish though. We have seen the
fish in our top pond after the winter, but not this one but
they could be deep down hiding - hopefully

The storks eat the frogs but fortunately they don't eat the
frogspawn. It doesn't take long after the snow has gone for
the frogspawn to appear

A beautiful day today

Beds rotavated and some seedlings in under cover,
as well as other seeds such as cabbages and caulis.
The brassicas are always best under cover on our
land because they get attacked by flea beetles
otherwise, which puts lots of tiny holes in the
leaves

This week we have beds prepared for seeds and some planted up with cooler weather plants, we have areas smoothed out after wild boar activity (not recent fortunately, we seem to have escaped anything major for a while, so hopefully their numbers really have been reduced), weeding done, even the first washing on the line out on the land. It is early and we could get caught out by late frosts, but the sort of seeds I put in are more likely to suffer from dry weather, which could still come and so they are better getting off to a good start in the rain we will have over the next few days.

This is my first vegetable garden out on the land and
the soil is now quite dark for the most part as we have
added a lot of organic matter and wood chippings to
it. Some of it got a bit overgrown last year, but at
least it has had a good weeding to start the year.

Aggie was giving me a funny look because I was
laid on the grass to take this photo. She looks very
fuzzy but it was rather breezy

The biggest disadvantage with this time of year is the lengthening days, which is good on the one hand but does mean if I stay at the apartment and Ian goes out to the land he comes home very late to eat or we start eating separately - not something we are a fan of. Throughout our married life we have sat down to eat our evening meal at the table together and when our kids were at home we ate together with them too. That is one of the biggest reasons for making the transition to staying out in the caravan, the other is to save fuel of travelling backwards and forwards. When we are out there I only have to travel back twice a week, to get the washing done, take a shower, to pick up our milk delivery and do some shopping. Before anyone asks, daily showers are not only bad for the environment (think of all that hot water down the drain) but also bad for the skin's environment, a wash is quite good enough! Of course we do go into the village more often than that when we have forgotten something or need something from home, but our fuel consumption is a lot less even so.

Ian spent time re-modelling the scar around our well today.
He re-sculpted the bank to stop surface water flowing into
it, then rotavated the area around it 

He also scattered some grass seed on 

then raked it in

The inspector came to investigate. Which reminds me, the
inspector really did come to investigate today. A nice man
with a GPS came to assess our land for the EU payments,
he went away with a few photos of the alpacas too. 

The lambs are getting big as you can see, this one
is nearly as big as her mum now.

One thing I didn't mention last week was the trip back on the plane. I had the window seat and two blokes got on and sat next to me. They were f...ing this and f...ing that, which I absolutely hate, but then they ordered lemonade from the stewards and after the stewards had gone they started to top up their cups from a large bottle of vodka they had with them. Slowly over the course of the flight, they were getting louder and louder and at a few points in time even started singing. I wasn't really sure what to do and felt quite intimidated by their behaviour. I was saying a few prayers for sure. Just as we were starting the descent the one next to me had a nose bleed and asked his friend to get some tissues. I knew I had some in my bag so offered him some rather than let him bleed all over the place as it was quite a bad one. I also felt it might help to connect with him and help de-escalate what was happening. I think the nose bleed did that enough anyway, it seemed to calm them down a lot. It certainly isn't something I would like to have repeated again though.

A few signs of spring

Coltsfoot. This is usually the first flower of spring to appear
although there doesn't seem to be many of them this year

This fungus is so incredibly bright red and stands out
on the forest floor

The yearly carpet of wood anemones - I love them.
They appeared about the same time last year, but
earlier than years previous to that. In fact if you go
back a few years, sometimes our land was still under
snow and ice at this time.

Blackcurrants are budding too

Mint appearing from under the winter cover of spruce
branches - this helps to protect them from the harsh frosts

Hollyhocks

Welsh onions. I have all sorts of onions left to sprout in the
garden because they start to come push up leaves so early
in the year that we can be eating leaves almost as soon as
the stored onions are finished

The lovage is another early plant to push up after the winter

Oh yes! And ground elder, the scourge of the garden, but I'm not
so bothered these days since I found out it is perfectly edible at
this stage and gives a sort of parsley flavour to meals.

This is the Schisandra Chensis in the greenhouse. We
use this in salads, in teas and as a spice too. We
don't get that many of the supposedly amazing
berries that give so much energy, but we aren't worried
since we found out all the other uses for it.

So this was pretty much our week. There was a slight misunderstanding at one point. Ian asked for another replacement Stanley flask recently as the vacuum stopped working again, despite their 25 year guarantee - we think there was a problem with the lightweight ones that hopefully has been resolved with their new design, which is what they replaced it with. A nice lady came to give us the replacement since she is from the area, so she got her relative who speaks English to phone to arrange the drop off. No problem, it was someone we knew. The problem in Latvia though is that we know quite a few people who have names that are similar, so if we want to talk about someone we have to add a description too, unfortunately they don't add those descriptions to their phone calls, so while Ian was convinced it was the guy who had dug the well who was coming with his relative, it turned out to be another guy with the same name. Never mind, Ian got a new flask as the lady came to visit with her grandchildren the next day.