Gosh what a week!

The orchids are out now. I think this one is a Marsh Orchid
if I remember correctly

This is one of those weeks when it feels like nothing much seems to get done that we planned on doing and yet we have been busy. It started off with the need to move the sheep from what has really been their winter quarters for far too long. The plan was to shear the one ewe that we had kept, before putting her and the two lambs over the hill, out of the way. This is so they are not continually making a noise every time we move because they think they are going to get fed. The grass is good enough to eat these days.

The chicks got put outside this week and the new ones have
started hatching in the incubator. We had a broody hen and
this always stops others from laying in the box, so we
moved her out to look after the chicks. That worked quite
well last year, but this year this hen decided that she was
having none of this and eventually started picking on the
chicks. At least it cured her broodiness

Ian tends to get a bad back shearing sheep, alpacas are much easier, still there was only one. He managed to get hold of the sheep okay in the shed where they had been overwintered and start shearing. The two lambs were fine at first, but after a while they started charging around, which was not helping with the shearing. In the end I had to let them out while Ian held onto the ewe. Eventually Ian got to a point where he needed me to hang onto the ewe, which went okay for a while but then she managed to wriggle free and started charging around the shed with half of her fleece still on - she looked ridiculous. Ian was not amused and managed to get hold of her again. This time I basically pinned her down by lying on top, which was not pleasant in the poop on the floor.

The boys have been moved onto fresh grass

The jeans washed okay afterwards though and the ewe didn't look too bad after the haircut. So all was well. We decided to give her a day to recover and a chance to calm down before relocating them. The problem is when sheep or alpacas are sheared the rest of the flock do not recognise them and it takes a while for them to convince the others they are not new animals trying to infiltrate the herd. The following day we managed to relocate them without much hassle, which was a pleasant surprise after last year when the lambs we had then made it really difficult and were chased all over the place to get them in to where they were supposed to be. That was one advantage of being born earlier in the year and Ian having fed them for a while each night.

We've seen a lot of this this summer, a rather heavy shower

At least that was one thing crossed off the list. Another thing crossed off our list was to talk about the possibility of selling one of our apartments. It has been useful having two apartments, especially when people stay, but in the summer that can mean that our stuff is spread over two apartments and one caravan. We sometimes end up not knowing where anything is and ideally we would love a cabin at least out on the land. We have got someone interested and so we at least can now see where that goes.

I'm looking at you.

Other things that got crossed off the list was to tighten the plastic on the greenhouse. It has been a rather cold, blustery and rainy summer for us and that does not do the plastic much good. It is getting older and our cat, Eyre, has not made a positive contribution to the integrity of the stuff. In other words she has been putting holes in it by trying to catch birds on the roof we think. As well as doing that, Ian also got his shears stripped down and cleaned after the shearing of the sheep. Combs and cutters are sharpened ready to do the girls when the weather improves and all have finished giving birth - well that's the plan.

Harebells

I love rainbows

Alpacas are known to give birth in the morning or early afternoon, which so far has been the case for us, except this week. Late afternoon Ian hurriedly stuck his head around the door of the caravan and said "Come quick! I think Chanel has gone into labour!" Oiks! Not good news! Especially as it can indicate an issue. Sure enough it was clear that Chanel was going into labour outside and was not going into the alpaca house like the others tended to do. She seemed to be struggling with just the head out, so I went to try and get our neighbour. Unfortunately the only thing that greeted me were her two geese who were acting as good guard dogs as they do. I went back and Ian was very obviously concerned about Chanel. She had managed to burst the sac on a stick on the ground and now the cria needed to be born.

Meet Fredriks

The first thing we had to do was catch her, without unduly stressing her. A difficult job at the best of times as she is one of the most stressy of animals as it is. She set off at a bit of a trot with a head still hanging out, but eventually we managed to get hold of her. I held her head while Ian sorted out the problem, which was that one foot was over its head, rather than underneath. He managed to get the leg around the right way and then delivered the baby. He swung the baby upside down a bit to clear its airways as it didn't seem to be breathing properly and thankfully as he did that it started to object. We got Chanel and her baby boy, who we named Frederiks, inside so we could dry him off and ensure that she got started on feeding him before we called it a night.

Frederiks up and about

A very tired Mari

The next day Mari went into labour or at least seemed to. She was very uncomfortable all day and got quite tired. By the evening she still hadn't given birth. She seemed to settle down and we called it a night. Ian had spent all day just watching over her and got nothing done. I got quite a bit done as we had the young chap come and help us again. This time he spent most of the time on his knees weeding first the strawberry bed and then clearing some very weedy plots. We worked really hard all day and the garden is showing improvement. Ian has also managed to mow between the beds today and so it is all looking remarkably neat, just don't look too closely at what is actually growing in the beds but at least even the weeds are mainly edible.

Peek-a-boo

Now meet George

The next morning Ian went to let the alpacas out as usual and found that Mari had just given birth also to a little boy, George. That meant a change to our normal morning routine. Poor Mari looked really tired and she wasn't bonding with her baby. We spent a fraught day watching over the pair and ended up milking her twice to get some colostrum down the little fella. We also gave him a sugar and salt solution to give him some energy. The problem was that he wasn't suckling very well either and there is a danger in giving milk if the suckling reflex is not working. Eventually he started suckling properly, which we were really relieved about.

It is a good job there is a difference in face shape, ear colour
and a shade difference in the brown. We didn't expect Mari's
baby to be totally brown too. Tellus his father is white.

Frederiks and George making friends - well maybe

The next day was a bit fraught too, as he was not doing as well as Frederiks. While Frederiks was bounding around, George was lying down a lot. We let them outside and Mari and George seemed to bond better but still not great and he wasn't really feeding. We were just at the stage of thinking of penning Mari in again and milking her when suddenly she stood still and George started feeding from her. We were so relieved. Still we weren't in the clear yet.

George in his cria coat

He was still rather lethargic today and we were concerned he wasn't getting enough to eat. His mum was still not bonding very well with him but she is much better than she was. Gradually over the day though he seemed to start feeding more often and began running around. The weather hasn't helped, we spent a few times during the day haring up to the paddock to hustle the alpacas inside. They were not impressed, as the girls do not like being penned up in the rain, they would rather stay outside. The babies, however, are not up to getting drenched yet, especially George. We resorted to putting him in a cria coat as he was shivering a bit.

He did rather too much of this for our liking. Crias usually
sit in a cushed position like above. At least he has done
much less of this today and more cushing

Now that is better, much more alert and cushing instead of
crashing

We had another visit before Frederiks was born. A young girl with her Mum and the chap who has translated for us at various times. The mother was keen for the young girl to learn English and so we have arranged for her to come and help us a couple of times a week so she can practice. She is used to helping her Mum in the garden, as do many youngsters around here and so hopefully my garden will actually stay under control this year. Now that will be nice. She is also used to being around animals too, as her family have beef cattle. She wasn't afraid of going up to them, but Chanel rewarded her bravery by spitting at her. We had wondered why she was more on edge than usual and now we know that she was probably in labour and that was why she was also moaning more than usual.

Frederiks' ET impression

Cria are so cute

Such a relief to see George feeding

At least Mari has accepted George in his snazzy outfit

No George that is not your mother. Lady V is surprisingly
tolerant of the youngsters, not so tolerant of the adults
though. She didn't tolerate him trying to feed from her
though.

Chanel panics if she cannot see Frederiks

Frederiks and George having a run around

500th Post

Preparing our evening meal in the greenhouse kitchen. It has
been great to use this space at the front of the greenhouse this
year. Normally it is planted up with tomatoes but we decided
it was better to utilise the space for when we have groups and
the felting workshop. It was a good plan

A momentous occasion don't you think? Well I do! I am surprised I got this far, five hundred blog posts representing over eight years here in Latvia. As I mentioned last week it is hard to believe we are doing what we are doing now and wouldn't have envisaged life playing out in quite the way it has done over the years. Would we change anything? Not much! We love the life we are leading, even with its frustrations, but my one regret is not living closer to the grandchildren. Still won't be long before we get to see them again.

I went for a swim in our new pond. It was a nice warm day
so the water was not too cold, but I did find out that the distance
was just a tad short for a good swim. It needs more solid sides
when it is so short or I just end up muddying up the pond

One of the cut sections

So what's happened this week? It rained all night at the beginning of the week and I mean allllllll night - it was a bit noisy in the caravan. The ground that was nicely drying out was once again saturated and the beginnings of the well which was due to be dug out this week was once again very nearly a spring. Despite the soggy ground we decided that we had to go ahead with cutting for hay.

Hay stacked in the barn now under cover

Ian has been mowing the grass around the ponds and where
the well will be, otherwise by the time they come it will be
too long and get in the way.

There is such a difference between cutting hay in June and now. In June the days are very much longer in our northerly latitudes. The sun is often starting to peek up about 4am and doesn't go down until around 10pm, which means plenty of drying time and not much dew on the ground. This time of year is a different matter with much wetter mornings that don't dry out until mid-morning at the earliest. One day we woke to thick fog that meant the ground did not dry until early afternoon. Instead of at the most two days for hay to dry and only maybe needing to turn once, the grass was turned twice and took three days to dry and even then the bales were heavy.

A butterfly on our echinacea plants

Four fleeces all ready for next years
felting course. Lots of long locks, mainly
because they were so late being sheared

My friend and supervisor, who is the son of a sheep farmer came at the weekend and helped us with shearing the sheep, since they were dry enough to do that finally. He managed to do all four thankfully and Ian just trimmed toe nails. After a late lunch, he took off back to his summer home and we got on with collecting the bales of hay. We collected about half of them and stacked them, but Ian was tired because they were so heavy. We wondered about leaving them, as the forecast had been good, but he decided to check to see if they had changed their mind - sure enough they had. So we summoned up some energy and went and collected the rest of the bales, stacked them and collected up some loose hay that had taken too long to dry to be baled and put that in the boys alpaca house. It was a good job we did as we had quite a downpour in the late evening.

The Jerusalem artichokes are flowering too. The chickens will
be happy as they make great winter food for them

500kg each and now sat outside the girl's paddock. Hope it is
not too long before they get moved to their final resting place

During the week we had progress on the well. We had a delivery of four concrete rings for the construction. Unfortunately the driver managed to get his lorry stuck on the grass as he was trying to turn it around to back it up and drop the rings off. Each ring weighs a half a tonne and so you can imagine what that did to the ground. Ian felt bad enough with our little tractor as he was leaving tread marks in the soft ground everywhere, not something he likes to do because it is damaging to the soil. At one point we got pieces of waste wood and the guy jacked up the lorry on the lorry supports to get the wheels clear, they then put more wood underneath those. Ian then pulled it out with his little tractor. Good job the tractor is actually quite a powerful little machine.

A stack of waste wood and some deep tyre treads in the ground

All set up for the arrival of the group

During the escapade we noticed the guy who was due to dig the well had a bandaged finger that he was struggling with. He doesn't speak English and I think he decided it was too complicated to explain to me, so later on in the day his colleague turned up to tell us that the well digging itself was going to have to be postponed. It was probably a good job as we also had another coach group in at the weekend. Another 29 folks to show around; a group of kindergarten teachers and their families. Just about every group we have ever shown around are fascinated by our greenhouse, especially the grapes and there were a few folks who were taking pictures of friends with the grapes. We had one lady also explain that she had heard about our felting workshops and was determined to come to one next year. That's a great start and a great encouragement too for us.

Items for sale

Our own items for demonstration purposes or waiting to be
finished off

I mentioned last week the storks left and so Ian has had a lonely time cutting the hay. Normally he has a group of them who follow his tractor looking for frogs, mice, moles and the occasional corncrake. There were no storks or thankfully corncrakes either. All have left for their winter lodgings. I have heard the cranes around still and I was surprised as I thought they would have gone - they are noisy birds. Most of the swallows have gone too, hundreds of them turned up one day to say goodbye and then they were off. Ian did see a couple of them around today, but they might be sick ones or too young to go yet.

These chickens have a bit more outside space than the others,
but the little ones keep escaping. We have been gradually adding
to the reinforcements, but still they are getting out. One day
Ian found three of them sat on top of the gate and that is despite
the fact they have had one of their wings clipped to stop them
flying out.

The main culprits are the white one at the front and one of the
small grey ones, not sure from this photo which one. Our two
older chickens the brown one at the top and the black and white
speckled one on the right are still our best layers, despite their age.

My garden is getting a little wild with the squash plants allowed
to ramble where they will and the self-seeded hemp plants which
have grown incredibly tall this year. 

The girls have a long walk down to their field at the moment,
but they seem to be enjoying it, as they make the trip down
there quite often. 

In clover

Veronica. Unusually nosy for her!

It has been an intense week this week. Although we often do lots of different activities, the pace we go at is usually fairly relaxed, but not this week. First of all Ian moved the sheep from where they have been all spring to somewhere nearer to what they would consider civilisation (being herd animals and only three of them, I think they miss the company). The poor things were so hot, but we did make sure their feeding ground include trees for shelter, but did they use it – no of course not! They had to sit in the hottest spot next to the gate.

The sheep were over this hill behind Ian taking the photo.
He then moved them all the way over to a spot to the
left of the greenhouse. They were very good and didn't
scamper off at all. I think it was just too hot

If you don't examine them too carefully, they look much
better today. Still, if they could, they would change their
hairdresser

The reason for moving them nearer to civilisation was to bring them closer to an electric point so we could shear them using the mains electric and not a generator. It went so well at first, we managed to stop any of them escaping first of all and we then tied their legs together to stop them running off while we sheared. Before you think we were being cruel, you have to remember these are animals that cleared a four foot wooden fence by scrabbling over it. If these sheep did not get sheared that day, they weren't going to get sheared for quite a while and in the heat we had this week, it was the less cruel option. Unfortunately Ian has not been on a sheep shearing course and the finish was not very professional, in fact they looked a proper dog’s breakfast - if you get what I mean. Still they fairly skipped around in the rain yesterday. Better than the big wool coat they were wearing.

Brencis looking gorgeous

Brencis' fleece. You can see it is definitely not pure white

The instrument of torture ..errr I mean
the hoist. We need to find a wider belt
for it, but at least the principle worked.
It was funny holding Snowdrop
because she would audibly sigh as she
was being milked. I think it was a relief

Although Snowdrop lost her baby last week, she was quite full of milk. Rather than waste it and because we know that she is likely to have problems feeding a baby in the future, it is always good to have spare so we milked her. That is now in the freezer – not much but at least it is something - a feed's worth. It may contain colostrum, but I'm not sure if colostrum is always the first lot of milk or whether it is only within 24 hours. We did try to milk her while she was pinned down for shearing but it didn't work. We then tried it while she was standing up, but she kept cushing (the alpaca term for sitting down with their legs underneath them, which of course means it is impossible to milk her like that. In the end Ian made a hoist to stop her cushing. I'm glad to say it worked well.

Wheat and Poppies - not red ones though

Amaranth. These have been competing
well with the weeds and Ian has been
able to keep just ahead with these.

We have also got quite a bit of weeding done, but there is not much to show for it, although I did find some carrots and dill, not many, but they are at least there. Of course at this time of year, if you don't keep on top of the weeding, the weeds tend to take over. We had some old seed and a bad year for germination and that hasn't helped. I have some carrots going to seed in the greenhouse, so that should give us plenty of carrot seed for next year and I shall buy some fresh seed from a seed company, so that we have a good genetic mix of carrots. I let enough carrots go to seed for our own use, but not enough to make sure they provide us with healthy plants genetically in the future.

Lots of wonderful flowers at this time of the year and until
Monday was blissfully relatively free of biting insects.
Monday the really large horse flies suddenly appeared.
They look like something out of a horror movie, but
fortunately they are so loud, you can hear them coming
and be prepared. It is the pesky small ones that are harder
to get.

Because we haven't got any chick pictures
this week, here is one of Eyre looking
sleepy. She has been ever so good at going
to sleep in the toilet area of the caravan when
we have been sleeping in it. She is quiet until
we wake up.

Talking of genetics, we are have bred some lovely looking chickens, with gorgeous black or grey feathers, unfortunately we seem to have bred out any sign of intelligence at the same time. All our other chickens have only taken about three days maximum to get the idea that when food is put in the back of the ark, that means it is time to go away for the night. The food is an incentive to go into the box to be fastened up. However, this lot have been chased around the ark lots of times to catch them. It would be the most awkward ark too. It was designed as a small ark for chicks to go on the floor, but then we extended it upwards to give them more room and there isn't as much access for humans. At least they are finally getting the idea, apart from one and even that one is finally getting it. It tends to look around as if to say, "where has everyone gone?" before the penny drops and into the box it goes, a good minute after the others. I do hope the folks that got their siblings are not having the same bother.

Sour dough bread buns freshly baked for
lunch

The sweetcorn is doing well in the greenhouse

Apart from all that it was an intense hay cutting, baling and shifting week. We reckon we may have shifted about 4 ½ tonnes and I have certainly walked miles behind tractor. The good news is that it would seem the UK got our heatwave and we only had to put up with temperatures around 28C (82) and not over 30C (86F) like we normally do. I certainly felt the benefit. I don't even feel particularly sore, just like I have done a lot of work.

Some of the cuttings from one of the grapevines in the
greenhouse seems to have taken. We aim to plant these
ones outside and see how they will do there.

The rain on Monday battered some of our oats. Not sure if
we will get anything out of this bit. It maybe okay. It is
not as if we need to harvest it with a combine harvester.
We might just use the scythe 

One of the first things we had to do was shift some of last years hay that we still had in our neighbours barn down to our place to make room for the new hay. While we were doing that our neighbour came into the barn carrying two freshly baked goodies, straight out of the oven. She was supplying the camp nearby with things like cinamon rolls, biezpiena rolls (kind of like a cross between cottage cheese and curd cheese in a sweet roll) and pizzas. They were absolutely gorgeous and much appreciated. She does look after us.

Tomatoes are starting to form on our plants now

Looking down from the top of the ski hill at the area
we cut, baled and cleared

This is to the left of the picture above

A remnant from the Soviet era. The signage
on this electric pole is in Russian

It was close but we managed to get all of this year's hay into the barn and stacked in the space we were allowed. I think we could have only got one or two more bales in. We had around 70 bales leftover from last year, and over 180 new ones. That will be more than enough and means we do not have to worry about trying to bale and stack any more from the land. We needed more in past years because we didn't have any where to stack it to keep it dry and ended up throwing a lot of it away. It feels very nice to know that won't be as much of a problem this time around.

Not the strawberries I picked after the hay stacking but ones
I cut up to dry. The strawberries are huge and tasty this year
and we have been having them on our breakfast all week.
Such a hard life!

I feel like a true farmer this year. We knew some rain was coming, so got all the hay collected and stacked and since the rain was imminent Ian went and baled hay we had cut around the side of our greenhouse that had been re-seeded a year or so ago and was lush and tall not like most of the hay this year. I also went and collected all the ripe strawberries because the expected rain was due to be heavy and I didn’t want to waste them. We just finished those jobs as the first few spots of rain began to fall, at that point we finally went and ate and then slept for an hour or so. I don't even feel that bad today. I thought I would have been quite stiff, but I just feel like I have over done it yesterday and need to take it easy today. So not bad, must be getting stronger each year, or not as drained in the lower temperatures maybe.

These four bales of hay came from the side and rear of the
greenhouse

Three bales from this section and one from behind

The uncut patch is to keep everyone guessing what we are
up to :) or the other explanation is to allow the clover (the
purple splodge in the middle that you can see) to go to
seed and spread around that area. The grass in that area is
rather thin and so hopefully the clover will add some
fertility

We have found that the hay every year is very different due to the growing conditions.  Often the grass is tall, but the cool, dry spring meant this year's hay was on the short side and not so dense. What we have noticed though is a huge increase in clover. I have identified at least three sorts, possibly four. There was also vetches and lady’s bedstaw in abundance. So the hay will be very scented and possibly rather fattening with all the leguminous plants– so not much grain supplement will be needed for our boys this next year, they are fat enough as it is.