A title?

So what do you think Aggie? Have you got an opinion? Yes!
Aggie does have opinions and usually it is "What are you
doing here?" When she sees me. I guess she was relieved
today that I was not putting cream on her feet. She's doing
pretty well this year.

How do you title a week like last week? From the minutiae of daily life to potentially life-changing events over which I have no control. Life has been full of the little things and one of the extraordinarily large ones. Little things like we now have a working electric smart meter. I no longer have to make sure that Ian gives me the reading from our land to send to the electric company, it updates our records automatically. That won't stop Ian from checking on a regular basis though - Mr. Excel-man. If it's measurable, it's in an excel sheet somewhere.

Frosty mornings

Ilvija. Baby alpacas are cute. She looks like she is going to
be much darker on the top of her head than her mum.

There are also the little things like having to put my magic cream on the legs of two of our alpacas. Lady V must be starting to feel the immune-suppressing gloom we have had just lately, as this is the first time I've had to put cream on her in ages. Freddie, unfortunately has inherited his mother's over reactive skin problems and it is starting to spread, so he is a regular for my cream. Little Ilvija has started eating out of Ian's hand and so it gives him the opportunity to start the training to accept a halter. First he gets to tickle her under the chin and then stroke her face. The more used to touch the better as we do not want another spitty alpaca that hates any form of contact and lets everyone know about it within a 2 metre range, like her mother. Don't get me wrong, her mother is a lovely alpaca, just not when you have to try and put cream on her, or give her an injection or at shearing time and so on.

Lady V in contemplative mood

Freddie, the other recipient of the magic cream

Eyre, not Sofie. Eyre is the one usually in trouble, but not
this time

There are also the little thing challenges of having a cat, who is determined to get out. We had been keeping Sofie in our greenhouse to stop her going up to our neighbours, but she clawed her way through the plastic when she couldn't get out of the hole in the back of the greenhouse that she dug out years ago and Ian had blocked up. Ian taped up the hole she had made at the weekend, only today she tried to go through again in two separate attempts. This was despite the fact that the hole was unblocked and Ian showed her that she could go through after the first attempt. Not happy was he!

It's a good job she will be darker on her head than Chanel. It
will be difficult to tell them apart otherwise in years to come.

Ilvija is still feeding but Chanel is not giving her enough
to keep up with a growing alpaca, so it is nice that she is
now eating the feed like the others. She gets her own tray now

Ian finished off the repairs to one of the chicken arks that had sat outside in the rain until recently. We had managed to collect it one frosty morning and take it down to the barn where he could work on it. It needed a new base as the old one had rotted through. As the ark was in two pieces we could easily slot the components through the gaps beside the caravan and set it up in situ. Finally we could bring the last group of chickens inside the greenhouse. The last few days they have enjoyed not being rained on or sitting huddled in their hutch all day. We even got a blue egg today. The hen that lays the blue eggs hasn't given us an egg in ages. Unless of course she's been eating them. I wouldn't feel too sorry for them though, the stupid chickens quite often refused to go in and would sit up on top of the ark, in the rain and even the snow, rather than go in, or even sit underneath the ark where there was shelter. It has also been relatively mild, but it is nice to get them inside before the real winter weather hits.

Has someone been sitting down?

The alpaca pruned Christmas tree

Not the same Christmas tree. Ian cuts down Christmas trees
for the alpacas to eat. Plenty of vitamins. These are the weed
ones that need taking out to let the grass grow, or other
trees to thrive

Snow clouds gathering over the girls' alpaca house

Talking of weather, the snow has come and gone again this week. Now we are just back to gloom and wet soggy land. Ian even had to get the tractor out to sort out the roadway and create a run off to take the water away as it was just getting more and more boggy. This of course made a right mess, but hopefully in the long run it will improve. He now has the water running into the ditches the road company made. At least the rain means the water table is high and hopefully soaking its way into the underground stores, keeping the pressure high in the springs and water bearing sections of our land. 150 litres of water went into our well yesterday and once again it is close to the top. This represents quite a force to keep the water at near ground level on a slope. The actual water bearing layer is about 2 metres down.

A gloomy day, but not as gloomy as today after the snow has
melted

Hello Mr. Tellus, how are you today? Good? 

We took a trip into Riga this week. I planned to visit the Latvian Aquatic Ecology centre to see someone I had met in Helsinki. Ian took me in so that he could get some tyres for the car. Here in the sticks he would have had to order them from one place, then organise to get them fitted at our local garage. In Riga we can just go in and get them fitted quickly, without waiting weeks, but of course it costs in fuel and time to get it done. At least this way it was an opportunity for me to visit without an early start or having to hang around for buses. So while he was getting the tyres fitted I had a tour of the small centre. Despite its size, the centre had a range of labs for testing numerous aspects of the Baltic Sea. Heavy metals, toxicology experiments, algae experiments, nutrient load etc. I think there were about 8 or so small labs. It was fascinating to see the work that up until then I had only been reading about.

Hmmmm! Sunshine. Mr. P doing a bit of winter sunbathing

Minimalist headgear worn by Josefs.

The people in the centre were also a lovely bunch. I'm not sure they get many visitors and so they were quite keen to show me around and tell me about what they are doing. I got to talk about pharmacology and the issues with pharmaceuticals in the water with people who understand the issues. In our EU project that I'm working on, I'm the only one with any pharmaceutical knowledge and my knowledge is a bit antiquated. At least I understand the concepts and the risks and so it was nice to talk with people who shared my concerns and to confirm that I wasn't way off base in my thinking. Meanwhile Ian arrived back and talked to some of them about alpacas, as you do.

All attention on a little, teeny, tiny cat!

Jakobs often looks like he's wearing make up

At least this was on a day when I needed a bit of a distraction. It was election day in the UK. Up until recently I only kept a distant interest in the ins and outs of the UK elections since leaving. I didn't think it was fair to inflict my choices on those who still live in the UK. Now it feels unfair to have choices inflicted on me with no say. I left the UK over 16 years ago. After 15 years I have no opportunity to vote, whether it affects me or not. The saddest thing I saw was a lady who had worked on behalf of the UK government for over 20 years being denied a vote that would mean her job disappeared. She was settled in Belgium, her children were there. Now! Who knows and who in the UK government even cares.

That is a serious eyebrow work there, but maybe a bit hasty
with the lipstick.

George, Jakobs half brother is not into the make up though.
He's more into the natural look

It was with a degree of schadenfreude that I saw Anne Widecombe was denied a seat in Parliament. She will shortly be leaving the EU Parliament, where she and the rest of Farage's team only seemed to offer stupid comments. At least she and Farage will not be able to walk into another parliament to utter further ridiculous pronouncements. I doubt they will suffer the heartache that many will feel who will now also be losing their jobs for certain in all the EU agencies. All those jobs rested on being from an EU member state. About the only bright point is the uncertainty will end, but not the negotiations. Finished by December 2020. I think not! Democratic decision? No way! How can a democratic decision be made when over 80% of the output consists of lies? What kind of democracy is that? Something is definitely broken in the politics of the UK. I hope and pray that this galvanises a rise from the grassroots level to put it right. Meanwhile I will be looking at learning Latvian to see about Latvian citizenship. I pray my brain will cope.

Soaking up the sun

Jakobs mum

Antonia also looks like she likes a bit of make up. More the
Egyptian eyeliner look though

Going to be a frosty night

These next three photos look like they have had a filter put on them, but this was the colour in the sunset. So weird. These were taken about 13 days ago when we had more snow.

Is it spring?

This was the scene on Wednesday

It sure feels like spring after the two and a half weeks of snow we had. It has finally just about left us now. Just a few mucky piles of the stuff left over from the piles of cleared snow, mainly at the sides of the roads or in car parks. Of course that does not mean there won't be more, but at least Ian can get back on with some jobs that he could do with doing before the winter really does kick in. The only problem is that we now need the ground to dry up or freeze. Our well has been filling up at an incredible rate of over 250 litres a day with the melt. The recent influx though of water is mainly ground water and not the spring water so it is a bit murky with sediment. Part of the reason though is because the concrete rings were mucky from when they were put in, so hopefully this has cleaned the sides now. A friend of ours said it might take a year to settle down, so no worries yet!

Friday 

Saturday, just about all gone and the grass is still green, unlike
after the winter snows next spring.

A path cleared with the snow blower

At least now the snow has gone, it means Ian doesn't have to do so much snow blowing. We had begun to wonder if this was going to be a feature until March or April, so although the days are duller now without the snow, more can be done. I also dug up the dahlia tubers that I had forgotten about, which need to be stored over winter and not left in the ground. I have now also covered my herb bed with spruce branches to protect them from a hard freeze.

Nature's artwork

And this is the result in the well. Nearly full to overflowing.
Approximately 3m3 of water. Should keep us going for a
while. Although Ian is planning on cleaning the sides of the
well with a brush and then pumping some of it out and letting
it refill.

It has been a strange week as we settled into living back in our apartment. We haven't lived there since mid-April and so many of our things have been put away or we have just forgotten where they once lived. Ian finally found my big, fluffy, purple dressing gown - something you would think was rather difficult to hide in a small apartment. He found it had been pushed to the back of a shelf in our wardrobe under a bag of clothes destined for the second-hand store or recycling. I still haven't found the tie for it though so for now it is tied up with a rather vibrant scarf - it works. Ian also found his body pillow - a pillow recommended by a chiropractor that Ian used to visit in the US when he was having issues with a bad back. We are also still in the process of bringing stuff back from the land that we still need at home or will be damaged in the cold winter temperatures, but it is a slow process.

If you were wondering how Sofie has got on after her hip
dislocation. I think this picture speaks for itself. This is above
the door in the greenhouse

She's also eager to be off on her travels. This was the day
after she had the pin out. It is hard to keep her in now.

We are also gradually sorting through our list of things to do and trying to get them ticked off. Ian and I finished off an article for a magazine and I finished off a book chapter for an academic piece of work. We have sorted through bags of fleece to decide how to process it.

As the snow melted off the roof, the icicles were left at a
rather perculiar angle

This little lass has discovered how to get into the food
cupboard on the wall. No wonder she slept so well today

We even got our friend round to help us finally make a decision on our sheep and what needs to be done with them. He gave us a few options and gave us his opinion, which was helpful. We are still not fully decided but will be by the end of the week, as we have a deadline to work to, always useful. Our friend also offered us some silage, as they have more than they need. That will help us with feeding the sheep, as they are getting through rather too much, much more than the alpacas despite their smaller size.

One eerie morning

Makes me thinkg of some fantasy winter scene for a movie or
something like that

Another item ticked off the list was to get our land onto the rural support scheme, which basically means getting some money for endeavouring to farm the land. We have to put a map together of the parts that we are including in the support area, as we know some bits have too many trees on at the moment. Some bits will be included but we will cut down the trees that need thinning out and some we won't bother with for the time being. I say "we," what I mean is Ian. He has the bulk of that kind of work to do. I shall be busy doing other things. I try to make a point of going at the weekends though to take a break from the brain work, but I cannot be there all the time. At least we are grateful for one of our visitors over the summer who is helping us get this sorted.

The mid-week snow made some
interesting sculptures

We have done some sorting out in here, honest!

We've had the usual problems with plumbing again at our other apartment. We can't blame the plumber, we know he did an excellent job with the best fittings available. The problem is that some of the fittings available are rather sub-standard. It is one of the reasons that all water pipes run on the outside of the wall and we have stop taps at multiple points. This time it was the bath tap that started leaking. It is the first time the water has been heated in a long while and so the tap split and water started squirting out the back of the tap. It was the first bath we had planned since April - don't worry we have had showers in the meantime, but the bath was a luxury soak we had once a week along with watching a DVD, not while we are having a bath of course. In the end we did neither.

I guess Turbjørn has his woolly blanket on, so can sit around
in the snow

Why drink water when you can eat snow?

One of the good things about being at home is the chance to have a trip to a nice little bakery in the village with a friend. She had been teaching us Latvian but I hadn't really had the opportunity to have a proper catch up in a while, so made a point of doing just that this week. We put the world to right, as you do over a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake. We were just about done on the topic of communities when her husband arrived and then the topic turned to hay, back home it was sociology. I can get through a few varied topics in a day.

I love the way that photos capture an agate quality of semi-frozen
ponds. In life it just looks a bit mucky.

The pond a few days later

The car gets left near the road, because the track up is too
muddy and it could get stuck. Rather than ruin the ground
even more we decide to walk to the caravan.

We also joined in with a local action group on Sunday. They are trying to make positive changes to the village, when the consensus it is a place where people come to die - not really true, as there are so many young families, but obviously they can find it difficult out in rural Latvia. We want to support the young folks, so even though we don't understand much, we can participate and encourage. Being younger, someone often does some translating and if nothing else it is a chance to hear Latvian being spoken.

Hopefully this will stop a lot of the snow getting in this time.
You can see the spruce covered herb bed to the right too

Glorious coloured dandelion leaves

Agnese in decidedly unfriendly mood to me. Head up, tail up
back arched and clucking. She is trying to say she thinks she
is higher up the pecking order than I am. I have news for her!

Agnese in friendlier mood

I still find it hard to believe at times that we own this forest.