Dignity

Some soggy looking alpacas. Notice Veronica our older and
more sensible alpaca in the background - she isn't venturing
far in the yucky weather

I had a Latvian lesson this week in return for letting someone make felt. My teacher is nine years old. One of her parents is English and the other American but she goes to a Latvian school and therefore is able to use both languages competently. I told her that I would have to ask her a word lots of times before it sticks but we had fun making felt anyway and have plans to make some presents. Trying to find a teacher has been a nightmare and so we will see how this works. Mostly she told me about her school and what she does, she told me first in English and then in Latvian so I could hear both. I think that worked quite well.

Soggy messes and the winter isn't supposed to be over yet

As the weather warms up the cut surfaces of the felled alder
trees start to oxidise

My young Latvian teacher's Mum is doing a Masters in Music Therapy and we often chat about studying and various aspects of our work together. She had a brilliant idea the other week of us having a writing day together. We would each work on our own pieces in the same room. It helped to concentrate my mind for sure and we occasionally shared what we had written and commented on that. I actually got two pieces of work completed in the morning, which was great. We both have a lot of writing that needs doing in the next few months and so hopefully we can work together some more and encourage each other in the process.

My attempt at painting an alpaca. I'm happy
with the way it is going but not happy enough
to say it is finished. At least it looks like an
alpaca

A little cherub

Ian and I finally managed to work together to get something spun and knitted with the wool from the alpacas. Ian carded and spun the wool and I knitted this cardigan. This little cherub is my youngest granddaughter, so it seems fitting that the cardigan also has buttons from my grandmother's stash that I inherited. My grandmother was one of my teachers and an inspiration for knitting. Many of the jumpers (sweaters) we used to wear were knitted by her. I have to admit though my granddaughter didn't smile all the time whilst wearing the cardigan, she did find the collar itched a bit, which is a shame. Her Mum will try some fabric softner on it first and if that doesn't work will sew in a piece around the neck. At least there is plenty of growing room in it.

Remembering cold, sunny snowy days

On bus number two of four to get to Estonia. This is an old
army town in Latvia and would have been off-limits to
even most Latvians in Soviet times

I am up in Estonia again today. It is a long time since I have made it up here and on the way I stopped off in a small Estonian village for an interview with a lovely lady who has an open heart and an open house. An American couple helped me with the interview since they know the language and have known the lady for many years. I love hearing stories from people who have such a generous heart and although she has three of her own children, there are many more who claim her as a Mum in their own lives. She had invited two of her grandchildren to be there too and they were testament to her generous nature, as they were infused with it too.

The boys were locked in one day because the paddock was so
icy they were in danger of hurting themselves

The snow starting to go Wednesday

At least the welcome at this dear lady's home was warmer than when I set off this morning. Last week it had warmed up a lot and just about all the snow disappeared into a wet sludgy mess. However it snowed overnight and so there was about 10cm of snow again this morning and more than up here in the North ironically, but that is because it is at a lower altitude. I have come to expect warmer weather here in Tartu than back home in Latvia.

By the afternoon of Thursday it had largely disappeared
until today

A veritable river of water running where water does not often
run, except like now when the snow melts

We have just got the results back from the histological examination on Snowdrop's liver (our alpaca who died just over a week ago now). We need to talk to the vet to check that Google translate has given us a reasonably accurate translation - as far as it manages with Latvian anyhow - but it appears to say that the cancer was in her bile duct epithelium and had spread to her liver; it was also a fairly aggressive type of cancer. That possibly explains why she wasn't jaundiced and why she deteriorated so quickly. At least we can be fairly confident that there was nothing we could have done for her except to make her last days as comfortable as possible. It is always a worry in case we had inadvertently caused her suffering, but I think that we can be reassured that it wasn't the case here.

And this is the result, our temporary lake

Posted by Kripu Kasumarthy on facebook of ''You Blew Me Away''
Garden Sculpture by Penny Hardy.

As usual I have been pondering on life the universe and everything this week and one of the things I have been pondering on is dignity. The picture on the left set me off. It was posted by a friend on facebook and it first of all spoke to me of my cares being blown away by the whisper of God. It then it also spoke to me of those who have travelled so far in the face of such atrocities and losing little by little parts of themselves in the trauma. The Danish law that requires refugees to be searched and have their valuables removed to me is encapsulated in this picture too, where humanity is gradually being stripped away in the face of hatred.

Oh the joys!

The lady in Estonia reached out to her neighbours when they were in need. Even if they took her for granted at times, she still showed them much dignity. Some of those neighbours would often drink, losing themselves little by little in an alcoholic haze and yet she still reached out to them. All who came for help would be helped.

Soggy

Surprisingly enough, no children were
out playing today. A rather soggy
playground

A rather large area of low pressure has sat over us for the last 24 hours at least, bringing rain for much of that time. At least it held off long enough for me to have a good stint in the garden to get rid of some of the weeds that were beginning to make my orchard plot unrecognisable. I have also started harvesting some of the squash, one sort is spaghetti squash which has grown in a totally unexpected place and the other sort we are not sure what type it is, they are bright yellow instead of the blue of sweetmeat squashes which is what we thought they might be. They have obviously crossed with another type. So it will be interesting to find out what they taste like. The onions are all in too, just in time by the look of them, if they had sat out in this rain, they could well have rotted away, as would some of the beans. Some beans are still nice and green, but others were starting to get the tell tale signs of needing to be picked.

Ian sifting buckwheat. We won't be bothering with sifting
all the buckwheat, the chickens will be doing that for
themselves. This is for seed next year

Having gathered in the hay, the barley and the buckwheat now, I feel that my life is gradually returning to a more measured pace, where I can get some studying done in peace. Actually it is not just the harvests that have been completed, it is also the fact that I have just about completed the paper I was writing and the lessons for the Sociology course I will be teaching online. All had to be complete by the end of the month and so it is nice to just have the tidying up jobs to do on those. I even finished a short piece on what I am actually studying for a doctoral colloquium - sounds absolutely pretentious name for a group of doctoral students errr I mean candidates sitting around talking about what they are doing. I do enjoy going to them though.

The sifted chaff

Before on the left and after on the right

Chanterelles for our evening meal

You can tell what season we are in by what we are eating, we are definitely moving into harvest time. One evening meal consisted of potatoes, carrots, sage and nettles taken from the garden (the nettles were cut from an area that had been cut down during the year and so were tender enough to eat), a couple of large beefsteak tomatoes from the greenhouse, lentils from the cupboard and smoked goat's cheese from my friend Santa. This was followed by windfall apple scones, with sour cream and roasted grapes. It was rather good, even if I do say so myself. Tonight it was mushroom risotto with chanterelles we picked from our forest, since the wild boar hadn't actually dug over our favourite spot this year and a cep - yes only one, but then they are quite large mushrooms. My breakfast is usually porridge, whatever time of the year and I often take it out to the land to eat, to save time in the morning, as I don't like to hurry breakfast. The nice part about taking my breakfast out there is that I can get fresh berries to put in it. The berries that are added changes throughout the year, from the strawberries in early July, through blackcurrants, redcurrants and raspberries to now where they are blackberries, blueberries and autumn raspberries - well that is if the wasps haven't snaffled them first. The wasps have been pretty bad this year, must have been the relatively mild winter we had I guess.

Franken-ramp! We used the shredder to process the grain
crops and it worked rather well, but it was hurting Ian's back
bending over feeding the stuff in. Not much better for me,
holding the sack over the outlet, so Ian built the ramp and
base so he doesn't have to bend over so much. It is also bolted
to the frame for stability

View from a different angle

Outside my office, stood just inside the caravan door

The article written about our life on the farm and put in the local papers resulted in another visit to our land this week. This time it was a relative of one of our neighbours. She had been meaning to come for a while but hadn't got our number or anything, so as my email was printed along with the article, she sent me a message to arrange a time to come. She even brought along her family, her two children, her father and her sister and her family who were visiting. They brought goodies for the animals to see if they would like them and as usual our boys were only interested in the grain but the girls enjoyed the carrots and apples and the chickens enjoyed the bread and the rowan berries. Once again the children were more fascinated with the chickens than the alpacas, but they still enjoyed feeding them.

My office this morning

We had a chuckle about the article the other day. The day was reasonably warm and so we took our morning coffee up to the spot where we hope to build a house one day and sat and chatted and watched the alpacas eating, when we remembered the title of the article roughly translated being "Corncrake alpacas and the hardworking English couple" (Grieze or corncrake being the name of our land or at least some derivative of that name), anyone looking at us at that moment in time, might not think we were so hardworking, but then again, I guess they don't see us the rest of the time.

The heater in the caravan went on today

About a month ago I sent off a letter to our local heating company complaining about the charges they keep adding to the bills. There is no explanation as to what they are and they are added in a fairly random manner. I suspect they add them and hope no one notices. I was fully expecting a letter to say the equivalent of "get lost and pay your bill" - well maybe not quite so rude, but they may as well put that for the replies we have had in the past. Anyway when I opened the letter I was in for a shock. It was very short and so easy to type into Google translate and basically said, "sorry we got it wrong and sorry for the inconvenience." I have never known that company apologise before, however, they only applied the reversal of the charge to the last bill we had and not the the many months of erroneous charges. So that means yet another letter making absolutely clear which charges I am referring to month by month. Obviously I will have to do the hard work for them, despite the fact I told them how much I thought they had added in error.

It's a girl

Agnese and Veronica. The extension
has come in useful, as Ian has been
able to fasten Veronica and baby in and
yet she can still see the other alpacas.
They are like siblings, can't bear to be
apart, but spit at each other if they get
too close

Little Agnese was born to Veronica on Tuesday of this last week. Ian helped a little with the birth, as he thought Veronica was struggling to push, but nothing major. All, however, did not go to plan. Agnese didn’t really get going with the feeding and we had to get our neighbour in to help us milk Veronica to get some colostrum off her. We got some but not a huge amount. Feeding didn’t really get going, as she seemed to have trouble finding mum’s milk and even when she did find it she definitely had trouble latching on. Our vet gave us some oxytocin to encourage the milk supply and we tried to milk her ourselves, but we were totally in experienced and not getting much at all. Our nearest neighbour was not able to come and help, so another of our friends came. Our neighbour and our friend, both have experience of milking cows and not really alpacas, but at least they were more successful than we were. We managed to get a good bottle full of milk and finally little Agnese or Aggy as Ian calls her, cracked the feeding lark. That was of course after a visit to yet another of our friends, who has got goats, to stock up on goats milk, as a substitute. Our friend came a few times too to ensure that Veronica’s udders didn’t get so full that Aggy couldn’t feed. So we have been extremely grateful for such wonderful support and the lessons we learnt from Benedikts.

This one reminds me of ET

One of the chickens coming to investigate

We thought all was going well, until today when Ian noticed that Aggy seemed to be straining to pee and now we are beginning to wonder if Aggy is not getting enough milk from mum. Oh boy! On advice from our friend we have locked up mum and baby, so mum can get extra feed and isn’t neglecting baby. She seemed to be doing quite well at first. We are now thinking that we won’t mate mum again this year, but give her a rest. Alpacas can get pregnant within days of giving birth and have 11 1/2 month pregnancies and it is quite normal to have a feeding mum who is also pregnant. We wouldn’t want a birth much later on in the year, as shearing a pregnant alpaca is not our idea of fun, so she will get a rest for a full year. We are still waiting for baby number two. Snowdrop is looking relatively unperturbed, but looks absolutely enormous.

Chasing off Sofie. She had only come to have a look

Up and about

I could have done without the drama really, as I have had work to complete, so I have been working in the caravan for some of the time. I managed to finish my essay, well sort of. I did the first two sections and a conclusion but I guessed it was enough and I was right, as the tutor gave me an A and said it was thorough and well written. It didn’t feel that way and I felt I was throwing stuff at it, in the end, but I do have the advantage that English is my native language and not that of my tutor. The day for completion was Friday and I finished it on the Thursday morning. I didn’t have a choice as I had a workshop to prepare for the Friday and I hadn’t more than an outline sketch for it. It was nice to relax a little in the afternoon doing the planning and preparation. I even got out the scissors and paper and made some window outlines and a flower picture from torn paper. It felt so good to be creating something for a change, rather than reading academic papers and typing.

Okay another cute picture of Agnese

Talking of academic papers, I had a reply back from the journal where I submitted a paper to and as expected I have to make some revisions to it. The three reviewers liked the theme, but said it didn’t contain enough sociology theory in it. That is a bit frustrating, I know it is a sociology paper, but there is a need for some inter-disciplinary work to be done on conflicts. It is a people problem and that definitely fits in the sociology framework, but there is more to it than that. I am trying to get my head around how it will fit in and what amendments to make. Hopefully I can chat through with my tutor soon on the subject.

An amazing piece of work. Not really
sure if it is macrame or crocheted, but
impressive nonetheless

The room where the workshop was held and where they
were preparing for an art exhibition

As I mentioned I had a workshop to prepare and that was good fun. The coordinators of the organisation I was using for the connection came and translated for me and we spent a bit of time at the end chatting about the outcome of the day. It was wonderful to hear people talk about how they believed ideas could work since the founder of group, who I had prepared the workshop for, had moved into the area. She really encouraged people to be open and contribute and they took the initiative to get things done. Quite a change from many small villages in Latvia, where they is such a sense of helplessness. They were also even beginning to think about life after project grants and how to become self-funded - an enormous step to take after reliance on top-down initiatives from state led programmes. That is not to say the average Latvian is at fault here, but it is a legacy of the Soviet system that imposed quotas and didn’t encourage an entrepreneurial spirit.

This rather intriguing set up is a giant
photo of a meadow. You sit inside and
imagine you are a child again. The size
of the photo is meant to be the size that
a child would perceive the meadow to be

Hay sculptures, there was also a hay castle, but didn't manage
to get a photo of that. They hold a hay festival every year
and make hay sculptures. Here is a link to another sculpture

The ferry wending its slow way across the river

Getting to the workshop was a bit of an adventure though. I borrowed a car from a friend, the only problem was that the radiator cooling system wasn't working properly. I did okay for the first hour, but then started to suffer from overheating issues. I had to stop a few times to let the car cool down. I also had problems with roadworks, one that blocked a short cut we usually take and another major one through the town of Jekabpils, where they are replacing a rather nasty junction with a roundabout. In the end I was 3/4 hour late, but fortunately they were flexible enough and understood. On the way home though, I knew to turn on the fan heater full pelt and then the fan up high to blow the excess heat into the car. Fine on the asphalt roads, but not so good on the dirt roads. I was following someone, so we could take a different route back and avoid the roadworks, and had to have the windows wound up due to the amount of dust thrown up. There was that much dust that at times I couldn't see the car in front and wondered if I had lost him. Still we got to the alternative crossing of the river, one of the few remaining ferry crossings. After that we got to the asphalt and winding down the window was fine.

The ferry man

"Just don't say a word! You're next" Tellus, the one with
harness on managed to espace from his holding pen. He
didn't get too far though and he is easier to catch than
his brother.

After that rather heavy week, it was time to wind down and relax, with a little alpaca shearing, as you do. Ian’s contraption worked and we managed to shear the alpaca boys ourselves, all three in six hours. Although that doesn’t sound like an improvement on last year at two hours an alpaca, that did include rounding them up, separating one off and ensuring the other two didn’t go far - or tried to. It also involved a tea stop and a quick sandwich. Toe nails were also cut and one of them had their teeth trimmed. I ached the next day though from ensuring they were pinned down, particularly their head. I didn’t do a lot of physical work, but having to kneel or just be draped over an alpaca on the floor is heavy on the knees and back at times. Ian didn’t give them a close shave but he did cut the hair on the top of their heads. It didn’t look quite right though, Turbjørn could have done with some being left on top I think, but we will have to remember that next year. Ian won’t be winning any shearing competitions this year, but at least it is done and they don’t look too bad. You should have seen the looks on their faces, as they emerged from the shed though. You could almost hear them hiss and say, “I know and don’t you dare laugh!” In fact they seemed to spend a bit of time sniffing each other, as if they were checking to see who it was. They are quite unrecognisable as the same animal that went in.

Making friends again! Ian's sweatshirt was
black when he started, but was felted
with white fibres after shearing

We went home for a shower and then returned for a night in the caravan. We are staying out on quite a regular basis these days. One of the reasons was so that Ian could be up early, before the rain to do any chores that were needed, one of them was moving the sheep fence. That thought must have been in my mind, as early the next morning I heard, or at least I thought I heard, the sheep bleating. I swear that I could hear them reasonably close to the caravan and that would have meant that they had escaped. I looked out of the window, but I couldn’t see them. In the end I got up, even though it was 4:45am, and went out to look. They were where they were supposed to be, after all. Well we were both awake by then and so decided that we would get on and move them straight after an early breakfast and then the job would be done before the rain came. It was good timing indeed, so after a second breakfast we snoozed as the rain fell. The rest of the day was spent tidying up the greenhouse. Pity I can’t say the same for the rest of the gardens at our apartments, the weeds have suddenly started popping up and I am going to have my work cut out sorting that little lot out. Oh well! Another day perhaps.

Wash out?

A stormy scene

We had one of those rain storms this last week that results in instant flooding within minutes. Ian had just finished planting beans before the rain, so they would be "watered in," when the heavens opened and the deluge began. The rain washed gullies in the side of the road and started to eat into it in places. It also washed the woodchippings down off our roadway near our barn and into the woods. They've been down since late last year, so have already withstood the odd heavy downpour before now and the spring melts, with no problems. This time Ian recovered four wheelbarrow loads of chippings from the forest edge. The rain also ended up pouring through the roof of the boys shed. Ian has rigged up temporary plastic sheeting to keep the boys dry, as it has needed fixing for a while, but he knew it wouldn't stand the volume of water that was pouring down, so he spent the duration of the storm in their shed encouraging the water to flow the right way. At one point he realised that he was standing in a puddle of water, as the water was also pouring in through the front door. He will get around to fixing the roof, but just hasn't either had the weather or the time to get going on that yet.

Our damaged woodchipping road

Flooding around the sandpit at outside our apartment

The barn was flooded too

The good news is that at least it looks like the buckwheat, oats and barley all withstood the downpour. We weren't sure if they had germinated or not and there were small gullies in the fields, but in the following few days the shoots really began to show. The beans maybe a different story, as we can see places where there are groups of them and Ian used the seed planter to plant them in rows and it is too soon to tell where they ended up. At least the animals enjoyed the fresher day following the storm, the girls especially as they actually made it out of the shed. They still haven't produced yet and so Ian is still on babywatch.

The girls enjoyed the soaking to cool off

Looking for chicken food?

We have had two lots of visitors this week. The first was a young couple and an even younger relative of theirs. We haven't seen the husband for ten years, but we have known him since we first came to Latvia, his new wife is someone we don't think we have met before, but you never know, as she did go to the same camp we have been to, but she was rather small to remember much and I think she will have changed somewhat for us to recognise her. Now that's scary! The young wife's mother lives in one of the neighbouring villages and wanted some hens and we decided to reduce the number of free range hens we have, so we struck a deal. I have mentioned before that two of them in particular had got into bad habits and were wandering too far, which was encouraging the others to do the same. The young cockerel was partly to blame too, but we wondered what would happen if there were less ladies to look after and if those particular ladies didn't wander as much, would that curtail his meanderings? Well so far the wandering seems to have reduced, although I have still found the errant young chap in our greenhouse again! I think he is getting the idea that the ladies are not for wandering as well, at least I hope so. I am hoping that the change of area, will also settle down the older ladies that we gave away. We know the younger two were not so bothered about wandering far from the hen house and with a new cockerel, hopefully that will keep them in order.

After the rain, looking down the hill

Five days later the oats are greening up now (looking up
the hill)

After the storm 

Five days later the barley is showing some strong growth

Feeding the alpacas, although on this occasion it is Ian
feeding these two as they weren't so cooperative today,
the girls were though (and no, Ian isn't in a dress and
wearing a blonde wig, he is standing on the other side
of our visitor)

The second group of visitors was a last minute arrangement. My supervisor was at his summer home in Latvia and it was his birthday, so he invited a few colleagues down from Estonia to join him, as well as Ian and I. Unfortunately Ian couldn't join me, as the timing for putting animals away would not have fit in with a trip up and the folks coming down from Estonia, so I went on my own. It was nice to meet up with folks in a more relaxed setting and we had some quite interesting conversations. The guys all went for a sauna from time to time, but a younger lass and I didn't join in that part. The downside was the mosquitoes have emerged and I got well and truly bitten and the bites have been driving me mad for two days. I can't remember how we got onto the subject of manure, but at one point my other supervisor mentioned that he had just got some chicken shit for his garden, at which point I remembered that Ian, in a half joking way, had said that there was some alpaca poo in the back of the car , if anyone wanted to take it, (not quite sure why we had half a bag of alpaca poo in the car, but there you go), so I relayed the information. Cor! I never had such an immediate response and my supervisor said definitely he would take it. It was only a small, half bag, but at least he was happy with that. Next time I ought to take more and think how much to charge, as he did offer to pay for it. Some of the folks were travelling back up to Estonia in the early morning, but some weren't and so I extended a welcome to see our land and of course our alpacas, which was accepted. I somehow think, folks wouldn't be as quick to come if it wasn't for our alpacas. So we had a pleasant early afternoon sat in the shade of the barn, since it was so hot, after a brief tour of our land and a visit to the alpacas.

Does my bum look big in this? No but the belly does. Ian
has seen the little one kicking too

Hmmph! I would rather you didn't take pictures of my rear
end

Oh look! Dandelion heads

The rest of the week has been studying, surprise, surprise. I am at the stage though, where I am going to have to submit a reduced version of the final piece, as I just do not have the time to complete the review I'm writing, within the time frame that I have. I am sure I already have more than enough to pass the course, but I want to use the work for other personal assignments towards my PhD and so I will have to come back to it at a later date. Rather annoying, but time is of the essence, especially when I have to organise a reflection workshop for an organisation on Friday. Busy week! Actually I am quite pleased it's a busy week this week, as it means that I haven't paid too much attention to the European elections. We didn't vote this time around, but that was due to a mix up regarding some papers we should have sent back. Anyway I am still appalled at the rise of the more extreme elements of the political factions and I just hope and pray that it wakes up the more moderate politicians to engage better with the electorate, rather than see a slide into fascism.

Estelle after her shower

Veronica, not looking her best

Ian's been busy of course this week.
This contraption is hopefully what we
will use to restrain the alapacas when
they are being sheared. Not been tested yet

Ian added some windows at my height to improve ventilation
in the greenhouse

Looking outwards

He has also been cutting grass again. We noticed that cow
parsley was beginning to flower and we don't want that
going to seed. It is a biannual, so a couple of years of making
sure it is cut, will hopefully put a stop to that particular weed.
Pity that wouldn't stop the dandelions.