Writing and raining

Just awwww!

Writing is going well for me at the moment. I've recently had two more articles published in Dispatches Europe, this time encouraging people to travel slowly through Latvia and visit places outside of Riga. I also encouraged people to visit our own farm of course, nothing like doing a bit of self-promotion while I'm at it. Having said that, it is not something that comes easily to me, but I recognise that if we want people to visit, then we have to take what opportunities come our way.

Herkules gets fed up of the heat and the flies. He's probably
enjoyed the rain just lately.

It was a relief to hear that a paper for an academic journal that I have co-authored was accepted the week before. I am not the main author on that one, I just added a section and polished the English before the second review. I haven't actually taken a look at the last revision as I haven't had time really. Although I now have three full published papers which kind of qualifies me to get my PhD, they are not the main bulk of my work.  I am still waiting to hear the results from that particular paper, but since I only submitted it on the 17th June it is not surprising. I hope to hear soon though. Apparently the turn around is very quick. Then I can get my thesis sorted. Now that will be good.

The baby swallows, still hanging around

There have also been three papers submitted for the EU project I'm involved in. I am only named as first author on one of them and co-author on another. Being first author makes a difference, it basically means I have put the most work in to it, after that it just means I contributed. Anyway all three got rejected. The editor though requested we have a Skype call with someone to help us with the content so they could be resubmitted, as they like the idea of the project. That at least is promising. During the Skype call we found out that the one I had mainly written was basically okay but the others needed re-wording to get accepted.

This bug was rather reluctant to
give up it's hold on the
meadowsweet flowers but I had
plans for these in a dessert, so he
had to go. There have been some
amazing bugs just lately.

We found out today what the minor the changes that were needed were but they are so minor that we should be able to sort it out by tomorrow. It takes a little bit of time to coordinate with my colleagues since we are not in the same office and in this case relying on emails but we get things done. Still it is progress. Published papers can be very important for academics and some places demand many publications to keep your job. Fortunately that is not the case for me and the job I'm doing, but having publications is still helpful for the future.

Our view for our evening meal

Of course, being summer, my time is not taken up just with writing it is also usually tied up with working on our land collecting hay, doing something with the alpacas or chickens or the gardening. So we are quite relieved that the drought is mainly over. We've had a reasonable amount of rain, but still not as much as elsewhere. It seems Riga is flooded in places, so we are grateful that it wasn't that bad for us. We have had enough to give the plants a good soak, but not enough to create a mudbath. Still it has rained most days this week, so I haven't done that much in the way of outside activities. I did get the chance to do some weeding and finally stake up some peas because I can get the sticks in the ground. I also started some seeds off in the greenhouse so that I can get some of the quick growing plants in for salads and some perennial plants for next year. It is much easier when I can get water without a great palaver.

After the rain 

We've actually been able to harvest rainwater to water plants and stock up on our own water supply. The ponds are still too low to water the greenhouse though. I have been taking the water first from a reserve we pumped from the only reasonably full pond earlier in the season and then I have been getting the water from the collapsed greenhouse. It was covered in black plastic and just happens to make a good rainwater catcher. Now there's an idea.

Still a very pregnant alpaca

We are still waiting for Chanel to have her baby. There have been odd days when she's looked uncomfortable but most of the time she looks rather too relaxed. We had hoped that she would have given birth before we start on the process of getting the other girls pregnant for next year's babies. Instead we just had to get on and hope she doesn't go into labour while Ian was supervising the mating process. We have never mated five girls in the same period before and it takes some planning. Not all of them can be mated to the same stud. Ian made a gate to separate the alpaca house into two so we can use two studs at a time and keep the girls separated to some extent.

Just how though can she bend round that far whilst pregnant?

Mr. P with a faraway look in his eyes.

One of our concerns is Mr. P maybe passing on some genes for rapid teeth growth and a possible asthmatic tendency with dusty hay. Not ideal for an alpaca. They are cute babies that he produces but not much good if they are then going to be a health liability. We are giving him a try again to see what happens next year. Meanwhile we decided to give Tellus another go. He's starting to get old, but then he gave us one very good baby in terms of fleece, George, a very, very sweet natured but not good fleece, Freddie and a reasonable fleece but rather large alpaca, Brencis. All of them are lovely natured, so we'll see what happens there.

The sweetest natured alpaca of them all I think. Only his
fleece is not very fine at all. He does produce a lot, so it is
a shame that his isn't fine too.

Brencis having a good scratch.

We've also tried Brencis now he's old enough with one of the girls, which has been interesting. Poor guy, it is his first time and he doesn't quite know what to do. He has needed some coaching by Ian to at least get on the right way around. He was fine the first time but must have got over excited the second time around. We have had to stagger the mating, as there is not enough room or appropriate accommodation to have three stud males. We also need to know who is mated when so that we know when to expect the babies next year, hence Ian has to supervise. Some of the girls have been rather resistant and we even considered trying Tellus instead of Mr. P with Vanessa, as she is a feisty lady like her Mum, Veronica. The reason we didn't is that we realised they both had the same father and so too close a relation.

Veronica might be old and a bit unsteady on her legs at time
but she is still feisty

Don't let this sweet, innocent face fool you.
She wasn't so innocent looking as she was
spitting at Mr. P.

Is it safe to come out?

Female alpacas will sit down if they are receptive and being around others that are mating helps them to ovulate and therefore be more receptive. This is the reason for having so many of them in the alpaca house at the same time. It's all a bit mind boggling really. We are hoping that Vanessa will respond to the mating going on behind the gate before bringing down Mr. P because otherwise he is just getting absolutely covered in spit. We are not sure she likes him really. Vanessa is on the older side and because we can't mate her with Tellus or Brencis because they are too close a relation, and George is too young, we are kind of stuck with persevering with Mr. P.

Amanda is such a cutie

Our boys can be very relaxed and calm

Normally our boys are fairly chilled. About dusk there maybe a bit of a fracas but rarely anything serious. However, the other day there was quite a to-do. I can't remember who was chasing who but they all seemed to be at it and this was before any of them had been to see the girls. Eventually Ian had to separate Mr. P. off to cool down as he was the one that seemed to be the main instigator. He seems to be picking on George at the moment and it seems to either set the others off trying to stop him or off on their own disagreement with another alpaca. There are probably hierarchy issues as the young ones grow up. Still, most of the time they are calm, so we just wait and see.

I love how Herkules, our deaf old man is still the boss and
will sort out the youngsters

Even Turbjørn tries to keep order, despite being the grumpiest
alpaca we have. No one, but no one invades Mr, Turbjørn's space

Jakobs is too young for faraway looks in his eyes. 

It was our time for a flat tyre or at least a soft tyre this week. One of our friends has had to repair three tyres on two cars due to the state of the roads and our visitor last week had a flat tyre. The washboard dirt roads are not good on cars. It's a good job our village has a tyre repair place, so not too big a job to deal with. It just meant it was one of those weeks when we were backwards and forwards to the village. I went back one day and realised I'd forgotten the key to the apartment and so had to drive all the way back to get it. There are traffic lights in our village because they are doing some major renovations on the main road and since the traffic lights take a long time to change and were on red when I got to the junction, I turned in the opposite direction and did the shopping first before heading back for the key.

Jakobs  does take after his Mum, Mari though. She's the one in
the foreground with Aggie behind.

Munching away on the hill

There are not many Brits in Latvia, around 400 I think, not too sure of the exact number, so it is almost inevitable that we will know a fair proportion of them or at least know about them. One guy we had met a while ago after I found out via a blog he had written that he lived in a town that wasn't very far from where I grew up. I even worked on the edge of the town where he used to live when I was a teenager working for my parents before going to uni. His son and grandkids were visiting and so he decided to come and visit us again. Funnily enough one of our previous visitors recommended our place when our friend posted a message in a Latvian expat site to ask for ideas for places for his grandchildren to visit. It is nice that someone recommended us. The weather could have been better but at least the rain held off and wasn't nearly as bad as forecast, well not over us it wasn't. It was amazing to find out his son and grandchildren live quite near to one of the places where we had the best holiday ever. One that nearly ended in disaster but made good by the open hearts and generosity of strangers, but maybe that's a tale for another time.

I know Aggie isn't pregnant but it is still unreal to be able to
scratch your nose with your toes.

We got the results back on the alpaca fleeces. We are a bit puzzled with some of them. Not sure if it is a problem with the testing or our sampling. It turns out that Turbjørn's fleece has got a whole lot finer, but we didn't think it was by that much. Also a sample we took from a young alpaca to be tested because we wondered how fine her's was, didn't turn out to be as fine as I thought it was. We shall have to compare them with next year and see what they show then.

Spring! Finally!

Bird cherry flowering

It finally feels like spring. We haven't had frosts for a few days now, some days have been quite warm indeed, actually more like summer. The cold northerly winds on other days though remind us that it isn't summer yet. With the warmer weather it seems like everything is popping into life. Most of the trees are now just about in leaf, even the oak trees are showing signs of life. The apple, cherry, bird cherry and plums are all bursting into flower too. The rhubarb has come through too now and it made a welcome addition to our spring greens fry up- it adds a kind of lemony taste. I did over cook it a bit, as I forgot it doesn't take long, but will remember next time just to heat it through for a bit of crunch too.

The dandelions are out! Good job the animals like them

Enjoying eating the dandelions. You can also see the posts
for the new fence Ian has been installing this last week. The
baby alpacas often go through the electric fence initially, but
we are worried they would also end up on the road, or the
girls panic over something and run out into the road, so
we are fencing off a large section to stop this. 

Spring is always full of new arrivals some we welcome and some we don't. The mosquitoes are the ones that fall into the latter category. There are not many at the moment, but they are definitely buzzing around and I was even woken by one this morning. The swallows have arrived back and they definitely fall into the welcome category. We intended to re-roof the boys alpaca house but that is postponed until after nesting. I also thought I had heard the golden biscuit once or twice, whoops I meant the Golden oriole, but not entirely sure. Usually when it does arrive it makes lots of noise all day, but remains elusive to sight, despite its vivid yellow colour. Rather like the cuckoo, which fortunately this year is keeping its distance and not driving me cuckoo with its noise. Another welcome visitor, at least while we haven't got free range chickens is the eagle which flew over whilst having coffee one morning. With the sun shining and an eagle flying over, it seemed like the perfect coffee break.

It was a lot of poles. Just need to tack on the wire now.

The annual picture of the caravan outside for the first time in
the year. The poles by the way are to stop Ian forgetting about
the extension lead and driving over it with the tractor.

To commemorate the arrival of spring we had the annual move of the caravan outside. We even had help to move the caravan outside this year, as Ian's brother and his wife were here at the time. It was a short visit, but they promised to make a return visit sometime. We took them for a walk around the land and showed them our forest as well as the ski hill. It still seems weird to think it is ours when we are showing folks around. We had also planned on shearing the alpaca boys while they were here but it rained on the day and so it got postponed. In fact it was earmarked for today and it unexpectedly rained again. It is a bit of a pain, but we did need the rain, so I'm not complaining too much. There were plenty of other jobs to do to keep us occupied.

A gleaming sign, but not many visitors this last week. We will
make up for it this week, probably two coach parties

Enjoying spring grass

Besides showing Ian's family around, we also sat around eating lots of cake, visited our friend the goat farmer of course and generally talked. Well Ian did a lot of talking, he has been saving it up, after spending so much time on his own - so visitors beware, he saves it up for any willing ears. We shouldn't be short of visitors at all this summer. Ian's brother and wife were the first of the year and the next group are expected later on this week, with another guest next week. It is all coming around rather fast, especially as I am still getting the apartments sorted out. Again I'm getting there or at least making progress. I even had Ian sort me out two new uprights for my old IKEA shelving that has been dismantled so many times and re-located that it needs matchsticks in the holes to give the screws a bit more to grip onto.

A little miracle grape plant. This is the only cutting to survive
from our dessert grape. We have been enjoying the fruits of
our tarter grape recently as our friends from Kandžas Laboratorija
gave us the wine they produced from our grapes. It is more like a
port wine, quite rich and sweet. Better than our last years attempt
at wine with this grape - it was alright as a mulled wine but not
just for drinking, this is fine on its own.

Our fruit bush area prepped for the autumn raspberries

I planted lots of seeds over the week such as peas, herbs, flowers, lettuce, parsnips (might be a tad late, but oh well), beans, texel greens, collards, radishes, mizuna, rocket, carrots, squashes and loads more. I still have loads to plant too along with the weeding, which is now beginning to be needed after the rain. As well as planting there has been the autumn raspberries to cut back and pull up the escapees to be relocated elsewhere and Ian was busy prepping the area for that today. I also got started on the strawberry beds as they are already in a bit of a state. At least I feel I'm getting somewhere at the minute, even though I've still had quite a bit of academic work to do too.

Ian mowed around the ponds

Work continues on the garden plots. Fortunately we don't
need to do a lot of hard digging, as the beds are made up of
rotted manure. Still there are a lot of weed seeds, which
doesn't help.

The Masters student I was supervising had to finish by this weekend and her work got delayed, which meant we were working on it for the latter half of the week. I also got on with a bit of my own work of re-analysing previous work again. It is slow going but again I feel I am getting there. At least I can work on the academic work and then take a break in the garden and then sometimes I am working in the garden and take a break by working on the academic side. It all depends on what has the highest priority that day and how tired I am of the whichever I am working on at the time.

Contemplating life? Make the most of it Chanel, the little
one should be here soon. 

Ian strimmed around my herb bed and mowed the lawn in
the orchard. It seems a bit of a grand name for trees that
have just about hung in there but it is beginning to look
more like an actual orchard this year. We've waited long
enough to get to this stage.

Of course there are plenty of jobs to do and we won't be bored for quite a while. Ian has started on the mowing and strimming, which takes a fair amount of his time over the summer. He has also started the waiting game. Today was the earliest date for our girls to produce babies. Chanel has already had us wondering this morning, as she has seemed a bit agitated and separating herself from the other girls at times, but nothing so far. Aggie also seems so tired, bless her! One day she didn't seem happy with herself at all and so Ian got hold of her and I carefully poured cold water down into her fleece. We thought she might freak out a bit at this, but she seemed to actually enjoy it, except when it got a bit close to her neck. It seemed to make her feel better anyway.

Big baby bump

Aggie is also looking close too. We don't think it will be
as long as July, which we had wondered because she took
so long to spit off Mr. P - an alpaca sign to say I'm
pregnant so keep off.

The sheep, however, have been grumpy and demanding as usual. They are bothered by the flies when it is hot and also get through the grass quite fast. At least the grass is now growing or at least the dandelions are. They are not Ian's favourite animals at the best of times and this week was not the best of times. Somehow two of them managed to escape and Ian was not happy to say the least. He was in such a bad mood that I shouted at him and started to walk off. It was over a year since our last argument, so not so common an occurrence really. Anyway, we sorted out our differences and I went to get some food for the two errant sheep, while he guarded the broken fence to stop the other three from getting out.

Poor Aggie, she looks so tired

Mari as laid back as ever and enjoying one of the million or
so dandelions.

It was a bit hard to get them in, as they were enjoying the rather lush grass near the ponds. They are not allowed near there, despite the lush grass, as it is possible to pick up liver fluke in damp meadow areas and we don't want there manure running into the ponds. Eventually they decided to follow me for the food in the bowl and I got them into the paddock area and then into the shed and shut them in for the night. At least we have been fine since then, just kind of busy.