Harvesting between the showers

A barrowful of potatoes, fairly blight free, scab free, wormhole
free and fork hole free

The seasonal cycle turns and another milestone of the year passes. We are heading into autumn and so  harvesting of the main crops begins. The forecast for this next week is not good and so I took advantage of a dry day to start taking up the potatoes. I was going to write digging them up but some of them didn't need digging up. This year we tried a different approach, in winter and early spring of this year Ian put some of the manure from the alpacas on the ground and then in late spring he put in the potatoes by making a hole through the manure pile to the hard soil underneath. Alpaca manure is not as strong as other manures and so can be put directly on the garden. Later on in the year, as the potatoes poked through I and one of our helpers put old hay around them to encourage them to put out more roots and keep the weeds at bay.

The dark rich soil and not a bad
return, with each pile coming from
one original potato

To harvest the crop I took up the hay and found the potatoes, as some were on the surface of the soil just under the hay. It was then just a matter of sieving with my hands through the deep black soil to find the potatoes. The soil, despite all the rain we have had was rich and crumbly and so easy to find the potatoes. One group of potatoes though were a bit more rooty with weeds, which made it harder, so Ian used a fork to take those up, while I forked over the other beds for stray potatoes and any roots before covering up with hay again. It was much less stressful than in previous years as it didn't feel like a major exercise to organise, especially now all the gardening is done out on our land - we finally gave up the allotments last year. I got started on them and when Ian had finished doing what he was doing, he joined me to help.

The boys, by and large behaving themselves. Mr. P (our black
alpaca) was up to see the girls again, but was rather
disappointed, they were not having any of his advances. We
are fairly sure they are all pregnant now.

Another milestone that happens about this time of the year is escaping animals. They all seem to make an attempt at it. With the alpacas it is usually because one of them decides to start eating over the fence and so the electric fences get switched on more at this time of the year to remind them of their limits, but it isn't usually a big deal. This week it wasn't our animals that were the problem initially, it was our neighbours cows. They have escaped a few times already and that is why our other neighbour wanted to put up a fence last week. Well they escaped again this week and caused us a bit of a problem this time.

One layer of panelling completed. It will stop like this for
the time being, as we don't need the extra room yet and it
works better like this for a barn.

It had been a rather pleasant day to start off with too. Ian had been putting up the panelling around our newest alpaca house at last and he ran out of nails, so he needed to take a trip into our village to get some more. I had been doing some computer work and fancied a break and so I suggested a trip to the bakery, where we had a nice cup of cocoa and a pastry. On the way back Ian saw the neighbours cows out and so when we got back, as I went to go hunting for mushrooms he did some investigating.

I'm not sure if this is one of the edible ones
or not, so I took a photo to compare. 

So now picture the scene. I am wandering through our forest hunting for mushrooms. There are so many delightful looking mushrooms, and plenty of the edible ones that I know well enough to pick. Some are huge, chanterelles were also now appearing in different places to the ones where we know they grow regularly. The mushrooms were here, there, popping up everywhere. I love mushroom picking, as it is a great excuse for a wander around the forest, meanwhile……

Our winter squash collection is growing

Ian is not having such a delightful time. He had spotted that our neighbours cows were now in the road, he tried to phone our neighbour and couldn’t get through. He drove up to see her and on the way spotted three rather familiar faces - our sheep. Not where they should be but on our other neighbours land. He tried to phone me, again and again… my phone was back in the caravan. Whoops!

Finally apples from our trees in our small orchard, well more
than about three like we had last year. 

I got back to the caravan and discovered the number of missed phone calls. I rang to find out where he was and what the calls were for. He wasn’t best pleased. Our sheep are out, the neighbours cows seemed to have broken the wire, or freaked our sheep out. Either way our sheep were across the road and not where they should be. I had to set off to find them armed with a bowl of feed.

Maybe not so clear as I had hoped, but I love
the Cross design in the middle of
the courgettes

I saw them on our neighbours field but realised that the fence we had agreed to was now between me and them, somehow they had got through. I found out they must have just worked there way around it and so I trundled around to entice them back. I had to do this slowly to give Ian time to re-build the fence in a different area as it needed moving anyway.

We are gorging on grapes at the moment

At first the sheep were happy to follow, but when they realised that I wasn’t giving them much food from the bowl the older female in particular was starting to look towards going somewhere else. It also started raining. I had to keep moving. At one point she was quite determined to move off in a totally different direction. She then heard a sound and stood listening, she could hear Ian across the road hammering posts. She knew what that sound meant, it meant food! She started to trot off. Yikes she was heading for the road on her own. I phoned Ian and told him I was going to have to move to get her attention again. He wasn’t finished. 

I started to move to a safer crossing place away from the corner where the trucks coming hurtling along. I didn’t have much time to listen, I had to keep moving to keep the sheep behind me. I went across the road the sheep thankfully followed but then hesitated at the edge, reluctant to make the way over the rise onto our land. A car was coming! Fortunately it encouraged them in the right direction. Ian was trying to lay the wire, the posts were hammered in.

A picture from back in mid-August in
the paddock where they escaped from.
Madam who was not convinced by my
feeding occasional bit to her is on the
left

I took the sheep into the centre of the newly enclosed area and I started to drop feed to keep them interested. The lambs were fine with this, but madam was not. She expected a full bowl and that chap over there was one who usually provided it, so off she goes to Ian. Too late she and the lambs who were now following her crossed the one strand of wire. Ian managed to encourage them back in but when they realised that Ian was trying the same trick I was, whilst I was trying to wire up the fence in Ian's place they decided to take off up the hill. Smart!



Our friends who made a rather nice
wine from these are collecting these
ones to have another go at making
wine with them. They are going to take
all of them. I tried ours and it is still
a bit rough - will keep us in mulled wine
over winter though

Ian was worried they would freak out the alpacas. I headed on up with the remaining feed, over the hill to see the sheep trying to head towards the alpacas - you know the big sheep with the long legs and necks. The gate was open on their old paddock though, I managed to get the sheep’s attention and went into the paddock. This time I put the bowl down and let them eat it all, while quickly covering the gap with the wire. I also realised at this point the other gate was still open, so had to nip back behind the wire, re-close it and then head up to the other gate before they noticed. Fortunately they were still too interested in the feed.

Eyre enjoying cleaning out the pot of sour cream ready
for recycling

At least now the sheep were penned in and the alpacas did not freak out, although Brencis kept making a noise as if to say what are these strange stunted alpacas? I was also by now saturated. Good job my new raincoat arrived the day before. After finishing off making our mushroomy meal we headed on into the caravan to change and eat. Farming can be exciting, but not always quite the kind of excitement we want. Still everyone was fine, the sheep under control and we dried out, so no harm in the end.

The sun does shine sometimes

Carrots, squash, onions and grapes ready for
roasting

The rest of the week was fairly mundane. I have been marking work, working on my paper, and harvesting beans and tomatoes. Ian has been moving fences, writing updates for our alpaca adoptees and pumping out the well again. We are pleased that we have found the well now gives us about 75-85 litres of water a day up to about 700 litres or so, when it then starts to slow down. Mind you, it has been wet just lately, so of course that might help. I'm glad we don't have the sort of escapades our sheep put us through every day of the week.

We get there eventually

Frederiks looking all fluffy. He looks like he is going to be a
good fleece producer, at least in quantity.

Well here I am again posting a late blog. The reasons for yesterdays non-post was an unplanned journey to the outskirts of Riga, but I need to back up a bit to explain how that came about. We had offered to take in a refugee family for a few days sometime over the summer, only time was ticking on and nothing had got organised. Finally I was given a contact and arrangements made. A friend of ours was in Riga and she kindly agreed to bring them, since she had a seven seater car. The refugee family came on the Sunday evening and I cooked an evening meal and we tried to chat as much as we were able, with their limited English and our non-existent Arabic. Still we managed, thanks to  some laughter and gestures and in part to the wonderful world of the internet and Google voice recognition Only in part though, how Google translate arrived at "Batman wallpaper" for one attempt, we have no idea.

Feeding dandelion leaves to Brencis

I had agreed to borrow our friend's car for a couple of days to ferry the family about and then she agreed to take them back on the Tuesday evening; so the next day I picked the family up from our apartment where they were staying and brought them out to see our alpacas. The family from Syria consisted of a man, his wife, their seven year old son, their six year old daughter with cerebral palsy and their little ten month old baby girl born in Turkey. The wife was a little nervous of the animals, even the cat and so was her son at first, but gradually he became bolder and was hunting for dandelion leaves to feed the alpacas. Our alpaca love the dandelions and they are far too abundant, so that works well.

It's a bit worrying as all the alpacas are eating all day, that
is usually a sign that autumnal weather is on its way. They
don't really need to eat all day, well the boys don't, they are
getting podgy

It was a bit tricky to know what to do when it was hard to chat with them, but we were managing. After lunch I got the young lad to help me dig potatoes and he counted them in English as he found them. He then helped me pick beans and carrots. The next job was to wash the carrots and potatoes. We had a bucketful of potatoes but I only asked him to wash six of them, he didn't stop there though he carried on. In the end I had to get a stool for him to sit down on, so he could finish them off. A good little worker anyway and I won't have to wash any potatoes for a week. We still had a few hours to kill and so I rang to see if we could go to the nearby camp because I knew they had some playground equipment there. The folks at the camp have adopted a little chap and very soon he and the young Syrian boy were playing around with each other like good friends.

Even the youngsters seem to sense the changing season,
when they are not dealing with irritating itches

The six year old girl was getting rather tired and started crying. She loved the trampoline earlier when her brother and the little local lad were bouncing around on it, so I took her back on. She calmed down and seemed to enjoy the bouncing and then eventually fell asleep in the middle of the trampoline. I covered her up and let her sleep, especially as the sun had finally made an appearance and it had now warmed up enough to snooze in the sun. Her mum joined us at one point and once the little girl had woken up, mum started bouncing. She loved it and she joined in with her son and his young friend. I was just getting ready to gather everyone together to go back to the farm to eat when the father tried to explain they had to go back because they had forgotten to pack one of the medications for the little six year old. The explanation was not quite clear and I wasn't sure what they intended so we had to ring to get an Arabic translator. The refugee centre must have a rota for translators and so they organised a translator to phone me.

The mulch on the roadway into the barn has built up over
the years and was creating a problem in heavy rain with
water running into the barn. The ditch was not working either,
so Ian did a little remodelling and scraped away the hump

Firstly the translator thanked me on behalf of the family as they had really appreciated our hospitality but then explained they had to go back for this medication, otherwise they feared that she would get more and more upset without it. They also explained they had a doctor's appointment the next day - something had obviously not been explained when we agreed to take them. Something to be expected when there is a communication problem. Anyway it meant that instead of going back to eat, I had to drive them back into Riga to the refugee centre. They have an invitation to come back again if they want to and we shall see if they do. I think they genuinely enjoyed the time here and certainly the little boy did. Both he and the Latvian lad were nearly in tears when it was time to go. At least I was able to tell the young chap what a super friend he had been and could thank him in Latvian.

A more level roadway with a depression before it gets to the
barn to lead the water away into the forest

Mr. P has still been to see his ladies this week, but came back
a little green. A good sign for us, but Chanel went back to
being compliant, so may not be pregnant after all

So how about the rest of the week? As I mentioned last week we got two new cockerels and last Monday night we put each one in a separate ark with his own bunch of females. When we let them out in the morning, one immediately stamped his authority and got his ladies in order. The second one turned out to be too timid and the girls spotted his weakness and picked on him. Eventually we decided that we had to put him in with the chicks, despite being three times their size. He seems a lot more content there, but he hasn't got the hang of going away by himself yet. I have had to catch him each night to put him in the box. The other one just follows his ladies inside, thank goodness.

Slowly filling up again

Other fairly mundane jobs were also done, such as trying to catch up with the weeding, sorting out peas and beans after the storms, cutting alpaca toe nails (a job long overdue), strimming and flail mowing grass (Ian's job not mine, I can't handle that sort of equipment, I'm too small and not strong enough). Ian also sorted out the well again, this time he was able to pump the water out without stirring up the mud. It is a relief to see the well filling up at a much better rate of around 80 litres a day and certainly enough to keep the animals watered and much better than the 7 litres a day we were getting, so that is progress.

George also looks cuddly, just not as much fleece as
Frederiks

We were also showing visitors around, but like buses, you don't see any for a while and then they all turn up at once. Two cars drove on with a family group. Apparently some of them had been before, but not when I have been around. As they were standing around a car drove past and then reversed back. The visitors who turned up earlier had a short discussion with new group and we ended up taking the groups around together. It worked and everyone seemed happy enough.

Chanel is also munching a lot

Not our first visit to Gančauskas because the tent and the
climbing tower hadn't been built in those days

One of the highlights of the week though was re-visting our past. In 2000 we made our first visit to Latvia to teach English in a camp near Sigulda and within a couple of years really felt like God was calling us here, but the timing was not right. It wasn't until 2008 we actually moved to Latvia, but the roots of that move were definitely in those camps. This year the camp celebrated its 20th anniversary and held a party for those connected to the camps over the years, so we decided to join in. It was well organised with plenty of time to meet others and reconnect, it was just a shame we couldn't really spend longer there but had to return to put the animals away. One of our favourite moments was sitting in the chapel that had been revamped over the years, but they still had space for the swallows to fly in and out. Somethings change and somethings don't.

Gančauskas in the early days

Gančauskas today. Compare the cars here to the ones below

The barn with the chapel entrance

The chapel entrance today

The campfire then

and now! It was good to see the lady in charge again, she always
wore a white sunhat

We met up with this young lass again, she
now lives in Spain

And reconnected with this young lady
too, all the way from Canada. It was
her family that started off the camps
and have put a lot of hard physical work
into it too.

Also the young chaps in the blue t-shirt and front row red t-shirt
were also there. A little older now of course, but so are we. 

It's a process

No the alpaca house is not on fire, it is the sun. We did
actually get to see it on a couple of days this week. Unlike
today which was dreich. So dreich there are no photos of
the lambs because they are inside in the dark.

The news on the lambs is that they are all doing well but they and their mums are getting fed up of being cooped up in their respective pens. Can't say as I blame them as the lambs are getting bigger by the day. The problem though is the ram outside. He was getting more pushy with Ian and he would be a danger to the lambs, especially in the slippery conditions and so the ram went for an appointment with the freezer. In preparation I had to sort through our freezer at home to free up space, so I have made a batch of chutney and a batch of blackcurrant and apple jam. The problem is I have just about run out of jars again. At least after a bit of reorganising I had half an upright freezer free and defrosted ready for the next influx of meat, which we started processing tonight

So instead of sunshine today we had rain. It is a process
and its not pleasant when the snow starts to go, but one
we are sort of happy to go through. Ian has been on the
annual clear the ditches duty today as water was backing
up to the greenhouse

Mind you, even with the ram gone, the lambs won't get their freedom for another couple of days. The weather is awful at the moment, as it is raining. The last thing we want is cold, wet, soggy lambs getting sick. At least it means the snow is disappearing and the slow melt means our groundwater will start to rise again and fill our well up in a few days time. The well has been great over the winter, as it has meant that Ian hasn't had to carry water down the three flights of stairs from our apartment to the car every morning this year, but when the ground is frozen there is not as much water flowing. We don't know how much of a flow the well really has yet, we just know that it rises a lot a few days after rain or after snow starts melting. The other advantage with the well is the fact the water is mainly below the frost line and so only on one or two days did we have issues with the well freezing slightly. In contrast the ponds have at least a 20cm layer of ice on them.

I find this photo amusing, as it looks like Brencis is kissing
the wood, but actually he was chewing on it.

Water has been flowing onto the ice on the ponds and they
are even overflowing

We have been trying to think of ways of saving the water when it is flowing fast into the well, or how to harvest it off buildings, so that we will have enough even in the droughts that we get regularly. There is usually a dry patch sometime during the early part of the summer that nearly always affects sowing time or just when the new seedlings are starting to emerge. We mulch the plants and that helps to some degree, but at the end of the day they still need water. We haven't come to a conclusion on that one yet.

Veronica is doing very well. Her condition is about the best
we have seen in all the years she has been with us. Not
bad for one who will be 14 years old in May

Aggie continues to cause Ian some worry as she was a bit off
the last couple of days, but then again so were the others.
Today she seemed a bit brighter in herself again

On the planning front we have managed to agree on the areas that will be included and excluded on our first submission for EU subsidies. In fact that was surprisingly painless. We don't argue much but we don't always agree either. It can take ages for us to come to some sort of compromise agreement if we both feel strongly about something. At least with this we were able to decide what we were going to allow to grass over and what we were going to continue to work on for planting up. At least we did get round to deciding where the other buildings are going to go that we want to build. No we can't afford to build our house yet, but we are hoping to put in grant applications for a workshop and barn and at the same time maybe build a small cabin. We have decided not to put in a third plot to our garden as the three areas we have fenced off already will be plenty for the time being and the workshop and cabin will fit in there nicely.

Puddles everywhere

I love this photo of all the girls together and Aggie making
sure she is getting in on the act

Ian has been taking the alpacas out for walks this week. It is something he makes an effort to do in the winter time, especially when he can't get on with other jobs. It is too wet for the winter job of cutting down trees even when it is not raining. The snow and wet ground also means no building work either yet. He hopes to build alpaca house 4/storage area this spring/year/sometime. We have the wood for that all cut up and it needs using as it is still stored outside.

Mari looking very soggy, she seems to like sitting out in the
rain sometimes.

The boys all look like they are on a mission. 

I have been plodding along with the academic paper I have been writing. There was a point when I realised I needed some extra comments to complete the story of a village in development. Fortunately the people in the NGO that is helping the village develop are very helpful and so I was able to send of a short questionnaire and get the results back two days later. It wasn't a huge amount of data, but just some personal anecdotes from villagers about life in the village. It was lovely to read what people had to say and confirms much of what I have been observing anyway, so it all fits together nicely. I got the paper back from my supervisor tonight and fortunately he likes it on the whole, but there are a few things to go through again -that's tomorrow sorted then!

The boys poo pile has been taking on epic proportions
because Ian hasn't been able to get it cleared up as it was
frozen solid. He'll need to go up with a wheelbarrow soon,
as the weather is set to freeze again next week. Winter isn't
finished yet.

A soggy looking paddock

At least I did get a little bit of time over the weekend to start a sewing project. It was nice to be able to get the designs together and just play about with fabric. I have left our other apartment in a mess though, because there is no point putting away until it is finished, as I need to get on with them and have them finished in about two weeks time. I will be flitting off to the UK to visit grandchildren, which I'm really looking forward to. I also have one or two meetings lined up, well I do have to take the opportunity while I can.

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.