Summer time!

Windows open and curtain on the outside of the
half door for ventilation and to stop the cats 
jumping in. Curtain on the inside of the half 
door and the cats jump in.

We finally got the caravan moved out of the greenhouse, just before the heatwave with the hottest nighttime temperatures on record in Latvia. There were red warnings for extreme heat throughout the country with temperatures well over 30C during the day and not dropping much below mid-20s at night. It was also a humid heat and I ended wandering a round with a sweat rag (I know you all wanted to know that!). Even my glasses steamed up outside from time to time. 

Those ears! She almost looks like a llama. The
tips are probably covered by a membrane that has 
bent them at the ends as her ears now look much
more like an alpaca's ears.

Amazing what a bit of warmth and rain does to the
grass. It was not that long ago when it seemed so
short.

Getting the caravan out of the greenhouse was more difficult than previously because we were a month later than usual. We did have to cut back the grapevine a bit and Ian had to mow the grass first - a novelty as normally the grass is only just growing when we move the caravan out. The problem is that the caravan now sits in the sun all day and in the greenhouse the shade would come round to it by evening. To cope with the heat we've had two fans going during the day and we've been going to sleep later with one fan still going through the night. Not ideal but at least we could sleep. We did have one day where we ended up catching up on some sleep when neither of us could make it to lunchtime before the desire to snooze got too strong. 

GT is such a photogenic cat. He's also turning out
to be quite affectionate, which is a bit of a surprise.

Ian cutting grass for hay.

We took advantage of the hot weather to start cutting the first hay of the year. Despite the heat and the fact most of it dried out very well, some of the bales seemed really heavy. Some of the grass was still obviously very moist. Hopefully they will be okay and they are in airy places to continue to dry out. It did mean that it was exhausting work though getting them stacked. We needed the space to get the girls out on to the grass and they would have been in the way of haymaking if we didn't cut the grass first. We don't want them too close to the forest with a little one, especially where we cannot see them so easily. Too many foxes mainly but there are also lynx, wolves and even sightings of bear tracks not very far away recently. 

Some much appreciated shade.

Silla and bump sunbathing

We are still waiting for the June babies to be born. They seem tantalisingly close to giving birth on some days and then the next day all is well and the time drifts on. In the meantime we've started on mating some of the others. We've had to use Tellus though, as he is our most reliable stud male. Mr. P. has too many asthma/hayfever type issues that we want to get to the bottom of before passing on any more of his genetics and the younger boys are generally too immature apparently.  

Aggie getting her nap time in too, but still no baby.

It's a hard life being a cria

Brencis was the father to the first this year's cria but he has such a big fat belly on him he's struggled to mate with another female, Antonia, so we brought in Tellus who managed to mate with her, but she's a crafty one. She seemed to throw Tellus off at strategic moments, so no idea if Tellus was successful or not. Antonia also intimidated the younger males and they obviously have not inherited the sex drive of their fathers and still need at least another year to mature - or at least that is what we hope is the issue. We tried George with a very compliant and flirty female, Ilvija, and he ended up kicking her off, it should be the other way around. At least Valeria was much more compliant with Tellus than she was with Mr. P last year and we just have to wait for 7 days now to see if he was potentially successful - yes the spit-off tests begin. 

It's a hard life being a cria's mum too.

Ilvija at the back with her Mum, Chanel, 
investigating the new arrival.

Ilvija has managed to escape a few times this week from the girls' fenced off area. She started to get a bit adventurous or she was just panicking and looking for her mum. She's a bit unpredictable and so not so easy to catch. Sometimes her mum starts getting stressed looking for her and then gets spitty when trying to usher Ilvija through the gate. At one point, Ilvija alarmingly headed down towards the road with a bit of a gallop. You should have seen me run, or maybe not! I lolloped in her direction and headed her back towards a safer spot, only she was rather interested in the boys and the boys were rather interested in her. Not a great place to be with 8 un-castrated males and one flirty girl and only a fence between them. I managed to get hold of her and Ian and I wrestled her down to the ground. I held her down while Ian got a harness and rope. Not a good time to introduce her to harness training but the first opportunity we've had due to her spitty mother. With a bit of patience and pushing at times we got her into the gate of the paddock without her mother realising and so avoided the spit fest.

Rocket Ron is not so easy to photograph. He is 
turning out to be more of a wanderer that is also
a surprise. Anyway he's keep the mouse population 
down, so earning his keep. He's still reasonably
affectionate though and both are happy to be 
combed with the flea comb. I'm not so happy
they've got fleas though.

Or course haymaking means the storks congregate

We had a minor hiccup with the car this last week. I set off to the bakery to get our weekly order of bread, then to collect a parcel from the pick up point before heading to the apartment to get some water and a few supplies. All good, except when I came to set off from the apartment back to our land, the key would not turn in the ignition. Nothing I tried worked. It was also very hot as I hadn't parked the car in the shade because I only intended to be a few minutes. Ian was busy, so I pottered around the apartment for a bit and kept going back to try the car again. Nothing! In the end I contacted a neighbour and asked for a lift out to our land and to pick up Ian and take him to see if he could get the car going. With some WD40, the spare key and some fiddling around with a screwdriver he managed to sort it. A new ignition might be needed though as it must be pretty worn. At least the car passed its technical today and Ian was able to help out another neighbour when their milking machine broke and they needed to take it in for repair. 

Not sure if one is doing a display for the other or
they are having a disagreement.

A Marsh Orchid

Surprisingly this year I've mainly been able to keep on top of the weeding. Occasionally it seems like it will get away from me but I think the cold start to the year and the dry spell has kept them in check. So it is looking like we should have plenty of beans, onions and garlic, so that's good. The late planted tomatoes are also doing well with their very regular watering. I've also taken some cuttings from the side shoots to increase the numbers of plants, as that is the fastest way of increasing the number of tomatoes we have. We've started eating fresh mangetout style peas, strawberries and garlic scapes. I've noticed that the courgettes have also started, so let the courgette glut begin. 

Yellow Rattle. Apparently not
so good for the grass as it is
parasitic and can become invasive.

One of the reasons we do not have free-range
hens any more, a Western Marsh Harrier.

Ian finally managed to find time to repair one of the chicken arks, one of the first he made and still in reasonable shape after 10 years. He's replaced the roof with a tin one that makes it much lighter to move and repaired some of the base bits that are in contact with the ground. With new handles and door fastenings it is back in use for the hens. We left the cockerel in the old one for dispatching. The hens need a rest from him. I'm hoping that one hen will now get a chance to heal her foot, as she was his favourite. In between pacing backwards and forwards on midwife duty waiting for babies, Ian has also spent lots of time cutting the grass and not just for hay but also for my vegetable garden. It looks much neater now. 

One of the reasons for making sure our arks are 
more secure these days. Ian rang me and told me
to come quickly. I found Ian in the forest and 
pointing into the trees. He had startled a pine
marten and we watched amazed as it jumped
from tree to tree. Agile beasts for sure but also
quite vicious. Ian has seen one eat a hornet's 
nest and probably responsible for breaking into
an ark and dispatching 8 hens.

Early days and still unsteady on her legs.

You cannot have too many cute cria pictures

Karla is finding her feet now and running about.
Last minute avoidance manoeuvres to avoid 
grumpy Auntie Aggie.

All legs

Amanda is a good mum. The right balance between
care and letting her baby be cared for by others.

Karla has put on plenty of weight over the last
week and so we do not need to carry on weighing
her every evening now.

Karla is also starting to eat the hay already. She
looks a bit wet around the face because I've been
putting on fly repellent.

This thrush is a frequent visitor

Mari

More newbies on the farm, baby swallows.

No not steam coming out of the caravan but a
well placed yoghurt pot and stone over a pipe to
stop the rain getting in. It was placed there by 
Ian climbing a metal ladder as a thunderstorm approached

Early morning dew on the grass turns it a pink hue.

Part 1: In Awe

A caterpillar on the raspberries.
Our autumn raspberries are now
starting to produce and they often
keep going until the frosts

I was marching down to put the chickens away when I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a lovely looking young buck eating the grass. It carried on eating for quite awhile, unaware I was watching it. Eventually I edged closer and it moved off. I had work to do and the chickens needed to be put away before dark, it was already past our usual time for putting animals away. I might not have been so enthralled if I had realised the darn thing had eaten my waterlily though. The little hoof prints gave it away. There was only the root left the next morning.

Freddie no longer looks like a baby any more

The alpaca house takes shape

On Tuesday a young friend came to help Ian get started on the alpaca house. He had some construction experience and so the two of them managed to crack on. It was mainly the young chap putting it up and Ian helping. It worked anyway and he got on much faster than if he had been on his own doing it. My contribution to the endeavour was to keep them fed. I had plenty of other jobs to do.

George is growing up too

Playing bumps

We had a coach load of visitors this week. We were told it was a group of old age pensioners and we were a little bit in trepidation. The last group of OAPs we had were all over the place, but this group turned out to be a mixed group, mainly OAPs though. They were quite attentive and moved in one group, instead of different ones drifting off at different times, which is a lot easier to manage. Maybe we are a bit more organised these days, not sure. We had a local translator and she did very well. Her and her daughter enjoyed the grapes as there were plenty ready and each of the visitors got a small bunch too.

I hope he doesn't become like the sheep and get his head stuck

Mother and son. Aggie is obviously struggling a bit with the
feeding. She seems to be losing weight. Ian is giving her extra

Sometimes I get organised writing the blog when I know I'm going to be away, but I had too much to do this time around. One of my tasks was finally submitting a paper one evening.  All the bits for it came together, the proofreading, the illustrations for the figures and the okay from my supervisor. The only problem though was that one of the figures didn't seem to upload to the final pdf. I tried twice and it still wouldn't attach properly. It was very frustrating since I knew I was going away and needed to get it sorted. It is also a bit nerve wracking wondering if it is all correct and i haven't made some horrendous mistake. Anyway in the end I just submitted it and contacted the editor about the issue. I was very pleased with the prompt reply and I heard this week it has even gone to review. That's a relief, it is at least one step nearer to getting finished with my PhD.

The chicken house relocated to become our root cellar - well
eventually. It is not in its final resting place yet

Mastering the art of alpaca yoga, aka having a good scratch

There was also quite a few other jobs to do before setting off, like cutting Brencis' toe nails and teeth. The boys had been delayed until Ian's back recovered, but Brencis had to be restrained to have his teeth done too, so he wasn't done at the same time. We tried to get restraints on him but he was being very difficult. Every time we tried to get his rear legs in the restraints he would react and nearly hurt himself at one stage. Ian then decided to try trimming his front toe nails. He seemed quite happy to let do that, he even let him move onto the back ones then. Ian surreptitiously slipped on the restraints and we could finally pin him down to do his teeth. He still wasn't happy though and I had to pin him down on the floor instead of holding his head. He's big and stroppy when it comes to doing the necessary work, but when it comes to visitors - he's like a big teddy bear.

An autumn dandelion

Even the big pond is beginning to dry up completely

I also had to help Ian with the alpaca roof. The roof was more difficult to put on than the other ones due to the fact the ground slopes away quite quickly. We also managed to put it on the wrong way around and only realised near the end. It meant manoeuvring the panels to have the overlap the right way round, with Ian at the bottom and me in the middle with wooden poles lifting them up and slotting the sheets in. It worked but I did ache a bit the next day. No problems carrying my suitcase though, all this carrying sheets of roofing panels with Ian and fetching and carrying water all summer meant that I have developed some muscles.

These apples have been gorgeous. The tree is beginning to
provide an abundance at last. It has been a long time coming.
The tree seemed to struggle in the first few years but it must
now have put down some good roots

My coffee at Schipol airport. How
did they know my name? 

My plane was early Sunday morning heading to France and so I took up the offer of an overnight stay in Riga with the folks who bought our apartment earlier on in the year. It was a late night but it would have been a very, very early morning from our caravan to the airport otherwise. I drove the car in that we had been borrowing all summer as our friends were returning on the Monday. It meant they had a car to get back home. It also meant I could meet up with our Indian friends one more time and I even took them to the airport. Maybe one day we could go and see them. That would be different, as neither of us have been to India.

My late night view of Riga

Watching the sunrise from the
balcony during breakfast. Each
morning she baked some bread
-not home-made but still nice, the
jam though was home-made.

I stayed in an AirBnB for the first time on this trip. It was a little difficult to organise as the host only spoke French, but we managed. It was her son who let me in eventually as he wasn't actually at the flat when I arrived. She has been on an event somewhere. She asked me if I had eaten and I hadn’t – apart from sweets that my Indian friends had given me the night before as a thank you for picking them up – so she offered to feed me. First of all she suggested we go for a walk (marche was the actual word she used). I picked up my bag, as I thought she meant a perambulation to get my bearings, oh no! That wasn’t what she meant, what she meant was an hour hike up the mountain that the apartment blocks back onto. It was great. It did prove one thing though – that the summer walking around the farm means, that actually I’m quite fit comparatively. I wasn’t puffed and had to keep stopping for her to catch up.

The squashes have started to grow well now.

Josefs is definitely cute

The flat was in an ideal location as it was a 20 minute walk along leafy roads to the campus where the conference was being held. Just a nice distance to clear my head in the morning and the evening. I palled up with a lady from Sweden and a young chap from Belgium and we spent quite a bit of the day together and in the evening headed into town for the reception and a bit of food at a restaurant. The food for the conference itself was interesting but difficult for me as it was all in little plastic containers and meant I couldn't really guage what I was eating. I think I ended up putting too much weight on, or maybe just bloated I hope.

A street in Clermont Ferrand

Clermont Ferrand Cathedral. It is
not really mucky, it is the built from
black volcanic stone

Tasty!

There be monsters in there. This wasn't quite
what I was expecting. The labelling system
didn't work this year and so I won't be using
marker pen on plastic cups cut into strips
again. Just now need to find out which type
of squash it was.

Hmmm! Tasty! We finally got around to dispatching our returned cockerel. He started getting crochety with the growing chicks, who would dive into the food before he even got a chance to bend down. At least the chicks now put themselves away, so he was superfluous to requirements and therefore he was put into solitary confinement in the other ark. The problem is that we really need that ark now that the younger chicks are getting bigger and we can't carry on feeding a bird that doesn't have a use, so he had to go. It took a few days before Ian was ready for the deed. Once it's dead he's fine, but it isn't easy to dispatch them in such a way that they are not distressed first. As he was an older bird I put him in the slow cooker for the day, as we didn't fancy rubber meat. What we didn't anticipate though was the dark meat on the legs, we always thought of chicken meat as white and turkey meat as white and dark, but no this bird definitely had dark leg meat and he definitely wasn't a turkey. It was very satisfying to sit down to a totally home-grown meal, even down to the meat. We had potatoes, carrots, beans, broccoli and our first sweetcorn of the year. The only thing not local on our plate was the salt and pepper.

Rally car test

Ian had a surprising Tuesday afternoon and a hark back to old times, well even better than old times really as he got to see some rally cars storming up and down the road passed our land, it was like his own personal rally. Ian used to follow the rally championships many moons ago and even occasionally got to see them race. This time a couple of guys came up onto the land to talk to Ian, fortunately one spoke English and he explained that they were closing the road to do some rally car tests and people were posted along the road at various points, wherever there was a chance of someone coming onto the road, to stop the traffic. They were all in contact with each other and so they knew when the car was going to go pass. Alongside our land there is a sharp corner and Ian stationed himself there and got chatting with the young lass in charge of the road that came on at that point, he didn't get any work done, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself. There was a slight hitch trying to get off the land after he had put the animals away, as the cars were still testing and the young chaps on duty on our access road had difficulty getting through to find out if Ian could go, they managed it in the end and he didn't have to wait until they were finished.

Ian busy building the next alpaca house

Our animals are being relatively well behaved this week, well if we discount the oh so free range chickens. Occasionally the chickens start straying into territory they are not allowed in and end up being fastened in their hutch again and again and again. They are suckers really, as all Ian has to do is wave their food pot around and they come running, no matter what time of the day it is. The sheep have now got used to him and know when feed time is so they start bleating for their share. It isn't really necessary to feed them at this time of the year, but we would rather they know who Ian is than be afraid of him and it is far easier to round up some sheep who come for food, than those who aren't used to humans. After all it is definitely not one man and his dog around here! For all my non-British friends, One man and his dog was (is?) a tv show that displays the amazing abilities of working sheep dogs to herd sheep across fields and into sheep pens and since we have no sheep dog and don't intend to get one we have to rely on the bribery method to get some cooperation.

A man must not be separated from his music

A bit later on and a little strategic help
from me and the framework is complete.
Now just needs the sides and a roof.
Easier said than done though

We of course don't just have the domesticated animals on our land, there is a lot of wildlife too and yes the darned pigs have been back again. Hopefully the hunter knows about it now and with any luck one of those little beasties will end up on our table. They did make rather a mess one night, but not as bad as last year so far, but it is still early days yet, in fact too early. Fortunately not all animals are quite so destructive, although they do have the potential to be. This week Ian has seen an osprey and a deer on the land and one day while having lunch an eagle flew out of our forest, fortunately he didn't decide on a little chicken dinner at the time, as I think they weren't in places they would have been easy to catch. It does make being out on the land a true joy though, to know there is such an abundance of wildlife. I often see lizards and many different kinds of frogs and toads when I'm weeding the garden. This week I finished lifting the onions, not too bad a year for them, some are big and some aren't. Definitely a bit more hit and miss this year in terms of the growing season. We have also had blackberries, a reasonable crop this year, not just one or two like the last two years and at least enough for two blackberry and apple pies/sponge and still another load to come. Next year I am sure there will be far more as that blackberry bush is now starting to make a bid for freedom. Another new vegetable for us in Aztec broccoli, it is more like spinach but doesn't go away to a mush. It is proving a little difficult to grow though as the first year I tried it, it succumbed to black fly, the second year was just a dire year anyway and so this year is the first year we have had something eatable and very pleasant it is too.

Time for coffee!

It has been nice to share our enjoyment this week of our land and lifestyle, as two of our friends have brought family and friends around to see our place and show them around. Normally we take our friends to see their places, so it is nice they want to do the same. One friend brought his son and grandson, who he hasn't seen for a long, long time and another friend brought her friend who wants to be a vet and she wanted to show her that it is possible to live out in the countryside. It was really interesting listening to what she felt was important about what we were doing and explained how we worked so hard, well Ian works hard, I do more of the thinking kind of stuff. She was also telling her friend how I was writing a project to help people live in the countryside - well that might not be the exact way I would explain it, but it is interesting that she thought it was a worthwhile thing to do.

Ian has been driving me mad recently with his fussing over a noise coming from the car. Well my hearing is that bad I couldn't really distinguish the particular noise that was irritating him. Eventually he jacked the car up and had a look and then announced we had to take the car into Jekabpils to get it seen to, as there was too much play in the rear universal joint in the prop shaft (any the wiser?, I wasn't either, but I always nod knowingly). The guys at the garage took a look and said that indeed the said joint was shot, kaput and they could fit it in that afternoon. Good job as Ian didn't really fancy driving it back home and then back again another day.

As we were in for a long wait we decided to go and try to get some official books we are supposed to fill in for the animals. We had much merriment with the phone being passed backwards and forwards as the lady in the office was finding out from our friend who was translating what it was we needed. I think we got the right ones anyway. We took the books back to the garage and hoped to pop the books into the car, only to find out that they were already working on it ahead of schedule. Well we decided that we still had time for lunch and as it was Jekabpils, we decided it had to be fish and chip again. It has become quite a tradition for us. The news came through as we were waiting that the car was finished, so all was well and good and the car is surprisingly quiet these days - so I'm told.

I never realised until lately that this is what
a Jerusalem artichoke plant looks like.
A friend of ours gave us some this year and
they can take over, so they are in the middle
of the plot, where they cannot come to much
harm and be mowed if they get too much.

On our way home we decided to go via the biogas plant to take a look at the fields around there. I wanted to know if they had planted maize again for the third year running. They have indeed. In fact there are many many hectares of the stuff, that we found as we took a round trip around the area. It was distinctly depressing. All we could think about was the ruined fields due to planting the same crop in the same ground year after year. The risks of diseases building up is high and also it is pig heaven. Wild boar absolutely love maize and they find it so easy to hide in. The fact that they are now cutting the maize is probably why we are seeing more pig damage on our land, as it will be driving them our way.

The bees seem to like them anyway

I had a revelation this week. You know how you think you know someone well and then suddenly you wonder if you do know them as well as you think you do, when they say something unexpected? I had one of those moments with Ian. He likes cheese! So what, I think you would probably say, but I was under the impression that he wasn't really that fond of cheese. He was fine with it added to food, but I've always been careful not to use it too often, well because he wasn't fond of it, or so I thought. Now where did I get that idea from? You can imagine my surprise one day when he commented he would really like some cheese to go with the tomato sandwiches he's been living off for the past couple of weeks (his choice by the way) and he was rather shocked when I said "but you don't like cheese." Oh well! I guess we'll get over the shock eventually.

We bought a hop plant at the DIY store.
I had been wanting a hop plant for ages
 and seeds didn't work.

I had a few more revelations this week. One was that I can reuse material that I have already written. Each presentation does not have to be completely different to the one before, I can copy slides for one thing, especially as the same people are not at every conference I go to. I might get bored with the content, but they might not, unless of course I also sound bored. Allowing myself to reuse material goes against the grain, as I had spent many years trying to get my children to write interesting pieces that do not repeat themselves for lessons, when I home educated them. Realising this important point took a bit of pressure off me as I worked on a poster presentation that I have to do for my next trip. The next revelation was that I might be low in iron again and maybe that is why I was so tired. I never got my blood levels checked, but around two years ago I was going through an intense tired phase and because of heavy periods (sorry chaps but telling it like it is) it was quite likely that I could be low in iron. Taking iron tablets certainly seemed to help at the time and I took a three month course and then topped up as necessary, i.e. monthly. Relying on diet to keep my levels up the rest of the time. Somehow the tablets stopped and it was only after wondering what on earth was wrong with me this time around and another heavy bout and the penny dropped. So back on the tablets again, and it seems to be working. I actually walked up our three flights of stairs and didn't feel exhausted by the effort.

A tidied garden in the sunset

I definitely feel much perkier, which is a good job, as there is a five hour hike in the mountains to look forward to on my next trip. I am also more alert mentally and don't feel so paralysed by the work I need to do. Stupid really as I know I can do it, but the physical exhaustion of doing the garden, possible low iron levels and the studying was really not doing me any good. It did make me realise as well that I was possibly running a bit too much on my own steam and not relying on God to help me. I'm feeling much more relaxed now, I still have some deadlines to meet, but knowing that God has my future in his hands means I don't feel like I have to strive so hard, just get on with the work I have to do and leave the rest up to him. I have my friend Steve, from Colorado, where I used to live in the US for two years, to thank for regaining a bit of perspective with his last blog post on weakness.