Ooeerr! It's winter already

Here, what's all this white stuff? And who nicked all the
grass?

It is no longer squelchy under foot, in fact it is downright crunchy and am I happy about that? Well no actually. I have to admit to having been caught out by the snow and the cold this year. It is forecast to warm up soon and then we will have to get back on with our pre-winter preparations, but we feel rather unready for this rather early onset of very wintry weather. Ian continued on with his Franken creations and made a Frankenmanger (available for hire for Christmas nativity scenes, only you will have to fight the alpacas for it as it is a big hit with them). We had to up the alpacas feed a lot over the last few days and Ian was desperately trying to finish off the feeder for them as the snow was coming down, another pre-winter job that got caught out by the changing weather. Prior to that they were quite happy on the grass which is now under about 15-20cm of snow. Have you noticed though that Ian has started a trend with his Franken creations with the Americans heading for Frankenstorm? A fellow blogger also wrote to say she had reblogged our blog about Franken-items and described her own Franken-paths. I think he should have patented the idea!

Frankenmanger

You probably can't see but hidden amongst the hay is
Sofie. She jumped in when the alpacas got a bit close
and then she couldn't get out as they were eating from the
rack. It was very funny to watch the interactions

A right pain to have all this snow, but it does look pretty

Normally I welcome the onset of the snow as it covers a usually grim scene of mud, but the last week had been quite nice, but then it would be as my parents were here on holiday. My parents have rarely had any bad weather on holiday in the 49 years they have holidayed together, apart from the odd shower that is. I do seem to remember sitting in a tent with the rain dripping as a kid, but I must have remembered that because of it being so unusual for holiday weather. My parents, bless em' came prepared to help out and my dad seemed to enjoy trundling around helping us get veg beds sorted out for the winter and dahlias dug up, at least he knew what he was doing, I didn't (I hope the ones we put in the shed were alright as I wasn't expecting the intense cold and I thought I would have got them down into the cellar before the heavy frosts - for once this year the forecasts were pretty close to being reliable). My dad was also a great source of information as he has a lot of practical experience gained through being around farms from a young age, although never a farmer himself, family friends were. He even managed to help where the internet failed - so own up, who else knows how to prepare a duck for the table? What do you do with those little feathers? Apparently you use meths and set fire to it, to singe off the little feathers. It wasn't all one way though, we have gained quite a bit of information along the way too, such as cockchafer bugs make great chicken snacks, which my dad didn't know.

Cesis castle

We didn't make my parents work the whole time, nearly but not quite. They enjoyed going out to the hotel a couple of times and revelled in the fact it was nowhere near as expensive as the restaurants in the UK, we also took a trip to a castle and museum in Cesis. When we bought the tickets to get into the castle we were given lanterns to go up the tower, it was certainly steep and dark, but well worth it for the view out of the tower of the town of Cesis and surrounding areas.  We also popped along to a nearby camelid farm that had some alpacas. It was rather comical watching the staff try to move an alpaca that they wanted to trim the toenails of, because there was no way that alpaca was getting up so they could get to the toenails. It sat down very firmly on its haunches. Hope ours are a little more cooperative. They had an alpaca in from another farm for breeding and their male was at other farm, so it looks like we have scope for exchange for breeding purposes, only the alpaca brought in was so tiny compared to ours, we are not sure about breeding from that one, but they maybe interested in our alpaca male anyway. It will be good to have a little cooperation between alpaca owners in Latvia, it can only be of benefit to all of us. Mind you, I am not sure about Ian's new found love of camels, alpacas is one thing but a camel!!!! Noooooooo!

A view from the tower with Cesis in the
background

A park in Cesis. You can see what good
weather my parents brought with them

A view of Cesis from the new castle

The new bucket, just the right size for
making trenches

The big news from the last two weeks is that we have organised to get electricity to our land. We have paid for the cable and it is residing at the electricians house, we also organised our friend to make a bucket for the tractor and now we just need that dratted weather to warm up a bit to dig a trench so the cable can be laid. We are hoping to get the electric down to the greenhouse and then we can at least provide heat for our animals if it turns out worse than now. Our chickens are doing okay in the greenhouse and we have moved the caravan in, so that should provide a bit of extra protection as a heat source, if it absorbs any heat during the day that is. If the weather turns really bad then we will move the alpacas in there too to contribute to the overall heat of the place.

Our orchard plot at sunset

Talking of heating, our issue is still ongoing with that, but a meeting to review the situation got a surprisingly good turn out at short notice from the other apartment dwellers and a surprising amount of agreement at last. They seem to be beginning to see that the heating company is not acting fairly. In fact other apartment blocks owe more money than ours does and still got heat, but because we actually complained about the cold water they sent last winter they have decided to single us out! We did finally get our heat back on, just in time for the sharp drop in temperatures, after two council members stood up for us, but it was pretty close. Little by little we hope to sort out this situation, alongside others that is - we can't do it on our own.

Frost on the gate

Work has been better this past couple of weeks too, much quieter. Kind of boring again! Just the way I like it now. Actually it is not that boring really, it is still interesting to learn more about the students from all walks of life, something I still find fascinating after nearly 9 years of doing this job, but I will still settle for the quiet life in that department for the time being. There is one thing I am glad about in my job, is the fact that the director is great guy to work for, it made dealing with the issues the past few weeks much easier. My daughter passed on a blog regarding leadership and it is so spot on, I much prefer working for someone who recognises giftings in people and works to put a good team around himself, instead of a group of yes men. If you want a read it is by a guy called Steve McAlpine, another great guy, who obviously thinks a lot and yes I've met him a couple of times.

The chickens content in the greenhouse
along with our caravan

Franken.......

Frankenbarrow! Cobbled together from cladding from our
kitchen to provide a much needed extension. 

Squelch! That is the sound most heard on our land at the moment. It's wet! We did have a couple of days of dry weather and it had just, and I mean just, started to dry a little when it rained heavily again. Ian still has to go out to the land to let the animals out and so he has got on with barn jobs, tidying it up and creating Franken monsters. Franken monsters? Has he gone mad? Yep probably! I explained he felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein last week, creating his monster table named Frankentable, monster sink- Frankensink, monster shelves - Frankenshelves etc. Well this week he made his monster wheelbarrow, so meet Frankenbarrow. So why Franken...... ? Well Frankenstein was really just a recycled human, made up of bits from other people and Ian's creations are reusing material usually leftover from other projects or, to use the up-to-date phrase, "repurposed" At least the rain hasn't stifled his creative streak. It might not be in a beauty parade of garden and garage products but they are functional and are at the moment costing us nothing.

It was that wet our alpacas were looking rather grubby.
They look better than this now though

As for me it has been hard work this week and I definitely felt quite depressed at times, which is not me really. There was one day there was nothing for it but to reach back into the archives and dig out my chill out songs. Singing "break the chains on this land" (from Iona The Island) with the sun appearing for the first time in days lifted my spirits immensely. I also watched some birds circling in the air and felt "yes that's where I want to be" and I let my spirit soar with them and then watched in amazement as other birds started to come, joining them from all directions, I really felt God speak deep into my soul. At least now I have strength to carry on now! Plus the giggle from watching a coal tit that kept coming to the window and occasionally tapping on it as it tries to understand why it can't get at the squashes drying on the window.

Spiders webs in the evening sunlight draped across
the fields

One reason for feeling depressed were work issues. I normally just plod along doing regular checks and chatting with students on the online student café I moderate, all ticking along nicely for a few years until something changes and for some reason more issues pop their head up and more active intervention is required; well this is one of those years. The kind that demands rapid responses and then thoughtful planning to address the issues in the long term. It means that work is not boring at the moment and definitely challenging and normally I would relish the challenge, but not now. I and a colleague relish boring now, we have other things to do too challenge us. Then again for the sake of our students we will address the issues wholeheartedly and try to work out some good solutions that are helpful for all concerned.

Ian giving a little perspective at the top of the hill. He is
stood where the house will be with a 3m stick in hand
to give some sense of scale

I also had an interview with a journalist for a hunting magazine about my Master's thesis on the conflict over wild boar management in the area I live in. It was a bit nerve wracking really. I had to explain what I had done and why without giving away confidential information, but I also wanted this issue of too many wild boar in our area wrecking agriculture to get out and be highlighted. Some of the things I recommended were also covered. It was quite hard to strike the right balance, but we both agreed that it was really stupid that no one apart from me was doing research in the Latvia on wild boar management, despite the widespread destruction they cause, at massive financial costs to farmers. It will be interesting to see what is actually written though.

Our house in situ.What it could possibly look like

So have I done much else this week? Not really. Trawled the internet for biodigesters and such things, but really I have been too busy to do much else. The good news is that a recent frost has signalled the final stages of our harvesting, it really is all downhill to winter from here. Our chickens were moved into the greenhouse now it is virtually empty, at least it will be less draughty and a lot less damp in there. Moving the arks was made a lot simpler by the visit of some friends to see our alpacas, it is easier with four to carry the arks over longer distances rather than just two. Frankentrolley made earlier in the year would have got bogged down in the mud anyway. We also spent a bit of time walking through the floorplan for our new house to see where things would be, see if it would work and Ian got to talk with our friend who is an electrician to see how we would get electric to the house - unfortunately we can't use the nearest electric cable it is too high powered and would need a rather large transformer for domestic use, we have to use a lower powered one further away. At least it all looks feasible, so far.

Frankenseedboxes. Made from some wood which had been
destined for firewood but decided they were too good
to burn and used for making these instead. Other
pieces ended up as backs for coat hooks.

Our heating is still an issue. I wrote to the company this week basically saying that we are still not paying until the issue of the quality of heat is addressed in accordance with consumer regulations and if it is not addressed we will see you in court. It didn't say that exactly of course, but that is the general gist of the matter. Well in response the boiler is on ....... only heating the other apartment block and the school and not our apartment block, because we want too much. Apparently we should not expect water 
hot enough to heat our rooms to the temperature stated in our contracts, that is unreasonable and until we drop those unreasonable requests we will not be getting any heat. Well I guess we are going to have to see what the court says about that. Sigh! I really wish they would see sense and just heat the water hot enough. It is stupid that they cannot even provide what the contract states and try and shift the blame onto everyone else except themselves. Don't really see why the courts should be the place to sort this out either, but if that is the system then we will use the system. Don't worry too much about us though if your thoughts conjure up two shivering folks, trying to keep warm. We have a wood stove, we have oil filled radiators, plenty of layers to keep us warm too and if the worse comes to the worse and the temperatures drop far too much then we have another apartment where we have wood fired central heating. And our neighbours? Well some have already come off the communal heating system anyway a few years ago - the rest of us are stuck on the system, one more off, then all off. Many have woodstoves themselves and electric radiators, so the chances are they will be fine for the time being.