Done! Well some of it!

One bed of Amaranth found amongst
the weeds. Believe it or not there is
another on the right of this picture and
another four beds you cannot see.

It has been a week of a lot done and a lot not done, such is summer time. I managed to finish the paper I have been writing for ages. Hopefully this re-write satisfies everyone. We will see! I didn’t think I would be able to edit it down to the correct word count, but I amazingly managed it. I was very chuffed with myself for that.

Fortunately not all weeds are quite so
large. This was in our small greenhouse
that is more like a storage area and errrr
weed incubator.

Food mill and halters for the alpacas arrived from our good
friends in America. If only this package could talk, it would
be interesting to know why it was sent from Oregon to
Florida (diagonally opposite across the country) then up
north to New York? It took 12 days to leave the US and yet
we were give a delivery date of 6-10days. Oh the efficiency
of the US postal system, I guess. Fortunately after that it was
flown straight to Latvia and took a day to go through
customs before being delivered to our local post office.

Of course there has been much weeding and processing of berries, as usual for this time of the year. I got my new food mill that meant I could process a whole load of berries for the freezer. I decided not to do them all, but wait until later on in the year, when the weather is not so good and process the berries first by steaming to get juice and then through the food mill for jam or berry sauces and that means I can just sling them in the freezer with leaves, stems the lot. I think we have just about finished the strawberry harvest though now - so sad when that happens. We had been really enjoying the strawberries on our porridge for breakfast.

Blackcurrants ripe for picking

The barley is ripening

The season seems to have turned here and it has a definite feel of late summer now. The weeds are slowing down in growth (thank goodness) the leaves on the dandelions and strawberries are going red or mottled and the leaves on the trees are the dull green of the end of the season. Birds are also starting to congregate in preparation for migrating soon – it may still be a few weeks away yet, but the signs are there.

The first cabbage of the season. The cool weather has
favoured the brassicas this year and our cabbages are
looking quite good. We are not necessarily great
cabbage growers usually. Mind you, the snails were
out in force tonight and I had to pick quite a few off and
squish them underfoot.

We are not sure if we should be worried about the
appearance of these bugs on our redcurrants or not. Not
really sure what they are.

We are still getting summer visitors too, which is rather nice. This week the chap who wanted us to meet his German friend the other week and who Ian keeps meeting at the car technical place, came with his wife and young son. They stayed for quite a while chatting. Ian showed the wife around, since she had never been before and I got into a conversation with the chap about hunting. It is funny that I can explain the Latvian system to a Latvian, as I know more about the topic. Still not every Latvian is acquainted with the laws of their land on the topic – they don’t need to be in general and I did spend quite a while studying the ins and outs of hunting in Latvia. We are enjoying it when many visitors come, they bring chocolate - always welcome in our place and we had only just eaten up the last one from a previous group.

These bugs, however are a very welcome sight - ladybird
larvae

Oats all behind an electric fence.

Talking of hunting, our hunter told us he had shot a wild boar on our land the other day. We are pleased as we are starting to have more serious trouble with them and we had to put an electric fence around the oats to try and prevent more damage. Unfortunately the electric energiser we have available to use is not that powerful, but it might make them think twice – it made our kitten think twice when she came into contact with it. A learning experience for any farm cat!

Rather close to the barley field but an area the boars do
dig regularly next to the trees. Apparently boar are not
so fond of barley - probably due to the stiff hairs that
stick out of the head of the barley ears.

You won't see a sight like this very often. It has been nice
and warm but not too hot this week and so a chance to wear
a t-shirt and not a long, sleeved top to keep the sun off.

The reason we knew the hunter had shot an animal was because we had been to our local festival and they were having a grilling competition and he told us that on the menu was the wild boar that he shot at our place. We really wanted to organise taking our alpacas to the festival and show the fleece to people but yet again we didn’t get organised in time, not easy when we need translators for it. Maybe next year (that sounds like the gardeners’ refrain when something doesn’t work)

We have seen more bees this week, which is good news

Eyre, our kitten, obviously under-whelmed by Le Tour!

Our kitten has also been learning other lessons this week. Firstly she has been getting quite good at catching insects, unfortunately she tends to bring them into the caravan to play with, which is not what we really want. Neither was Ian impressed with the dead stinky mouse she brought in and even less impressed with the live one. We are not sure if Sofie, our older cat, had caught the mouse earlier and was trying to train our little one, or whether our little one had actually caught it herself. Either way, Ian made sure she caught it again and then evicted her from the caravan with the mouse in her mouth. She caused us a bit of consternation, just before we are about to leave the land tonight as she went missing Ian looked all over for her. Just as we were about to give up, she turned up.

Venturing out. She often accompanies us on our walks now
but gets very panicky if she cannot see us and we have to
whistle or talk to her so she can find us when we are going
through the long grass.

There are lots of flowers blooming in our meadows at this
time of year in the areas we haven't already cut

Our other visitors this week were friends of our goat farming friend and she brought her friends around to see what we were doing. It was great to hear their ideas on the things we are doing and they asked lots of questions of the sort that you know they know a lot about the topic. They have also used a seed processor before and loved the fact we had one. They reckon that ours is over a hundred years old. We were also told that the old Russian tractors use belts like the processor one and so we should be able to replace it without a problem. They told us there was a screen missing and what it would do and explained that the movable sieves underneath could do with some repair, which we thought might be the case. Other than that it was fine. At least we feel a little more confident that we know what it does and how it should work. We thought we had worked it out, but it is nice to know that from someone who has really used them. It was also nice to get an email from the people who had donated it to us where they mentioned that they think the seed processor is in good hands.

The hemp is growing well

To let more light in when we are
checking over the animals in the
evening, Ian made the back door into
a half door. It helps, but we could still
do with more light in. 

We have been trying to do some planning this week. Sometimes we get so busy we don’t really take time to think ahead, which is not so good. Ian put all my planned trips away into his diary and so he should now know when I am likely not to be around. Basically every month I am away somewhere now until November. Our daughter also asked if Ian would go over to their place to help her husband work on their new house and so that means Ian will be away for part of the time too, leaving me home alone with the animals.

We didn't have much in the way of seed for the sweetcorn and
didn't want to risk it outside anyway - heavenly food for boar
- so we planted it in the greenhouse, which it seems to be enjoying

Cooking the chicken out on our land
means using our halogen oven in the
greenhouse. It was too warm to have it
cooking in the caravan. We call our
halogen oven "Robbie." can't remember
why.

Part of our plans included dispatching three cockerels, since they are not really needed. One was making itself a nuisance by pestering our other free-range cockerel. One was favouring one particular hen and her feathers were coming off on her back, so hopefully she will recover. The other cockerel didn’t have a nice temperament and so we had no wish to keep him any longer. We had the bad tempered one for our evening meal, he was chewy but tasty. The others will definitely be put in the slow cooker.

Are we worried? These are the chicks and not for dispatch-
well not yet anyway. Some will be when we are sure which
are cockerels and which are not.

The grapes are beginning to turn too

Other plans for the future included prioritising new fences for pastures and fields, digging for water, and sorting out a container for winter storage. We started to put a list together of what needed doing when and who we needed to talk to about the plan if needed - or in other words, I got out a paper and pen and wrote it down. It’s a start. We also chatted about all the requirements for a happy and long marriage. Since we have been married for over 30 years, we feel we have some experience in the matter. We decided that deliberate mis-communication, selective deafness, repeated story-telling repeated and of course all that has to be washed down with a liberal dose of humour, otherwise all of that will end in tears. Well it did help the planning to go down a little bit better, or there would have been many a cross word I think.

Brencis is growing up fast. His mum, who
is sat behind him, must be giving him some
good stuff.

The things you learn!

Not a picture from today, but last week. Part of the
university I go to, the Estonian University of Life Sciences
or Eesti Maaülikool, which is not a direct translation
as I found out fairly recently

The things you learn at uni! Well this week I learnt that often bullets used by hunters contain lead and therefore processed meat from hunted animals can contain lead also. This is because a lead bullet sheds 30 - 50% of its weight as it enters the animal, which is not the same as other types of bullets and the metal is less harmful to humans anyway - if you eat the meat that is, not if you get in the way of one, in which case it doesn't really matter what metal it's made of. I have come to view that meat from hunting is sometimes more humane than the slaughterhouse meat and so I viewed the meat as more "green", but maybe I will have to ask what kind of bullets the hunters use first? The other problem with lead bullets is from those that do not end up on the hunters table, predators can eat the contaminated meat with lead accumulation leading to death and armies leave rather a lot of it all over their practice firing ranges in some rather pristine environments and that lead from the munitions can then leach into the water. Wow, a whole source of pollution I had never thought about. There are moves to encourage hunters and armies to switch to greener bullets, which sounds somehow wrong, but for me I think it makes a lot of sense, then again I am biased against wild boar roaming around on our land, digging up the fields and making it more difficult for us to feed our animals in the autumn months. (Link to a less academic take on the issue than the one I heard).

As you can see, today's weather was a little
greyer

Meanwhile back at home. Ian and the chipper, before!

Mind you, this little piece of information did not stop us accepting a leg from a wild boar piglet, cut from  a whole one that a friend of ours was given, and I am sure it will not diminish the pleasure of eating the meat when we get around to it, doing our bit to keep the wild boar population down to ecologically acceptable levels. We had to stick the leg of wild boar in the freezer, because I was going away and the joint was a little too large for Ian to eat on his own, despite that fact I'm sure he would have given it a good try, if he had been given the opportunity. I might just roast the joint with some oranges as that should reduce any lead absorption - if there is any that is. Serving it with a green leafy vegetable and a white sauce will also help - I had better stop there because it's making me feel hungry.

And after! I think a few more piles of branches were used,
it looks like rather a lot of chippings from one small pile 

Across the train tracks to that yellow and
blue square building is where the little
cafe is situated. You wouldn't think to look
at it, would you?

I was a little despairing of the mound of work I had to do for various things, such as a presentation, an academic paper, a project for Masters students and homework for courses and all needing attention fairly soon. Trying to decide what to do when was hard, but gradually I have been working through everything. It helped that I had to go back to Latvia on the Wednesday this week and managed to work well on the train. I even managed to work quite well on the buses on the way back up to Tartu too. It did help that the buses were not as crowded this week, and that little cafe in Cesis is such a godsend, being such a quiet place to work. It is funny that the young lady who works there, always says "Hello" in English now, when I walk in through the door. In fact I am so happy with the amount of work I have got done this week, there will be no working this evening and after writing this I shall be doing some knitting.

This sometimes feels like my second home -
Riga bus station

I said I travelled back to Latvia on Wednesday this last week, this is because I had a meeting in Riga. I got the chance to talk to a lovely lady from the British Council. It always amuses me that just because it says "British" does not mean it is staffed by British staff. The staff at the British Embassy are just as likely to be Latvian as British and so it is with the British Council. The British Council are all about developing cultural relations and educational opportunities between other countries and the UK, so the blurb goes and of course it promotes British material for use elsewhere. One of the projects I found out about was a game developed to help people learn more about participation in development, it is called "Future Cities Game." I was really encouraged to hear how the young lady had seen the opportunity for Latvia to learn something from the game and used the game well to help various cities, but also rural areas, around the country to encourage participation in development projects. People learnt how to work together on imaginary and real small scale projects, people from a variety of different sectors, so old folks, young folks, administrative staff, development workers and the ordinary man off the street, all learning how to talk to each other and work on a project together. She also spotted the problem of what happens when projects finish and organisations move on and yet there is still a need for the material and she tried successfully to encourage leaders who show promise to take it on and use it in the future. Those are definitely skills that are needed in this country and I am so pleased to hear of her success.

The new "road" Ian has created a
pathway for the tractor, so he can reach
a section of land without going on the
road or across the top of our oak hill

One of Ian's other jobs, keeping the bedding in the alpaca
houses and the chicken house clean. Plenty for the garden
next year then!

I created a trauma this week. I broke Ian's pal that has travelled with us through all our moves, or in his words, I "murdered a loyal, hard working companion" of his. He took it hard! In other words I broke his favourite cup, the one that we either bought or got given to celebrate the building of the school that our kids went to. I can't even remember what anniversary it was celebrating now, it may have been 90 or a 100 years, something like that, could have even been more. Anyway the damage is done and the cup is no more and I am in the doghouse. I'm sure he'll get over it though, cakes, pies, roast wild boar - something like that will work.

I was treated to a cream bun tonight. I didn't actually realise there was a reason for being treated to a cream bun, I'm sure I was told, but I didn't quite hear amongst the clatter. I now know it is a lenten tradition in Estonia. As you can see from the picture they look rather yummy and if you want to know how to make some yourself here's a link. Maybe that's what I should make for Ian when I get back? Then again, maybe not! Cardamon seeds and lingonberry jam - not got either of those in the store cupboard. One year we may have lingonberry, but the plant I have is not growing very fast. At least I think it is lingonberry!

It must be spring, the lads are fighting more. some serious
neck twisting going on there

Let's not mention the spitting

Who us? Sweet, innocent us? Do you like our green lipstick?
Herk is wearing a harness so that Ian can put eye drops in
his eye. It is better than it was, but still not right yet. 

Hog roast

Damage right up to our alpaca fence this week

Eventually this last week we managed to get hold of a hunter to come and hunt on our land. The number we had, was for a hunter who had left the hunting organisation we have a contract with and it took a few texts to eventually get another number. It was sorted in the end and the hunter went out on three nights to our land, with increasing damage being done, but eventually he shot one. If we have the story straight, then it was one of a group of 20-30 individuals, so it was no wonder the place was a mess. It is possible that they had also decided that our land would make an ideal breeding ground. Not good for us, but at least the hunters have committed to continuing the hunt this week too, although of course there hasn't been any damage since one was shot. I remember one of our neighbours telling us that a hunt usually meant that the wild boar would not be back for a fortnight, so at least we get a bit of a reprieve. The snow has continued to fall and it is steadily building up and this restricts the wild boar with their little legs to the forests, so hopefully by the time the boar have forgotten about the killing the snow will be too deep for them.

Ian makes the best use of the barn by hoisting the
trailer up and leaving more floor space. One pulley
a couple of chains and the jobs a goodun'

Our share of the boar meat, bagged up and ready for the
freezer

The great thing is with having hunters out on the land, is that we get a share of the boar meat too and so we ended up with a bucketful of meat. I like the idea that I haven't had to butcher it too, so it seems a fair exchange. It was a fat pig though, with a layer of fat on it over an inch thick, if not thicker. That was one well fed pig! Normally I would be wary of meat with too much fat, but the fat will be good for our chickens, they could do with the extra calories now the temperatures are dropping quite sharply. I will let you know what it tastes like once I have got around to cooking it, I will tell you though that we will enjoy every morsel of it.

A frosty morning

Talking of chickens, we must have killed the wrong one. We have not had a single egg this week. I know it is cold but the light levels have gone up with the snow and so I would have thought we might have had one or two eggs, but no! The cold has been bad for the alpacas, well one in particular, Turbjörn. We are still not sure if the others are being mean to him or he just prefers to stay outside, but he is often shivering during the day. He is fine in the mornings as they have plenty of hay that has been built up quite a bit in the shed and we also have spent one day this week shifting rubbish bales of hay and stacking them against the shed to act as insulation and then put fleece around the outside on the other sides to reduce the draughts. It seems to have made it a better environment overnight despite the continued drop in temperatures. Two guys came around from the nearby sheep farm this week and helped Ian to cut the alpaca toe nails. They were quite excited about helping with the alpacas, being only three of them and not hundreds of sheep was something a little different. One had a bit of a bleed, but nothing serious and the lads had a spray to help, one also had a bit of a limp afterwards but that got better over the next two days. It might have just twisted it a bit as it was having the nails cut, or it might have just been a bit strange after having the nails cut. Anyway it is better now.

Hay bales stacked up against the side - a bit snow encrusted now

Double fleece layers around the sides too

We actually saw the sun one day this week. Not sure when
the last time we saw it. Ian and I just stood by the window
and gazed at the sun coming up, it was such a welcome sight

Sometimes in winter we have a problem with the electric, although we don't have as many power cuts as we used to now, it has gone off twice this week. The first time I was surprised that I didn't have a text from the power company to say that the electric was off. It seems a bit stupid getting a text to say "your power is off" but at least it means I know, they know about it and hopefully working on it. What was even more surprising was that it was off for an hour and a half and it wasn't even snowing at the time. All I can assume is that it might have been due to an ice build up that got worse as the temperatures dropped. The second time the electric went off we got a text, only I wasn't impressed as we had gone to bed early at our other apartment and had only just dropped off. We had also just topped up our fire to last all night and so we then spent an uneasy time wondering if our fire would cause the water to boil and possibly explode - we haven't got around to sorting out the battery for our UPS system (Uninterrupted power supply) which switches to battery power when the electric goes off. Our batteries have been used to charge the electric fence and probably need replacing now. Sigh!

Franken-shifter. A patented snow remover

Snow shifted off the greenhouse with franken-shifter

A frosty tree

Usually I don't mind the snow, but this year I just feel caught out by it. I guess it is partly because we have the animals now and we know that if the snow stays then this will be it until at least March and Ian has been having to spend all day out on the land, without electric, so that he can keep an eye on the animals. The chickens seem happy enough fortunately but due to our shivering alpaca, Ian has upped their feed of concentrate by feeding them midday and making sure that Turbjörn gets his full share. At least it means that Turbjörn, the most reluctant of the alpacas will eat out of a bowl Ian holds, not out of his hand but close. Looking out over the scene from our apartment window though I noticed once again how it hides so much, covering the footprints and on our land I knew it would be covering the hideous mess from the pigs in a white fluffy blanket, that was falling ever so gently from the sky. It made me think that sometimes we need our past covered over like that, hiding the marks we made, rather like grace really.

A golden sunrise

Crystal fairy lights, or ice lit by the sun!