Spring is just around the corner

One of the biggest problems I face during the long winter days is finding things to keep occupied, once the snow arrives and winter has really arrived,with the house up together what can one do? One can read, troll the internet, go to Facebook and see what others are doing, watch TV, check out ebay or Amazon to see if there is anything you want or need to buy, But after three months of snow one begins to go stir crazy . Unless you have lived through a northern winter believe me you don't know what it's like.

The snow is snowing,

At least all of the gardens look the same

 It is beautiful, everything covered in a layer of pristine white snow, The air crisp and clean which is just lovely for the first few days and then reality sets in.

One nights snow and there will be more on the way.

Don't get me wrong I do love it, but just imagine a diet of cream cakes, Ok for one or two days  but after that what one wouldn't give for a cheese and pickle sandwich  I am sure you get my drift.





I have  not been completely unproductive though, and have made several plant supports for sweet peas,  roses and various other plants that need to be kept safe from some of the strong winds we can sometimes get. Another project was at the request of Valerie, we have some very nice pieces of wooden furniture, and although we can buy
Aerosol cans of polish in the shops, she wanted
some old fashioned Lavender scented Beeswax
you know the kind our mums used back
in the day when we were kids, so unable to find any in the shops or online the only solution to the problem was to make some. Ingredients needed where beeswax,( this meant a trip to the forest where a bee keeper had agreed to sell us some) white spirit and lavender oil. Put the three together and low and behold Lavender scented beeswax furniture polish, works wonderfully well and fills the house with the memories of home when I was a young boy.

Beeswax furniture polish, 

But hey there is light at the end of the tunnel, it's the 2nd of March and fingers crossed it's gone, the snow that is, the sun is rising higher in the sky and getting  some warmth with it and the days are getting longer.
 I know things are improving as we are now getting more varieties of birds to our table, we have had Great tits, blue tits, house sparrows, nuthatch, greenfinches and lesser spotted woodpeckers.and today to our surprise a merlin was sat on it.(most likely waiting for his lunch)


 Today has probably been one of the warmest we have woken up to and as Spring approaches I decided to take my camera and go for a walk around our little village to give you an idea of what life is like as we awake from our long partial hibernation.
Stelpe may not be the center of the universe but it is our home and we love it.

The village we call home

On leaving home I decided to see what state the river was in and headed towards the little bridge

As you can see  the water is very high.

So here are some pictures I took my first are of our main road. which is interesting to say the least.

The delight's of country roads

 As winter leaves us  we are left with a surface which is somewhere between corrugated iron and soft putty. This then develops into  a choice of dust (if it's dry) or bog (if it's wet)







My attention then turned to my stomach and  thought maybe a nice sweet to suck while I walked would help me focus on the job in hand, Our local shop was on my way so I popped in to make my selection                                                                      
I have called it an emporium not because it's large

The Stelpe emporium

 but for the wide range of goods there on offer, There is all manner of smoked meat, sausage, cheese and dairy products, bread and cakes, drinks both soft and alcoholic, frozen veg etc etc the list goes on. oh yes and of course sweets of which I made my selection and was served by a very pleasant lady. I wished her "visu labu" (goodbye) and  continued my walk.

Think of this as your old corner shop and you will
have some idea of  what it is like.
Sadly a disappearing part of english life

What a joy it is to be served by someone
with a smile on there face.

Where to next? On our last trip to Vecumnieki ( our nearest large village with a supermarket) we had noticed that a small wood was being felled so I was interested to see how far they had progressed and as it was not far down the road that would be my next port of call. Keeping well away from the road edge and thus avoiding being sprayed with the mud soup that n places covered the surface I was surprised when a people carrier pulled up and before anyone could ask me anything I said do you speak english? Yes yes yes came the answer and a gentleman asked if I knew where Stelpe Water was as they were looking for the bore hole that used to supply the said business.  was pleased to be able to give them the directions they needed. They were somewhat taken aback to find an English man walking along a country road and so our conversation turned to one  of what, why, when and where.

turned out the passenger in the car was Latvian, who had gone abroad to Australia when he was a young lad and was now back visiting  "SOS Children's Village's International "  of which there is one in Bauska. Surprising who you meet along the road!

Anyway back to my walk, I heard in the distance the sound of a chainsaw so knew there were men at work in the wood.

Felling a small patch of woodland.

A lovely slow means of transport, with a very low
impact on the environment.

As I stood and watched the men at work a real slice of rural life came along a lady who had been to our local grain store, (a granary from back in the days of collective farming ) with her horse and cart. They certainly were not responsible for the state of the road. We passed the time of day and  saw her later in my walk around the village.

A short distance from where the men were clearing the wood is a cemetery and  so  decided that I would have a wander along to it. The place is called "Stengu Kapi" Latvian cemeteries are usually found in a wooded area with graves set out neatly and kept in  good order, many graves will have a small bench where relatives can sit in a peaceful setting. In the spring this cemetery lily of the valley growing in profusion  everywhere. the scent of the flowers filling the air.

It was here that I found the lady who had driven by me on her horse and cart, she had tied the horse to a tree and was quietly going about tidying  what must have been a family plot.

Although a cold day there was a peaceful air about
the place.

 My walk around our village almost over I decided to return home by a different route and passed by the granary I mentioned earlier, it's a very interesting building. One  would like to explore in some detail.

If you look carefully you will see the ever
watchful guard dog.

The only thing left to complete a lovely walk was a cup of tea and a slice of cake, both of which were readily available at 13 Upes Iela

PS. Just as we thought everything was turning to spring, we are back to everywhere white again and snow is falling even as  type this!

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN.

At the moment we find ourselves in that transitional time when the weather doesn't seem to know what it is going to do. One day the sun shines brilliantly, the next it's wet, dull and thoroughly miserable. Temperatures up and down like a yo yo, the wind one day coming from the south with a milder wet touch the next from the north east, extremely cold and lazy, by lazy I mean it won't go round you it just wants to blow right through you.

A taste of things to  come

Some folk over here have already had snow but the nearest we have got has been some rain that is almost frozen, but not quite, a bit like a “slush puppy” drink neither one thing or another and cold with it. Another thing that goes through this transition period is our road which during the summer is usually a dust bowl, now it becomes a muddy track on which one slips and slides, in places where the surface becomes soft, deep ruts are formed by huge log lorry's which slow down for no one and can be quite intimidating if one comes up behind you, they wait for the first opportunity to swing out and hurtle past you. Soon though when the temperature drops the road will freeze solid and once more be firm to drive on. I must say though I still find it strange when driving with temperatures of -20c before the snow comes seeing a plume of dust in the rear view mirror where the surface of the road is freeze dried and dusty.

Red sky at night shepherds delight! who can tell

So who knows when the weather will make up it's mind, it is said here “when the swans fly away three days later the snow will come” but I guess like a lot of folk law sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. We must take whatever the Good Lord sends, it's still one thing we have no control over, but I am sure some politician some where is working on it!! But we won't go down that road.


                                                                

Trouble is a brewing

The other day I had a walk down to the little river that runs along the bottom of our garden, when we moved here to Upes Iela we had three large hornbeam trees growing on the river bank I guess they were about 60ft tall, sadly they have all died, still every cloud has a silver lining and the two latest victims will make someone some very good firewood. That's if I can  find someone to cut them down and take them away. I will need to get the correct paperwork sorted before anything can be done, but that is just a visit to the village office to sort it out.

Branches stripped bare by woodpeckers.

Anyway back to my wander down the garden I was amazed to find under the trees a lot of stripped bark all around the base of the dead trees, looking up into the branches I found at least one of the culprits, a black woodpecker, it was quite happy doing what woodpeckers do tapping away at the dead bark to find the small insects who thought they were safely hidden away for the winter. 

A mulch for our garden? Oh no it's bark stripped by
our Black woodpeckers

We regularly see three different kinds of woodpeckers here only one of which is found in the UK, the “Great spotted” they are regular visitors to our bird table,

A Great spotted woodpecker.

A Grey headed woodpecker

 then there is the “Grey Headed” which we see looking for ants in our lawn,or as you can see  this one on our electric pole.

The european Black woodpecker

 and now this autumn we have the “Black woodpecker” which is the largest in Europe with a wing span of about 30 inches, quite a large bird, no wonder there was such a mess under the trees. This year we have increased our bird accommodation with the addition of a sparrow terrace on the barn. This has been a great success and several birds have visited and are checking the place out with a view to occupying the new accommodation.  

Welcome to my "pied a terre"

"Neighbours everybody needs good neighbours"

Sometimes I am asked is there anything you would like to change if you could have you time over again, well I may have done some things differently but I wouldn't change anything. Though maybe just maybe I would have liked to be an ornithologist and watched birds all day long. But don't tell Valerie that.

I'll leave you this time with some pictures of our Autumn colours which this year have been wonderful.

PS and this is what we woke up to this morning, things can change over night!!

The first real snow of winter.

There's a definite nip in the air.

Today we packed our garden furniture away. This year we have used our summer house a lot more, but I guess all good things must come to an end, and yes there is a bit of a nip in the air. Warmer clothes are the order of the day. Autumn is here. Having said that if the sun shines we can still  enjoy it's warmth as it gets lower in the sky.
Another sign that the shorter days are upon us is last week we took a trip with our pensioner friends which will be the last one of 2016 I guess. This time we headed towards a small place called Piebalga in the Vidzeme region of Latvia. About two and a half hours away, so it was another 7.30 start to the day.

As the day starts so the mist starts to dissapear

 Some way into our journey in a quiet spot, we pulled off the road for a comfort break where three quarters of the folk disappeared into the woods and I will leave the rest to your imagination.
Feeling more comfortable (well those who had visited the woods) we travelled on to our first point of call
Piebalga porcelain factory has been open to visitors since 2007, and is the only  one in Latvia.

Piebalga Porcelain Factory. 

First you pour the slip

wait a while then empty

to the top of the mould

then tap out ready to be glazed
and fired.

 Having looked round the gift shop where we could buy all manner of  very fine porcelain items, we were able to see how items were made and have a go at pouring slip (technical name for runny clay)into moulds and produce our own piece. which would be fired and glazed for the next group of tourists. We were given one that was made earlier in true Blue Peter fashion. oh yes, where did the clay come from ?? would you believe, Stoke on Trent, yep !!!  quite a surprise , that was,

We then travelled  for about  20km down a very narrow road and found ourselves at "Kalna Kaibeni"
a school founded in 1868. It is now is one of the oldest museums in Latvia. After waiting for our guide who lived next door we went into the classroom and were told about school life and the history of the school, as is the case in so many visits we make  we were only able to pick up on the gist of the talk,  hearing words we recognised, and putting 2 and 2 together came up most times with 4.

The house where Reina and Matisa Kaudzisu
worked and lived.

Home and school house in one

The most modern kitchen, note the cooker in the back
and the wash tub towards the door

 Having listened for a while Valerie and I decided to walk around the garden. We returned to find the talk over and we were free to look over the house, which was not only the school but the teachers home. Now this was much more up our street peering into cupboards and rooms which gave us a much better understanding of school life so many years ago.

Valerie found a new friend in the school garden

Not sure if he was carrying a dog or was off
ferreting 

Now what has he got in there??

Dinner time found us at the cafe "Laura" where we enjoyed home made solyanka (a Russian sweet and sour soup) which was very tasty, and karbonade, a cut of pork sliced thinly and beaten flat,  dipped in egg and fried,  accompanied  as always with boiled potatoes, salad and a mushroom sauce. and plenty of it. all washed down with a fruit drink. A very typical Latvian meal, very tasty and enjoyed by all, and all for 5 euro's,







Our next visit was to a Lutheran church which was completely destroyed in 1944 and was rebuilt in 1997. At which point the battery ran out in my camera,(note to self must buy a spare)

There are plans to build a new bell tower

The inside of the church kept very simple, unlike many of
Latvia's Lutheran churches,  the altar was just a
large block of stone.
It was at this point my battery ran out!!!!

                        Then back on the coach and off to visit a museum dedicated to "Emils Darzins" one of  Latvia's greatest composers,The house is approached down a long avenue of lime trees which was not unlike the approach to the school we went to in Uckfield, the building at the end though couldn't have been more different, after a look round the rooms and memorabilia we all sat and listened to one of Emils Darzins greatest pieces, Melanholiskais valsis  https://youtu.be/JCAakhvNeTE?list=RDJCAakhvNeTE





The last place we were to visit was a organic farm, we were greeted by the owners who welcomed us with a smile and a song,  The farm has been in the same family for three hundred years, and the current owners work very closely with the environment  using cattle, wild horses and sheep to maintain pastures. Unfortunately the weather had taken a turn for the worse and we arrived just as the rain started. Hurrying  into a marque set up by the side of a large pond, there was hot coffee and tea with small cakes waiting for us.as we listened to the history of the farm there were baskets of apples coming round for us to taste.,after a whistle stop tour of the grounds around the farm house, it was back on the coach where the farmer sent us on our way with another song and we headed for home.

Oh yes I almost forgot our souvenirs from Piebalga porcelain factory

Ummmm still not sure what they are
Any ideas out there???