Real life Farmville

The harvest has begun! Tomatoes (red, yellow and brown), cucumbers, lettuce, basil (red, green and our own marbalized hybrid), green peppers, chili peppers, habanero peppers, green onions, oregano, parsley....all coming out of our greenhouse at astonishing rates.


The greenhouse (also fondly known as 11. trolejbus - and some of our 5 and younger visitors have taken the title seriously, locking themselves in and taking "rides" this summer) has been one of KB's main projects this summer, and we are definitely enjoying the benefits of all the hard work.

But the "surprise garden" is happening at Jaunvitagas this summer. This spring we tried an experiment - KB plowed a small area of land, we threw some seedlings that had been sprouted at home into the gound, put up a quick fence around the area and decided to see what would happen. Our neighbors were convinced the wild boar would tear it apart. We were a bit discouraged when we saw how quickly weeds were coming up and even more discouraged by the massive heat this summer, and felt sure nothing would survive as no one was there to water, weed or otherwise maintain the garden.

Much to our surprise, this week we came home with five massive zucchinis that were buried among the weeds, uncovered two pumpkins well on their way to being full grown and many pumpkin flowers, and are unsure whether three very healthy plants are also cucumbers or squash, but are excited to find out. Seems us not weeding probably helped these plants not get dried out in the great heat and they thrived regardless. And though there are animal tracks circling the garden, the fence has not been touched.

Another great surprise was sugar peas. The ones in our greenhouse did not do well, but somehow, a good number of pea seeds got mixed in with a bunch of wildflowers KB planted at Jaunvitagas and we unexpectedly picked a bag full of peas as well.

Along with the regular mushrooming and berry picking, I've been quite busy in the kitchen with all the goods from the harvest. To me, a very good way to spend my last few days before school begins again.

Two seasons

I've decided there are two seasons in Latvia - hibernation and the active season. This makes blogging more of a challenge, because during hibernation, there's not much to write about and during the active season, well, I'm out there living it and there's not much time to write about it!

This weekend I'm sick in bed with a fever watching the beautiful weather through my window. I wanted to update the blog with photos, but the camera is out with KB who's more active than ever this active season with Laimins, the new (to us) blue mini-tractor. Sun up at 4:30 am and sundown after 10:30 pm makes for some very long workdays for him. I myself am trying to keep my head above the water with the inevitable end of the school year craziness coupled with a fairly intensive (or maybe it just seems so with all the other work right now) six-week online course.

Updates on the farmer front this year include two greenhouses constructed right here in Sigulda and a fenced in garden at Jaunvitagas. Photos to follow hopefully soon. Hope everyone is enjoying their own active season, no matter where you are in the world!

The more I read....

....the more in awe I am of how I choose books (or books choose me) at just the right times in my life.

Today's quote that went straight to my heart:

"Every time I thought that I was 'put together,' I realized that we're always putting ourselves together, gathering the world in, letting it sift down and form us."
(Calla Lily Ponder, herione of my current Kindle book)

An unexpected visitor

Spring and winter are absolutely hanging out together at the moment. I'm trying to think of it in nice terms, it doesn't feel like they are fighting each other, but rather playing together, each taking short turns making their appearance. Even with the ever increasing sunlight, the choirs of birds and the unmistakeable smell of spring in the air, yesterday it snowed again. This added just enough snow to the many centimeters already on the ground, that the fence separating our yard from the neighbors is now completely buried. Thus, we have a temporary visitor, the neighbor's German shepard now lives in our yard as well. :)




The pictures don't really do justice to the mountain of snow, but in the photos, he is literally laying on top of fence. The good news is, hopefully there will be no more neighborhood cats peeing on our front door trying to get Mima's attention, now that dog smell is all about. The bad news is he found several plastic flower pots in our backyard (I think they were on our back mini-porch) and destroyed them all over our backyard.

And Mims also wants her fifteen minutes of fame, so here is a bit of photo evidence of her latest hobby: alternating between loving and attempting to kill her catnip lion, her Christmas present from her family in the US.

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

This is the yearly post in which I can officially announce that the sun has come back to us! The days have been noticeably lighter and lighter for a while now (that's what happens when you gain sunlight at the amazing rate of an extra four and a half minutes a day), and today I left the house for the train at a few minutes to 6am with a band of light on the horizon and when I got home at quarter to 7 the sun was just on it's way down in a beautiful sunset. Hooray! Nevermind that we still have centimeters upon centimeters of snow on the ground (not particularly in any hurry to melt), the sky has been blue for six days in a row now and the smell of spring was unmistakeably in the air. It's like reuniting with an old friend. :)

31, a tough pill to swallow

Fascinating. I was looking back through some of my posts from last spring (mainly looking for a quote about spring that I wasn't sure if I had already posted) and re-read last year's birthday post. I now have a theory. I don't do well with birthdays that have to do with the number 13. Last year's post outlined my difficulties with my 13th birthday and my 26th birthday (double 13). This year's birthday (the REVERSE of 13) was another one that will go down in the books as traumatic in the reflective department.

This is the first birthday where my number makes me feel old. Yes, I know, age is just a number, and I've always been more or less ok with the numbers (strangely minus the years that relate to 13, I am discovering)... I always get comments that I don't look my age, so as the numbers have gone up, I've always been able to "feel" young regardless. 30 was still an ok year for me - I guess because although there were things I had envisioned for myself by 30, it was still my 30th year so I still had time to make it happen. But now that this year has come and gone, I have a bit of reconciling to do with why certain goals are not met. This is the first moment in my life I've really come across this feeling of an actual possibility of running out of time in life.

In a way, moments like this are good, they put fire under you to keep your goals and dreams fresh. However, at the same time, it's a reminder to slow down and enjoy what you have and trust that everything else will work itself out. Thus also the quote about spring I was looking for.... I couldn't find the one I was actually looking for, but the idea is quite close to this:

"No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn."

Be patient. Be happy in the moment you have. Trust that everything will come to you in the right moment. Even if you think you know exactly when that right moment is (because quite frankly in my opinion, spring should be making it's entrance now!), the earth has bigger plans and it knows what's best. Spring will not forget about you.....be patient.

I think the quote I was looking for referred to the sun and the moon, and the seasons as well - they don't hurry each other along, they give each other their time and patiently arrive when it is their turn.

So, just as I can't dictate that spring will arrive on March 21, even if the calendar says so, I suppose I can't dictate certain goals just because my birthday calendar says so. I'll follow the lead of the sun/moon and the seasons, and my goal for this year is patience and appreciation for the moment.

My birthday wish

As I come up on my birthday month (yes, I traditionally think of the whole month as belonging to me) here is my wish in this rollercoaster of a year. (So far this year has taken the cake in achieving extreme highs and recordbreaking lows in such an amazingly short amount of time - and I've had some significant rollercoasters in my time...) I wish that everyone who has been handed a basketful of lemons in 2010 (because I am not the only one) is able to make the most delicious lemonade ever (straight up or mixed with your alcoholic drink of choice). It's all leading to something good, that if for certain. I was just going to ask life to give us a minute to add some water and dilute those lemons for the lemonade, but looking at the wet spot in my ceiling and the river of a street with all this melting snow, fear not, water is on the way. :) More sugar, please. :)

(P.S. This is not to say life should never hand you lemons. I fully recognize their nutritional value and necessity for growth in life as well. Lemons are ok too, just sometimes the really big ones are tough to digest.)

Huh

Was she pretending to be a child again or had she just lost her mind? I just saw an 80+ year old woman walking down the street eating a snowball like it was an apple. My mind is not quite sure how to process that one... :)

Four years

My profile now officially reads "after FOUR years in LV...." (February 13 came and went quite uneventfully this year, with me slugging on the couch with my kleenex box battling a particularly unfriendly cold), but the sentence continues to read "I'm still trying to make sense of it all." Wondering if/when I might get to edit the rest of that sentence, but I'm starting to think that just might be part of it all.

To my faithful readers who are still waiting for LV as home, Part 2 (and to myself, disappointed for still not being able to fully articulate)... I guess that is what this whole blog is about... If I could put it into words in a nice neat sentence, I'd do it, but I sincerely struggle with it. Instead I can only offer photographs or anecdotes which give small insights into what I'm feeling, but there is no nutshell for me. At least not yet. Maybe by year 5?

I can only say I've come up with the realization that a lot of the things I love about being here could be summed as storybook moments. They're small glimpses into all the wonderful and beautiful things we learned and experienced about LV while growing up elsewhere, and to be able to experience them firsthand and more often than just while vacationing here but really being part of it, make up one piece of the puzzle as to why LV feels like home. Like last week, it made me smile out loud again to hear someone's ringtone on the train - a well-loved Latvian folksong. I have no idea who that person is, but it's a small instant connection. It's the little stuff...

Hmmmmm.....did any of that actually make sense? Could be my stuffy sick head still talking....that being said, I think it's time to get off the cat's schedule (sleeping 20 or so hours a day) and consider cleaning this pighole. KB is still recovering from surgery and even though we've both been down for the count, we have not been able to convince Mims to pitch in with the housework, thus the mega-mess. You see, life is still life everywhere, and in between the storybook moments, there's still cleaning to be done.

*** P.S. A little bit more reflection after cleaning....

The final part of that first sentence in my profile reads "but always with a smile...." Lately I feel like that smile has faded and maybe that's why it's a bit harder for me to write. But I look at the rest of what I have written - about the storms being a bit stormier, the sun shining a bit brighter....and rainbows through it all. It's been a heavily stormy period - watching this country not really be able to take care of itself yet, watching people around me lose faith in this place even as I'm struggling to hang on to my own, feeling exhausted from constantly trying to make ends meet, saying good-bye to friends who are family over and over again....but I'm still hopeful that means there are some seriously bright days coming ahead as a law of averages. And I am well overdue for a rainbow. Good thing spring is just around the corner.

LV as home, Part 1

Still working on my own explanation clarifying why and how LV feels like home, but as a starter, let me present the lyrics of a song. The song is from a boy band Tranzits but the words give me goosebumps every time I hear them. So I guess if you read this and can relate, that's the beginning of this conversation (as the first lines of the lyrics indicate). :)

Es gribu Tev ko pajautāt
Vai esi redzējis Latviju rītausmā – ja jā
Tad varam sākt
Par sajūtām
Kuras visskaudrāk mēs izjūtam tālu no mājām
Kā ceļš
Kā valoda
Tās vieno mūs un tās atņemt vai nopirkt tie nespēs
Ir laiks
Ar sevi sākt
Ko dalīt vienmēr ir bijis un būs

Piedz.
Kamēr vasaras rītos no ziedošām pļavām balta migla pacelsies
Lai cik tālu bijis vienalga ko darījis ceļš mans mājup ies
Ja ikviens savu sirdi no bailēm un pagātnes sārņiem iztīrīs
Strauts kas tek man gar mājām gadu tūkstošiem ilgi atkal tecēs tīrs

Un var jau būt
Sen liekas Tev
Ka citur zaļāka zāle un skaistāk dzied putni
Kā tiem no tuksnešiem
Kas izvelk saknes un ripo – kur labi tur mājas
Cik daudz vēl spēka būs
Jo kalnam augstajam neredz ne gala ne malas
Bet reiz ir jāsaprot
Ka tikai kopā tur uzkāpt būs lemts

Varbūt ka esmu naivs
Un viss tikai cīņa ar vējdzirnavām
Bet kamēr tecēs strauts
Mana ticība nezudīs

The world's tallest snowman....

....is right here in Sigulda, measuring seven meters! The competition open to all of Sigulda's primary school students to name the snowman is happening this week. :)

Living in scary times

Yesterday I thought there was going to be a riot on the train to work. It stopped just outside of Riga, no explanation. After about five minutes of waiting, people were coming up to the front car and just pounding down the door to the conductor, demanding information. When he said that he didn't know how long we would be standing but he just got information from Riga that the computer system is down and we can't get in (I guess because they couldn't switch over the tracks), everyone just started yelling about how he needed to open the doors and let them out immediately. At first he said no, and I was thinking what are all these people so worked up about, there's nothing that can be done, so just sit down and relax. But they all start screaming about how they have to get to work on time or they will get let go. And I realized for a good number of them, it's probably true. When the unemployment rate is over 20%, I guess you make one mistake and your boss doesn't think twice about letting you go because there are hundreds and thousands of others who will gladly do your job, and be there on time. Yikes. So finally the conductor opened the doors, in the middle of nowhere (at least I had no idea what we were even close to or where I would go) and people start jumping out of the train landing in snow banks (no platform). Madness. In the end we ended up getting into Riga half an hour later than scheduled, and I still made it to work before school started. I spent the day feeling very grateful to have an employer that would have been understanding in such a situation.

I have been mulling over completing my thoughts about "home in LV" all week. Yesterday I actually started taking some notes on the train ride home, so we'll see if I can't cook something up by the end of this weekend.

I thought I was losing my mind when I heard birds chirping outside this morning, but I just saw them flying from tree to tree, so clearly nature begins to wake up when the temperature goes from -28 to -2. We still have 40 cm of snow on the ground (it snowed more this week), but it's another beautiful blue sky day. :)

Home is where the heart is....

Huh. This is the title that has been stuck in my head since returning to LV from my visit to the States and Mexico last summer. Never wrote about it, couldn't for some reason. Since then, KB and I were both back in the States and Canada again for the winter holidays, and upon arrival back to LV, the title is screaming loud in my mind again. But I feel stuck...again. It's not a story that's easy to articulate, but it is definitely there. I'm wondering if that's why I didn't write for so many months, and am feeling a block about writing on my blog again, even after the grand re-opening following my new year's resolution. I'm not really sure where the rest of this is going, but I figure I better give it a try...

I feel stuck because I don't know how to answer this question. Where is home? This question always becomes exaggerated just before, during and after a trip back to North America. There's lots of confusion prior to the trip when family and friends from the US ask, "What dates are you coming home?" (Wait a minute, I am home here in LV.) But then I find myself feeling very at home while I am there, while still talking about returning back home to LV. What do you do when your heart quite literally belongs in two places? And those two homes are a full day of travel and many hundreds of dollars apart...

So North America feels like home for obvious reasons, that one is not so hard to articulate. All of my nearest and dearest family and friends live there, the people who have known me the longest and love me anyway. :) Those are the ones I don't have to give long-winded explanations to - they know my history, they can know from just looking at me, they just know.... Missing these people has been exasperated lately for two reasons. First, I'm coming up on four years of living in LV. When I come back for a visit, I feel like a whole part of my life is passing me by on the other side of the ocean. It's so nice to be able to spend time together, but it doesn't make up for all the everyday stuff I am missing out on. Secondly, most "family" we have created for ourselves in terms of our closest friends here in LV have moved away thanks to the economic situation. It's tough to keep starting over again, to make those deep connections with people so you can just call them up when something is going on without having to explain yourself from the beginning again. It's just tough.

But then there's that part about LV feeling like home, that's not so easy to put into words. It has to do with this incredible sense of homecoming every time I've been away and I'm landing back at the Riga airport. LV just looks and feels different from above. I feel connected, through songs about this place, through magical moments I've had in our forest, on our land, at the sea.... I can't say any more about it today, it's all I can really articulate.

So one is a sense of home with the people, one is a sense of home with the place...

And I'll end with a photo, which I was intending to post separately, but now seems to tie in quite nicely today. It's a photo of my favorite winter holiday decorations in Riga, the first thing I saw in the mornings when leaving the train station. (Luckily, I snapped the picture just in time on Thursday because on Friday they were gone. Holiday decorations go up quite late in LV, literally just before Christmas, but they stay up through most of January which keeps it feeling nice and bright on those dark mornings....) I love these holiday lights, because it's another one of those things that just makes me smile out loud, and think, "Cool, I'm living in LV...."

2010, I will blog again...

:)

It was one of my new year's resolutions! Since I probably could have funded my next trip to North America if I had a lat for every time someone asked me "why don't you blog anymore??", I figured it was time to start writing again. Ok, it's taken 18 days into the new year to live up to this resolution, but I guess just this week I finally feel back into the swing of things here in LV.

The quick list of realizations on why I had stopped blogging (excuses, excuses....):

1. The two hours I spend on the train each day serve as my time of reflection. I have composed many a brilliant blog in my head, but by the time I got to a computer, it was already out of my system.

2. Our camera was out of order (less fun to blog without pictures).

3. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. Life in LV has been tough, tough, and tougher. The economic crisis elsewhere in the world does not begin to compare to what is happening here. We've had a lot of friends moving away and it's just generally been an emotionally tiring time.

4. Farmville. It took over my life. Sadly, and yet happily, it was also one of my new year's resolutions to stop playing Farmville. Sorry, farmville neighbors. (Notice I have not actually had the courage to delete my existence on Farmville - actually that might suck me back in! - but I'm definitely on sabbatical.....and it's amazing how much more time I have at night and less stress worrying about withering crops.....)

So there, those are the four obstacles I am working toward overcoming in order to blog again. KB has also requested a "column" in my blog - he thinks he may write about architecture and building, music, ice fishing, forestry (mainly chain sawing), and such. So stay tuned. :)

And today, I leave you with a few photos that have come close to capturing the beauty that has been Latvia's winter since we've been back. We returned to 36 cm of snow (yes, KB measured), blocking our driveway, gate and garage - an hour of both of us shoveling just to pull the car in. But it has been perfectly white, blue sky days and an entire week's worth of frost that coated every last tree branch - absolutely gorgeous! (And I love Sigulda! Today walking home from the train I realized on the side streets the snow is still pure white - no fresh snow in over a week, but no pollution!)