This year we have chosen new spot for the yurt: in the field behind the old house for one reason because we can see the most of the sun set from the yurt and first sun rays in the morning to warm up but rest of the morning is in the shade. We spend all day out and about and go to the yurt only in the evening to sleep, that's why it is nice to see the sun set.   

New addition is a wool pool table cover recycle into wall lining for the yurt, which is decorated with permaculture principles.

In our actions around the site we try to follow permaculture principles as much as we can, sometimes it just happens naturally as most of them are just commonsense. Like: 'Produce no waste'. here we don't really have a bin service so we have to utilize as much as we can. Traditionally in Latvia waste weather household or garden waste has been burnt. Especially people burn twigs because twig piles might to look ascetically pleasing, but they are organic matter, which we try to use in the garden for the purpose to make soil  when they root. We had quite a lot from fallen trees in last years strom, which we will put into hugelkultur garden beds.

 As weed suppressors for next years beds we try to use natural materials which will root  like card board, in this case we build compost heaps on top of cardboard played onto grass, then we won't need to dig and soil hopefully will form on top of the cardboard, like in picture below there is one heap like that around the young apple tree. then on it's side we used old doors and beds to kills weeds during this season but next planting season we will have to dig the ground under and maybe make a new hugel bed, where we bury logs and twigs.

  The ones we made last year proved to be very successful, providing good drainage and water retention in at the bottom of the bed, when it's too rainy there is no water logging at the roots of plants and when it's too dry water gets stored deeper in the hugel bed forcing plants to grow deeper roots.

 These are last years hugelkultur beds you can see logs pocking out as wood started rotting and decreased in volume, maybe we should dig logs deeper in future, so they don't poke out and dry out instead of rooting.

There is a cold store build in 1965 on the land build in traditional Latvian manner: a concrete room buried underground, so in winter wen it gets minus 20 or lower, vegetables in the cold store doesn't freeze but in high summer when temperature reach plus 25 cold store stays cool.

We cleaned it out as it had not been used for over 10 years. All wood was light eaten by fungi. we used old planks and logs from cold store around our excising garden beds, to suppress weeds.

 We also found tons of soviet news papers very close to the stage when they would perish, we used them under planks and wood bits to suppress weeds, from growing too close to the vegetable beds.

This year as it has been a warm spring and all the old fruit trees what's left from old farm has flowered, and we will be able to tell what they are and where they are fruitful, also many of them will need pruning, as they have many dead branches. Also old fruit have reseeded and there are many new ones pop up around many of them might not be fruitful, like wild plums seam not to be as fruitful as new apple trees. 

 (hope fully bushes in above photo will be raspberries)

Only taking these photos I noticed that the vines growing onto the old house might be hops, because I saw a dried up flower  which could be hops flower left from last year:

Over all we try to lead a very simple life in peace with nature, try to do the least disturbance but at the same time make our own garden and find what already grows there and is edible. Hopefully fruit trees abandoned for ten years only strives, fighting pests naturally and providing food for animals who in return has caries their seeds and multiplied them.  

This year we have bicycles to travel around, as it makes more sense then having a car, it's cheaper and more nature friendly, we don't need to carry heavy loads. Also traveling around on the bike slows you down but in the good way as we can observe what is happening around us in more detail. for example traveling to the shops we have found places where cowslips grow which we collected for medical tea. And there is also undeniable health benefit in traveling by bike.