First few days Latvia, settling in

As we arrived weather drastically changed, and our so moods. Not just because of the cold or gloomy weather but also as my family was having sad times: my, Vineta's, grandmother's health (on who's land we were to live on and make our permaculture garden) started rapidly deteriorating. Luckily I got to see her before she passed away and say goodbye, also tell her what are were about to do... She was happy that someone will do gardening on the land which was completely abandoned for last 10 years, however noone can say it was empty as nature has taken over and animals moved in. Wild life is at it's best there now, sorting itself out, feeding itself and living freely and fully without people's restrictions and most important their destructive behaviors. There are animal caves under house, and each utility building, meadows overgrowing with trees, animal digs, deer or moose poo everywhere. I am happy that somewhere exists a place where human influence is so minimal, especially coming from big city like Manchester, where it seams all there is a one big human settlement. A bit of wilderness and place to breath freely for a change.
It is very common sight in Latvia, especially in region where we are staying, Latgale: an abandoned small old farmhouses, because people moved away to bigger cities, or died and their children never wanted to take on hard life in the isolated places, or perhaps just moved abroad.
As we entered a house itself, it soon became clear that we cannot live here at the moment, even thou my parents warned me of place being messy and uninhabitable, I thought they might be exaggerating. House had at least three break-ins, there is not much of any value to steal, only things taken was  metal for scraping even including a metal crucifix off the wall. Hay and manure seen for no value at all was left, but for us it means gold, because were are here to make garden. No dig garden!
Have to tell the truth my heart dropped when I realized how does 10 year-old dust looks like; but even more: house is more then hundred years old, it's all wood and it is slowly rooting, eaten by hundred's of different creatures from within, being turned back into dust. I thought that it could be a mistake for me coming here, abandoning easy city life and just willing to life simply without very basics ...
Water well is out of order as is it flooded with overground water, and not been cleaned for ten years.
At first I saw only downside of this place.
We had to spend first night on the property in the tent inside the house, even my parents' dog, who was with us, got scared at night and barked at something in the dark; unsettling.  I have to mention that hundred years ago in this region houses were build dark, with low sealing, small windows, so they stay warm in minus 30 winters. It was never build glamorous, just basic, and few generations had lived in these walls, which  bare their happiness and sorrow. It is eerie to be in this house. There are many things left behind by it's inhabitants, lots of clothes and shoes; which are too old to be used but also seam to be too precious just to be binned. They add to the unsettling feeling , it is ghostly in the rooms as if person who had lived here has just gone out and we are intruders from the future looking at the past through things remaining.

 However a chance to be outdoors and work outside, try out all ideas in permaculture gardening quickly took over and our spirits lifted when we counted benefits we can get out of this property:
Space, we have enormous space, fields, forests, ponds, river, and many many trees, some even taken down for us by the people clearing electricity line.
Even thou well in out of order and we are out of drinking water, we quickly found well in nearby village,  and if worth comes to worth we can buy some from the shop.
We have enough manure at least for this season, if we dig up old animal house, which is slowly decaying and we got to make most of it as it will collapse in a year or two... and then it will be of no use for anybody.
We have tons of hay for mulching, my grandparents used to keep cows, pigs and horse there for they always prepared hay for next winter, but they moved away leaving behind lots of it.
And most importantly tools!!! There are basic tools left for us to start off in the garden, luckily we don't have to waist time or money for getting new ones! We are all set and ready to garden!

First few days we spend making Hugelkultur beds, which is basically digging in logs, to fertilize soil for future, then filled with goodness, like manure and more soil then mulched on top.

(Above is a picture to show how high an deer or a moose can reach to nibble of asp tree bark)

Making cold frame: first by laying on the ground some of my granddad's decaying leather coats and then using an old bed as a frame to hold see-through polythene. We started to make use of some items found in the house, rather just to throw them away or burn, which is a favorite method in Latvia for getting rid of things.

Other way we though of reusing things was to make cups for seedlings out of newspaper clippings  my grandma used to collect about things like advice in household, planting, gardening, sewing and plants for health... It is all in files but there are too many for anyone to read it seems to be the best way to honor these things by turning them into new life: plants.

 When leaving England we were worried that Spring has advanced and we are missing  planting season, but arriving in Latvia we travele back in time into early spring nearly back winter time: with snow again and mines degrees at night. It worked out to our advantaged because we could prepare beds for plants, not worrying about being late for putting seeds in the ground.

 

Then soon after Easter, sun appeared again and weather was getting better and better. We spend some time with my parents, after some work done at the house and in the garden. My parents live a drive away from Gailisi where we gonna be making our little settlement and our permaculture garden, they live in place called Naujene near latvia’s second biggest city Daugavpils, where I have spend almost all of my childhood. We had a rest, a good wash, did our first spring tea foraging  and painted some eggs in Latvian Easter tradition (it needs white eggs , leaves are tied onto an egg for making pattern and then eggs are boiled in onion skin water, similar to tie-dye with natural materials)  … 

  On the way to work again!

Arrived in Gailīši & First Hugelkultur bed

We have a huge amount of space to play with but the first few days have been spent cleaning the house quite a bit. I forced vineta to make sure she spent a good amount of time not cleaning and working and enjoying outside instead. We made the two hugelkultur beds using logs from the property and a nice little cold frame for the seedlings using lots of hay and an old rotting bed frame, everything wood eventually rots into the ground here in Latvia.  

 

There are literally hundreds of derelict farmhouses all over the countryside and you can buy one for a couple of thousand euros. This one that we have is very old I found a board nailed into the kitchen wall that says 7 Oct 1820... I guess the building was completed before this board was nailed in. These last few days we have been enjoying the space and feeling so grateful we have water and food to eat and the possibility of growing our own using the tools and space we have here in this old rotting house is just wonderful! The space is enormous and it has so much potential for allowing us to try things out , to grow stuff and learn how to see our environment in all it's stages of life. 

 

It's spring in England but here it Latvia we are almost a month behind it feels like spring isn't quite here so we haven't missed the growing season. It's minus 4 outside and the leaves are still not on the trees. So preparing the ground for planting and getting in seedlings protected from the frost is our number one priority. We walked around and found a great number of berry trees! 

Photos on this post are the spot where a big upright Soviet fridge was kept in the kitchen when we moved it from its spot I promptly fell straight through the floor and into the cold room under the house that must have been dug sometime around 1800 at a guess. The next image is what it looks like in the big hole.the next sequence is from vineta working on the hugel mounds (we now have two) between digging and filling vineta was keen to collect as many pellets of animal droppings we could find to add to the lovely organic matter in the mound. 

What we realised in the last couple of days is the reason why we came to Latvia is to grow food so we have enough to share and give back to family members who have helped us out. Food really does keep us happy and I think that our own home grown food will keep us happier still! 

   

On the way to Latvia: Hannover, Poland, Lithuania

It has bee quite hard to be in the car for hours driving across Europe and it maybe is not es exciting as first imagined because most of the roads are motorways, and there are not much to see in the landscape of the specific country we were passing, all seamed much the same just noticeably different driving habits people have in different countries. we had planned few stops along the way to break up the journey in manageable sections to have a rest and bit more excitement and also to see bit of country we are passingly.

Fist stop was Hanover which was chosen on purpose to see Kurt Schwitters
Merzbau at the Sprengel museum, as we had so much connection with MerzBarn in Ambelside UK over last few years, this other place created by Kurt Schwitters seamed to be a must see as we were passing by:

We stopped also in Berlin but as it is a massive city and we were unwilling to rush around it as headless chickens to see all the touristy attractions in one day, we just spend most of the time with our friend Dalia and enjoyed her company, chatting and eating, mainly being happy for not being in the car and being able to stretch legs. As I was walking down the streets of Berlin, Dalia taking us to the places where are Middle-eastern markets and eateries,where after resent influx, refugees are settling well, I thought this is the last stop where we gonna see place where multiculturalism is striving because pass Berlin we are in Eastern Europe were quite the opposite countries has been hostile towards foreign.

Next stop Poland:

We spend couple days with our friend Yulita's family in their home village Borakowskie, just enjoying their small farm, walks in the forest, local market and just around the village...  and lots of food, many out of Yulita's mum's cold store mushrooms, fruit and vegetable conserves from last Autumn's harvest!

 Yulita's mum warned us of these garden pest's who are destructive to root vegetables, digging under garden their caves and feeding what people have planted in. I had not seen them them before so I was hopeful that there won't be such a creature living in Latvia!

 We caught Poland in the preparation for  Eastern celebration, as a catholic country who provided one of the last Popes for Rome, who is now a saint, I fount his images looking over church goers in local church to where we were staying!  Also peculiar sculpture of Marie as if she is standing infront of a EU flag!

 

 Sewing with nails to keep greenhouse together! An idea taken from Yulita's dad.

Lithuania, Vilnius:

Baltic, trees, a lot of trees, but also sadly lots of clear cuts, which will take a long time to grow back into forest. 

We mostly enjoyed street art in Vilnius, it looked to be a up and coming hipster town! with lots curious things to look on the streets.

 

Beautiful book covers at the hostel, all Soviet time design....

 

Caught a glimpse of Putin... Around these parts of Eastern Europe one can feel big Russia's heavy breathing down their neck... as it so close and not so log ago it thought to own these lands. 

 

We saw an exhibition on Polish posters mainly of safety at work themed. There were many warning about dangerous consequences of drinking at work, those posters stood out as there weren't such in England and made it realize at alcoholism used to be a common problem and unfortunately still is.

 And soon after Vilnius we were in Latvia, border-control nonexistent, just a sign: