I love a bonfire, a really smokey and wood smelling one and it is great because we do not have any neighbours to bother.  The only downside is that because of the weather all that I have been saving to burn is just wet piles and so there is a lot of smoke.  The dogs love it because they always seem to think that there might be something  edible around the edge , well they do say that charcoal is good for digestion.

All the girls have been sunbathing today and as a consequence have been trying to sit in the water trough, it would not be to bad but they all want to sit in it together!

 

We have set up our scales to weigh the alpacas, it has had to be put outside (thank you planning office!) and on a slope which is not ideal but will have to do. So we thought we would combine worming with putting them through the scales.  Some of them were very brave! with very little pushing we got all the ladies through,  but Blaze, Bosun and Tiny the boys as we call them were real babies, Bosun went through eventually with Blaze trying to come with him he, just does not want to be parted from his friend. Tiny on the other hand was his usual gittish self, lets see if we can jump the hurdles and give them a run for their money. We were getting really good guessing weights and should have run a book on it.  Carrie the prem has put on a good amount of weight in the week which is really good and it was really nice working in the sunshine and not rain lets hope it continues.

Henrietta after having three boys gave birth this morning to a lovely brown girl, weighing in at 9kgs she was up about almost immediately, well she would have been if   Henny had not given birth on the steepest part of the corner paddock and the little one rolled about 4ft , the weather was a bit grim so we brought her into the barn with rest of the maternity ward.

They have promised better weather for the end of the week, about time to.

We had only just put Carrie the prem and her mother out in the paddock this morning to get a little air and exercise and we realised Annabel our black female was about to give birth, this time no help was needed as she was only three days early, as she gave birth the cria was looking up with legs outstretched and almost ran as it hit the floor, a very large (9kg) dark brown boy with a white blaze on its forehead.

The weather was again horrible so we decided to bring both back into the barn as the ground is also so sodden and they soon get chilled. Carrie is doing well and has put on weight she now needs no extra bottle as she is feeding well from her mother. Please, please can we have some warm summer weather so that the newborns can have some sun on their backs and not need to wear coats all the time.

Oh what a joy the sun is out but must not shout too loud as the weather guy say there is a percipitation of rain tomorrow, what that means is that it is going to p**** down.

The filming finished yesterday evening with a very unexpected loud bang and lots of smoke all in the line of vision of the girls, Afra took fright screamed like a banshee and ran like the wind to the safety of the bottom paddock crumble her boy running after her, she looked round as if to say right girls we are safe now only to find that nobody else had followed her!  She waited a few minutes and decided to go back with a look on her face as if to say ' I was only joking, I am not afraid at all'.

The little cria is getting a little stronger although still not able to suckle very long as her back legs give out so she will stay in until we are happy that she can cope on the slopes of the paddocks.

We have been incredibly lucky, so far as birthings are concerned over the past three years, so we knew it would not last, today we have a had a cria born, a little girl 23 days early, we have brought mum and daughter into the barn because she is unable to stand on her own for long, her feet are not quite sure of which way to go. Her mum, who we affectionatley call stumpy legs  does not like to be away from the others so we will bring a friend in to keep her company.  We will probably use the powdered colostrum we always keep in the cupboard just to make sure that she gets the best start she can.

More persistent rain so bad that we can not see across the valley. so depressing. Time to sit down and make plans for next year, what shows to do if possible, what outside studs to use if necessary and more importantly who we can get to house sit, who can we cajole into looking after the alpacas and dogs, what bribery is needed!

 

Ah Bisto!  The filming we have found out, and we could not see it today as they were filming to far up the track, was for a series set near a hospital!

 As you know we are into our second appeal and have just been to the local parish meeting  where I was accused of getting planning by the back door, the planning was a 28 day notification and the local planning office was incompetant and we were allowed to build the barn and for that I was told it was my fault! There is no accounting for jealous neigbours.

The alpacas are bedraggled and looking fed up of all this rain, we are desperate to work on the land and  get yet more fencing done.

It was the usual Monday, we did some more matings and spit offs, and are happy to announce another one of our females pregnant to Tenacity. We had noticed  a lot of people gathering on a farm track  a couple of fields farther down the valley, always curious (okay nosey) I got the binoculars out and saw what appeared to be a film crew filming on an upturned car that had been put in place, later on there were several very loud explosions not near the car behind some trees (drat I could not see what was going on!) but there was a lot of smoke. The alpacas did not  take any notice at all. Lets see what tomorrow brings.

This morning we went to give the second bluetongue injection to two of my boys that David from Littlemore Alpacas bought three weeks ago, they have settled in nicely. It was great to see but I do miss them especially Toc who is always inquisitive and wanting to know what is going on. They have sheep for company on one side and cattle on the other so they are kept quite busy trying to make friends.

They also have a nice new field shelter to keep them  content through this awful summer weather. When is it going to stop raining.

 

Will it ever stop raining, the water is now running in streams everywhere, even the wildlife does not want to  come out.

The alpacas have become sprint athletes, when the heavy rain comes they can run like the clappers.  In to the shelters they go.   Thank goodness it is warm or the little ones would all have to come into the barn. Toenails need trimming but we have to get them out of the mud first.

The joy of living in this location apart from the view is the wildlife, the deer in particular, they do not seem to mind us here at all and the other morning when pulling back the curtains we saw this female deer grazing not 40yds away.  It was a shame it was not the mum with the twins who mostly reside on the other side of our valley.

We have been spitting off some of the females and are glad to report that Tenacity or Mr T as we call him has performed well and our first female is pregnant to him.

The youngest female cria Cherry has had the squirts and a dose of baycox bovis seemed to do the trick but today she squirting again. We have weighed her and she does not seem to be losing weight and is in high spirits, trying to catch her is a feat in its self, not an athelete myself! it takes patience and cunning but we got there in the end. We will moniter her for a couple of days and see what happens.

Yesterday we went to Baydon the home of EP Cambridge,  UK. It was with a little trepidation as the dress code said smart, not knowing quite what to expect we went as smart as we could! Andy has never liked wearing ties and yesterday it was no exception and without tie he went, it was with great relief to find our host was not wearing one either along with most of the other men.  I think unless it is a wedding, funeral or a state occasion  the tie has nearly had its day because most men look so uncomfortable wearing them.

With two seminars the first hosted by Jane Vaughn on nutrition in alpacas, it was quite an eye opener, I will be seriously overhauling my feeding regime.

The second was by Ian Watt on fibre and follicule testing.  It was fascinating and I will have to do more research but I think it is the way forward.

A big thank you to our hosts Matthew and Cathy Lloyd for a lovely day.

 

I have been busy the last few days washing and cleaning whilst there is so much electricity, we have been in our log cabin just over  year and I thought I would go though some cupboards, it is so surprising what you find, ooh so that was where I put it! I knew I had one of those....

Now here is the dilemma I have  in storage a lot of boxes and furniture I have not seen and not really missed in this time so do I part with it now or wait until we have a house and open them and think it is xmas.

Well after numerous telephone calls to the cowboys who installed our system , we had to phone Switzerland, yes Switzerland, after a garbled call because of the language barrier, we were no further forward, but a phone call to a company in England Wind & Sun Ltd and a very nice man, who actually confirmed that are installation is not correct, we took the matters into our own hands and got a competant electrician to put things right and confirm once again that it was the installers faulty connection, but hey thats life and we have all the electric we require.

 We had another birth today a maiden one of our first borns, it did not seem right and on investigation one of the front legs was back, so on with the rubber gloves and plenty of lubricant and with a  steady hand very carefully rectified the fault!  I was glad indeed that I had been on the neo natal course just recently, although I have had sheep and cattle in the past and was very competant with them the course was invaluable into the insight of an alpacas bum!

Everything was going hunky dorry until we woke up yesterday morning with no electric,  thinking that there had been plenty of wind and sun we knew that there must be a big problem, yep the inverter is no more, we think it is just a fuse but the installers do not want to know anything about it. If you knew how much problems we had with these guys you would not be surprised  so it will be a phone call to Switzerland to try and and get a fuse. So we are using the generator at the moment so there is very little electric, so the next few days will be interesting.

We have been checking the ladies to see if they have held their pregnancys' and so far its good news but not for poor Pudding who can not understand why the ladies do not like him. At the same time we have been checking toenails and it always surprises me how quickly the white ones nails grow.

Mr Hoppy the pheasant has now disappeared along with his ladies, it shows another season is upon us as the local pheasant shoot is preparing its release pens for another seasons shooting, now some of you might  not like this but this is a democratic country  (I think!)  and I can  not understand how a grown man cries when his favourite football team loses, for goodness sake its only a game. 

Everybody seems to have different views on fibre stats, but when all is said and  done its the low micron count everybody strives for and it was with great pleasure we read the stats for Blaze, reserve champion at the futurity, his micron count was 18.6 which I think for  a mid fawn was great. Bosun who was 5th in his class has a micron count of 16.8 so we are heading in the right direction and it will be great when we can say the whole herd is under 20microns but like everybody else we have some that leave  a lot to be desired, but their fleece will make a good rug! But I will say that if you use the best sires you can it makes an incredible difference.

Well the weathermen got it right and the rain has not stopped all day, putting on the wet weather gear this morning  ( can I at this point please ask the manufacturers of the wet weather trousers please take into consideration the vertically challenged or to me and you the short people, I am fed up rolling up acres of fabric so that I do not trip over it) I now believe in global warming. Anyway everybody seemed fine and I spoke to Afra and asked her very nicely not to have her baby that was due today as it would be very inconvenient with this weather, but no,spot on in the middle of the day out it popped a very large boy . On with the now very wet weather gear both mine and the crias and we popped them into the bottom field shelter only to find a few hours later that it was full of water and a shivering cria so now plan B, make a pen in the barn and a makeshift race to get them there. All is now well and both mother and baby are fine  and dry.

But to the planners who turned down our purpose built shed for these occasions I only wish they had been here to help me! 

I have been absent for a while because the gizmo that is in the side of my computer that gives me the internet has driven me to distraction with the signal or lack of it. I have now changed companies and at last I seem to have the speed that I have dreamt of and people with  a landline have as normal. It means a different gizmo but who cares it works, I have nicknamed it the dangler although Iam reliably informed that it is called a dongle, who names these things!

 We have had a another cria born a little boy who we have yet to name. All went well and mum and son are doing just fine.

The planners have turned us down officially for our new shed so off to appeal once again we go. More deforestation as the amount of paperwork needed defies imagination.  More money wasted, local tax payers and mine. I feel a letter to the Secretary of State comming on, watch this space.

Last Friday I went on  a Neo Natal day hosted by Bozedown Alpacas and presented by Claire Whitehead, it was enjoyable and informative but oh boy was it cold in those Village Halls. I went with Lyn Pepper and again Lesley Rawlins who kindly drove, this time there was no wine gums so that friendships were not called in to question!

Saturday  I went to the Wiltshire Spinners, Weavers and Dyers meeting where there was a number of sheep and alpacas fleeces for sale. I bought a sheep fleece to practise on my spinning wheel , but that will be for the winter evenings when it is dark and we are unable to work on the land.

I came back to find that two of my entire males had  been fighting so we have had to seperate them, Appollo had a large puncture wound in his leg but that is now healing fine, they fought because they are too near the females, but we have been working hard to clear and fence what we are now calling nine acres (not very orginal we know!) but it will mean that the ladies will have plenty of space and no males near them.

We are going to Lyn Peppers tomorrow (Tai Wind Alpacas) to help her shear her alpacas and also to take our show boys to at last get their fleeces off. Hopefully she will have the kettle on as we arrive!

Well that is not strictly true, we have found a friendly farmer who makes superb hay, no weeds and very soft and sweet smelling. We went to collect it yesterday,  late afternoon , we watched while he used his tractor with a grab to load all 100 bales in about 15minutes, oh what a difference to when we used to make hay with our old equipment, the baler is fine and does not even drop one bale, the mower broke  at the end of mowing causing curses galore, a little welding and all was well. It was just loading the bales by hand one at a time six bales high that caused overheating and much effort and that was just Andy! We still have to unload the trailer which is stored in the barn out of todays persistent rain but that can be done at our leisure and at a pace we oldies can cope with.

On Saturday  our oldest female gave birth to a lovely little black girl all went well, her sire is  Centurion so maybe she will be in the show ring next year.  We also gave the 2nd bluetongue vaccination and everything seems to be okay.   We were talking to our neighbouring farmer who has lost  three calves so far during birth and immediately after. So have we been lucky I dont know, perhaps , when all is said and done we do have to use the vaccinations to find out more and even if we do suffer losses hopefully in the future the vaccine will be completely safe.

Great news, at last our new white stud arrived today, after having been in quarantine in New Zealad for six months and then spending a month at EP Cambridge headquarters at Baydon,  his sire is Jolimont Gianmarco.

 

Hopefully when he has settled in he will be meeting my ladies  and making their day!

The press bless its heart has written another one of those awful articles on Alpacas, knowing nothing about them but trying to make an issues out of them.

I am not a lover of the press as past experience has shown me that  they listen to what you have to say and then print anything that suits  them caring nothing about the consequences of their actions.

But I also think our Chairman missed an obvious opportunity and maybe we should think about a vote of no confidence in him.

 

Feeling very sorry for Bill Oddie this week standing in the rain to do his springwatch, we have no need to do that as we only have to look out the window. This week it has been the female deer who we new must have had her baby as she would not move from the spot when she saw us , well  today  it was up and much more mobile and enjoying the sunshine.

We also have hoppy pheasant who causes much amusement as he patrols the paddocks with his two hens, one has no tail feathers and we wonder who has managed to snatch them. Hoppy was fine after the shooting season and has only recently received the injury to his leg, he has absolutley no fear of the alpacas or us as he battles to eat the alpaca food out of the troughs, always talking and chattering to his ladies. On the scene in the last couple of days has been two other cock pheasants who are trying to poach his companions, boy he can he move with feathers flying, hop he might but nobody is going to pinch his ladies,sadly he probably will not father any little ones as my fat lab, bless her heart, can sniff out eggs a mile away and so far has raided all the nests! Never mind he is doing a brave job trying!

After the weather being warm, wet, cold, dry and not knowing exactly what to wear, teeshirt or complete wet weather gear I have succumbed this week to what I call the dreadful lurgy, runny nose, chesty cough, I know that is probably too much information but I have to compete with a man who with one sneeze is slumped in the chair with man flu!  and I need sympathy because even if you are feeling rough the only thing he can say is what is for tea!

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly what time of year is it? Yesterday whilst doing the ever on going job of collecting the poo I spotted something in the grass, mushrooms! Lovely field mushrooms, later on while Andy was topping the grass he spotted more. Now I know global warming is happening but the complete turn around of  the seasons seems to me to be a bit bizarre. I know that with the very misty mornings  we have been having that it has been more like the month of November except for the temperature.

Never the less we shall enjoy them for lunch!

Well we arrived at the Bath and West Show and the floods had subsided but everywhere you could see the results of the exceptional downpours of the night before.  The boys although having been in the barn the night before were a little damp, so after emptying all our belongings around our pen, we took the boys out in the sunshine for an hour to dry off.

 

 

We did not win anything and did not really expect to as their fleeces had really blown and were not up to scratch, but it was great to meet up with all the other owners we had not seen for a while, it is always good to talk to other alpaca owners.

 

 

The boys will be really glad to be shorn in the next couple of weeks as the weather is now so warm with a very muggy feeling.

Just a quick congratulations to Lyn ( Tai Wind Alpacas), Mark Amos ( M & M Alpacas) and Mark (Patou Alpacas) it is good to see the smaller breeder do well.

Congratulations also to Lesley and Bob Rawlins (Wellground Alpacas) for their well deserved intermediate champion .

Even the  birds are happier and are singing today, with the rise in temperature we can take the coat off the new cria and let him feel the warmth.

 The swallows have decided that the cabin is not good enought probably because we kept looking to see what they were doing, we are pleased  really as we would like to be able to eat on the verandah when the weather permits.

We will be at the Bath and West Show this week on Friday and Saturday so  please come and say hello.  

After a few lovely days we are back again to torrential rain, we have had to move our newborn and mum into a separate paddock with shelter as he is not brave enough to venture into the big shelter with all the other pregnant mums, so after a night out in the rain (he does have a coat on) we decided to let them have their own shelter. 

The swallows are back again and nesting once again in the field shelters oblivious to  the alpacas. Because we lost one of the shelters in the extremely windy weather they have decided that the  log cabin verandah is much more upmarket and are trying to build a shelter above one of the vents, we will  see if they feel that we humans are more of a threat and will continue to build, watch this space.

It was Andys birthday yesterday so we went out to lunch (again) he is knocking on the door for his bus pass soon, which would be alright if buses went pass the farm. Use public transport they say but no buses come this way!

Today we had our first birth, a boy to Aria we had to call the vets this afternoon at 4 pm because nothing seemed  to  be happening and she was obviously dreadfully  uncomfortable and laying out completely flat. But of course as soon as you have  phoned the vet things start to happen   and with a little help out he popped tired but well. He has just started to drink at the milk bar so hopefully he should do okay, we did put a coat on him as the weather has started to turn tonight and rain is forecost.

I apologise for not doing blog my but things have been a bit hectic.

Last Tuesday the young vet came to do the castrations, he duly gave the sedative and Toc went down as though he had hit  a brick wall but the other two just had wobbly knees, when they saw what was being done to their mate the adrenalin kicked in and no way were they going to succumb! So we had to hold them down and give locals as well, they did walk very gingerly for a couple of days but all is well now.

Wednesday they forecast very heavy rain so we had to empy our barn of machinery and set up the pens, that took all day ( I hope the planning officer is reading this , they so make our lives easy!) we got everybody in at about 9pm after leaving them out as long as we could, the rain started at about five in the morning so it had been worth while, Thursday was a dull and drizzly day so we left them in, Colin our shearer duly arrived on Friday, and what a great job he does, he is so good with them and they never play him up, as he says he has a magic button he pushes! The photographs taken by my son Lee are already for you to see.

We did find some of those wretched mites on one girl and so everybody is being dosed to stop further problems, who said keeping alpacas was easy. Having said that we would not change our lifestyle for anything. 

Looking at the  herd and deciding what  I had to do next I realised that some of the boys who were now talking  in a bass voice needed really to be talking soprano!  S0 it was  with  a sad note that I had to phone the  vet to arrange an a appointment for the dreaded castrations. Now I know all those men out there have clamped their legs together but it just has to be done.

You cannot keep all as studs, you have to make those decisions so Tic, Toc and Adonis will meet Chris the vet next week. It will make it a lot easier for them to be managed and  stop any possible fights.

At the same time he is going to put some microchips in , I have not yet felt experienced enough to do that (the needle is so large!)

The grass is growing so fast now that we have started topping and as ususal the machinery starts to break down, well the exhaust off the tractor has split and the brackets broken,  Andy to the rescue with his new toy a different welder that shouldbe able to repair same. I will report how long it lasts! 

We put some very small sticks (trees) in two years ago at the very top our land on a small level piece ( very rare here!) we then proceded to have a very dry spell, we left them thinking they have two chances, last year they did not do anything and I was to busy to do anything with them, but lo and behold we checked them today and they are growing a miracle indeed, so I will now nurture them and put some of my abundant alpaca poo around them and see if we can encourage them to grow a little faster.

 

I seem always to be talking about poo, but there you go it is a big part of my job. I discovered this morning some sloopy poo in the girls paddock so it will be on with vecoxin bottle and a quick drench for all of them to hopefully nick any serious problem in the bud.

Lesley (Wellground Alpacas) very kindly drove myself and Lyn (Tai Wind Alpacas) to Ardingly to the alpaca show.  The weather was extremely good and we were in danger of getting sunburnt. What a change!

It was great to see some faces that we knew and some we didnt and that was the alpacas!  The only downside was that there was no catalogue so we could not check for sires etc.  It was great for the alpacas because they had stables and were away from the general public  until they were shown. Which made it less stressful, Ian Waldron obviously had a difficult time as he said the quality  was good, even though he did  mistake the males for the females when he came to summing up aafter one class which made for quite some merriment when it was pointed out to him.

 We had a walk around during lunch and looked at some of the stalls and of course a good look at the food hall.

 We stayed to see the supreme champion and then it was time for home,  all we had to do  then was to argue who was having the red and black wine gums a serious issue which could have led to broken friendships!

Shopping today,sadly not for an alpaca just to eat, is my husband the only one who thinks the food fairies put food in the fridge. Why oh why does he open the fridge every 15minutes and states there is nothing in there!

On arrival back from the dreaded supermarket I am suddenly aware of two screaming male alpacas,  one of my stud males and one coming into maturity.  Male hormones at their worst  as usual it takes woman to put them in their place! Just a good talking to and all was peace once again.

I have been silent for a few days because we are having another epsisode with the planning office, anybody  who knows us realises this could turn out to be a marathon! Why oh why do they have their own rules and do  not listen to the governments planning policies as well. Never mind  somebody will profit from this and it wont be us!

 Well with all this rain today it will be days before we can get on the land again so it means I will have to go shopping to cheer my self up, perhaps another female alpaca!  I hope Andy is not reading this.

 

Another glorius day  and I could not put it off anymore, I have been looking at the mounting pile of poo and trying to decide what can I do with it?I am told that Lackham College use it to grow extremely large lemons. So with the planning officers always saying that we are an intrusion on the landscape even though we have planted a large number of trees (okay so they  are only very small at the moment) I have been this afternoon putting plenty of the poo around these small trees, quite a difficult job because of the steep slope that they are on, but hey hopefully they will put a great growing spurt on and nobody will be able to see us anymore!

Well the snow fell last night and it was lovely to wake up to a white wonderland. The young wealings obviously had kept out of it and were clean, some of the older boys in the stud paddock were covered in it and the woosy ones were clean.  The girls were absolutley covered and on the blacks it looks wonderful. They are very much at home with it.

As quickly as it had come it has gone and  the sun is out and we are back to normal, although a very biting wind. I think it is a day to catch up with the paperwork and keep warm!

Today was my birthday and what a glorius day of sunshine, they do say that the sun shines on the righteous! We went out for lunch which was lovely because I hate cooking. The alpacas were firstly sunbathing, I wish they would not do that because it looks as though they have all dropped dead!  Then this afternoon they were fighting to sit in the water troughs. Never mind in the next few days it is expected to snow!

Well after Friday mornings rain and the decision to get the boys in an hour after writing the blog the sun came out and the wind got up so out they came again, we made the decision to leave them out overnight, did we do right 50/50, certainly less stressful but their fleeces were damp.

Blaze came third in his class of 13 which I feel was very good, Bosun sadly did not gain a place.  We entered a trio of Ice Cool babies in the progeny class and came 4th out of a class of about 10 so that was excellant and thanks to Snowshill Alpacas and M & Ms Alpacas for making up the trio.

We arrived home in the dark and torrential rain and I dont think the boys wanted to vacate the trailer. We brought home a chinese for us and my son Lee who had gallantly looked after the rest of the animals for us, a good end to a good day.

This morning we have been preparing for the SWAG show at Bristol Sales Centre, because of the really heavy downpours we have had to bring the boys inside, they are not very happy but I am sure they will settle down.

I have been packing the equipment needed including my white coat, which makes me look like an upside  down yoghurt carton, but hey they are looking at the alpacas !

  Well if anybody that reads this blog visits the show tomorrow please introduce yourselves.  See you there.

Well after another wonderful weekend, snow, hail rain and bitter cold winds it was lovely to spot the primroses in bloom in the hedgerows.The hares have disappeared probably due to the cold weather but the lovely cock pheasants are strutting their stuff and their tails look brilliant blowing in the wind.

More halter training in anticipation of the show next weekend but the boys are now pretty good, famous last words of course. Some others we have started putting halters on and one in particular has more in common with the bucking broncos in a rodeo it will take patience and persistence.

Well after a week of  decent sleep I am now a happy lady.

Today was a day of husbandry tasks, vaccinations and toenail clipping.

We are still not quite set up right and have to do these tasks in the race in a pen on a slope, which although adequate is really still not the right solution.

The ground still being damp underfoot becomes quite slippery  and with one or two of the boys being now quite large and powerful  it makes for an interesting time . We have recently put in planning for a  husbandry shed which will be located on the end of the race which will make these tasks much easier and safer. Lets hope the planning officers understand alpaca management and see that we desperately need this.

Another 24 hours of  incredibly high winds, the upside is that we have a full bank of electricity the downside is that I have become a very grumpy old lady due to the lack of sleep. 

Even the alpacas are fed up with the wind, it has not helped by us putting their shelter in  the wrong place down in the valley. They always come up in the evening to settle down for the night,exposed to all the wind and rain away from the woods and I presume away from potential predators. So we will have to rearrange the shelters when summer eventually comes.

 

Well after surviving another very windy night and after making sure the chickens would survive, we awoke with trepidation and surveyed the damage.

This time three field shelters were damaged ( I hasten to add that they were not the ones Andy makes) it was the original horse shelters we bought last year. Two had been moved and were mis-shapen and one  completely did a back somersault and landed on its roof.

Luckily it was in the resting paddock and nothing or nobody else was hurt.We have taken photos which we will shortly post on the website.

So we are trying repair the two and fix them down, the third will have to wait for better weather to get a machine to try and upright same. All of Andys are absolutley fine.

 

Even though it has been a lovely sunny day I have been slaving over the computer. I have a new software program that is supposed to help me  with the management of my herd. As you will probably know I am not that good with computers  and that has been proved today.

Where oh where has all the information gone and more to the point can I get it back? It is so frustrating that I seem to put the information in and save it , never to be seen again.

I will get it right, I will, I will, I will!

Phew, the cabin did move last night, it has been the wildest night so far!

Well at least we have plenty of electric, but gosh did things move, after eventually finding sleep in the early hours of the morning, we woke to find the alpacas absolutely fine, but plastic troughs scattered about the valley.

The chickens suffered the most, I have eight small houses, one had completely flipped onto its roof, several others having been thrown about with pop holes and doors open,  several of the occupants having escaped were at least safe from the foxes but the cockerels were starting to fight over the ladies!  At least five of the pens  having taken off smashed into one another and were in peices.

We have spent the whole morning trying piece together pens at least allowing us to get the chickens back into their correct groups . More wind is forcast for tonight so everything is tied up with baler twine hopefully to see us through the worst of it.

What would we do without baler twine?

 

 

Over the past few months my car alarm has been going off in the middle of the night, venturing forth and with  a large torch in my hand I have found nothing until Andy noticed what he thought was fly droppings in the interior  light. On closer inspection it was small pieces of the lining of the car, the penny dropped and I hit the ceiling and I heard a scurrying in the  roof! Obviously a family of mice had made their home in the roof insulation of my Landcruiser after one and a half sachets of rat poison all is silent.

The smell is now not of  leather  interior!

 Anyone out there want a four year old landcruiser, low mileage , one lady owner and a  deceased family of mice!