Fluffy Alpacas are back

Choc Ice in front of Tigerlily, Midnight and Lalique at back

At last the rain has stopped and we have had several days of crisp, sunny days, the mud has gone and we now have a field full of fluffy Alpacas. So with my super doper new camera I have tried to get some decent shots, only the Alpacas had different ideas and Choc Ice decided to take most of the hay rack with her!

Ivory in front of Lily and Olivia

All the cria are now back with the herd after being weaned and separated from their mums for 6 weeks.  Lalique was the only one who tried to suckle from her mum (Marietta) but she was the youngest of the group, Marietta wasn't at all interested in that and sent her packing.
We had given the cria a few short lessons in Halter training before Christmas so yesterday with the help of some clients who had been on a llama walk we decide to give them a go to see if they remembered anything.  The were all very good and we walked them around the garden and right up the lane to the top fields and back.  So this year there shouldn't be a rush to get them ready for the first show.

Summer

My mission last year was to find a use for all our fleece, most has been processed into yarn, but the course stuff and even the stuff brushed up off the floor has now all gone. The final 4 bags were stuffed in the back of the shed so last weekend I had a trip to Paignton Zoo planned with Daughter and Grandchildren, so as the big cat keepers had used some of our fleece previously for enriching the lives of the tigers and lions, I gave them ring to see if they could use some more.  So off we went with a bag of fleece each which we deposited at the entrance before spending a lovely day looking at the animals.  Josh wanted to wait to see what they were going to do with the fleece but as they made a paper mache model of an Alpaca covered it with the fleece filled it with food and fed it to the tigers, I didn't think it was a good idea.

As I can't drive at the moment I am walking the two miles back from the field each morning, great opportunity to practice with the camera.

Dartmoor Pony

Lichen in the Hawthorn

Every morning there is something new to see, snowdrops starting to come into flower, even some Katkins, saw a deer in the field over the valley.  I have to walk past the field where the trekking llamas are and they follow me along the other side of the hedge until we get to the corner where they can stand on the rocks to see over the hedge, so I got a shot of Merlin and Murphy, these to have really grown up now and Murphy is particularly handsome.

Murphy and Merlin

Last night we went to see Warhorse at the cinema, great film and some of it was filmed on Dartmoor quite near us so it was interesting to see if we could recognise the locations.

Today we went up to North Devon to visit Andy and Sue from Pippin Alpacas and the Alpacas they brought last year, they we all looking good and we helped out with some husbandry tasks.  I was particularly interested in how the cria were growing and having a good fleece rummage. The lovely Calico's fleece was certainly impressive.  We wish them all the best for future plans and their first cria due this summer.

What happened to my lovely clean fluffy Alpacas?

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the festive holidays, now back to normal as far as normal goes. 

I have had a very restful time since my operation, I have done some knitting, watch lots of TV, had friends round and spent some time playing with my Christmas pressie.  I now have a very fancy new camera which is too clever for it's own good, so I now have no excuse for not taking lots of pictures.

Over the next few weeks whilst I can't drive I am hoping to update the websites for the Cottages, Llamas and Alpacas.  I also have been told I need to put some animals up for sale on Alpaca Seller, so I will need some new pictures for that, but I think I may have to wait for a while as this is what I found on one of my first visits to the field since before Christmas.

Ivory Looking very grey and wet. 

Tigerlily is in fact even worst.

Choc Ice obviously taken it to another level.

Even Demeter has participated in the activity.

Caramel and Laligue have embellished themselves with hay for an even more attractive look.

Even Blacks can have the look, this is Hebe sporting the muddy look.

Midnight on look out,  "Go on she's not looking"

Marietta showing us how to get the best look.

I would really like some dry cold weather to get my fluffy Alpacas back. then my camera will come into it's own.

Peace and quiet return.

Jazz our poorly llama seems to have got over whatever was troubling her, Steve went to feed up this morning and said that she came bounding over for her hard feed and then made for the freshly filled hay net.
I can't get out to do anything so I have to rely on Steve remembering to tell me what everyone is up to.

We have had a very noisy Christmas with lots of family here but today they have left to visit extended family and peace has returned although the house still has to recover from having two young boys here for several days, nothing is where it should be!

I am now going to try to work out how to use my super doper new camera, this may take a while!

Hope you all have a good time over the Christmas period.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year. I have really enjoyed reading everyones Bloggs, It is so interesting to hear how different people do things.

I haven't blogged for a while really because it is a very quite time of the year for us and there is only so much you can say about poo picking and general husbandry, but here is a quick update of what has been happening here.

We have weaned all of this years cria and decided to do it differently this year, instead of taking the cria away from the mums and putting them out of sight we took the mums away and leave the cria with the rest of the herd.  This seemed to be less stressful for the cria and the mums didn't really notice that they were missing something when they saw the fresh grass in their new paddock.

It is very muddy here and getting across the chicken pen is a bit like ice skating, I can move the electric fence around except for the bit around the hen houses, so I have to hold onto the house to get around the back to collect the eggs.  Cleaning out is interesting as you can imagine trying to push a wheelbarrow up a very muddy slope, Steve finds this very amusing to watch!

Every year we have a stall at the Christmas market in Widecombe and this year we were asked to take some animals to display next to the Christmas tree.  What with all this mud our animals along with everyone else's are not the most attractive.  So we thought we would take the most attractive ones which would be the weanlings, problem 1 they were not halter trained, problem 2 we needed to get them into the little grassy area at the back of the hall, problem 3 everything is so muddy not easy to get the trailer into some of our paddocks.  So the weanlings are now all halter trained with varying degrees of success, star of the team is Caramel who seemed to know what to do the very first time she had a halter on,  so using Caramel as trainer the other four girls were walked one at a time around the garden and up the lane.  Lalique is pretty good but she has the same temperament as Caramel, being related.  Choc Ice is so small I had to make more holes in the halter to get it to fit properly walks lovely as long as Caramel is in front, difficult if I am trying to walk two on my own, and Tigerlily is surprisingly good considering she is Lily's daughter and Lily is the most loopy, neurotic  Alpaca in the world!  Finally Ivory the oldest, biggest cria is totally useless, so glad she won't be in the show team next year, only reason we got her where we wanted her was she didn't want to be left behind on her own.  So hopefully they will remember some of their training and will not take to much training before the shows next year.

The Market was very cold and pretty damp but we had a reasonable day and as usual lots of interest in the animals.

Today Jazz one of our Llamas was not very well, she was obviously in pain and reluctant to get up when approached which is unusual, she was bouncing around yesterday.  So we took her temperature which was normal so probably not an infection, so it looked to me like it could be a colic or acidosis thing, so as she was in pain we called Richard our Vet who luckily for us was at home so not to far away.  Anyway he gave her something for the pain and some anti spasm drug and said it was probably colic and if it was she would get better or if not it could be a twisted gut in which case she would not get better but he didn't think this was the case as her membranes were normal colour.  Jazz seemed to have improved this afternoon so fingers crossed she will continue to improve.  It is good to know that your own diagnosis's was right and by knowing your animals you can notice when something is not quite right.

I have finally finished  knitting my Christmas presents, this year everyone is getting hand knits as I really don't like Christmas shopping and it gives me an excuse to knit different things.

My operation which was cancelled in November was re scheduled for December 16th and cancelled again has now been booked in for tomorrow, so after messing me about for months they have now ruined my Christmas.  I should be home sometime on Christmas day, hopefully in time for lunch.  We have all the family here for the day so at least Steve will not have to cook or wash up for that matter.

One of those days

Today has been one of those day I find very frustrating.  After my operation was canceled last week I have been waiting for them to ring me with another appointment.  Firstly they promised I would know by Friday evening, then definitely on Monday, I hadn't heard by lunch time so I rang them...... answerphone,  phone again, got secretary ....."I'm working on it and will definitely ring this afternoon".... well I am sure you can guess that I still haven't heard.  So it seems I will have to wait in tomorrow as well, we have very patchy mobile phone signal around here and I don't what to miss the call (when it finally arrives) .
Obviously they consider that my time is not as important as theirs and i don't want to ring all my customers to rearrange work until I know when I will be going in.

The other frustrating thing today is .... and I would be hoping mad if I hadn't been waiting in anyway, I was waiting for a delivery which was promised sometime this afternoon............ it arrived at 7.45 following two phone calls to say he was lost!  shame people have lost the ability to read a map because they have a Sat Nav in the cab.

On a more positive note I cleared out the bureau and the drawers, amazing how much clutter you can collect, I have a very tidy bureau now.  I have also been knitting and getting the stock ready for Widecombe Village Market which is on Saturday.  I have completed one hat and sewed up another so not a completely wasted day.

A bit of a ranting blog

Well it is a quite time of the year for us now, Alpacas and Llamas all up to date with husbandry tasks, all the females that have been bred were spitting off when last checked and won't be checked again until spring as they would not be rebred anyway,  so fingers crossed they all hold. Not wishing to wish the time away but we are really looking forward to seeing the results of some of our breedings next year.  We decided to use some outside Studs this year as well as one of our own younger males, we will just have to wait and see.

I have been reading with interest other blogs about cria not growing, there seems to be a few this year, we have one who didn't put any wait on for weeks, wouldn't take a bottle, always under Mum who looked like she had enough milk, we gave up with the bottle and stood back and watched.  The cria 'Choc Ice' who is now five months old was still only 13 kgs at 3 months is now 28 kgs and is running around with the rest of the herd.  Not sure why she didn't grow, she is obviously smaller than the rest of the cria but she always felt solid and well covered and there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with her.  Her mother was a maiden but she was very good right from the start and we saw Choc Ice suckle so I am sure she got the colostrum very early on.  Who knows! these animals will always surprise you.

Now for the ranting bit!
It has been a bit of an odd week mainly because I was due to go into hospital on Friday so I had bee getting myself all geared up for it, rearranged work, stocked up the larder for Steve as I would be out of action for some weeks, arranged help for animals, cottages, grandchildren etc.  I even tidied the house and sorted out the office.  So Thursday came and I had finished my last job for about three months, fedd the animals for the last time and collected the eggs, got back into the car and looked at the phone to see I had a new voice message.  The hospital had been try to ring me and in the end left a voice message (we intermittent  mobile signal around here) They had canceled my operation ! now I was really upset about this, but it was to late to ring the secretary, I had to wait til the morning to find out that there was not enough beds.  Now I could be waiting until after Christmas for a new date,  to say I am not happy is a understatement, I had put my life on hold for three months which as it was winter was not too bad I could cope with that, but if the new date is going to be in the spring I won't be able to work or do anything during one of our busiest times. I do appreciate that it couldn't be helped if there were no beds available especially critical car beds then something has to go, just wish it hadn't been my operation.  So not good I have to wait until Monday now to hear when the new date will be.  In the meantime I have a whole weekend in front of me with nothing booked in as I shouldn't have been home so I am going to make the most of it and do what I like................now what shall I do!

Freezer full ready for winter

I am determined not to get caught out again this winter, last year with all that snow and ice we ran out of milk and bread.  So this year I have a good supply of both in the freezer which is OK until we sent the pigs in and I collected the meat from the butcher this morning and for good measure I brought half a lamb of one of our neighbours. Our freezer is now so full I have had to borrow some room in next doors!
I carefully wrote down our requirements for the butcher to pack the meat and somehow sausages packed in 8's, came back as one large bag of sausages, so I have spent the afternoon bagging them up. I asked for the small joints except for one leg which I wanted cut into two large joints ready for Christmas, I got one half pig cut into large joints.  Not sure how clearer I could have made it, was it me or did they just not read it right!
This weekend I was going to do some baking but as there is no room left I won't be doing that instead I am going to move the Chicken pen onto some fresh ground,and tidy the veg garden. Oh yes there are three Cockerels which need dispatching, have to try and get them into the freezer somehow.
Winter is definitely on it's way the female Alpacas just about mug me for the feed in the mornings, they have plenty of fresh grass but there is not the goodness in it now.  We have started to give the males and the llamas some concentrate again now and they are having plenty of hay.
I am busy knitting and spinning as I have so much I want to get finished before I can start my own Christmas pressies, I have decided that everyone is getting knitted gifts or Alpaca socks for Christmas as I really can not face going Christmas shopping. bah humbug, I really don't like that side of Christmas, it would be so much nicer if everyone made something which would be special to the person receiving it rather than just buying something which most of the time could be brought if wanted anyway.
Anyway back to the knitting whilst Steve is still working and we are having a late dinner.  Guess what?  Pork chops! we will be eating a lot of pork now.