Long time no Blog

It's been a long time since I have written anything on the blog, mainly due to having a bit of a rough time of it lately.

Steve's Dad had been ill for some time and had been in a care home for a while, he was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and past away very shortly after.  The funeral was on Tuesday and everything went well despite it being very cold at least it wasn't snowing.

Obviously we haven't done much work over the past few weeks just the essentials, feeding, poo picking, general husbandry, we are nearly up to date with the ADE and Fasinex treatment just the Llama team to go, hopefully tomorrow.

We had a little bit of snow yesterday and as our roads don't get treated we have a treacherous journey to our fields each morning, nothing like you guys up north though.  We live on a hill and have to go both directions, the decision each morning is either up hill or down either way it is icy.

The Alpacas and llamas are all looking good they don't seem to mind this cold dry weather, they are eating a good deal of hay and what with their mix of concentrate and Alfalfa which is very dry they are drinking a good deal of water, which seems to be freezing up as soon as it is in the bucket.

Murphy and his Mum Jazz

A couple of weeks ago I was driving up to the fields to put the chickens away just as the sun was setting, I drove up onto the moor and got a couple of pictures.  I also managed to get some of our Llama cria Murphy who is growing into a fine you llama, he has such a lovely nature and I am sure he is going to be easy to train
.


Merlin has also been on a few walks and is doing very well, he has had a break from training over the past few weeks so this afternoon we put him into a catch pen, haltered him, he now tries to put his nose into the halter (his aim is a bit hit and miss) he had a small blanket on his back and we put a strap under his belly..... he wasn't to sure about that bit.

Merlin and Steve

The weather is causing chaos with our Christmas sales, Village Market in Widecombe last Saturday it was so cold and dull nobody much about, Leusdon Coffee morning on Wednesday was much better almost three times as much sold and tomorrows Christmas fair at Buckland has been canceled.  so thats all of our sales opportunities gone for this year.  No doubt we will have several phone calls asking for socks and yarn for pressies before Christmas but we won't sell the normal volume of stock.

Steve and I have something special coming up next week which I may tell you about later, so I am desperately trying to get ready for Christmas before that.  I have written and posted all the business Christmas cards, written most of the personal cards, some of the presents have been bought but not wrapped yet, food shopping list is started..... not sure when the actual shopping is going to be scheduled in! Menu's are in the planning stage, we have a big family gathering on the 27th so that needs to be catered for as well and just to keep us busy we took all the tiles of the wall in one of the cottages today so that needs to be retiled next week......... can't think why we did that!.