Hay, Fairs and Breedings

It has been such a busy time for us here that by the time I have thought about updating the blog it has been really late so I haven't even started it.

It was six weeks ago tomorrow since the barn at home burnt down and the picture below shows you what our yard looks like.  As you can see the hay that was pulled out from the burning building is still there, the clean up should have started today but nobody turned up.  Can't understand how it takes so long to organise a company to come and sort out the mess, but then we are talking about insurance companies here.

As you can appreciate it is really inconvenient  not being able to drive into the yard, everything has to be carried up to the car and even more annoying I haven't been able to get the shopping delivered meaning I have had to go and get it myself which I haven't really got time for.

Any way onto more enjoyable things, we had a stall at Totnes show which was at the end of August and we actually had a nice sunny day, the crowds weren't there this year, this may be because the show had to be postponed from the end of July due to the weather.  The weather played a big part in the next show which was a little local show at Lustleigh and because it was a bank holiday weekend the weather forecast contained a severe weather warning for the Monday, the day of the show.  We did consider not going but it was too local to just not turn up.  As normal it wasn't as bad as forecast and we actually set up in the dry, then the rain showers came in but it wasn't as bad as they said.  We had a lovely day and sold a reasonable about of products, spoke to lots of people about Alpacas but I am sure the weather forecast put a lot of people off.

On the Thursday that week it was off to Honiton Show, well that was a show that should have been called off, the mud was terrible, trouble was you needed a tractor to pull you in and that just made the mud worst.  Once in the show ran really well, we had a very small show team as this show had also been postponed so I didn't take some of the females who had been entered for the earlier show.it turned out to be a enjoyable day, lots of Alpaca chat and time to catch up with old friends.

I have spent a lot of time over the school holidays looking after the Grandchildren, we have been on the moors climbing up on the rocks or swimming in the river, them not me, but they seem to have most fun in the trough, who needs theme parks! not sure there is a need for googles though.

We seem to have got very late with our breedings this year, so far we have three definitely spitting off, one who seems to like to be bred every other week, one who was bred, then sat, then refuse to bred with our preferred male, then sat and then decided preferred male was OK after all and dropped like a stone at first sight. Now our last three females to give birth are nearly ready to rebreed and I keep changing my mind over which male to use over which one. We will not bred after the end of the month so fingers crossed they will be ready by then.  We had decided not to breed our youngsters until next spring but then the opportunity to use a outside stud came along so we have given it a go.

Yesterday we went off to our local show 'Widecombe Fair' of Uncle Tom Cobley Fame, we took along all of last years babes, all girls two whites, two browns, a fawn and and a fancy, so a nice group who took great interest in their surroundings and had an admiring audience all day.  We were very busy on the stall, the yarns, knitwear, socks and scarves proved very popular.  It was a really good day, we saw lots of our neighbours who we don't see very often, didn't see anything else on the fair field as I didn't have time to leave the stall.

So thats it for shows for this year so now we have time to relax a little, maybe.

Still a lot of hay down for some though!

Maybe spend a bit more time out on the moors, we have a Llama walk booked in for Saturday.