Shearing complete

At last the girls have been sheared and are looking elegant and thin. This was a new experience for all of us and not as traumatic as we thought. Our girls were very well behaved and even the yearlings who were being sheared for the fist time did not cause too much stress. I have to say the youngsters are being slightly more jumpy when I go into the barn now than they were before!! However all of them are cleaner looking now and not sticking their necks, legs and anything else they can into the water troughs now.

Their fleeces have been sorted, which was a slightly dusty job, especially the first timers. Not made easier by the fact that the dogs thought it smelt great and was something for them to play with and kept splitting the bags just as we had got the fleece in it. The yearling fleeces are so soft it was like sorting cotton wool, wafting about - it will produce fabulous yarn to make into ultra soft socks, jumpers etc. They have been dispatched to the mill and are being processed along with the rest of last years fleeces. so soon we will have a store cupboard restocked with lovely yarn and products to sell.

My daughter and I tried to get the hay into the barn on Tuesday, but only managed to move 80 or so bales out of the 200 sitting there, before getting absolutely soaked and abandoning the task, much to our annoyance. The wet bales have been left to dry off this week, and hopefully can be stored away at the weekend - weather permitting!!! Got told afterwards that if we had tried to store the wet bales they could have spontaneously burst into flames as they dried off, so glad we did not do that then!!!!!! We will be trying to cut down all the thistles too, busy weekend and short handed now as daughter gone off to work at Cowes week, having 'survived' her parachute jump yesterday!! Yes it was a birthday present from her Dad last year, and only now managed to get it done. She, and I, were terrified before the event. I had to go and check she got down safely and will admit to actually crying on the way home out of sheer relieve! What a softie!!!

Well must go now to get the cat in from chasing the froglets, the dog who has got himself stuck on the wrong side of the fence and bring the bin in which has somehow got itself into the middle of the road causing everyone to brake rather sharply as they come round the corner!!

Pictures

This is Fleur at about half an hour old with Mum Inky on the left and Fleur a couple of hours later looking beautiful on the right.

web site (almost)

Here we are in July, still hot! At last we have all three babies Fleur, Dameli, and George. typically the boy, George was he weedy one, lightest and lazy. Starts raining, and all others go inside George just sits in the rain, so he has had to suffer the indignanty of wearing the asbo coat. At least we could see him in the long grass. Dameli arrived he day my daughter got back from Australia hence the australian name, it means affection, and she is very affectionate, or nosey is another word for it.

Now finally we can get them sheared which happens this Friday evening - not really looking forward to it as it means upsetting the girls a bit, but better than them getting too hot, and the fleeces can be processed straight away as the mill are finally get around to processing the fleeces I bought in April. So within a couple of weeks we will have some stock and the web site will be up and running.

We have also taken delivery of our first lot of wild flowers ready to be potted up and labelled for selling - that's my job today. Just got to design write and print all the explanatory labels to stick on pots!

Bit of potential disaster with hay fields - they still not cut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The contractor is all behind and now I am wondering if we will ever get any hay. It must have no value in it either nutritionally or price to sell so not very happy. He promised to get it done this week, but depends on weather. It is not as if we have had bad weather, so not sure what going on there. Tractor will be bought before next hay time if we still here.

Now that this blog is connected to web site I will must keep it up to date with our news each week - I think I may have said that before.

Our first new arrival

At 8.50am Inky gave birth to a health, beautiful cria. We are all over excited.

Inky is being wonderful and has introduced her new baby girl to everyone. the other alpacas have all been carefully checking out Inky and her baby and one of the adults (the oldest of the group) made sure the youngsters did not interfere with the new born until she was up and about.

All are in the paddock next to the field so we can keep an eye on everything for a few hours, but so far so good. the weather is warm and not wet, and being born at this time gives baby time to feed dry off and be strong enough to cope with the nght night - clever alpacas.

I just read some of the blogs of note and realise my blogs are so boring at the moment, people really put a lot of effort into them. anyway maybe I will catch up to their standard one day.

Thunderstorm last night after a very heavy (weatherwise) day. the girls decided to sit it out outside! they do not seem to be spooked by anything. needless to say this morning they are soaking and dirty again. Dogs did not bother too much either, living here is chilling everyone out. The hayfever not good though, forgot we not near the sea now so suffering more than before.

The new car saga rolls on. We decided on a volkswagen estate until got told it will be another 6 weeks when it was due this week! So back to the beginning and went to look at a volvo estate again and decided to order, which will be here earlier saving lots of fuel money we hope -very important for us poor smallholders. While test driving the car we came across another lovely place called Doddington Hall - I think. Great farm shop where we stopped for a coffee and ended buying stuff! The hall looks lovely and somewhere to bring relatives when they visit.

this week really going to get cracking on the wildflower business - really excited about it. Also maybe this time next week we will have another little alpaca to add to our herd.

time has whizzed by again. Lots happening. Inky is only one week away from her due date and I keep watching her with binos. It's been amazingly wet and stormy the last few days too so do not want baby alpaca to be born in wet. One of the crias had to have a visit from vet for treatment for something similar to 'mud fever' in horses. She looking OK now, but we had to wash her legs every day so it got us and them a bit more used to handling. Did not even get kicked this time. Also had the grazing field topped again, the rain makes the grass grow quicker than the girls can eat it, plus it will control the thistles! More expense though so need to get cracking on either getting more animals to eat it or change the fences around so it can be cut for hay.

Really starting to formulate some plans for land and development of business with the FWAG man coming out in July and the woodland trust in a week or so.

We have decided we need a tractor now as quite a few things would be easier with one, topping, mowing, carrying stuff etc. So I have asked some friends of mine to advise about what to steer clear of so we can hopefully get a good one, that will not break down too much.

the fleeces we sent for processing should be ready soon, hopefully, and we need to get photos done for the web site and get some things sold.

Daughter returning from Oz next month and soooo looking forward to it. I know she sad to leave but no doubt she will be planning her next trip as soon as she gets back.

Saw an item o n news last night about some rescue ponies that need a home - must try to control myself!!!!!! They were sweet though.

Well we have found a shearer although he can not fit us in until July after the babies are born, but at least we have met him and he lives close by. He came and gave the girls a pedicure and is gentle and caring so much relieve all round. We got a few tips on how to do a few other things too.

The mini heat wave is over and as it is Bank holiday it is of course raining. We did need the rain as the ground is very dry and the grass in the meadow we want to cut for hay have not grown that much yet. Still I am sure there is time. We still have to tackle the thistle problem and it is getting worse. We have been told they just need to be cut before they flower and that will help, but how we re-establish the grasses, we have still to find a way we feel comfortable with. Visitors are just going to have to help dig them out!

Great excitement as the web site was sent by the designer for us to try out and very cute it is. Not sure about the colour still, but will try it out on a few people to see their reaction. Now we just have to have some products to sell and get some lovely pictures.

WE may well diversify into wild flower/plant selling as when we have tried to buy them for the garden there are none around in the normal laces, you have to send off for them, but it would be great to start with plants bought in then start growing our own. Will investigating that this week.