A Lovely New Machine!

It was a little chilly here this morning as Carl was doing the last window.

By lunchtime all was in and sealed so we are making good progress there.  Probably a good thing as it looks like the weather may be turning colder again later next week.

It has been a bit of a  poo day today!  We had a bit of a build up due to the weather so I trudged around clearing two paddocks whilst keeping an ear out for a visitor who was due.  We do have a poo collector but it is designed for horse poo and not alpaca.  It has done well but for a while now it has been back to the bucket and spade for me.

As I was about to start tackling Bert's field our visitor arrived and I laid down my bucket with some relief.  Some of you may recognise our visitor who got his camera out at the same moment as I did!

Paul Help, with his paddock cleaners!  He brought two for us to try out - a normal one and a giant!  The smaller one was great and sucked up the poo like a demon but I was a little concerned about stability on our hills.  It would have held plenty but in the end we decided it had to be the monster version as it was very stable - and we tried it out on our steepest slopes.  The Mule, of course, towed it beautifully and I had to wrestle it away from Sam who thought it was wonderful!

I felt I had a very professional poo collecting stance - Sam disagrees!  I am particularly impressed with the pipe which is see through and you can watch everything whirring up it at speed.  Sam and I cleared Bert's paddock in less than 15 minutes and even I had no problem manoeuvring or starting it.  This should now mean there is very little excuse for dirty paddocks and should be good for herd health and bad for those parasites!  In fact the only one not impressed by the machine was Dude who kept running up to have a look and then charging away in disgust!

Now I am off to have a bath and attempt to tame my hair as Sam and I are off on our cruise!  It is all booked up, Jalopy is ready, tickets in bag - just got to clean the wellies (wellies on a cruise - yes, we need them on this one!!)