Sucking on the Bottle!

It seems dreadful but today Carl had to top the new paddock.  It's just too long at the moment and the docks were beginning to erupt.  He does enjoy doing it though, he trundles round with his ear defenders in, grinning like an idiot and singing something about Daisy's bikini!

Another little confession - we ran out of goat's milk for Greeves on Monday morning and all they had was semi-skimmed so I had to revert to Lamblac.  I was worried today that I would be confronted with a runny bottom.  But no, in fact he has made his best ever weight gain.  He is now 11.5kg from 10.4kg on Sunday!  (Could be just my scales of course).  This morning we also hit a bit of a milestone as he actually sucked from the bottle.  It was painfully slow and we both almost fell asleep half way through - but he did it!  The rest of the day we were back to squirting but it is a start.  He is still a big fan of hay and I put a small bit outside the field shelter this afternoon to try to tempt him into the sun a bit more.

Mind you, his Mum, Lina, is also a hay fiend - with no desire to share!

This evening he was grazing at the top of the hill amongst the others which was good.

He's in there behind Flemenco! 
More thinking for the Great Western Region Alpaca Fleece Show this evening - preparing a little display and negotiating with my brother over a little something needed by Dominic Lane, the judge.  I am really looking forward to seeing him - I just hope it's the weather for Aviators as with this thing he needs, which I hope to get from my brother on Saturday, I feel he will resemble something from Girl's Aloud or perhaps it was Fergie from Black Eyed Peas!  Can't wait!

A bit of a drip

It was very fortunate that I managed to get all the paddocks cleaned up this morning as later in the day the rain became torrential - wind was also fierce at the top of first field - quite calm at the bottom!  Here are Belinda and Barry Norton in a beautifully clean field - before the heavens opened.

Before the rain came I also spent some time peering at Bert's ears, trying to see if I am imagining the hair growth.

Unfortunately, in the photo above, she would not prick her ears up - but I am hopeful still.  Greeves retreated to the shed as soon as the first spot of rain hit him and remained there chewing all the hay he possibly could  while I sat in the Mule with all doors firmly closed,, knitting.  Sam is in trouble tonight though, as I think it must have been him who has picked the plastic stuff off a couple of little screw holes in the roof and now cold drips fall on me periodically.

Anyone for Tennis?

Big difference today between the weather in the fields and the weather at the house.  Quite nice at the house - occasional little showers - over the fields windy, quite strong at times, and chilly.  Carl was over there most of the day fencing and is now pleased to have finished the new paddock.  I am just planning the next bit of fencing for him!

We popped over to Reddingvale late afternoon on a bit of Great Western Region Alpaca Fleece Show business and to take a little peek at their animals.  They have a lovely variety of coloured animals and some real characters - one of their brown boys was particularly engaging.  There were several very nice cria and a particularly nice little fawn.  Sadly, they would have noticed if I had secreted one in my body warmer - they know all their animals extremely well!  It is always lovely to visit as there is always so much to talk about and to see - couldn't stay too long though as Greeves needed feeding and Sam does not find that easy at the moment.

Greeves is turning into a bit of a shed dweller.  He loves it in the field shelter, under the hay rack, where he sits in state stuffing vast quantities of hay into his little mouth.  He is doing okay but still not that lively until Sam tries to catch him to feed or Carl tries to weigh him.

Now I can't do a photo tonight or type much more as we have a calamity occurring in the hall.  Carl is bouncing around in his dressing gown like Martina Navratilova, trying to kill hornets which are attacking us by flying in through the cat flat.  He is swatting them with the Blackmore Vale Magazine and I do hope he has put his underpants on!  I have also been ordered to knit by Irene at Ashdale as we have now run out of gloves to sell.  I have got Flamenco's wool to knit up which means we can now have something other than grey to sell.  Yikes - a hornet is in here now and Carl is leaping around attacking the Willow Pattern on the dresser!

A bit of a day!

Today started with Carl taking Sam into Blandford to get his hair cut while I pottered about with the animals and set things up ready for the tasks we had for today - a few injections, spit offs and a possible mating.  I was a bit unsure about whether Little Star was ready for mating and had decided not until next year but then she started showing a lot of interest in Dude.  After talking about it we thought we might as well put her in and see what happened and, at first, it looked as if she might sit but then she seemed to change her mind so we left it at that for today!

This afternoon was time to get the fleece ready for the Great Western Region Alpaca Fleece Show and what a fiasco that turned into!  We have never shown a fleece before and these were the first alpacas Carl had sheared - a combination which was never going to go smoothly!  We ended up thoroughly depressed and ready to hurl the whole lot own the hill!  It all began to go pear shaped when I pulled one of my hairs out of the fleece and went further downhill when we realised why some people take off the tips of the cria fleece.  Following this a beetle flew into fleece on the table and needed some extracting (I am sure he left a leg behind) and then a strong wind blew up across the valley.  I had already memorised the fleece tips on Irene of Ashdale's Face Book page and we started looking for uniformity of staple length as we continued to skirt - we began to wonder if we had any sandwich bags in the cupboard to take our show fleeces in - sacks seemed a bit wasteful!  If any one out there has even the slightest concerns about sorting their fleece for the show - forget the worries, you cannot possibly do any worse than us!!  Carl kept telling me that it is the taking part that matters and I replied B.............
We then gave up and decided to do the rest tomorrow.  Here is the abandoned fleece sorting table.

And here is Cruella trying to remove fleece from her mouth.

Carl went off to fence while I did battle with a particularly truculent glove I have invented.

Sam is getting a barrage of  post lately - all offering him insurance for his house, car, health and even pets.  Saga is the worst offender but today they offered him a free pen.  He rarely reads anything but must be the only person around who diligently reads every word in these mail shots.  He said in 35 years when he is eligible he might take up the free pen offer!

A visit to Ashdale Alpacas

The eye cream seems to have cleared up Greeves eye immediately - no runny eye this morning!  He was also a little bit livelier which is good.  We popped over to Irene and Si's (Ashdale Alpacas) this evening when Sam came back from school and left him to weigh Greeves but he couldn't catch him which was an excellent sign!  While Sam was running round the field we were enjoying Irene's very lovely cake.  Her own recipe I think and containing quantities of beer.  Carl totally ignored my Look which tried to convey, "No you must not have another slice, you've nearly eaten it all!"  I had a lovely picture to show you of Irene operating her wool winder but sadly there was something totally inappropriate in the background so it cannot be put on the blog!  She has knitted a fantastic jacket type thing involving multitudes of needles - in return I presented her with one pair of gloves which require 'finishing'.

We had a quick look at some very lovely cria and work on the barn.  They are making great strides forward. Carl then discovered their books and started borrowing them so I had to take him away.

Carl giggled all the way home over Si's joke - - -
A big game Hunter came across a little boy standing by a very large dead elephant.  The Hunter said,  "What on earth did you manage to kill that with?"  The boy replied "Oh, it was just me and my club"  The hunter said, "It must have been a very big club!"  The boy replied, "There's about 300 of us"!!!

Sam's first day back at school was 'okay' - that seems to be about all he can remember about it!

One man went to mow (constantly)!

Sunny again today!  Looks like it may be a good September.  Sam is not happy - school tomorrow!

I spoke to Yohav, my vet, yesterday and this morning went to pick up some Orbiven eye ointment for Greeves, who has a weepy eye, and Barnaby Rudge whose eye has been attacked by flies.  That has now been applied so, hopefully, will start to take effect.  Other than that it has been a day of alternating waste management with knitting.  I have to get a bit of a spurt on with the knitting as we are seeing Irene from Ashdale Alpacas tomorrow.  The weather was so good I could knit in the field but Sunbeam and Barry arguing got a bit distracting after a while!

Sam told me several times that he was dying - due to a sore throat - but still managed to race round attacking every stinger that showed itself!

The Great Western Region Fleece Show schedule arrived this morning and reminded me we still have to sort our fleece out.  The fleece boxes are all ready for the fleeces and Carl viewed them this afternoon so everything is hotting up!

Carl gets his chopper out!

The chill in the air last night affected Carl - he started chopping up logs in earnest this evening in preparation for the firing up of the log burner.  I am not looking forward to having less daylight to get all the jobs done but I do like evenings in front of the fire.

Today has been gorgeous weather and Sam and I have been making great use of our mowers to get the spare paddocks spruced up for the winter.  We set our cutters high and dealt with a few docks, stingers and that straggly dead grass you get left with.  We were having such a good time I had to send Sam down at a run to catch the library van.  I had always smiled a bit at those gentlemen with large lawns who spend ages getting neat stripes across the grass but I have to admit I caught myself, whilst trying to remember the tune to, "You can't always get what you want", endeavoring to get neat lines across the paddock.  Sam spent most of his time going backwards as his Yardman goes much faster backwards!


With such lovely hot weather today we had vegetable stew and dumplings for tea - very tasty but totally inappropriate - and Sam is still moaning about what he calls the 'brains' he was forced to eat (dumplings).  He had been very helpful up until this evening when he became very silly due to being overtired and a sore throat.  He was supposed to be getting his school clothes ready but instead of that he had been rolling around on the floor pretending to be a monkey having tried on 3 shirts all of which are at least 4 inches too short in the arms.  He has now gone down to granny's - probably to complain about being made to eat brains!

I am also delighted to report that the back of Sherbert's leg has cleared up and hair is appearing!  Two years ago the shearer cut her leg just on the back where it bends and despite lots of things tried it kept opening up again.  Well, one week of my amazing cream and it is healed!  Plus hair is growing!  Bert's ears look very white and I don't think it is all the cream.  I am not sure yet about the tops of her legs, I would be surprised if it worked there as they have had hard skin for years and years - but, something does appear to be happening!  Also the cut on Sherbert's udder is healing.  The cream is called Filta Bak and acts like a sort of second skin.  If you wanted to use it you would have to satisfy yourself it was right and safe of course but it does seem remarkable and the person who recommended it to us also says it works.  We bought a tub of it on the internet from vetscription.  I was going to do a photo of Sherbert but the batteries went on the camera so I have failed on photos tonight!

Carl has not failed though - he has nine ripe tomatoes!