By Golly!

Gordon Bennett it's blowing a gale out there!
Just cleared out the stream behind - again - water everywhere!

Brilliant!

No snow - yet!

The polytunnel is holding up following temporary repairs with Gorrilla tape at the weekend.  The girls were so interested I let them in the garden to have a look and have not seen such excited alpacas for a while - particularly when they found the remains of the beetroot!

The garden is a mess at the moment and needs a serious bit of attention but time keeps running away with me.  Pouring with rain and a touch of hail.  I got soaked as a rather large quantity of ewes wanted to use me as a rubbing post but, despite that, it was brilliant!  My Monster is just so much fun!  A fabulous doughnut at the bottim of second and then we powered out gently and completed the feed run to the sound of Neil Sedaka - fantastic!

The day is now about to take a turn for the worst as I am preparing for the dentist.

I will be brief

Blowing a gale out there!  Two field shelters have hit the dust (or should I say mud?) in the last few weeks what next?!

Mud

We  seem to be struggling around in mud most of the time here and the alpacas do not look their lovely fluffy selves.  They are quite happy; little Icicle was charging around chasing a pheasant yesterday with all the girls watching her.  I have decided the general gloom calls for a slightly earlier in the year picture.

We were busy with sheep feet yesterday.  Once the sheep are in the pen and the race is set up - sheep went into pen no problem but getting the race up the hill called for a bit more ingenuity!

 

 

 

 

. . . and it was raining!

 

 



Back to normal

Weather here is a little murky and the animals are going through hay like crazy.  Decorations are all down and so it is back to business as usual (although I have just used up the last of the mincemeat with a batch of mince pies which are due out of the oven very shortly!)

 

I have just started knitting with my lovely, very fine, suri but am struggling a bit trying to work out patterns that suit it.  Carl thinks we should attempt to weave some of it which sounds quite an interesting idea.  I am going to complete a scarf first and see how that turns out.

We checked feet at the weekend and did a couple of husbandry visits.  I had planned to get all the sheep through the race but Carl was a bit distracted with his Christmas present.  He has a little notebook now and writes down 'important stuff' about his present.  I went through weeks of worry over him 'discovering' it and nearly floundered at the last hurdle.  I had put a treasure map in the bottom of his stocking which he had to follow on Christmas morning whilst feeding the sheep.  As we went through second field he remarked that some tyre tracks he could see didn't look like either my truck or his.  I hurried him on and said they were probably a friend of Sam's - just about got away with it and he nearly had a cardiac arrest when he found his treasure!

Many thanks to Sam, to the Magic Milker and to the wonderful Andy - couldn't have happened without you all!

For reasons of national security I am unable to tell you what his present was at the moment but all will be revealed soon!!

Goodbye 2014 and welcome to 2015!

2014 over and not a bad year apart from the loss of Bert.  That was one of the most traumatic moments of my life and I did nearly give up at that point.  I do miss her still but I think it was her time to go and I think she was starting to suffer and it was not fair to keep her going - I hope I am right.

Apart from Bert, the year went fairly well, all things considered.  With moving here in January we didn't achieve quite as much as we hoped but we've not done too badly.

Several animals have moved on to new homes - Dude and Emily went the farthest, Dippy just went down the road, Bea and Gloria, Rupert and Sam's two boys had farther to travel.  Caedmon and Dobby were difficult to part with having been our first two alpacas and, of course, little Slug was a difficult one to see go but he was a lamb who could not have gone to slaughter!  Most of the lambs went but some were kept for breeding.

Lambs everywhere

Bert - still well and enjoying life

 

 

Sun in April made everyone relaxed and happy (apart from the flies which were dreadful!).

 

 

 

Strawberries and lambs growing well - followed by Swallows!

 



Not long then until hay making!  With a bit of lazing around in between - and a lot of shearing!

Ellingham Show came in here somewhere - as did halter training.

 

Nearly up to date now!  Just a quick mention of the arrival of the Southdowns and Leaf - the Southdown ram

 

 

So now the pasture is less lush by a long way,  the wind is howling and we are tucked up on the settee earlier than we were then!

 

 

I am not being lazy though as December saw the arrival of my new yarn and I am knitting like mad before the lambs and cria start to arrive again!

 

A very happy New Year to you all - thank you for following my blog for another year.  I am looking forward to 2015 - I am ever hopeful that I will one day complete my job list but I don't think that is likely!!