No Lambs but Holy Meat!

No lambs!  No Smarty (I don't think that is how you spell it but I can't think how else to spell it and I haven't got time to go up stairs and perch on a chair to  check on top of the wardrobe where they are hidden!) egg for me - unless someone produces in the next two and a half hours!

When Sam returned from work he spent the entire day steam cleaning the SAME - he is not allowed to drive it round until it is spotless  and he is desperate to drive it!  This evening it is sparkling - he has even discovered the SAME imprinted into the metal bits holding the wheels together (axles I think they are called).  Tomorrow he is working with the Shepherd  for most of the day but when he returns he is allowed to drive it!

Carl was out most of the day - returning the excellent spinner - all fields done in less than the time it took to do one little paddock by hand - Thank you Andy!  He then had to return a trailer - or at least that is what he told me he was doing but he arrived back with a mighty big bale of hay for which he must have required a trailer so he has either returned with the same one or acquired another one - not quite sure what is going on there.

We also have a very special dinner soon as we were presented with a lump of lovely "Holy Meat" this morning - excellent!!

False Alarm

Not only were there no lambs last night - there are also no lambs today!  Apparently star gazing and rolling around are only signs things are imminent.  What does imminent mean?  Who knows!  So today we have had more intermittent back hunching, rolling, upward gazing, up and downing - but no lambs.  We now have a bet going - I say one tomorrow, Sam says Monday and Carl says Tuesday.  The prize is a Smarties Easter Egg.  Sam's sheep look very large, hot and uncomfortable.

And here is enormous George (Called Georgina by the Shepherd's Lady as she was born on St George's Day).

This afternoon we had visitors looking at the alpacas and then, with Andy's spinner, Sam got all paddocks that needed it done in a very quick time, I topped a few nettles and docks while Carl was stuck with the job of finishing off the patio doors and window.  He made up for it this evening by steam cleaning the SAME with Sam - which they both found very exciting!

Arching backs and star gazing

Ohh!  I think the lambs - or one sheep anyway - are on the way!  This will be a quick blog as I have to get back to have another look.  Sam is over with them now on the John Deere (garden tractor).  He has discovered that the cutting deck will go under the electric fence and right up to the stock fence which is a lot quicker than strimming although you so have to pull out and put back the electric fence posts as you go.

So just a couple of pictures from a lovely sunny day!  Little Barnaby Rudge who is gaining a bit more confidence but may need to be moved away from Spike and Alf soon as they tend to pick on him a bit.

And  an unlikely pairing - Prue and Zara.  Prue is not a great fan of other alpacas and generally keeps herself to herself, always settling for the night at quite a distance from everyone else.  However, she appears to have taken to Zara and they are quite often together.

Spinning sorted (fertiliser that is!)

Very lovely sunny day today which was great but brought back the water problems.  It is not that we haven't got water, it is just that the alpacas keep wasting it!  Lina's group, the boys and Dude are fine - they just drink it.  Bert's lot are very different, they squabble over it, stand in it and kick it over.  By lunch time I had refilled three times and reverted to the summer system of lots of troughs as they cannot share!

Bert absolutely has to have her own water which she stamps in first and then sits down next to and slurps and dribbles.
Cassie spent a lot of the morning asleep and oblivious to everything.

Greeves just ate!

And Dude attempted a bit of posing - no one took any notice of him!



Then, once Carl got back, we had a bit of a rush round and then headed off to Reddingvale as Andy very kindly had offered to lend us his spinner (fertiliser spinner not some crazy spinning lady he has in his shed).  Despite the warmth of the weather I had to keep my body warmer firmly in position as I had mislaid an essential, at my age, item of clothing - doesn't matte over the field but once you get into polite company it is not on!  Andy also showed us a little something he has and I am really jealous - I want one!

Gazing at the views

Lovely day today - into Tshirt weather!  I have had to spend some time inside cleaning the house but apart from that it has been sheep watching and poo collecting - and I took the camera with me to get some photos.  Looks like we have only one alpaca here - just Dude!

Here come the boys - bit of a frolicking day for them.

And now nearly everyone!

Another view, looking up towards the sheep in second field.

And finally, a view over to the Shepherd's lambing field.  Trouble with this view is that it shows how bare some of our paddocks are!  Time for a move around at the weekend.

A boring blog!

I am sorry but there isn't much of any excitement to say today.  The weather has been misty and rainy with a few good gusts of wind.  The alpacas are all fine and making quite a lot of use of their field shelters.  Little Greeves is getting a nice rounded back and is jumping around quite a bit which is nice to see.  Islay, his Aunty, is becoming slightly overprotective of him and rather grumpy - when Carl went to feel his back this evening she marched over in a very aggressive manner and spat straight at him!  This is not in the least like Islay and I am hoping it could be a sign that she really is pregnant.  It would be nice.

The sheep are all big and their day for the first ones to lamb is Sunday.  The Shepherd has got quite a few on the hill already, including a lovely little black and white one which looks like a miniature holstein cow - I've got my eye on that one!

Now I have a glove to finish - on our mammoth spinning drive I managed a pair and a half gloves which I thought was very good - a child to help with his English homework and a cat to rescue from a bin where it appears to be stuck!

We drove all night

We are back from spinning!  I am not going to tell you that we can now spin but at least we know where we were going wrong and Carl is doing quite well despite a tendency to stick his tongue out and dribble whilst concentrating.  My leading hand has a habit of gripping the fleece too tightly and we have to make use of Sam to work the foot bit or it doesn't run smoothly  - we are persevering! 

The drive back was another Aylett marathon.  We left at 6.30pm and planned to stop around 9pmbut Carl said he felt okay so we drove on a bit - at midnight it didn't really seem worth stopping - so we drove all night Despite plenty of coffee stops it id mean that Sunday was a bit of a bleary day!  The Chippendales did well holding the fort - though they did have a minor panic when they thought one of the sheep was about to lamb - only to realise that it was the ram!