30/04/2009 by Rosemary.

I can’t believe I am writing this but, - No Cria!!  In fact the girls were amazingly lively tonight.  It has been a horrible wet day so I went over with apple for anyone who wanted it.  Bert and Carolyn had it all - not because no one else wanted it but because they wouldn’t let anyone else in.  Then Belinda, Prue and Flamenco suddenly started madly careering round the field - pronking wildly in a line.  They ran in and out of the shed, up and down the hill and then stood for a while - then off they went again.  I had to go up to feed the boys and when I got back all the girls were filthy and covered in hay.  They looked very guilty.  The boys careered down the hill when I called them -  I think they are fed up with sheep.  I have got the feeding bottles and milk replacer ready for the lambs tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes.

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28/04/2009 by Rosemary.

The Mars Bars are in the fridge and that is where they are staying until something happens.  The girls are in trouble anyway because they have broken their shed.  They love going in there and rolling wildly, thrashing their legs and necks around.  Today they ended up breaking one of the side panels and kicking the back out so Carl has been over there mending it with several reinforcing panels.  One of the wild cats sat in the next paddock watching and the Big Baby started to show off by jumping from the roof of the Colonel’s to the roof of the chicken house.  This was quite impressive until he decided to extend himself to jumping onto the tin roof of the alpaca shelter from which he promptly fell off - he then shot up a tree and sat there looking embarrassed.  Bert came up and helped herself to one of the mint imperials I was eating before I could stop her.  She rolled it round her mouth a few times, sneezed and spat it out - luckily -  I am not sure alpacas are supposed to eat mints!

We are all looking forward to Friday as we are going to get some orphan lambs and Saturday, if it doesn’t rain, we are helping with some lambing tasks.  Now all we need is cria arrivals and it will be a fun packed weekend!  (Still a few more days before that for things to happen!)

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27/04/2009 by Rosemary.

We had rather a silly evening yesterday.  We stayed up too late.  If we’re not in bed by 10pm it’s all down hill.  We don’t watch a lot of television  as we’ve got one of those Freeview boxes, Sam bought it and works it perfectly well but we tend to suddenly get flicking and clicks when we try to change channels.   So, we tend to turn it on and stick with the side we get but if you’re not careful you end up watching all night Poker or something called The Shopping Channel where you appear to be able to buy things no sane person would want for extortionate amounts of money.  This time we ended up with Number 1 hits of the ’80s.  Carl drifted off to sleep while I continued with designing a chart to analyse the Estimated Breeding Value of the alpacas (something Michael Safley tells me you cannot live without - I  do not know this guru of alpaca land personally but I bought his book).  Carl suddenly sat up whilst the Bangles (a group of girl singers with big hair) were singing one of their 80s hits and said,  “Nice lustre but not much crimp!”  He totally denies this and says I was dreaming - I think I may have been lecturing him too much on the fleece characteristics of the ideal alpaca as outlined by Michael Safley!

It poured with rain today and the girls looked wet and filthy but I managed to plant the raspberry canes - twice!  When I took the plant out of the pot I thought it looked lovely and bushy and very healthy.  Carl came out later (he had the day off to MOT the Daihatsu) and told me I was supposed to separate each cane and plant them all individually with space in between.  I hadn’t read the label and so I had to dig them up and replant individually.

As you will have guessed there is no cria and we are now arguing over the Mars Bars.  I said

“I bet Carl and Sam a Mars Bar that tomorrow will be the day.”

As I have lost I think this means they don’t get the Mars Bars but they think it means they do because I have lost the bet.

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26/04/2009 by Rosemary.

Today Carl acquired a bale grab.  To be truthful I was not sure what it was when it arrived, it was covered in so many brambles.  He assures me I will love it as it will stack 8 bales at a time where as I can only do one at a time.  Mark visited this afternoon, bringing with him his ivory horn.  He had bought this at a car boot sale for £4 so we did express some doubts as to its authenticity.  It had originally been bought in Portugal, not a country renowned for its elephants, so one does wonder whether he didn’t pay a tad too much for it.  However, he was obviously very proud of its size and lustre and was not even dampened by the fact that the surface scratched off rather like resin!

Later Sam and I had a sheep adventure as one had escaped onto the road and we dashed around trying to get it back into the field without letting any of the others escape.  It was not easy as some of the cars driving past didn’t seem to feel it necessary to slow down despite my eloquent hand signals.  There isn’t usually that much traffic but today it was like Brands Hatch out there and in the morning there were literally hundreds of people walking along the road - it was a sponsored walk for something.

I have just fed the boys and Spike has a large bramble wrapped round him so we will have to go back again in a minute to unwrap him.  Bert has been doing a lot of moaning and scratching at her tummy again and I was worried her skin might be cracking and irritating again but I have just realise it is when her baby moves - I think it frightens her!

No cria but I am sure Carolyn’s will arrive any second - well, tomorrow at least.  In fact I have bet Carl and Sam a Mars Bar that tomorrow will be the day.

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24/04/2009 by Rosemary.

Still no cria!  Carolyn doesn’t even exhibit any obvious signs of imminent birth anymore, apart from being huge that is.  She did have a big fight with Sherbert this afternoon as they battled for supremacy over the patch of chalk - neck wrestling and moaning.  They both then went off and chewed sticks for a while - it looked like they were smoking cigars.  We went up to check on the flamingo and it wasn’t a flamingo - it was a bald sheep with sunburn, very painful.  Carl is sulking at the moment because the dishwasher blocked up and as he was mending it I started to empty the washing up bowl down the sink - I didn’t realise he had all the pipes off and his head under the sink drain bit.  Unfortunately, what made him really mad was that once he had recovered from that I tipped an old cup of tea down and the same thing happened - I just forgot, I’m thinking about Carolyn all the time.

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23/04/2009 by Rosemary.

Carl has just pointed out that what I saw, or thought I saw, was a FLAMINGO and not a Flamenco (Flamenco is the name of one of our alpacas and I got a bit muddled)!

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22/04/2009 by Rosemary.

Today I sustained a serious chicken injury.  I spend time watching the alpacas and I like to be comfortable so I sit on a garden chair in their paddock.  While I do this quite often a chicken jumps up on my knee or the chair arm and rests a while. This has been fine up until now but it has got warmer and I am starting to roll up my sleeves.  Today one flew up on my arm and gripped with it’s claws.  I managed to resist screeching or moving as I didn’t want an even bigger injury but I got a nasty mark anyway.  Carl has no sympathy and just says it is a scratch - which it is not.  It goes without saying that no cria have appeared.

I was very cross this evening as someone walking along the footpath had undone our field gate and left it ajar.  It must have taken them some effort to get the gate undone.  If they had wanted to look they could have climbed the gate - that would not have been good but at least then there was no risk of animal escape.  To stop being cross we went for a drive up the ridge to watch the lambs racing - they are better than TV - and to feed the boys who are still sheep guarding.  We then drove back round Fifehead St Quentin and Woolland where lots of bluebells were out in the woods.  I also saw a dead heron in a field and what appeared to be a pink flamenco lying down.  It can’t really have been unless it was a garden ornament and Carl wouldn’t go back to check.  Carl then said he saw two  birds wrestling in the mud and a swan but I know for a fact that the swan was a carrier bag and I am sure he was being sarcastic when he said about the birds wrestling, he was jealous I saw the flamenco.

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21/04/2009 by Rosemary.

STILL no cria!  I spent ages watching just in case anything happened.  Carolyn spent a lot of time lying down asleep.  At first it was funny listening to her snore and watching her lips flap around as she exhaled but after a while even I got bored with that.  Luckily, a hang glider crashed in a field up the hill, the man wasn’t hurt I hasten to add, it was very amusing watching him trying to drag his hang glider over the gate to the recovery vehicle.

The girls like their new trough but I have been told it will not stop them standing in the water and I quite believe it as Bert is already rubbing up against it  and Prudence is using the side to floss her teeth.  To take my mind off waiting for cria I turned my attention to the garden but I can’t decide whether to plant out the runner beans yet or not.  They are in the greenhouse at the moment but they are getting a bit leggy.  Carl has spent all his time so far this evening in his shed playing with his Merry Tiller.  He has succeeded in getting her going but has now emerged looking slightly overcome by the fumes!  He looked at one of the raised beds and said I hadn’t dug it over enough so he needs to put the Merry Tiller on it.  It’s quite a lively little devil so whether his fillings will survive I do not know.

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20/04/2009 by Rosemary.

What a fantastic alpaca day today has been - and the weather was lovely!  Belinda and Flamenco really made me laugh this morning.  Their mobile field shelter started life as a large garden shed.  Carl took one side off but left the side with the window at the back.  They often look out of this at the hedge and trees behind.  What Flamenco discovered this morning was that she could walk behind the shed, there is a gap along the back between the shed and fence, and look in the window at the other girls in the shed.  The colonel’s house is at  one end so once she got to the end it was a tight squeeze past the colonel’s and so she backed up past the window again.  To see her through the window going back and forth stopping every time to look through the window at me and some of the girls in the shed was so funny!  And then she stopped right in front of the window and her head slowly sank as she lay down.  Belinda was standing with me watching and as she sank out of view Belinda rushed round to see where she had gone!

It was vey warm and they kept standing in their water containers so they were  filthy.  I changed one and Bert then lay down with one leg either side, threatening everyone who came near until Sherbert arrived and just stood in it - taking no notice of Bert who flounced off!  I ended up changing the water three times in both containers.  When Carl came home I told him and he decided he could make a raised trough from the trough we bought at the sale - the one already on wheels had holes that need mending.  This is his resulting water holder —–

It took him far longer that it should have because he decided it looked like a canoe and had to play Hawaii Five 0 with it.

My new alpaca book I ordered from America arrived - The Alpaca Shepherd by Michael Safley.  I tried to prevent myself reading it because I was supposed to be fine tuning the Business Plan but I had to look at the bit on imminent births.  It says the foetus becomes more active just before birth.  Carolyn’s is beating a tattoo on her so maybe?!

All is not quite so well in Chicken World.  We have a depressed Cockerel.  The chickens all keep going off and leaving him on his own.  He looks very lonely and hunched up.

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19/04/2009 by Rosemary.

Friday night was boys’ haircut night.  Dobby and Spike were both walking round with their noses in the air - a sure sign that they can’t see very well!  Haircuts were accomplished easily and Spike also had his toenails trimmed.

On Saturday we went to the Farm Sale and there were crowds of people.  We couldn’t get near the auctioneer while he was doing the lots in the sheds and we nearly gave up but there were some gates we wanted so we went home and had dinner and then came back.  In the end we bought 2 gates, 2 feeding troughs, a pair of feeding troughs on legs (which I think are fantastic) and a water bowser.  Billy the Bowser was a bit of a devil to get home and he is not quite like other bowsers but he is already gaining a place in our hearts - more on him later!

Sunday has been more fencing for Carl (he is beginning to show an unhealthy fascination with all things fence related and I feel may need to take a break from fencing soon before he goes fencing mad).  I managed waste and observed (more important a job than Carl seems to think).

Carl went up to check on the boys early this morning and found Caedmon still asleep with Spike also asleep next to Caedmon and with his head lying across Caedmon’s back - they are very close.  Dobby was trying to play with the lambs, doing his leaping and waving his neck!

We had an enormous lunch of one of Dave’s legs.  It was delicious - really tender.  One of Dave’s lamb’s legs that is - not one of Dave’s own legs!   Those lambs have such a wonderful time I don’t feel bad eating them.  This one was a year old and if it started off like those up there now it must have enjoyed life.  They seem to gang up and they race up and down - doing somersaults and charging other gangs!

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