17/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Moving Little Star seems to have paid off, she seems much happier and ran down to the trough this evening - snuffling along it like she used to.  Alf is not so happy.  He had to go in with the other wethers and the sheep; and the sheep keep chasing him!  Spike has chased them off a couple of times but they take no notice and just bounce around on all four legs at the same time.

This evening we went hunting Gators - they are like gold dust and just as expensive.  Carl was on the track of a little stash but by the time we got there two had been sold (how can one man need 2 Gators - plain greedy!) and the one that was left was too pricey.  We are gradually lowering our sights and have now decided it doesn’t have to be diesel and it doesn’t have to be a John Deere.  Trouble is it must be 4WD for the hills in winter and I must have an electric tipper - that is the whole point of it!  Carl is trying to tempt me with a Golf Buggy (he calls it a Club Cart to make it sound better) but the last one he showed me had a sort of parasol on it and the wind up here would soon make short work of that.

Circular knitting is more complicated that it appears.  Once you have got it going you are fine until you try to start decreasing stitches.  In the end my knitting was so tight I was trying to force the needle through with my shoe.  I thought it couldn’t be this hard and did a bit of internet searching where I came up with a lovely American lady who informed me that at this point, or a little previous to the point I had reached, I should have swapped to 4 needles.  I duly did this and somehow 2 needles disappeared and I was back to straight knitting!  At this point I had a big hole in the top I could not finish.  I was not going to be beaten!  I cast off one side and made a little flap on the other.  I am going to sew a button on so you can button up the top - or leave it open if the weather is fine and you want to get air to your head.  Picture soon, I am nearly there with the uploading.  I have also decided to change to a Google Blog soon as this blog means I can’t seem to comment on some people’s blogs.  I have been desperately trying to leave a comment to say Happy Birthday to an alpaca keeper and her herd whose birthday it is but it won’t let me as I am a lowly Wordpress blogger - so I will soon be changing.

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16/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Circular knitting is brilliant!  It took me ages last night to make my knitting go in a circle despite the circular needles.  I kept knitting straight bits but now I am slowly plodding my way round in circles.  I must admit I have put on a bit of an obsessive spurt as my fleece has now been processed and they were balling it today.  I should be getting it back next week and I can’t wait!

I also got the price of the Gator today - suffice to say I am not getting it!  However, all is not lost and Carl is pursuing another option - more news soon!

Back to alpacas and Little Star (my little bottle fed whose mum, Bert, had no milk) is worrying me again.  This may sound silly but I think she is being bullied.  Lina, Flamenco and Prue constantly push her away and spit at her; they will not let her near the trough or even feed from our hands.  She is on her own all the time now -Lily and Emily are such a close pair even they have nothing to do with her.  She has such a sad little look on her face.  I opened the gate so they could graze up the top this morning and she didn’t go with them.  I don’t think she is ill at all but she is now not getting any Camelibra and seems to have given up trying.  Tonight I decided to move her back with the other group of girls who are far more sedate.  They all sit round together chewing, sunbathing and contemplating.  We will see how it goes.

Carl has now given up waiting for me to mend the rip in his jacket and is swearing over an extremely long piece of cotton, several needles and he has got blood on his jacket!  I have got to get back to knitting as I want to show it to Irene (Ashdale Alpacas) at the weekend and get her to tell me why everyone else appears to hold their needles differently from me (I have a feeling that may be part of the reason why I am so slow!).

Had to add this bit - look at this I have just been sent!  Sorry I can’t do those link things you can just click on!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/peru/7459372/Surfer-trains-alpaca-to-ride-the-waves-in-Peru.html

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15/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Today is proving to be a little tedious as I am waiting for a parcel to arrive.  I can’t stay in the house all the time as I need to be in  the field but if I am not at the house they will not deliver so I have been dashing up and down the hill and bobbing up over hedgerows all day long.  The parcel people were cross because they said they had tried to deliver twice and I had not been there - I said I had, they said I had not!  There was certainly no little card saying they had tried to deliver.  They finally said the driver had taken a photo of my house when he could not deliver and they would send it to prove they had been . . . . . .  It wasn’t my house!  It wasn’t even a photo of any house I know in the village - in fact, it was a house in a town!  They then searched me on Google and identified me by the swimming pool in the garden (I don’t have a swimming pool in the garden but there was one many years ago when the house was a restaurant - pretty chilly I would think).  Any way I am still waiting and amusing myself by writing the blog and comparing rosettes for the committee of the Great Western Alpaca Show to see on Sunday.  Very nice rosettes I think they will be - and the sashes!  Someone is going to be a very fortunate breeder!

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14/03/2010 by Rosemary.

We really have not stopped today and we still have not finished - I have still got all the Mummy type things to do like School, sorry College, to get ready with Sam.  If I leave it up to him he would go with dirty trousers and no lunch!  Carl and Sam put the new vehicle to good use, they used it to collect 11 bales of hay in the pick up bit and then they shot off to get a load of logs - all courtesy of the Aunt.  After that they created a water collection system which drains the water from the barn roof into Billy the Bowser, before it was a bit hit and miss whether the water actually made it into Billy.  Then Carl fitted a new tap to Billy so it is easier to turn on and possible to turn off without a monkey wrench.  I have been poo collecting, cleaning chickens,cleaning and filling water and playing with the sheep!  Carolyn has been grumpy all day; lots of gazing in to space, humming and rolling.  She has another 6 weeks to go but I think she will be very pleased when her cria is born.  There are no photos tonight as Rolf from Knapper Alpaca solved the problem for me of why my blog takes so long to come up.  Apparently, my photos are so big that is why they take ages to load.  I am now fiddling with a photo editor to try to make it better before I upload any more.

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13/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Carl has been making a nuisance of himself with my hat.  He somehow managed to turn it into a gnome style, melon hat and then proceeded to pose in it Catalogue Man style.  I shall embarrass him with a picture!

When I had straightened it out I showed Mum and she tried  it on and liked it so, when I have made a proper one, I may have my first sale!  I am now starting on even more of a challenge - a pair of fingerless gloves.  It involves four needles and trying to handle them and two kittens will be hard!

Today we had a trip out to replace the Daihatsu.  Carl had to get in quick before I gave all our money to the John Deere man - we have still had no price for that but are now pursuing another possibility inspired by Toad Hall, may be more news on that tomorrow!  We did, however, succeed in replacing the Daihatsu and now are the proud owners of a Mitsubishi L200 - not new or even nearly new, of course, but a lot better than what we had!  However, the novelty of Carl constantly asking, “What’s 30mph?” (the speedo is in kph) and Sam calling out, “Batteries charging, temperature is 10 Centigrade outside, we’re not about to roll!” (three little displays on the dash) is beginning to wane!  Sam insists on removing his wellies and putting them in the pickup bit everytime he gets in and got annoyed with me when I tried to insert the CD into the cup holder - he loves it!

So, a good day but I do keep thinking of Farhill Alpacas - look at their blog if you are an alpaca person.

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12/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Thank you for the comments last night, Sue and Rob.  Strangely, we have a bit of role reversal as Carl is very keen and I am now the restraining influence.  I am only being restrained as we haven’t had the final price yet, I love it really!   And - SFS - the towing capacity is something like half a ton, so it should manage to take Mark round on his snowboard (he needs a tow as they are steep hills!).

I was annoyed with myself this morning as I forgot to take the camera out.   Dude was obviously in a Spring time mood.  He was strutting around sniffing the air and then rearing up on his back legs and staying like that looking at the girls next door for a good few seconds at a time.  Quite impressive, particularly as Carolyn spent most of the day by the fence sunbathing, rolling , snoring and farting!

Today I have finally finished the Hat!  The last stretch this morning was to sew it together and that nearly went disastrously wrong when the wool broke!  It is alpaca I am using but not our own alpaca - yet.  For some reason it had got a bit untwisted, maybe because the kittens got hold of the ball while I was knitting.  I tied it together and succeeded in sewing the seam and now it is having a weeks test run.  I shall treat it as I treat all my other hats and see if it stretches  or collapses.  I do feel tentatively confident now in slowly producing a hat or two when our wool comes back from the mill.  Here it is!

Please look at my hat, Lily!!

I am actually wearing it inside out I realised as I uploaded the photos!

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11/03/2010 by Rosemary.

It came - - - - and now it has gone!  I have been waiting excitedly all day for the arrival of the John Deere demonstration vehicle.  Sam ran all the way up the hill after school to be here in time and met the man at the gate.  He got the first go in it as he jumped in as it was unloaded and drove it over to us with the man.  It is gorgeous with a tipper on the back.  You push a button and it empties everything where you want it.  It has a windscreen wiper and a little round box which they use to put the documents in but is just made for a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool.  The alpacas found it very exciting and seem to approve of it.  It appears to have CVT (DAF variomatic drive!!!!!).  It also has a picture of an alligator on the side.  I did not want it to go.

It takes the hills with ease and zooms round at 30mph - well more like 2mph when I am driving!  It would hold mountains of poo and bales of hay and tow the bowser!  We didn’t even need to use 4wd going up the track where it is muddy.  I had to say goodbye in the end.

Here I am trying to ignore Carl telling me to get out and let the man go home!  Carl did like it very much and now is musing over it in his shed!

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10/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Carl survived the shock of the John Deere demonstration vehicle coming tomorrow.  He did quite a bit of muttering about, Priorities and, the urgent need to get a road vehicle to tow the livestock trailer which does not need it’s tyres pumped up constantly or sheds bits of itself periodically.  He kept asking me how much it was but I told him I didn’t know and anyway we are only looking.  He then spent all night on Ad Trader looking at 4×4s and shouting out things like, “Do you like the shape of the Nissan Navarra?” (I wouldn’t know what shape it was if it ran me over) and the last, before I threw a knitting needle at him was, “You know the old DAF variomatic drive system?”  As if I would!

I had a bit of a problem with feeding over the last couple of days.  The girls by the barn seemed to go off their Camelibra.  I washed their bowls and troughs thoroughly but they were still a bit sniffy and not eating it all.  Then suddenly it dawned on me; we hang the troughs off the gates to feed and we use one of the gates as part of a mini catch-pen to do their feet.  When we did Bert on Sunday she spat like a demon and it went all over the side of the gate.  I had forgotten to clean it away and it must have been so potent it was still putting them off.  This morning I gave it a thorough scrub and this evening we were fine again!

I am continuing to practise with the camera but am not good at making the pictures interesting.  This is an example - too much grass (well, what should be grass if it would start growing properly) and too many bottoms!

When I am in with the wethers, Mossop is constantly following me around and I am sure he was sniggering when he tripped me up!

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09/03/2010 by Rosemary.

Today I have been battling with a Westhill Alpacas Brochure.  Every photo I try to include seems to have some rear end horror in the background - a pile of poo, Emily lifting her tail to display all she has to the camera, Mossop about to head butt me from behind, even a shadow of my bottom.  The good news was that, in the middle of all this frustration, The Lady who Knits - wonderful woman - emailed to say when she has a spare couple of hours she is going to see what she can do with Flamenco’s yarn.  We are talking lacey scarf here - a couple of hours!!  It would take me a couple of years!

I have also been greatly disappointed by a quad company.  Why do they advertise on their website things that they do not actually stock?  I had my heart set on a Utility Vehicle with a dear little tipper on the back.  We have got  two quads but they are very old and temperamental and I can’t handle them.  It’s alright Carl telling me to just hit it with a spanner, use a block of wood for a brake and that the thing that was the brake is now something entirely different - that is no help when you are careering downhill.  With the quad, even if I can get it going, the bucket falls off the back rack and I am no good at reversing the trailer.  It always ends up facing the same way as the quad, often at a weird jack knifed angle and sometimes even in front of the quad.  It is quite impossible to extricate myself without unhitching it and dragging it round.  I have already got the nodding dog to go on the utility vehicle.  You can tell I got it sometime ago as it has a Woolworths price sticker on it!

Anyway, now I have gone and done something Carl is going to be SO cross about.  I have got a John Deere demonstration UTV coming on Thursday evening.  I can’t contain myself for excitement!  I’ve dug out the Nothing Runs Like a Deere hat and adjusted it to fit (Dad gave it to Sam when he got his garden tractor).  Just got to pick the moment to tell Carl now!

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08/03/2010 by Rosemary.

I ache tonight!  This morning, for reasons I won’t bother to go in to, I had to walk to Okeford and back.  It was mostly downhill but still a trek and took me a good 40 minutes.  Then I had to come back - uphill, 45 minutes at a pace as I had to get back quick.  Then managing waste in the new paddocks which are all seriously steep and the girls are pooing all over the place!  The sheep were creating a terrible din as they wanted to come in  second field with me and Mossop head butted the water off the stand - twice!  So that was more uphill to fetch water.  Everyone was drinking a lot today with the sun out but the wind was bitter.  Now I am going to relax in front of the log burner and consider Cotswold sheep.  Despite Mossop, I would like a couple more sheep and I originally wanted Rydale but I have just seen a Cotwsold and that looks rather good!

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