Weather drives Ambrosia nuts...

The whole family (8 of us) had a weekend away in Manchester, visiting our son in our annual pre-Christmas shopping get-together - I love the city, it has stunning architecture, and the canal basins are fascinating, cut into the red sandstone, with huge mills alongside, now converted into offices and apartments - but I had enough of the incessant noise of people and the city for a while, despite growing up in Bristol.

With such foul weather, and being away, there's not much alpaca news to relate - nationwide, we are all suffering from mud or standing water - and no matter the size of your herd and acreage, we deal with the issues in a proportionate, way - large herd, many acres, move them to better-drained or rested paddocks, or into barns -major exercise. Small herd, just an acre as in our case, and we have to have every part constantly serviceable - though it is divided into paddocks, there's one shelter, one entrance, so I spread a bit of gravel and sand to give the ground a bit more body where the foot traffic is heaviest - higher up the field, where I put the drain in, the grass is holding up well.

Ambrosia has started on the hard feed supplement recently, which is good, as I need her to self-wean, and if Minnie is pregnant she'll need to be keeping her energy for the new cria.

When I got back today, I was lucky to spot the nut off the gate hinge lying on the ground - I had spotted Ambrosia nibbling at it a few weeks ago and I tightened it up, but she had obviously got bored with the rain, and decided to fiddle with it again - now I like a girl that can use a spanner, but I'd rather it was in a constructive way!