Sunday 29 December 2013

Manure to Manchester

In a period of respite from wind and rain, the herd graze in the crisp sunshine. We've moved them back over the hill as the home paddock is bare and muddy.

I moved the shelters, and had plenty of offers to help fix them:
These breathable shelters have lasted a year now - in contrast, Scrumpys shelter, which had corrugated plastic sheet roof and rear wall was ripped out of the ground and sent into the next field on the monday before Christmas (Scrump was in another more sheltered paddock). Here he is topping-up his tan this morning
:
Our son has just returned to Manchester, taking four bags of alpaca manure for their new garden!
Sorry about photo quality, due to being taken on my 'phone.

Footnote to Andy and Bev of Lane House Alpacas: your latest blog, 'Mud, Mud...' isn't displaying.


Tuesday 24 December 2013

More rain, dear?

They said my mum was mated to an exceptional stud male...
Wind battered, mud spattered - the second of two storms today has just passed over - if we'd not had the Eucalyptus tree reduced two weeks ago, it would be lying across the garden by now. The herd had their Christmas treat of vitamins ADE on sunday, and all were well behaved. They are in a filthy state, and will be heading off to a rested paddock to clean up. Joy has had a great run of felting workshops and sales evenings recently, resulting in lots of new ideas for next year.

In the last few weeks, I've taken down the ceiling over the Lounge and created a Gallery, so I've used the Christmas cards to hide the unfinished areas - I thought it was an inspired idea, but Joy has gone to bed in readiness before the big Christmas Eve(ning) gathering for friends, so I'll find out in the morning how inspired she thinks the result is...

Thanks everyone for reading and commenting on the blog, have a great, safe, Christmas with your families, friends and/or alpacas.

Sunday 8 December 2013

Alpaca-lyptus

Apparently winter has arrived - we did have the tale end of the gale here, which finished shedding the leaves off the trees, so we've been lucky.

We had our Eucalyptus tree trimmed last week and have a big pile of branches saved for the herd, as they love the leaves - I've been bundling them up and tying them to fence posts:
Tucking-in to Eucalyptus
Elstar enjoys it too.
Scrumpy (Clumpy) hasn't tried Eucalyptus yet - he's from Wiltshire - they're not sophisticated over there;-)
In 'other news', I've taken out the floor of the bedroom above the Lounge, to form a gallery, which has taken all my 'spare' time lately, today I've been chiselling, planing and rebating an Oak beam to support the remaining gallery floor - it 'only' weighs 106kg now - big heave next weekend - so it was nice to get out with the camera among the herd for a while.
Moira at sunset.