Winter arrived

Winter is here, but these are from a few days
ago. You will have to wait for daylight for
snowy pictures

As I write the snow is coming down quite thickly now. We've had snow before already this autumn/winter but it didn't last long and something we expect at this time of the year. This snowfall may last a while though as the temperatures are set to plummet. I managed to dig up the carrots, leeks and parsnips at the weekend. Hopefully I found them all under the light blanket of snow. This morning I harvested the kale and savoy cabbage as there is no guarantee I will find them once we have a thick blanket down on the ground. 

A frost covered savoy cabbage

Frosted mallow plants

I haven't had the chance of getting my flower and herb beds protected with spruce coverings but maybe I can do that at the weekend. The plants won't need the protection from the cold at this time of the year as the snow will do that but they may need it in the spring as the snow melts and they may need protection from being eaten by deer.  

The deer nearly ate my water lily one year, but this
year they would have difficulty getting to it.
I love the abstract effect of the autumnal colours
frozen under the water.

How can one little cat cause such a fuss?

At least the fences have all been taken in, as it is difficult to taken in an electric fence once it snows and it could be broken by the weight of the snow, as well as a tripping hazard once the snow gets really deep and we forget where it is. The boys was taken in after their little escapades and they haven't been allowed out of the paddock since. They moan from time to time but I think they mainly realised that it's that time of the year anyway and if not, they will now. They don't like to go far in the snow. The girls' fence was taken in yesterday due to the forecast of up to 20cm of snow. 

An alpaca eye, Jakobs

Lolly is quite tall and getting very fluffy. She
will need all that fleece next week to keep warm.

Despite the on and off bits of snow we've had, the weather has been quite warm in between at least most of the time and so we've not had the urgency of moving out of the caravan yet. We will this week as it is getting too difficult to prepare an evening meal with the cold and dark. Some warm water on tap sounds wonderful right now. I don't ask for much do I? One of the reasons for not being in a hurry is that Lolly also still needs feeding and she is still getting a late night feed. However, this evening she challenged Chanel for a tray of food and so this will help to fill her over the night, along with the hay of course. She is one of the earliest to start eating the granular feed and will just about manage that from Ian's hand now. 

Josefs is Lolly's half brother and he's quite tall too

Ilvija can be quite timid, but definitely seems to
have learnt how to avoid being handled from her
mother

This morning Ian managed to get Chanel and Ilvija separated. Chanel is still very protective of Ilvija and that makes it very difficult to trim Ilvija's toe nails and do anything else that needs doing. This morning Ian wanted to check her front teeth and there certainly seems to be a problem with them. It is as if they are rotting away and yet just a month ago they were perfectly fine. We now have to try and work out what the problem is or whether she has been kicked and we hadn't noticed. At least in a white alpaca if there is any injury it is easy to see, but not so easy with a dark alpaca. We also did take the advantage of trimming her toe nails but she was a very squirmy one - probably because she doesn't get used to being handled due to her protective mum. 

Her mother can be sweet too, but we are oh so
wary in case she gets upset and starts spitting.

Raspberry leaves

Antonia sunbathing! In the frosty morning!

I saw a house sparrow here on our land for the first time recently. Ian has seen them before but not often. So what! It does mean that the bird diversity is increasing here, which is good. Sparrows are not that common on our land and I've seen more eagles and buzzards than sparrows in the rural areas. At the moment the most common bird is the coal tit but there was a surprise one morning when I looked out of the caravan window and saw a crested tit land on the grapevine. It was more of a shock because the caravan is in our greenhouse and the doors were shut. Not sure how it got in. We had to leave the doors open for it to escape before our cats found it. 

Frosted pine needles

There's a scary cat over there says George.
George is a bit of a wimp when it comes to the 
mud. Before they were locked in their paddock,
for bad behaviour, they would have to go through
a gate with a muddy puddle in the middle. He 
would delicately pick his way around the 
puddle. 

Our internet is back up and working properly now that the lockdown has finished. I guess a lot of folks went home, or maybe it doesn't take a lot of people to slow down our internet. I don't know. What I do know is that we now regularly get 4 or 5 Mbps but we get even more in the morning, around 10-20Mbps. I went back to our apartment for a meeting the other day as it wasn't appropriate to do that in the caravan and I got a whopping 54Mbps - bearing in mind this is a mobile internet we are using and not a fixed line one. Shame it couldn't be like that all the time, it would make some of the work I do a lot faster. 

I think this is the horehound.

Mr. P contrasts nicely with the 

frosty grass

.

This will be put in the barn for some tender 
loving care over the winter, but first we need it
to get plywood to fix it and to take stuff back
to the apartment - providing there isn't too much
snow.

Ian's been busy too. He's been fixing broken feeders, putting a rubber skirt on the barn door -made from the divider that was in the horse box- to stop snow and wind from blowing underneath, helping other alpaca owners with their alpacas, recovering the haystack with a breathable synthetic felt cover to replace the brittle plastic (I also helped with that) and last but not least trying to order a summer house, which will be a step up from the caravan and mean we can work on constructing a kitchen that I don't have to worry about the cats getting into. The only problem is that we haven't heard back as we decided to try and go for the self-build option as the built option was just outside of our price range. I would need to do quite a bit more proofreading to pay for that. 

A close up of George

Our caravan is in there!

Having the caravan spare though means we can have people to stay, particularly those who will help us with the alpacas. Now that will be good - not sure if it will work or not but at least the option is there. Ian did get a surprise message from two French students studying some veterinary related course but he's not heard back from them. Probably put them off with the rather basic accommodation, even if there will be a caravan.

Frosted marigold

A very cold day

Karla and her mum

A close up of Lolly's fleece.

Mari doing her warm up exercises.

Grass ice-cream

The grass will have disappeared under a blanket
of snow by tomorrow morning

A warm spot on top of the caravan

Cattails

Ian taking a photo and Lolly checking him out, 
or rather their shadows!

Karla

At least someone is using the outside loo. 
Good for you Valeria

Vanessa warming up in the sun

Hello Lolly!

Freddie with Josefs in the background

Turbjørn soaking up some sun

And other things

I got this look today when she turned to face me.
Fortunately she decided to do as she was told
and not spit at me in the process.

Not a plain sailing kind of week. Chanel had an eye infection, which meant putting eye cream in every night for about a week. I tried irrigating the eye at first, as that normally helps as it did with Freddie not so long ago, but after two days and no improvement we went to get a prescription from the vet. It was kind of tricky getting eye cream into Aggie recently but even worse with Chanel, who is our rather spitty alpaca. Chanel also sits down as soon as we try to do anything to her and she will often sit down near the door; so that meant straddling her to put the cream in and praying she didn't stand up in the meantime. Fortunately she decided to stay down on the floor. 

Sunrise! It really does exist

Personally if I was going to zone out on a 
frosty morning, I would choose a sunnier spot.

One night I noticed that Aggie was stamping her foot a lot and she seemed rather agitated. I thought she looked like the mites were bothering her again and so she has had oil sprayed onto her feet. It might also be the issue with her eye that is beginning to swell a little again. It's not an eye infection like Chanel's as Aggies' eye issues responded to steroid cream and not the antibiotic. It's most probably her overactive immune response to mites. The warmish (for November) weather is probably not helping. Those aren't the only alpacas we've had to deal with either. Mari has had a cough for a while, so she's on her second course of antibiotics. 

Mari seems to look fine but that cough has lingered.

The frost doesn't seem to bother them.

I wish I could say they were the only issues this week, oh no! I'd just had one of those hectic moments where I'd taken a phone call and then had a few minutes to put the chickens away before a staff meeting. I'd let the older ones out in the morning to roam around the greenhouse and eat the weeds that had been growing up. After lunchtime they are usually ready to settle down a bit so it is a good time to get them back in the ark ready for putting away for the night. Most of the chickens were already in and two of them jumped in after the grain I threw in, but of course there was one I ended up catching in the net to put her away. We had moved this last ark into the greenhouse as the weather has been awful and they were just creating mud patches on the grass where we moved them too each day. 

In more peaceful times

After that little performance I just sat down to listen to the staff meeting online and we were a few minutes in when Ian phoned. Ian knew I was in a staff meeting, so I guessed it was urgent. "The boys are out again!" Oh good grief! I tried to write something hurriedly but realised there wasn't time so slung on my boots and coat and ran out the door. "Get the poles," he yelled! So back in the greenhouse, grabbed the poles and headed up towards Ian, just as Mr. P went through the fence. "Drive them all down to the paddocks, we'll sort them out there," shouted Ian. 

I always get nervous when the little ones are
in the middle of the mayhem. 

Well that was easier said than done. There were alpacas going in all directions. Eventually I managed to separate off the little ones and two females and herded them into a paddock. Four more females were standing around wondering whether to go back to the boys. Nope! No way girls, even spitty Chanel took the hint that I was not messing around and they'd better move themselves. Eight down, three to go. I managed to get Silla up as she will sit down for the boys, although she was being harassed by Jakobs I managed to get her almost to the gate when she sat down again. She was not going to move this time, even when he sat on her head in the mud.  Ian was struggling with Brencis and a harness, so was not able to help me. 

It was rather cold that morning but so good to 
see the sunshine.

I managed to get Jakobs off but he was being too persistent and I was slipping and sliding around In the end I wrestled him to the fence (seem to have been here before). I held onto him tightly with him bucking and trying to free himself. Ian eventually came over with a couple of harnesses, one for Jakobs and one for George who had come over to join in the fun. Ian got Jakobs harnessed up and I took Jakobs back to the paddock. Ian had managed to get most of the other boys back in the meantime, while I'd been fending Jakobs off. Ian got hold of George and followed me. 

Silla looking a lot whiter here than she did 
by the end of the escapade.

Well that just left Freddie, Silla, Antonia and Vanessa. Freddie seems to be the initiator of much of the fighting with the boys, but I'm not sure he really knows what to do with the girls - fortunately in this case, because he's not breeding quality, with poor fibre and a slightly dodgy leg that is probably genetic. He showed no interest in Antonia and Vanessa and they were showing they were not taking any messing around from any males, especially a young whippersnapper like Freddie. Silla, who was by now black from sitting in the mud was wandering around. This would have been an ideal time for her to sit down as Freddie may have been easy to catch then, but no. Still we managed to get in between the two of them and headed Freddieoff back to the boys paddock. Next job was to herd the remaining three girls into their paddock. 

Surely a bit early for a bulging tummy Ilvija?

Amanda is still feeding Karla but she seems to
be starting the weaning process. Lolly is also 
taking less milk from her bottle feeds. We've
managed to drop the late night and early morning
feeds. 

Wheezing away I headed back to my staff meeting. I wrote a note in the chat box apologising for my absence with a short explanation. Not sure if the other staff who were meeting face to face saw it but I noticed smiles on the faces of those online. At one point I had some comments to make and had to wheeze through what I wanted to say. My colleagues laughed. I'm glad it's something they can understand and not frown upon. I was meant to be chairing this week's meeting but my internet has been so bad that I asked if someone else could do it fortunately.

Chanel at the front. You can see she still has skin
issues but she is so difficult to treat. She gets all 
stressed that will only make things worse. Still we
try to do what we can.

It wasn't the only event recently. The excitement in the caravan was palpable, when Ian laughed and said, "Only two more sleeps till bakery day!" We've had to manage without our usual pastries and bakery bread for over three weeks and last Friday was the first time the bakery reopened. Do you know how difficult that is for Ian? Yes I can bake but it's more of a faff at this time of the year and I'm kind of busy with work until it's dark. Not easy with a kitchen in the greenhouse that gets cold. Ian could bake his own cakes too, he's done it before, but... well the bakery is nice and of course we are supporting a local business. 

Morning on the land

Mari

I haven't followed all of COP26 but been aware of the issues. I know there will be a lot of background deals and nothing will really be done until the last moment, which is why I haven't been following it so much. I haven't been filled with a lot of hope either despite the rhetoric. I'm having trouble believing that Johnson can be serious about his proclamations. My concerns though are for the future generations. I've heard that mention of climate change is just "Project fear" and we shouldn't scare the children! But why should the children not be scared when it seems that the adults are ignoring the tsunami of change that awaits if efforts to address climate change and biodiversity loss are not taken. The children seem to understand the consequences and just want the adults in the room to actually do something instead of ignoring the data or even ridiculing it. They want the adults in the room to lead the children up the hill basically. In a tsunami, as many of us now know, the sea first retreats and uncovers all sorts of interesting things on the beach, the changes are amazing, but we need to read the signs that all is not well and retreat up the mountain. 

Blue sky! The lack of it just lately means that Ian
hasn't been out with his camera so much.

Aggie's eye is starting to look a bit swollen 
again. It will be time to get more cream I think.

So what does retreating up the mountain look like in this scenario? First reduce consumption. Buy only what you need to and make sure it is fairly made, ecologically sound and what you need - yes I did repeat that twice. In planning there is something called the mitigation hierarchy that means we should first try to avoid damage to biodiversity, if we cannot do that we should mitigate the effects (ensure they are not as bad as they could be) by restoration or rehabilitation to give it a new lease of life after the disturbance and finally offset by compensating for biodiversity loss through creating an alternative elsewhere. We can use that principle in life, by first avoiding buying something new. But if we have to buy something new and cannot reuse what we already have, then do as little damage as possible and make amends afterwards - buy locally, buy fairly traded items, buy long lasting items. Or lastly we compensate by tapping into the ecological restoration projects.

Silla

Next is to deal with our surroundings, like skimming pebbles in the lake where the ripples reach out further and further. Make our gardens productive, not primarily low maintenance. Plant useful plants, plants that feed you and the wildlife, plants that add tastes to our foods like herbs, plants that do not need to be re-seeded each year, bushes with berries, trees with fruit. Get involved in rehabilitation projects near you or find out how to start one. Let's show the kids we are doing something. 

Enjoying the sun. There has been precious little
of it just lately.

Now that will get us so far, but not far enough. There are bigger polluters of our environment and we have to remember they are stealing resources from children and grandchildren. Why do you think the kids are angry too, as well as afraid? They see their future slipping away. Do we want to pass on a dying planet or a living, breathing planet? Simple! We have enough resources to be able to rehabilitate this planet, we have the knowledge, but it is going to take an extraordinary effort to get us there. Not business as usual with greenwashing as I said in a recent meeting. Let's stop ignoring the issues that trashing our planet has done and start to restore and rehabilitate, while we still can . We need to insist that our politicians are onboard, by objecting to the companies that steal our futures and the futures of our kids and those are just for starters. Come on! We can do it! We have to do it! Acknowledge the kids are right, but we are going to have to work hard to give them a better future and not a dying one.