The Journey: Still waiting

Early morning sunshine

Gosh it has been busy this week. I half expected a Masters thesis to land in my lap to mark, so to speak and sure enough it did. There was not much time to mark it as it was just one more thing to add to the numerous things that needed doing this week. I did spend quite a bit of time on it though, because it was only fair to the person who had put so much effort into putting it together. I had to put off marking an exam for the course I tutored, as I knew I couldn't do both and the Masters student's work had a deadline for marking and a defence this week.

Morning mist

I also managed to get our apartment sorted into some sort of shape for a family to live in over the summer. They are safely installed now, only they are coming and going, which has actually been a boon for us as we had someone help us cull two of our sheep this week and we needed to prepare them for the freezer. This was much easier in the apartment and being nice and tidy, it was lovely just to get on and sort it. Still took us until midnight before we were back in our caravan.

Aggie looking unusually alert in the cool misty morning.
Normally she just looks tired

The sheep were noisy, demanding things. We were half considering giving them away to a charity that wanted animals for work experience for ex-offenders but we couldn't give them these particular animals. It would not have been fair. Since they have gone the other ewe and the two lambs that were born earlier this year have just got on eating and not made much of a noise. There was no chorus at around 7pm demanding their grain. Actually chorus is too kind a description. The three that are left just ran up tonight and followed me inside, good as gold. I even had the lambs eating out of my hand. This is preparation for moving them further away from the area they are in now. They need to be able to follow the food.

The alpacas are there somewhere

The week feels a bit of a blur and it is hard to remember what happened. I had time to Skype with my daughter and her three. The two oldest ones read me books, the eldest has memorised most of the books, but the nearly two year old just babbled along - most amusing. He still calls me MAM-MA at the top of his voice. I got a bit more done on my analysing of work to be done for a paper that needs to be re-written and I was so close to finishing that before the thesis landed on me.

A white rainbow

So other random things? We had another coach party. We had a visit from our neighbours who haven't been around for a while, in fact they haven't been around for a couple of year, so nice to see them again. I have planted tomatoes, but still have loads more to do. I have planted herb seeds. I have sorted out restaurants, car hire, invoices, helped Ian move the chicken arks outside onto the grass and done lots of weeding. It doesn't look like I've done lots of weeding, but I have honest!

Griezites-henge

Ian has been trying to get the place shipshape and looking good. He has mowed grass, but of course with warmth and rain it needs doing again. He has moved the tractor equipment away from in front of the girls paddock to near the forest. He fixed the toilet that was sinking in one corner and he started building the next alpaca house, or maybe workshop, shop, barn - whatever it is needed for basically.

Working hard

Impressive he can still get in that t-shirt. You would be
shocked how old it is.

We both saw a baby moose with its mother. Ian saw it being chased by dogs and I saw them later. I wondered why I saw them in the day time and the baby was behind the mother. I stopped the car as I felt it was panicking the little one but it decided to go down the bank towards the river. I had no idea what to do, I couldn't go and check to see if it was okay, because a moose mum is not something to be messed with. I stood on the car runner and listened and I couldn't hear any distress calls from an animal in the water and decided the best thing was probably to hope it had found a safe place and let it's mum find it.

Looking rather skinny now after shearing. Mind you, Brencis
looks bigger than we thought he would. He's getting a big
chap now. He also decided to act up before shearing and so
he took quite a bit of convincing

I don't normally mention what happens on Tuesday in a late blog as that is the beginning of a blog week (if that makes sense), but I will this week as it is destined to be busy again as our first felting course of the year starts next Monday. So today I nipped back into our village, picked up the milk, transferred some towels to our other apartment, picked up a big pot for making stock out of bones, kept my eye on some new chicks we have and so far we have ten, we have got the boys sheared, I planted fodder beets, beetroot, carrots, peas and then put the animals away - since Ian is back at the apartment mincing up the bits of mutton, finishing off the stock after our hot plate stopped working and getting a shower.

Still waiting to hear if he is the father of a girl or boy

So all of that and we are still waiting for cria to be born. We half expected one to go into labour today, especially since we planned to do some shearing, but no. Maybe next week.