Normality?

Spot the errant chicks

Last week I forgot to mention the escaping animals. We have the regular escapes by the chicks, but that is normal at this stage as they are getting bigger and can either fly over the fence or muscle their way underneath. Each have had their wings clipped now but they still escape. Soon they will be going into an ark where they won't be able to escape at all - unless they dig their way out and I am not discounting that ever happening. Those folks from Chicken Run knew a thing or two about chickens. This evening after a lovely meal with the people who have been staying in our apartment we came back to find that seven of the little dears had escaped. Fortunately they are very easy to collect up, just throw some grain in to the fenced off area, open the gate and wait, throw a little more in to keep the rest busy and then wait some more or encourage the daftest to move in the right direction.

The storks are still around, but it won't be long before they leave

The boys where they should be, behind the gate

The first major escape was all the boys. The felting class was coming to an end and everyone was standing around chatting when someone shouted something like "The boys are out". I looked up to see them all trotting down the path. Whoops! We shouted to Ian who was busy talking to a group of visitors and I went inside to get some food in trays. Ian made his way over one way and I made my way over from a different direction. The boys were not cooperating well and were not terribly bothered about returning back to their paddock. The next thing we know two of our friends who were also alpaca owners and two others were heading up behind us in a row with arms outstretched like we do when trying to encourage them back. I think the boys realised they were outnumbered by enough people who had some idea of what they were doing and decided to cooperate after all. We are not sure how exactly they escaped, but suspect our visitors hadn't shut the gate properly - it can be a bit loose and has an extra catch, which also needs to be shut.

Little George also managed to get through the fence today.
The girls fence was also moved and George got confused
with the change of area. The girls of course took it in their
stride, Frederiks hesitated but got the idea, but George
after some hesitation ran straight through the wires.
He was put back behind the wire fence and the fence
switched on to remind him what it is there for

Mr. P. staring longingly in the direction
of the girls

The second escape was by Mr. P. and this was a little more serious. He has been paying a visit to Chanel and Mari to mate with them and Aggie has been curious about the goings on in the alpaca house and looking in. Well! I think Mr. P. must have been finished with the other two and crashed the gate and broke the latch. He then tried mating Aggie who obediently sat down for him. Yes we want him to mate with her, but not just yet. She still must have been a bit sore because she suddenly stood up and we were able to lead away a slightly distraught and worked up young alpaca. Next time Mr. P., next time. Oh the goings on, on a farm!

Best buddies still

In their new area with plenty of lush green grass

Our sheep needed moving today and they gave us a bit of concern too. The idea was to take them through the fence to their next area and to do that Ian held the wires up out of the way so they could walk underneath. I had a bowl of feed to keep them occupied while Ian sorted out the wires and then I lead them underneath the wire - so far, so good. The older more experienced sheep knows the ropes and followed me through the gate and into the new paddock, the lambs did not. They saw the wires of the new fence and hesitated in no man's land between the new area and the old one. I went back through and showed them the bowl of feed and let them eat some, but they were still not going to be lead through that gate. The older sheep thinking more about food, came to see what all the rattling was and helped me, inadvertently, get the lambs into the new paddock. Phew! The lambs are sure looking good though with some very nice fleeces. Hopefully in about 18 months time they will make some fine mothers.

Ian does a lot of this at this time of the year, mowing grass.
This is the area where the sheep were and just mowing all
the bits the sheep don't like to eat to keep it under control.
He did have a little incident with the mower before this. He was
reversing it and it wouldn't stop easily (it is rather heavy and
a slipping clutch) so he ended up backing into the electric fence.
All I can say is, I wish I had been there to see it.

One lot of bales stacked outside before the rain

One aspect about this year that has been truly exasperating is the weather forecasts. The weather must have been particularly unpredictable as we have never known it be wrong on so many occasions as this year. Ian managed to get bales of hay done at our neighbours and we rolled them together, but because we intend to stack them outside, he wanted to be absolutely sure they were dry and because the weather forecast only showed a little rain, then we decided not to rush and get them all in. Hmmmph! Mistake! We stacked one lot and had our evening meal and as I headed for the outside loo, I saw some very dark clouds rolling in pretty fast. As I got back to the greenhouse the dark clouds had an eerie green light behind them, it was pretty evident we were not in for a light shower but a storm. Perseid may have been putting on a show the other day, but in our neck of the woods we were seeing a light show of a different kind. We decided that we would eat dessert in the caravan with electric unplugged. Fortunately we had got the animals in and sorted before eating since it looked like there could be some rain. As for the bales of hay? They are still drying in the field.

Aggie, Chanel and Frederiks having a run around the paddock

I can almost imagine Lady V tutting at the young folk of today

Brencis keeping an eye on me to see what I'm doing. Especially
as I was wandering around with Ian's camera

Things around here are returning to some sort of normality, although we had two groups of visitors on one day. One group took a wrong turning so we ended up showing both around at the same time at one point, with one group having a translation in Latvian and the other a translation in Russian. One group had two young men translating, as they live in the UK, although they are Latvian. It was funny to hear the Yorkshire twang of the older young man and they were both quite talkative. I think they would still be here yet, chatting away if they weren't dragged away by the older members of their group. The other group were a mother, daughter and granddaughter. The daughter also worked in the UK and has been avidly researching alpacas, as she was interested in having some in the future like the group we had last week. That meant they stayed a lot longer and Ian and the young lady chatted a lot about alpacas. We are not sure we would be able to sell alpacas just yet, due to building up our own herd, but we could at least provide alpaca care services and help in obtaining some when they are ready.