The Journey: And then..

Brencis rocking his big teddy bear look.

Well it's been another of those eclectic and hectic weeks. Trying to juggle various jobs that need doing around the farm, work related tasks and jobs for others. We finally managed to get our own alpacas sheared anyway. Our friends from just north of Riga came and helped us again with Brencis, for which we are deeply grateful. Of course we also ate food afterwards and chatted the afternoon away. It's nice that we don't have to shear all of our alpacas on one day, so we can split them into more manageable numbers. The only problem is that Ian had to keep the alpacas in on a couple of days because of the rain as we can't shear wet alpacas.

Such a smart looking chap now.

Jakobs having a good scratch on the fence now
his fleece is off.

We had help for the other boys too on another day. The difference was that Ian was also teaching our helper about shearing alpacas at the same time. He explained what he was doing as he was going along. We were just grateful for the extra pair of hands but they thought they should pay him for the teaching. Ian had no idea how much to ask, so they offered us some pork as a gift. They came back a few days later with the gift. Note to self, when someone in the countryside offers a gift of meat, remember that it is unlikely to be in neat and tidy packages. We eat meat but not great quantities at once, so a small amount of meat goes a long way. One of the pieces would have done Fred Flintstone proud. Put it this way, I split the meat into about 8 largish chunks to put in brine, split some more into small pieces, enough for three meals worth, got a jar of fat and four jars of stock out of it and then there were two smaller pieces that were put directly in the freezer.

Soaking up the sun

Freddie looking suave

Ilvija before shearing

The other problem that reared it's ugly head on that day, besides needing to deal with the meat and shear alpacas we were contacted by the agricultural subsidy people as there was a mistake with the application and it needed to be dealt with by the end of the day. That meant having to ring a friend to ring the office to find out the problem. Then Ian had to give instructions to be able to amend the application. Akkk! It was a complicated day. It was also the day when we sheared the most tricky of our alpacas, i.e. the spitty ones - although to be fair, Aggie was so relieved to get rid of her over warm coat she behaved impeccably. Even the really spitty one, Chanel, wasn't as bad as she could be. I wore a waterproof coat while we sheared her daughter, so that she didn't spit down my neck and I didn't really need it that much. We had to shear Chanel last because her skin is bad and we needed to put some diatomaceous earth on her to see if that will help. That stuff is a fine powder that kills the shears though.

She sure needed a haircut

A good scratch in the trees

Mother and daughter. From a distance the slight
grey from the powder is the only reason we
can tell them apart now. Chanel has been really
protective of Ilvija just lately, but we have
no idea what has gone off. Maybe a disagreement
with one of the other alpacas. Who knows!

The rain has cleared and warm days have suddenly arrived and we are finding there are still more alpacas to shear in Latvia. Gone are the days when we were only one of four places with alpacas in the whole country. I started writing this blog on the way home from shearing two alpacas for new owners just outside of Riga. It was so nice to talk to people who are concerned to provide the best for their alpacas though and were interested to learn. We helped move the alpacas from one field to another, as they weren't sure about how to handle them yet. They were very, very grateful. Ian the alpaca whisper struck again! Fortunately one of the alpacas was halter trained and with a bit of adjustment to a horse halter (not ideal but it worked) he led it to where it needed to go and patiently guided it through the various gates along the way. Ian's intuition was that the other would follow and he was proved right. We only struggled at one point when the follower was quite content to stay with the goats and the geese that were in the next field, but I and another lady managed to encourage it to follow. Ian also gave them some advice on grass maintenance for the alpacas and warned them of things to watch for.

Poor Chanel. Her skin is awful. We have arranged
for the vet from the university to come out at the
end of the month. She should cope until then. We
aim to get to the bottom of the issue with blood
samples and skin scrapes - whatever tests are needed.

Aggie with the fleece on that she was so happy
to have sheared off. She's been quite pleasant to
Ian just lately, even though she's pregnant.

We are starting to get a steady trickle of visitors to see the alpacas, with one lady even coming back after a visit three years ago. Another group spent ages asking questions of Ian while I was sat out of the way under the shade of a tree for an online staff meeting. Eventually we had a break in the meeting and I had to interrupt while I grabbed a coffee. It's been a busy few weeks with work. There has been the checking the theses for readability and correcting some English mistakes, reviewing some more theses in preparation for their defences and then sitting in and listening to them. So excuse me if my own English has gone to pot, so to speak. I'm having difficulty readjusting my brain between all these different things I've been reading. I also attended another conference online and Ginger Tom got in on the Zoom call while I was speaking, fortunately everyone just laughed. Why does he become so affectionate when I'm on the computer?

Ginger Tom taking a nap in the sun.

The swallow is nesting, even whilst we were shearing

He looks such a cutie but he can be a bit of a
menace for picking fights. We were wondering
today if we will have to separate him and
George his half-brother

Ian of course is also busy at this time of the year. There's the shearing and the preparation for shearing, like cleaning and sharpening the equipment and cleaning out the alpaca houses. Then there's mowing the grass that has suddenly burst into life and sorting out a water leak at the apartment that took 6 hours. He also had to take a trip back to the big town to get his ID card after forgetting to take his passport the last time but while he was there he also took the car for its annual technical inspection. It didn't pass and he has a month to sort out leaf springs, one of which has cracked, so we're pleased they found that out. Fortunately we have a good local garage that will sort that out, hopefully.

George eating through the fence again. Sigh!

Larry the Lada setting off on adventures new.
The reason the young chap is steering with the
door open is there is also a bees' nest in the car.
Not a honey bees' nest though.

We said goodbye to Larry the Lada this week. A relative of our alpaca friends, who came to help us, was interested in our old Lada that hasn't run for years. I have may have mentioned a few times that it needs to be removed, it was becoming a bit of an eyesore, so when someone said they were willing to take it off our hands we were delighted. The two young men came and surprisingly got the car to start after a few attempts. They then arranged for it to be transported away, although that had to wait until we got back from shearing in Riga which was just after 10pm - still light though. Apparently Larry might end up as a run about on a piece of land, or be broken up for spare parts. Fine if you have the time for that sort of thing but Ian doesn't nowadays.

Mr. P. looks a bit scruffy once he's sheared as he
goes and has a roll in the dust and it shows.

Tellus the stud male that all the ladies like. Here
not looking his best due to all the fat lumps he
has now. Not sure what makes an alpaca prone
to fat lumps.

The cold start to the year has meant that we are behind on somethings like getting the chickens out of the greenhouse - they are finally outside. I've taken a distinct dislike to our new chickens though. We got back one day after a trip out and wondered what had gone off as there was a bit of blood on a perch, but all the chickens went rushing in for food at putting away time as they normally do and so thought no more about it. Same again in the morning, all the chickens rushed out for their feed. However, by mid-morning I went to take a look and one was dead and I had to fight off the others to get to it. They had pecked it to death. Not sure if it had a prolapse or not but a few days later they did that to another chicken. It was horrible. This week it looks like the chickens had been removing the eggs from the nesting box and started to eat the eggs. If they carry that on, they will be in the pot - all of them. Hopefully being outside will help to focus their mind on other things.

You can see that Tellus has quite a few fat lumps
on his neck.

Surprisingly Turbjørn responded quite well to
shearing. We did take the precaution of giving
him some pain relief before we started the
shearing process and was ultra careful with him.
I wonder if the mosquitoes are bothering him though
as he can't move his head so well to get rid of them.
I have found a fly spray that is pleasant enough and
yet works, but of course it has to be applied often
enough.

Those pesky flies get everywhere

Looking very summery now

Valeria cooling off in the shade of a tree.

Elegant Mari, elegant! We sheared her half-sister
yesterday. We were a bit surprised to find out that
one group of new owners had got their's from our
friends up in Estonia.