The Journey: And so it continues

New tyres

On Thursday of last week, Ian went off to the garage to get some new tyres for the car and I had my Latvian lesson. I happily told my Latvian teacher, in Latvian, that the boys had been peaceful since the last incident. After the lesson, I needed a coffee before starting work, so I switched on the kettle and then went out of the back door of the greenhouse to the outside office (aka the loo). As I went back to finish off making my coffee, I saw a row of faces staring intently at me over the fence. I thought that was a little odd but waved merrily at the alpaca boys.

It's not completely unusual to be stared at by the
alpaca boys just perhaps not a row of them.

Life has also been a little wet just lately. Our
well is rather full.

Life is a little complicated in some ways and could do with a little bit of a reorganisation, so while the kettle and coffee are in the greenhouse, the milk is down in the coolness of the barn, as it is a better location for the fridge. I set off out of the front door of the greenhouse and saw the girls were not heads down gently grazing the grass, instead they were all gathered together with their heads up and postures that suggested they were on their guard. My level of alertness went up the scale, scanning for the cause of their behaviour.

This is how they should have been, quietly
and peacefully grazing.

Josefs does tend to stand out for his
distinctive markings

I spotted Josefs first, his distinct brown and white colouring standing out against the mainly solid colouring of the girls. Then I spotted little Jakobs too. My heart sank. I was home alone and needed to act. I plonked my coffee down and ran, meanwhile mentally calculating if there were any more loose alpacas. Nope, just the two young ones. I knew they had tried to join in the mating game at the weekend and so not likely to be able to just head them off.

On a more peaceful, sunny day.

Really, this is how they are most of the time.
Just peaceful grazing away.

I enacted plan A: I went to close the gate to stop the girls getting into the paddock and went back to try and drive the two boys in, since at least they were still on the outside of the girl's electric fence. As I got closer though, they crashed/leapt through the fence into the girls area.

At least Freddie wasn't involved..... this time! He
is often mixed up with the fighting just lately and
is perhaps the most persistent. The others often
give up before he does. You wouldn't think it
from that sweet face would you?
Don't be fooled!

Lolly has such a sweet face and is looking more
and more like a little female version of
Mr. Tellus, her father

Plan B: (Plan A didn't last long then) I went back to open the gate and try to drive as many girls as I could into the paddock. I ended up driving in Jakobs too. I gathered the herding sticks and managed to capture him in a corner and man-handled him along the fence and out of the gate. There was nothing I could do about Josefs and so herded Jakobs back to the boys paddock and grabbed a harness for Josefs.

It will be interesting to see what colour she is at shearing time.

Still soaking up that sun.

Plan C: Get as many of the girls into the paddock as possible as Josefs was intent on mating with Mari. He would be busy for a while. I did notice he was definitely a rooky suitor as he wasn't positioned correctly. At least that was what I hoped! I was surprised though that Mari was sitting down for him, she doesn't like Josefs. I managed to get all except Mari through the gate and could now concentrate on getting Josefs.

I'm surprised that Mr. P wasn't there too with
Josefs and Jakobs. He so wants to visit the girls.
He is often stood by the fence
staring in their direction.

Hopefully Mari is not pregnant, but interesting
that she sat down for Josefs. She would normally
spit him off as soon as she saw him.

Mari had stood up by then and was moving around a bit, which made it more difficult to get him. He wasn't giving up easily though and so I was able to walk up to him and get the harness strap around his neck. With the strap around him he wasn't able to run off and so I was able to get hold of him properly to put his harness. After that he wasn't too much bother to lead him back to the other boys. I secured their paddock gate and went back for my coffee and cake. I needed cake!

Turbjørn was not involved either, but no
surprise there.

Antonia.

I rang Ian who was still at the garage and told him the news. All was calm by now. Everyone was in the right paddock and I would let Ian deal with them all later. A few minutes went by and Ian rang me. "I have a problem," he said, "I'm nearly back but the wheel is nearly off". Oh my goodness! The garage guys were on their way pronto and soon sorted him out. They had no idea how it happened, as they checked the required torque wrench settings when putting the wheels back on. Fortunately though, due to Ian's prompt action in stopping when things didn't feel right, nothing was damaged and he managed to find all the nuts from the wheel.

Another issue we have is the
caused by the moles.
We must be mole city by now as they
are popping up molehills all over the place.
This is on the path up
to the girls' houses.

This is just outside Vanessa's house and there are plenty
around our large greenhouse and even some just inside.
There are also mounds and holes appearing in the little
greenhouse and outside of that. There are some around
the boys' house and in their field as well. Just about everywhere.

Just a little scratch

In an attempt to return to get back to normal I then spent some time reading a PhD thesis for one of our students and doing a little editing, followed by some lunch and a bit more editing. At one point I suddenly realised that I needed to do some work on the final proofs for the article that had been accepted recently and it needed doing before the next day. Phew! That left me just time to grab a quick cup of coffee before an online meeting.

Oh that is so much better!

Ilvija and Lolly searching for grass amongst
the leaves.

I listened to the presentation on the position of the bioeconomy in EU policy by someone from the European Commission, then we were assigned to work groups. Our internet hasn't been great and so I didn't immedieately volunteer for the rapporteur's job, but after waiting for several minutes for someone else to volunteer, I realised we were not getting anywhere fast, so agreed to do the job. So that is how I finished the day by giving a five minute report for our group from our caravan in the middle of rural Latvia, on a by now dodgy internet, to the folks from the European Commission - as you do! It was an odd kind of a day. They're not all like that though, thank goodness.