RIP Alicia

Alicia

Well after coaxing Alicia to stand for a couple of weeks, Ian came home one morning and said, "she won't stand at all. Can you come out and help me?" I went out with him and we tried to get her moving, we tried rubbing her legs to stimulate the circulation, in case they had gone to sleep by sitting too long, but she was having none of it. Ian at this point decided, enough was enough and we called round to see the vet. We opted to have her put down the following day, as Alicia didn't seem particularly distressed and she wasn't making a lot of noise calling to the others, as they do when they are bothered about sitting on their own. The vet came the next day and I noticed that Alicia seemed to have ballooned up, so something was going on. Ian held her head in his arms while the vet found a vein and while the injection took effect. She passed away peacefully. We then had to carry her out to the tractor to transport her to our barn for an autopsy. Not exactly the most elegant of transportation, but needs must. We found out the reason for her ballooning up anyway, it was fluid collecting in her abdomen and it contained a lot of protein that would suggest liver failure, but her liver looked fine. On reading up on the internet afterwards, we are inclined to think it was heart failure. The vet thought her heart looked big, but she wasn't sure how big an alpaca heart should be. She is now buried up in the corner of one of our fields, it wasn't the most pleasant of jobs, as it was difficult to do it gently, but we figured she was past caring.

Alicia's corner. A nice restful place

Veronica hogging the water bucket

Of course Ian found it hard, she was a lovely alpaca who would stand a bit of molly coddling and they had been through a lot together, what with the baby she gave birth to in the coldest of months and then the lung infections - or at least that's what we thought might be the case. Maybe it was her heart all along, making it difficult to breathe at times. I don't know, I'm not a vet, I'm a pharmacologist or at least was back in my younger days. Today, though Ian is thankful we did what we did, it has been so hot and if she couldn't stand, she wouldn't have been able to reach the water bucket. She was also our only black alpaca and as such would have absorbed a lot of heat. Our two pregnant alpacas have been suffering in the heat, one takes her place by the water bucket, continually sipping out of it and won't let the others near. I'm off tomorrow to get extra buckets. They won't even go out much to eat the grass that is finally growing, they just sit inside their shed eating the hay, out of the sun. I had a bit of a brainwave this morning and suggested to Ian that he moves their fence to incorporate the trees and so they can sit out under those. It is nearer to the boys paddock and a bit of a stretch for the fence from the girls, but they take priority at the moment. They get the afternoon shade too, as they are nearer the trees, good in summer but colder in winter. You can tell how hot it must have been, it is 9 o'clock at night here and still 24C out on the balcony. This is May isn't it?

Well why go out in the hot sun, when food is right out
the door?

They do eat the grass sometimes

It wasn't much use attempting to shear the alpacas at the beginning of the week, they had been spending their days out in the rain getting soaked. Inside when it was dry and out when it was wet. We can't shear the girls, until after they have given birth and now we are beginning to wonder if the sooner they are mated the better for next year (Alpacas have 11 1/2 month pregnancies). The earlier they can have babies the better we think, it might be easier to keep babies warm, than to keep them cool in a heatwave and May can get quite warm. If the alpacas are born later on in the year, the alpaca cria (babies) might not be big enough for the winter to keep warm. A delicate balancing act for sure.  Whilst I'm on about shearing, most people guessed that the mystery object was a pair of shears, but they have been modified with a wooden block. Last year, shearing was a bit of a headache and took absolutely ages and so Ian has been doing some investigating and noticed that there was a special attachment for alpacas that gave a longer cut that cost a huge amount of money and so Ian experimented to see if the wood block might work. If it does work it might be a good idea for when the biting insects start and also may make shearing easier. We tried it out on Alicia, just before the autopsy, one for a reminder of her and two to make the autopsy easier. It seemed to work well, so we hope when we get around to the boys that it will work as well.

Wandering chicken

We are not coming out

We have wondered if our boys are too warm and that is why they have been sitting around the hay feeder, but now we are beginning to suspect that they are just being lazy. The girls we can appreciate not wanting to go out, they have less shade available, but the boys! Ian decided not to fill up their hay feeder and make them go out on the grass. Today though, they sat inside, there is still hay in their shed, as their bedding is made up of hay. Might have to take more drastic action and make them go out in the mornings when it is cooler.

Gorgeous place to be

Ian's hard work, preparing the ground for other crops

There has been some niggly little things happen this week, which only added to the general feeling of misery at the beginning of the week. I broke my crock pot when some weights slid off and hit the bottom of the pot from some dandelions I had cooked and was pressing the juice out. We made dandelion syrup last year and loved it, so we thought we might do the same again this year. It was the merest of cracks and at first I thought it was just chipped, but no, the crack went through. So now we have a planter for outside the caravan and the electrical part will have to be binned at some suitable site when we go to the big town. The breadmaker broke too. Ian thought he might have managed to fix it, but it didn't work, unfortunately. All it needs is a new copper bearing apparently, the rest is working fine. Pah! The part doesn't seem to be available either. Double Pah!

None the worse for his swim

Another cockerel tried to go for a swim again this week, this time chased by the dominant cockerel and not us. They are obviously mistaking the grass growing in the pond as walkable on. Wrong! We have been discussing what to do with the chickens. Someone is interested in buying some off us, so that might help, but they are still wandering near and far. We even discussed things like having a kite with a hawk shape on it, but then it isn't always windy near us. We jokingly thought a drone hawk might be a good idea, flying it every now and again to make them go in. Probably freak out the alpacas too. At least we have sorted out the errant cockerel that wouldn't go in at night, Ian caught him and we put him in the horse box to wait for the culling of two of our cockerels in one of the arks and then he can go in there with his own set of ladies. Rather curbing his freedom, somewhat, but we hope the company makes up for it.

His wandering days are over though.
Next stop one of the arks with some
new lady friends

The oak tree looking good.

Another reason for curbing the dear chaps freedom was the rude awakening at 4:50am the night we decided to stay in the caravan. He decided to cock-a-doodle-do right outside, not a good move. It did mean we were up and moving around quite early that morning. I think we were in the garden before 8am, which was nice since it was quite hot later, in fact so hot we decided to have a snooze in the afternoon - how Mediterranean! This time the other cockerel decided to pay a visit to the greenhouse and started crowing whilst he was in there, I was awake and up running outside in my stockinged feet to chase the blighter out. Fortunately I don't think he damaged anything, since our tomatoes were all planted out. Not a good day, awoken twice by cockerels. We still ponder our decisions about how to deal with them. I think tomorrow there needs to be decisive action.  The drier weather at least has also meant chance to get things in the garden and we have planted out a lot of kale plants (hope they are going to be all right though as the sky has gone a really weird orange as I write this blog, I think a storm is imminent), I planted out more beans, some fodder beet and done lots of weeding, before they really take off. I even managed to tidy up my herb bed and made it look neat and tidy again.

It did rain too earlier on in the week though

At least a nice rainbow to make up for it

Sofie our cat has gone missing again. Why she goes on these little jaunts we have no idea. We do wonder if it is something to do with either the ticks or the tick medicine. She had that two days before she went missing. She does seem to make an annual event of this, maybe she is just away on her holidays. She could send a card though and then we would know where she is. The longest she has been away is six days, so hopefully she will be back soon.

After the rain, the sunshine, so plenty of
solars for our solar drier. Drying some
sage.

A rather handsome chap don't you think? Not sure if it is
harmful or not though.

It hasn't all been bad news this week. Our daughter and husband sold their house this week in Australia, all preparation for coming back to the UK. Our youngest finally got a job this week, so relief all round. It should be quite stretching for him as it is a design engineer job, so he needs to learn some more about engineering principles of design, he knows some but his degree was more design based. But after nearly a year out of work, after finishing his degree, it was getting really worrying for him and he was understandably quite despondent. All credit to him, he kept plugging away looking for jobs though.

The dandelions look absolutely gorgeous. Pity we don't
want this many though. We want grass. Ian is holding
off cutting them, because they still turn into seed anyway
after cutting. We are gritting our teeth and letting the grass
grow, as that way they will shade out the sun loving
dandelions. Or at least that's the theory

Barley take two! The stuff we planted before winter died
so we are trying again with a spring one and also the
seed we had last year. Maybe it was spring barley too, it
grew faster than the one we know was spring barley.
Oh well! It will make forage whatever happens.

My studies over the last few weeks have been about making maps with people or for people. It has been an interesting exercise, but something struck me as I read yet another paper that either didn't meet the true participatory ideal, i.e. including at least a representation from all sectors of society that feel the effects of decisions, or are part of the decision making process or bemoaned the fact mapmaking by the authorities wasn't truly participatory, that instead of saying "it isn't happening" type of thing, we should be saying "so how can we make it happen? What needs to change?"I think there are a few things in life that we could add that kind of thinking too and not just in the wishful thinking category, but seriously applying our noggins to the issue (for my friends who might struggle with Google translate for noggin, it is a word sometimes used for head, or brain). Identifying the problem is one thing, but instead of getting stuck there, we should be working towards making it happen and often that means really examining what is done and looking for issues, but also trying to think outside the box. Unfortunately politicians aren't very good at thinking outside the box these days. Sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes its not. Nowadays though, we need some real creative thinkers to generate some alternative outcomes for our planet - otherwise, one way or another we are in trouble.

Apple blossom time! Taken with my new camera

This evenings rather ominous looking sky

Lost and found

The long lost wheel support

 A long, long, long time ago Ian lost a wheel support for his hay turner. It is probably nearly two years ago since he lost it, even though we had four of us scouring the land on the day it was lost,  and so we never expected to see it again. Ian fashioned a support for the turner out of wood, but that didn't last and it has been propped up when not in use on various large logs ever since, not ideal. It was still usable, just not as stable when not on the tractor. Last week he was going over the land with the tractor, ironing out lumps in the ground from pig and mole damage, when he found it, nestled in amongst a group of trees. He's not exactly sure how it got there, but at least he has it back now. This week Ian was bemoaning the fact a nail had come out of the door on the alpaca house, he wanted a really powerful magnet so he could make sure he found it, before one of the alpacas found it in their feet. Ian is fastidious when it comes to things lying around and makes sure that string is picked up, nails accounted for etc. so that none of the animals comes to any harm from those sorts of items. He was just saying how it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack when he looked down on the floor and there it was. Great relief all round. My example though, smacks of a senior moment. I went into the barn looking for the garden sieve that Ian had made. I looked high and low and was just at the point when I was going to give up and go and get Ian to search for it when I spotted it, right in front of me or "hidden in plain sight," as we sometimes say.

Our cats taking refuge from the snow in
the greenhouse. As you can see they have
not been sheared, like I threatened. Apparently
it just comes back thicker than ever and we
don't want that. I am slowly working my
way through the coats, but it sometimes feels
like painting the forth bridge, you no sooner
get to one end and you have to start again

That is four and half trailer loads of manure from the alpaca
houses, built up over winter using the deep bed system and
rotting hay that Ian removed from bales. It took us about six
hours to move it all, but all done and dusted in one day.
Good job I made a stew in a cast iron pot and put it in a hay
box and under a duvet to keep warm. At least it was cooked
and ready to eat when we finished it.

We have been rather busy this week as you would expect at this time of year. The ground had dried out after the winter melt of the frozen ground, in fact it had dried out too much and so I was worried about planting seeds, especially after last years drought. It was that dry that there have even been yellow alerts for forest fires. At least it allowed us to get on with ground preparation and Ian rotavated the gardens, or at least he rotavated one and part of the other one before the belt got too loose and the rotavator stopped working. He finished the other garden off by ploughing it with the two wheeled tractor. Even though we haven't had rain for about two weeks there was some forecast and so I made a push to get some more seeds in. We now have three beds of carrots, two of sweetcorn, and three of fodder beet. All done in about two hours thanks to my seed planter and that included raking out the beds - it is so much easier than the back breaking work of planting by hand when there is a lot to do. That wasn't all that was prepared, as Ian has been working on getting the field ploughed with the big tractor and he even got one section planted up with spring barley to replace the winter one that succumbed due to lack of snow cover or due to being the wrong type of seed. Just in case it was spring sown barley and not winter, then we have used some more of the seed we have and will see what grows. Wouldn't be so bad if it had a label on it.

The land is ploughed up to the forest edge now, or rather
the ditch in front of the forest edge. The patch on the right
has now been planted up with the barley

The vie from our living room this morning

I also planted up smaller sections in our orchard garden, so more carrots of different varieties, more rocket, mizuna, parsnips, hamburg parsley, and goodness knows what else - thank goodness I did at least write it down (Ian will be pleased, my record for loosing track of what I plant is not too good). I even got some strawberries, lemon balm, marjoram and sage dug out to plant elsewhere, some of which have gone in the orchard plot and the rest heeled in waiting for their permanent place. Only one problem with all this planting was that the rain that we were expecting today turned out to be snow. Not much has settled although we have had some heavy snow showers. It is a little worrying, but fortunately I deliberately planted the sweetcorn quite deep and don't expect it to be germinating just yet. Hopefully with the warmer weather forecast for next week then they won't have come to any harm. Most stuff I planted will take a little frost though and so I'm not too worried about them.

The view on the land this morning

In between the snow showers was a much fresher scene
than of late. At least the grass has greened up, or maybe
it was just the dust that has been washed off

I haven't just been busy in the garden of course, as I still have studying to do. I am trying my best to work through loads of paper for a review article I need to write. I could write it now with the amount of papers I have read through already, but I want to make a thorough job of it and so it will save me time later when it comes to writing up my thesis, just it is proving to be slow going with plenty of interruptions for gardening and writing up a proposal for another paper. I was really pleased with proposal when my supervisor thought it was "rather attractively composed." I like that! At least it means I must be getting something right.

But snow showers continued for much of the day. 

Perhaps not a good time to try transplanting tomatoes. Here
Ian has set up water in black boxes to warm up during the
day to give off heat to the plants at night. We also use a
double layer of fleece. During the day, the temperatures are
very acceptable, but the night time ones are worrying

I forgot to update you on my youngest son's interview a couple of weeks ago. He was successful in the interview and they sent him for a couple of days training before sending him off on his own to do some cold calling in businesses to try and sell telecommunications. He absolutely hated the job though, one morning of cold calling and he called it a day. I'm proud that he gave it a go, but it is not a job I could do and to have cold called 60 companies in one morning with no success is demoralising for anyone. He also went for another interview, but doesn't think that was successful, he would probably have heard by now. So the poor guy is still looking for work and plodding on, but at least he keeps trying. That must count for something at least!

Hope the grapes don't suffer. There seems to be plenty of
them coming through

Chickens enjoying the sunshine and doing a good job of
denuding the ground of any vegetation. Good preparation
for the garden extension for next year.

There have been many moments when I have asked "Where oh Lord are you leading?" It seems all so vague at times and I am not sure where the things we are doing is taking us too. I had one of those Duh! revelations though, when chatting about the conference in Tallinn I went to last week to Ian and talking about the heart of the European Landscape Convention, which I had been hearing more about. The words "European Landscape Convention" sounds rather stuffy and formal and yet another layer of bureaucracy, but at its heart is human rights and landscapes. It suddenly dawned on me, isn't that part of the heart of God? The dignity of people and linked to the land

“‘Message of God, the Master: On the day I scrub you clean from all your filthy living, I’ll also make your cities livable. The ruins will be rebuilt. The neglected land will be worked again, no longer overgrown with weeds and thistles, worthless in the eyes of passersby. People will exclaim, “Why, this weed patch has been turned into a Garden of Eden! And the ruined cities, smashed into oblivion, are now thriving!” The nations around you that are still in existence will realize that I, God, rebuild ruins and replant empty waste places. I, God, said so, and I’ll do it." (Ezekiel 36:33-36)

So we are looking for the empty waste places to be replanted and through that revealing the heart of God for people. May sound presumptuous, but we believe in a God who wants the best for all mankind and who gave us a wonderful planet to care for, with an amazing variety of life. That's worth working towards I think.

Update on Alicia. She is still hanging on in there, but we are reconciled to maybe having her put down this week, unless she shows a miraculous recovery. She is not getting better and in fact is getting more unsteady on her feet. We have to think of the health of the rest of the herd and this won't be helping. So difficult decisions to make.