A Tough Week

One sunny frosty morning and the boys are outside for a
change

It is weird how this week seems to have been both a long hard slog and yet flown by. It's hard to believe that in a few hours I will be going to collect Ian from the airport. As I mentioned in my last blog i was waiting for someone to come and help us to cull our sheep. The sheep were content enough waiting as they had hay to eat. That is until it was time to get hold of one of them. Apparently she was a little stronger than my friend anticipated and so escaped. In trying to sort that one out, another escaped. I managed to catch the last one and kept her pinned up against the fence of the pen whilst the others were enticed back in. They were a bit wary, until my friend had the brainwave to feed the penned in sheep with some grain and the others decided they wanted what she had, so in they trouped. Don't worry, I didn't unduly stress the one that was pinned up against the fence - I'm only little and she was a big sheep. Not sure what I would have done if she had actually struggled at all, she just stood their quietly.

It's been a mixed bag as far as the weather is concerned with
snow coming and going all week. Sometimes I have had to
break ice and sometimes the roofs are dripping in the moist
air filling the water troughs

One of the new girls sitting outside on a snowy day. I guess
she must be feeling warmer as it is no longer -12C like some
days last week, more like between 0 and -2C

Culling sheep is not a noisy affair and it was done as quietly and respectfully as possible. We started about six and were finished at nine, with the carcasses left to hang from the beams in our barn. I rolled into our apartment at about 10pm that night after defrosting the car before I could set off- so a long day. I spent the next two days sorting out the meat, ready for the freezer, so yet more long days. The meat needed cutting up, wrapping, labelling and sorting out into fatty bits and small pieces of meat for pies and stews. Some was minced and frozen in packs and some was turned into burgers. It was hard physical work and so I was absolutely whacked by the end of it all. Meat in our household is precious - we know where it has come from, what it has eaten and how much effort has gone into preparation of it, so we do our best not to waste any of it.

One of the days we had ice rain
that covered everything in a thick
layer of ice

It was beautiful if difficult day.
These plants look like glass

The trees were struggling though under the weight of ice.
Fortunately nothing really major but I did have to stop on the
road at one point and remove a small branch that had come
down

Finally after three long days I got an early night. While Ian has been away I have been going to bed earlier and reading a book with a cup of cocoa or a cup of tea. I find it a nice way to unwind at the end the day and get off to sleep, so it was good to get a chance to do that again. My current evening read is Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America". Back in the mid 90s he was arguing that we need to think carefully about the soil and how much it means to us and our sustainability, and how we should be caring for it. I wonder if he has the feeling of "I told you so!" because it is definitely a very current topic in agricultural sustainability. So much soil has been lost to the air or through water erosion. Not just centimetres but in some cases metres of topsoil has disappeared, either ending up in rivers and estuaries or polluting the air. The very stuff we depend on for our vegetables and grains - gone!

Brencis and Turbjørn outside. They look so alike and yet they
are nephew and uncle really. 

More melting snow on a misty day. This is the worst of
weathers to be driving in on the dirt roads. Even travelling
slowly in a 4x4 I was slipping, I resorted to the diff lock

Wendell Berry also talks about how much we have lost the connection with the land, from agribusiness to urban dwellers alike. On the one hand it is amazing to read and think that someone agrees with what I have been saying just lately and on the other hand I feel sad that someone has said it all before and not just recently but decades ago. The warning signs were there and we didn't heed them. Now we are heading for calamity unless we change course quickly. We have to reduce our consumption, we have to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that not only affects our climate in terms of temperature but it pollutes our air, our waterways and our bodies. He likens it to us stealing from our future generations. In reality it is not 'just our future generations, it is our current younger generations who will be left with the mess we are making. Not a pleasant thought!

Is there some for me? Afternoon treats of carrots, squash and
alfafa pellets. I had to lead Chanel to a tray, she kept
wandering around. The others just got on and found a tray

  

Jakobs is getting the hang of this feed time now. I started him
on the grain at nights when he started pinching some from his
mum's tray. He now eats the squash and alfalfa pellets. He
doesn't seem so sure of the carrots though. His mum helps
him out - or steals from him, whichever way you look at it.

Well as I get ready for Ian coming back the apartment is beginning to resemble a home again and not a place just for passing through. The washing up is finally all done, scones made - Ian needs his energy, our evening meal ready for tomorrow to save time and the wood brought up from the cellar ready for the next few days. Maybe tomorrow I can relax a bit in the evening. Maybe!

Poor Jakobs just looks bemused by it all. He keeps investigating
the trays but doesn't actually eat anything. At night he goes
for the hay in the feeders whilst the adults are all occupied

Mum can I have some milk now? I think the answer was "No!"

One of Vanessa's crew aka new girls eating the snow. They do
like the Christmas trees to eat too

Beauty in winter

The pond is finally beginning to fill, but you
can see the pipe along the upper most rim
of brown. That's how full it should be at this
time of the year.

Snowy days

Not quite the view on the way home from the airport but a
similar pinkish hue in the sunrise on the farm

The view on the way home from the airport after dropping Ian off was breathtaking. Just before I arrived in our village the landscape was suffused with the most delicate of pinks as the sun set behind me. I longed to stop and take a picture but had to suffice with drinking in the view whilst hurrying to the farm to put the animals away before the sun dipped below the horizon. Fortunately the animals have been good to me for the most part this week, apart from hiding their feeding trays from time to time. Having said that, sometimes they have been finding trays for me too. One was propped up on the side in the alpaca house one morning and then one was laid neatly outside the door one afternoon.

I have no idea how they manage
to place a tray on the side of the
alpaca house. It take some skill

It has been pretty cold and ice crystals have been building

On the first evening I was washing up when the electric went off. Charming I thought. The problem is that we have only been living in that apartment for about three weeks now and so I had to think hard where the nearest candles and matches were. Fortunately they weren't far. I then checked to see if it was just our apartment but then got a text from the electric company to say they were working on the problem, so obviously not just us. The other issue was that I had only just loaded up the wood fire so hurriedly had to clamp that off before it boiled the water in the heating system. Funny how Ian and I were only talking about the fact we should really have the back up sorted for the pump to run off a battery in an emergency. Shame we didn't get it sorted out earlier. Anyway no harm done.

We are not going out there!

Okay maybe for a bit.
I have been taking water in every morning. It isn't absolutely
 necessary as they all eat the snow in fact some of them will
only eat the snow and won't touch the water. I know though
that if I do not do it every day then I will forget and there is
still not much in the well yet.

The rest of the week has been fairly mundane as I took on the jobs that Ian normally does. I am out on the land about 8:30 am, which at this time of the year is early enough. Sometimes the animals don't even get up when I go in, as if to say "Oh it's you! What are you doing here at this time?" even though Ian is usually out on the land earlier than I am. The first job is to go around and open doors and collect feed trays. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes that is easier said than done. I then feed the chickens. Depending on the weather and how cold it is, or if snow was expected, I would either have a cup of coffee or go and clear the poo in the alpaca houses. Sometimes it was too cold for coffee straightaway and sometimes the forecast meant it was better to get chores done first.

As you might be able to see the pond doesn't even cover the
area where the rushes are yet because the water table is
still so low. The other pond still has no water in it yet.

I love the way the rosehips stand out so
much against the monochrome background

It has certainly been cold this week. It has been down to -13C that I know of. I keep forgetting to check the various thermometers around the place but usually see what it reads in he car in the morning on the way out and in the evening on the way back. It has made wrapping up to keep warm a challenge but I think I have the layers right now. It wouldn't have been so bad but there was a breeze most of the time and that made it feel even colder. Plus I haven't got acclimatised to it yet. By the end of winter -13C can feel quite warm and almost spring-like.

The log pile and the green bin also stand out

Afternoon treats

As it is winter I have also been giving extra feed in the middle of the afternoon to our female alpacas who have little ones to feed or are pregnant. They always have hay but they appreciate the extra too. They have either been getting fodder beets, carrots or squash, all of which they enjoy. I noticed though the young ones getting more interested in the feed. Normally they are older before they get interested in it and Josefs is still more interested in the hay whilst everyone else is tucking into grain. I noticed last night though that Jakobs was trying to pinch food from his mother's tray, rather than eating the hay like the night before, so tonight Jakobs had a tray of grain to himself and he wolfed it down. Mind you there was pandemonium generally as no one knew which tray to eat from.

It was very eerie this morning in the pink mist

All was so quite too

Some days the sun did shine and the clouds parted

At the moment I am still in the caravan, even though it is pitch black outside because I am waiting for someone to come and help me with culling the sheep. This afternoon a friend turned up and he brought some sheep panels. It was a fairly easy job to entice the sheep into the enclosure (while there was still some daylight) - a lot easier than either of us anticipated. Having fencing still up that hasn't been taken in yet and the panels made it a lot easier than any of the other options we had. Once this is done we will no longer have any sheep and Ian can then concentrate on looking after the alpacas. Since we now have 18 of them, I think it will keep him occupied.

I made it out for a walk twice this week to take a
look around the land. Sometimes I didn't have time
with hay to move or it was too windy or even snowing

Who are you?

I love the frosted shapes made by this
oak tree

George blocking the door way 

It looks like these two are sharing a joke

More frosted shapes, this is the lovage plant

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.

This picture amuses me because the shadow looks almost
the same as Mr. P

How elegant! Having a roll in the dirt after shearing

Look what you did to me!

Now the flies can get a bit nearer! (Look carefully to the left)
One of the downsides of shearing

Sunbathing without the fur coat.