The year is turning

Autumnal looking

The leaves are turning yellow and the geese are flying south. Summer has just about gone and we even had a mild frost this week. Not enough to kill off my plants yet, but it speaks of autumn days and the rapid slide into winter. Well if feels like a rapid slide at times. The geese heading south often means that snow might not be far away, even if we are having some almost summery temperatures at the moment. We are not beguiled, we know too well how rapidly the temperatures can drop in these parts. The rather blustery northerly winds we had a few days ago reminded us of that fact. The plastic over our hay bales needed rearranging one night, which was not a fun job in the pitch dark. The plastic stayed on during the few light showers we had but one section blew off the following night - thankfully it didn't rain that night. We seemed to escape the worst of it, as the coast bore the brunt of it and the very heavy rain passed to the north of us.  

Definitely a hint of autumn here

My garden was looking a bit battered before the
latest storm, now it looks worse. Maybe next weekend
I'll get around to dealing with this.

The girls fence was moved today and George was
very interested. Normally he's quite curious anyway, 
but this time it looked a little different. 

Josefs is turning out to be such a super alpaca with 
visitors

Our quiet time with no visitors ended this week, as we had two groups. One group had a child with special needs and our alpacas were very good with him. It's nice how the alpacas can be a calming influence on some children. The more active children often soon learn that they have to be quiet and stand still and then the alpacas will come to them. If they go after the alpacas, they just run away. Josefs stood still while he draped himself over his back. He's like his mum Aggie, as she will also let people gather round and stroke her. Not all alpacas will do that. 

Some cheerful nastursiums 

Aggie in relatively good mood here.

Mind you, Aggie won't do that at the moment generally, it depends upon what mood she's in, now that she's pregnant. She's not in a particularly good mood now as her foot is sore and cracked. I had just about got her leg healed from the problems with flies and noticed that her foot was cracked, when I looked more closely I saw that it was worse than I thought. She will let me touch the leg that I've nearly finished treating but she gets very antsy when I try to get cream on her sore foot. Sigh! And I thought we were getting somewhere now the flies have died down. At least Herkules is slowly improving. I would prefer it if the sore leg would heal quicker but at least I don't have to put bandages on it now and can let the air dry it out. I think the bandages were making it worse to some extent but had to try and keep it covered due to the flies. 

Aggie and her poorly foot

Herkules looking quite sprightly for his 16 years

Then he has his moments like this, just resting
his weary head. Then again, he's done this for
quite a few years. He just likes to lie about.

Turbjørn struggling with his neck

We finally got a visit from the vet with a mobile x-ray this week to x-ray Turbjørn's neck. We are still waiting for the x-rays but at least got to see what the problem was. He has slightly dislocated one of the vertebrae in the lower part of his neck. The upper part of his neck is either ligament damage or over-compensating for the lower problem. Poor guy, it's been so long in getting an answer to the problem and he is struggling a bit again. Maybe the cold, maybe just jarred it again. Who knows. At least it is not as severe as we thought it could be. We now just need those x-rays to work out some treatment plan. We helped the vet with taking the x-rays and got all kitted up in lead overalls. I could just about move, because of course they are made for someone taller than me. Ian held Turbjørn still while I held the x-ray plate. While the vet was there, we had him x-ray Herkules' back leg, because he had started limping quite badly and we knew that if we didn't take advantage of the x-ray there and then, it could be worse and need to have him come out again. As it was we found out it is just an age related issue and it will be sore until two bones have fused, then he should be fine. 

We had 13 chicks hatched but a couple of them 
died. Hatching is such a stressful time for them.
At least these look healthy enough and the heater
is keeping them warm enough at night.

The shed is beginning to be filled
with the stuff that has been in the
greenhouse. I now even have a 
recycling point - second shelf up!

Working from home has its advantages, but there are downsides to having flexible working times. I guess it's partly laziness and not getting up so early, but now it's dark when we get up and so it's getting later and later when we see to the animals, especially with their various ailments. I then end up working later to compensate, and as a consequence our evening meal is later. We end up juggling putting the animals away with the timing of sitting down to eat. It doesn't help when I get into the garden to pick a few beans, then spot a caterpillar or two, then a few weeds and before I know it that's 20 minutes gone. When Ian was working, we used to have regular mealtimes, but since we've had the animals, our mealtimes varies with the seasons. In the summer we eat before we put the animals away, by winter it is the other way around, but spring and autumn it depends on the day and what we are doing. The light and the weather determines the routine of our days. 

Jakobs 

The tomato monsters before taming

The pleasant weather over the weekend meant I got the chance to finish off digging up the potatoes in the area where I planted them. I know there are still some more to dig up, but in areas where they weren't deliberately planted. That will be next weekend's job. It's good to look at a large section of the garden and think that is done. I also started to tackle the tomato monsters in the new greenhouse. I gave them a good hacking back a while ago and didn't really expect them to put much growth on since then, but they did. It won't be long before we start pulling the tomatoes up and preparing the beds for the chickens to overwinter in there. But for now we make the most of the warm days to ripen what we can. 

It's getting neater bit by bit

Autumn raspberries are doing well. There are lots
to come. Let's hope they ripen before any major
frosts

Don't you mess with us little one!

Our two little kittens are being allowed out more and more. They know the rattle of the cupboard doors and that it means food. Today Ian went to feed the older cats and the two little ones were straight in there and muscled in on Eyre's food. She wasn't sure what to do. Ian ended up taking them both by the scruff of the neck to their own tray. Eyre doesn't really like them at all, but they largely ignore her. I do wonder if our older two cats have decided they need to up their game to compete. Eyre has been out of the greenhouse more and is less likely to be under my feet, now it's more likely to be a kitten. Sofie on the other hand has excelled herself as a hunter. One evening we watched her bouncing up towards us with something in her mouth. It looked on the large size and I wondered if she had caught another rat. No.... not at all. Our little cat (not compared to the kittens of course but to other cats) had caught a small hare. The hare was the same size as Sofie. How far she had carried it we have no idea. We tried to have a look and she immediately took it into an old chicken ark that was lying around and stood guard over it. Over two days she then ate it. Today she had the look of a cat whose had a heavy night out on the town. She must be absolutely stuffed. 

Sofie with her hare

Have they gone yet?

Morning coffee with the Kelly Kettle

It was Ian's birthday on Sunday. We didn't do anything special but I did get in some special treats. I bought some beef from the local organic farm and so we've had beefburgers for lunch and I slow cooked a joint of beef for Sunday's evening meal, only we didn't end up eating it on Sunday due to the timing of the visitors we had. We had a quick, light, early lunch before they came and then finished off with more burgers mid-afternoon after they went. The problem is that I was so stuffed after the mid-afternoon meal that I wasn't really ready for a roast for evening meal, so we just had a few small jacket potatoes, cheese and salad. Still the roast meal was nice this evening. I also surprised Ian with a Kelly Kettle. It is a rocket stove kettle that boils water with just a small amount of fuel. It's been nice to sit outside and boil the kettle, although today it was a bit smoky before it got going. I think we need to work on the fuel mix a bit first. I told Ian that I went into the village to get a better internet signal for a meeting, which was sort of true, but it was also so that I could be at the apartment to get the package and then it could sit in the car for a few days without him knowing I had got it. It worked! It's not often I can surprise Ian, he's usually quite observant of that sort of thing.

Ginger Tom in the chicken ark where they were 
living while they got more used to us and our routine

Rocket Ron 

The waterlily is still going strong

Black tail is one of our original chickens. She's 
about nine years old now and still sprightly

A fine comb on this cockerel.

Bee balm has such an out of this world look about it

Rocket Ron also has an out of this world look 
about him much of the time. Here he is hiding
in a ditch

Ginger Tom is definitely the quieter of the two

Always on the alert for something to go toddling into

Spot the kitten who had followed Ian all
the way up to the alpaca house. They both
went at one point and Ian had to rescue them
from the alpacas as they tend to chase the 
cats.

Yes there is still a lot to explore in the greenhouse 
and to climb and to hide in. Great fun for a kitten

Almost there

Our young helper in the tractor

We have passed several milestones in this last week both on the land and some personal ones too. We managed to get the baling almost finished at our neighbour's place. There is still some hay left to cut but they are in awkward places and so were not cut with the majority of it. Our young helper came and she helped Ian by rolling the bales together for collection while I prepared our greenhouse for the felting course that happened this weekend. She was tired when we took her back home, but she did work hard. She even got to ride in the tractor and bale some hay. All good training.

Practising baling, slowly of course.

An oven in a greenhouse! Doesn't everyone have one?

Collecting leaves ready for the following days dyeing

We had to rush to get the hay under cover though. It meant unstacking the bales that were in the trailers and re-stacking those ones under plastic. We then had to get the bales from the field and stack them before getting a second load. We finished off in the rain but at least the bales weren't soaked. Our young helper thought I was very strong, but this is the third round of collecting bales and my muscles have grown in the process. If it had been the first round, maybe not so much. I still love the fact I can clamber around on our tractor trailer when putting on the tarpaulin, I hope I can still do that in years to come. I maybe have to take up some form of exercise over the winter to keep up my strength. Hahaha! We have around 350 bales of hay or more, so about 50 more than we need, which at least means we should have some left over to see us into next year if hay season is late or for any other reason we need more.

Chilled out alpacas.

Sofie, ace mouse catcher.

The roadworks around us are still continuing. They have made some improvements to a bad corner and put in culverts where the road often floods, so at least that is progress. The road also dries out quicker, which is another improvement. We are still hoping they improve the camber of the road though, so we don't go sliding off into the ditches in the winter. Not sure how much further they have to go; they certainly have still got to repair the collapsed section of the road that fell into the river a while back. Apparently after a chat with the foreman today, the collapsed road is another project but we might get some better access to the land and our fields, just maybe not yet. We have a phone number anyway. We also found out why they hadn't contacted us beforehand. Apparently this is just road maintenance and not full roadworks. To them, it's just a little job, to us a major work. A matter of perspective really.

We had to move the spades and forks
further down the greenhouse to put
the oven in

Mr. P. now often spends time longingly gazing in the direction
of the females.

Ian is still continuing to take the male alpacas for mating with the females, although these are more checks to see if they are pregnant. As I have mentioned before, it is generally accepted that females will spit off the males if they are. We suspect that Vanessa is pregnant, or at least we hope so. It is difficult to tell with her, as she is so feisty and doesn't seem to like Mr. P. anyway. She seems more adamant though that he's not coming anywhere near and so that is an encouraging sign, not for poor Mr. P. though who gets covered in green spit. The others may also be pregnant, but some are more compliant and so we have the other problem of there not being a definite sign of a "spit off". We will be more certain when we have a scan done by a vet around November time. Once that is finished that will be it for the year and that could be as early as next week.

A very cheeky George.

Galina explaining to the participants.

We had our only felting course this year at the weekend. There were a multitude of reasons for not running two this year and my recent employment for an EU project is one of them. It was good to welcome our tutor Galina back for her fourth year and she brought her friend along as well again. Galina always feels like it is a holiday for her. Her friend made me some fabulous slippers using some of Herkules' and Freddies' fleece. She used the template I used to make some slippers earlier on in the year, but made some slip ones this time. Great for the morning when clambering out of bed. 

Preparing the fleece for felting my slippers

The slippers I made are on the right and my new slip on
ones on the left.

Galina giving me a telling off and telling me on the first day,
no experiments. Do what I'm supposed to do. She was only
joking, we had a good laugh afterwards.

Preparing a t-shirt for the dyeing process.

The weather was surprisingly good this year. Last year we baked in the greenhouse, this year, it was warm enough to work in and not as much rain as forecast. In fact, we had just about enough rain water to do all the dyeing and felting without having to bring it in from our apartment. We just needed to bring in drinking water. It is good to use the rain water for dyeing as there is too much iron in our apartment water and it affects the results of the dyeing process.

Preparing a pre-felt for adding to the dyed silk shawls. A
pre-felt is a piece of felt that is not fully felted but enough
to cut up into shapes to add to a felting project.

A salad made by Ian from the flowers and leaves I had
collected from our garden.

I organised the food again this year and everyone was welcome to join us. I do not provide food for the participants exactly, it is up to them if they bring their own or contribute something to the meal. In previous years we have used the hotel to provide food but it was more stressful and far too expensive. This way we use food from our own garden and freezer with the addition of some local cheese from our friend, cakes from the local bakery and some sausages from the local butcher. Of course with potatoes, eggs and my own home-made bread the food goes a long way and there is plenty to share. 

Bread fresh from the oven.

Ready for lunch.

Giving instructions on baking bread and scones.

Preparing food was even easier this year as the daughter of our friend who makes the cheese came to help, so brought the cheeses with her (she is the same one who helped us bale the hay earlier in the week). I love the fact that as soon as she had put her bags into the caravan, she went into the greenhouse and started washing up. I didn't even have to tell her, she just knew it would need doing. In fact she was so good we asked if she would help again next year. I do hope she can. It did mean I got to do some felting myself this year

Boiling potatoes.

Local goats cheese.

Lunchtime. A lovely view!

Looking the other way at lunchtime and you can see the
grapes ripening

The wind was from the south this year, which meant we
could leave the doors open and not risk our fleece flying
everywhere. It was also a little overcast most of the time
which meant it was cooler. 

The other milestone was hearing that the final academic article that I needed to go towards my PhD was accepted. I found out on Friday lunchtime and my ecstatic reaction surprised everyone. I am not usually one for enthusiastic outbursts but I was surprised there was no further work to be done on it, apart from a very few editing issues or clarifications before publication. We clinked tea and coffee cups in celebration together. I also heard that the costs for this open access publication will be met too, Yay! I was half expecting to have to pay for it, so rather pleased I'm not, as it amounts to nearly a month's wages and this was one of the cheaper ones. I've seen some astronomical costs for open access papers. It does mean you read it though - if you want to that is (link here).

Wetting the fleece and starting the felting process.

Nooo! Don't go. The storks gathered to leave as we were
eating lunch.

Once the fleece is wet, tables were moved outside to work on.

A shawl with pre-felt leaves being added

Monday meant dealing with the aftermath of washing. Five washing loads were done, albeit in a 4.5kg washing machine and not a big one. Some of it may seem bizarre, such as bubble wrap. My neighbours at the apartment must have wondered why I was washing plastic when they saw it hanging on the line, but it means it is ready for use again. Some of it was catching up with clothes washing. One load a week is our usual, two at the most but I hadn't had the chance to get that done for over a week, so that had mounted up too. There was also bedding from two lots of guests. Still it is nearly all done and the rain held off to get most of it dried. The rest of the wet washing is hanging up in our greenhouse. Sitting around waiting for the washing machine to do the washing meant that I had time to get the final amendments to the paper ready for publication. So a productive end to the week.

Rolling, rolling rolling.

The finished shawl and bubble wrap drying.

Dyed t-shirts and pillow case.

Galina with her sample scarf, a piece of cotton fabric she
dyed for me while I was busy and a participant's t-shirt
dress that was dyed with the leaves from our land.

Carefully felting

Felted bookcover in the process

Galina and participant working together.

My finished shawl, or is it? I haven't decided yet. I think I
might work some more on it.

Two rather well fed pussy cats.

Another shawl made by one of the participants.

Feeding Brencis.

A little chat with Brencis.

Wearing our garments.

Always the way, too many things to hold
onto and finding it difficult to sort it out.

Showing off our garments to the boys, not sure if they were that
impressed but they did like the dandelion leaves.

I was given the shawl a long while ago
but didn't like the colour. Will have to work
out what to do with the dyed material that
goes quite nicely with it.

The boys.

I look so small 😂

End of the course!