The Fool On The Hill

Today we have had weather.  We woke to a light covering of snow along with mist.  then we had rain which turned into another snow storm along with high winds.  This afternoon the sun came out and then we had more snow.  The Australian girls have taken to living in the barn although they have free access to their paddock but as they have now trained the human in the hat to do room service to their liking they have decided they only have to venture out when it is time for their hard feed.  I flatly refuse to unscrew their feeders and put them up in the barn. 

I started the day by delivering warm water to all the alpacas and they really enjoy this as they are going through so much of it.  I am having to give them gallons of it during the day.  Luckily, Si fitted the log burner yesterday so we are warm too.  I have been using the top of it to heat up pans of water through the day.

The Peruvian girls ventured out as far as the field shelter but they don't have to go outdoors for the rest of the day as their hay is all in there and they are getting through an awful lot of it.  You can just see Nata's backend sticking out.

Cherrybomb actually lifted her head up while I was in the barn with them to enable me to get a quick shot of her.

The other girls don't think I'm worth bothering about if I don't have a bucket in my hand.  All I could hear was nom, nom, nom and the occasional hum so they seem happy enough.

We did have a bit of a mishap which entailed calling out the vet.  I found Halo standing with her nose against a fence post oblivious to everything and she was still there half an hour later.  Larra was in the barn shaking and actually let me go up and stroke her.  Something wrong here, I thought and quickly phoned the vet.  I covered Larra with a towel to keep her warm because she must be cold.  The vet examined Larra and said that he couldn't find anything wrong with her and that all the alpacas looked really well.  He even congratulated me on how healthy they all looked.  Halo seemed fine too.  The next day 3 of them were scouring so we called the vet out again. I was worried that they weren't getting enough goodness so was making a mix of alfafa and oats.  They get camelibra for breakfast and dinner but I thought they would feel warmer if they had lunch too.  I had been mixing it in a bucket with hot water, but preparing it the night before and then just topping it up with more hot water before I went out with it.  I had mentioned to Si that it smelt of beer when I was stirring it.  Oops, it had been fermenting in the bucket overnight.  They loved it.
It would appear that Halo was stoned.  Larra had the DT's and the others were just suffering from the morning after the night before.  They now get fed it dry and I warm the water in their buckets.  They were all fine the day after I stopped soaking it.

Rosie is still pregnant.  Day 425 and Alpaca Manager is almost ready to go into meltdown. 

I have now started to knit for Xmas 2011.  Carl Aylett deserves Salesman of the Year Award.  Rosemary came to visit last week and collected a load of knitting that I had done.  She then emailed with more orders so I rushed through those and got them in the post to her. This is all along with the knitting that Rosemary and 'The Lady in the Village' have done.  I finally saw some of the items that 'The Lady in the Village' had made from our yarn and they are absolutely beautiful.   I had got Si to set up our online shop and he took photo's one night ready to upload but Rosemary had emailed ordering the stock for customers that Carl had got.  They didn't get on there.  I have now knitted another item for him to get a snap of so we can actually get it up and running.  It's brilliant that everybody loves the alpaca items, the fibre does feel a lot softer and warmer than anything else you can buy.