Joy!

At this time of year you're probably thinking that my title refers to Christmas. Well, not this time. It's roughly 25 degrees outside with a bit of a wind chill. I've just come in from the barn and my joy is a sarcastic response to 'popping poopsicles.' For those of you who don't know what this is, poopsicles are frozen poop 'jellybeans' from my alpacas. Some think that sarcasm comes from sad, mad people and that they use it to express their unhappiness. With me, I do it because I think its funny. So I'm in the barn this morning trying to rake in the poop and its just not working. So, for the first time this winter season I need to get out our potatoe rake! Its fantastic for picking or 'popping' out frozen poop. As I was popping I was actually composing this blog. Go figure.

Oh Spit!

So I've been feeling guilty lately. Guilty of not spending enough bonding time with my alpacas. Granted, working full time plus extra hours does take quite a bit of my time, as does keeping both websites current, and general upkeep of the house and the barn, but I do have down time. Some of it is spent on the internet, some spent knitting, and some spent watching movies with Marshall. I could spend just a few minutes every day with my alpacas just touching, hugging, and halter training couldn't I? So I did. Most of them were trying to figure out what was going on. I had fun, I bonded with them, but my first clue that they weren't  enjoying it was when Mikey, my crankee yankee, looked at me with his big dark eyes........and SPIT at me!! Full on!! Spit happens.

A Day of Beauty

So yesterday we had what we like to call our  "Day of Beauty" in the barn. The alpacas probably think of it as the "Day of Terror," right up there with shearing day and shots day. The "Day of Beauty" is the day we do topknots and toenails and then weigh them before winter sets in and they're full fleece. Its hard to tell in February if your alpaca has lost weight. Their fleece really can be deceiving and if you have a female who's making a baby and nursing one as well, then the weight loss can be dangerous. As for the topknots some of them get to looking alittle sloppy and some just plain get in the way. Two of our boys, Skye and Concord, are nearly blinded by the fleece just flopping over their eyes. Poor boys. You can walk right up to them and they act so surprised when they finally realize it's you and not another alpaca!! Aren't they just fun? The last thing is the clipping of the toenails. In case you didn't know, alpacas have 2 toenails on each foot. They curve just alittle. If they get too long they curve too much. Have you ever seen one of those women who have fingernails that are many inches long and they curve alot? Its sort of like that! Of course we don't let it get that bad. Even when it's just alittle long it gets uncomfortable for them to walk. We had a successful day until it came to my crankee yankee Mikey. He just plain doesn't want to be bothered so we didn't bother him! His topknot is actually good and his toenails are good. Probably from running from us or running after Concord!

Come on over and chat!

We often have visitors to our farm. Either to see our alpacas, the 400 grapevines(yes, for winemaking), or our house(the author of Peyton Place, Grace Metallious, used to live here). I remember when we were first thinking about starting our alpaca business and we visited alot of farms. On our first couple of visits we didn't know what to do. Should we just go up to the barn? Should we knock on their front door? It was usually so quiet that we even wondered if anyone was home! Then, when we finally ventured out of our car, someone would just appear from their barn or their house and act like this was perfectly normal. Usually if a stranger pulls up in your driveway you pull the chainlock across, or encourage the dog to bark, or you pretend you're not home. At a farm though, its different. I've learned that people who run farms are used to people just stopping by and some, like us, encourage it. It's always a good idea to call first, but sometimes you might just happen to run across an interesting looking farm or animal (alpacas anyone?), and you just have to stop. It's usually okay with the owner as they/we love to talk about how wonderful their animals or crops are. So, if you've ever wanted to see an alpaca, or check out our grapevines, or locate the "Peyton Place house", stop by, we'd love to chat!

Visit

Conversations?

You know how you're having a 'conversation' with someone and as soon as you open your mouth to speak they talk right over you? It's one of my pet peeves. I confess that I have been guilty of it too. However, when I go up to my barn, we all take turns. The goats are always the first to say 'hi', and when they're finished I say 'hi' back, usually in the form of 'baaaaaaaahhh.' We take turns. Hmmmmmm. Thats my alpacas saying 'hi.' To them I use their names and I watch their ears perk up. My ducks think I'm the most wonderful person in the world. Thats because I feed them. Anyway, we all get along because we take turns. Just my thought today. I'm off to the Big E today to volunteer.

August

I realize I'm alittle backwards with this. It's nearly October and here I am just now telling you about our month of August! Anyway, August was a fantastic month! I'm calling it our 'August of additions.' On August 6th we welcomed our first 2009 alpaca baby. I almost named him Lancelot but once I took a good look at him I just thought he was magical, so we named him Merlin. Thats in keeping with our Camelot theme. He weighed in at 17lbs. and hasn't stopped running since. This boy is wired! The next birth is my great niece Alexis Joy, or Lexie for short. I don't have pictures of her yet, they're still on my phone. She came 3 weeks early and weighed in at around 5 1/2 lbs. She is perfect and beautiful. I was able to have layovers in the area she lives in so I was able to see her 4 times. She changed alot each time. The next birth was 11 Moscovy ducklings! All 11 eggs hatched. It was alot of fun to watch and it took no time at all for them to be up and walking all over the farm. They're much bigger now of course. Another fun event in the same month was the visit of a couple from Sweden who wanted to visit some NH alpaca farms and we were lucky enough to be one of them. They were very nice and alot of fun. The picture shows them holding Merlin. September has had 1 birth and I'll tell you about that in my next entry. TTFN.

Quiet or just Noise?

This past weekend was the National Alpaca Farm Days event. We participated in it and had some wonderful and varied visitors. I spent more time this weekend up in the barn with my alpacas than I would normally. What I noticed, in between visitors, is that the alpacas thrive in the quiet. When it gets noisy with people you can just tell that they're 'on guard.' They don't worry about the world and whats happening where. They don't care about television, newspapers, and other media. They don't see themselves as too fat, or too poor. They just are. The events they are concerned with are 'where's my baby?', 'let's go eat some grass', 'I need to stretch my legs', 'woohoo it's naptime.' Their quiet is not the quiet of alot of people. These people actually hear the noise of quiet. Alpacas actually enjoy it. This is something I'm having to learn to enjoy. I admit that I love having television on for background noise. At first the quiet this weekend was alittle unnerving. Now it's becoming soothing. This is a no caffeine permitted kind of quiet. At least until Mikey, my cranky yankee alpaca, starts picking on someone and they start screeching.

Mothering

I have this small 'herd' of moscovy ducks. 2 beautiful gray ones and the more traditional black and white. One of my gray ones, Gracie, had babies this past August. More on the month of August in another post. So I'm watching her be a first time mother to her cute little ducklings. She really is amazing. She's also mean and protective. Mean in a mama bear kind of way. She'll hang on to the wing feathers of one of the other ducks, they'll run away and she still hangs on! She'll snap and bite at anyone or anything that comes close to her babies. I've also noticed that she's not just a 'do as I do' mother. I have seen her take her babies to 4 out of 5 of our pastures just to show them around the farm. Just a little duck stroll. I've also seen her introduce them to our big, loud, dogs! She only brought them to within sight range of our dogs, but it was enough for them to run for the hills and for our dogs to want to play catch with them. Thankfully they didn't meet each other. It's funny that even though they can get their chick feed anytime they go inside the barn, they always come in when I'm feeding the alpacas. So now that I've bored you with my duck news I'll get off here and check facebook. Enjoy the fall!

Peace

So I'm on a layover reading some women's mags. I read the cooking stuff, the decorating stuff, and I feel okay. A little anxious actually. Like there's no way my house will ever live up to the magazine's ideal or even though I rip out recipes I know they'll get lost in the pile. Then I pick up an alpaca magazine and peace descends on me. There is just something right about what I'm doing with my life. My life that is not my job. My other life. Even though every trip to the barn is uphill (in the winter this is so much fun!), as soon as I'm inside I can't help but smile. I'm striving to do the best I can with my animals but all they really expect is some grain and hay. Honestly I wish humans were this easy to please! My husband says I spoil them. Yes, I probably do, but they are my kids you know! Anyway, back to peaceful, when I get home from work feeling just a bit drained by lots and lots of human contact, I just head uphill to the barn where it's okay if it's alittle messy, and feed my 'kids' some grain(this involoves just pouring pellets in a bowl) and we have achieved nirvana, heaven, peace.

Fencing

Guess what I did last night? On a beautiful (but buggy)June evening Marshall and I went down to what will be our new field (deemed the 'Ingall's' field) and put up fencing! Marshall had already pounded the posts in the ground so we just (just?) needed to get the wire fencing up and stretched. We do have the correct equipment so that made it easier. We stretched one sooooo tight that a post broke!!! Marshall made adjustments and on we went. We'd go out today but the it's rainy and muddy. Argh! Someday soon I'll have to show everyone (?) pictures of the 3 stooges that we bought. TTFN.

May 2009

As usual it's been awhile. So busy. Especially this month. I had the grand opening of my farm store on Memorial Day weekend, had a booth at the Hopkinton Sheep & Wool Festival, and had my animals shorn. Whew. June will be much easier. Everything went really well. The weather for the festival was just what you'd like it to be-----sunshine, temps. in the 60's, and a breeze. Except for Saturday night when a very windy and wet thunderstorm came thru. We were told of it's coming so be basically all took down our booths (oh what fun that was) then put them back up the next day. We had friends of ours at Foss Mountain Alpaca Farm come down to shear our animals for us. It was done on a table. I'm not sure if doing it on the floor is better or worse, the animals just plain don't like it! It's soooo funny after the first alpaca is done (in our case it was Mikey as we go from light to dark). He just kinda looks like we would if we were the only one naked in a room full of clothed people! Lately Skye, who is 2 1/2 years old, is definitely hitting puberty! As of late he's been challenging Mikey and doing alot of screeching. It gets just alittle noisy! Well I'm off to my garden to do some weeding!