Birdie!

I just had to include this little antedote (did I spell that right?). While getting our place ready to be able to host events, including weddings, we found we needed to do some landscaping. So, a couple of overgrown bushes needed to go. They were completely hiding this neat stone staircase. Marshall looked first to make sure there weren't any birds in their nests then chopped them down. Oops. He did find a nest with 2 baby robins inside. He picked the babies up, with gloved hands, and brought them over to John and I (who were making some wine) and he had a sad look on his face. My man's so sensitive! We thought maybe since no human had actually touched them, and if we could find the nest, that maybe mom would come back and take care of them. Marshall found the nest, took one of our spare birdhouses ( I do have a few), and placed it where the bush had been. Not long after that the mom robin came back and she went inside and fed her babies! Isn't that sweet?

Crushing it!

With the help of friends, and child labor, we took the chilean grapes and got them ready to be made into wine. Who knew you needed so many different things & chemicals to do this. Thats whats showing in the first pic. That big bag has some expensive french oak chips. They really add depth to the wine. The next pic, if they load in this order, is all of the baskets of grapes that we crushed.  In the next photo you'll notice we 'employ' child labor. Hey, it's free and they said they had fun! The husband, Marshall, is in the next one dumping some of the Merlot grapes in and the next pic is how happy this is making him! The next pic shows what the inside of the bin in the de-stemmer/crusher looks like. What a great piece of machinery! The next pic may look like polka-dots but what you're looking at is the bottom of the de-stemmer (the white rectangular thing) at the top of the pic, which drains the de-stemmed and crushed grapes into the white tub. The stems go out the back end of course. And the final pic is of yours truly tasting a Merlot grape. They taste great on their own but have alot of seeds inside. The next blog will be the continuing saga of winemaking and drinking lots of grapejuice!

What a 'grape' trip!!

So this was the day the grapes came home. Often times, when a winery can't grow a certain kind of grape due to the zone they'll order grapes from somewhere else. That's what we did! We ordered 5 different kinds of grapes that should produce around 300-350 bottles of red wine. I'm thinking we're gonna have a fun winter!! The 5 types we brought home are Merlot, Cabernet, Marebec, Carmenere, and Syrah and they're all from Chile! The first pic is our winemaker John with some of the grapes. The containers they come in are wonderful. It keeps them from getting mushy. Thats winery jargon. The next pic is Marshall, my fabulous hubby, with our oh-so-friendly dogs Spice Girl and Sarge.  The last one is most of the grapes, on the left, a big container, and just above and behind that container is the magic machine. It's also called a de-stemmer and crusher. Surely this was invented by a winemaker who got tired of doing the de-stemming by hand. Can you imagine?  Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of all of us making the wine. You won't believe what goes into it!!

Shearing day 2010

So shearing day finally arrived. I anticipate this day with trepidation and excitement. Excited because I spend all day at the barn with my alpacas and because  it's a sort of herd health day too as we do toenails and check out their skin underneath all that fleece. The trepidation comes from the fact that it's labor intensive and the alpacas absolutely hate it. There are wonderful farms that like to make it a PR event but I just can't do that since I know that will stress the animals out even more with more noise and strangers. So anyway, we're done, it's the next day and of course there's no sunshine and it's chilly. I did put a coat on my smallest guy Pender. So here are the pictures. If you check yesterday's blog you'll see the befores. The first & second pics are of my first girl Lady. Don't her eyes look like she's terrified? She actually wimpers. The 3rd pic is my youngest baby Pender. It's his first time. The 4th is our man Skye. He's very laid back. The 5th one is my 'crankee yankee' Mikey. He's always the first and always has a funny look on his face afterwards.  The 6th pic is of 3 of the boys, Mikey,Tripper, and Skye checking out the girls all done up! The next one, the 7th, is too funny. It looks like Tripper is laughing at Concord's new doo! The last 2 are the girls and 2 babies all done! They all look so much younger huh? Wish that was the same for us humans!!

Before shots

It's the day before shearing and I wanted to post some 'before shots.' I took them today, in fact about 2 hours ago. Of course what happens is the day of or the day after shearing, the weather turns cold and blustery. I think this time it might actually be nice. Woohoo. Last year, the day of shearing was great, weather wise, but the day after was cold, rainy, and windy. They stayed in the barn all day huddled close together. We only have 9 to shear but that will still take awhile as we only have 4 of us and we like to chat! A friend of mine sheared 70 in one day!!! Thats with a ton of help and being extremely well organized. I still don't know how they did it though. Of course today they're not moving at all, their bodies are on a 'day of rest!' A well deserved one. Anyway, here are the photos from today and I'll post the 'afters' tomorrow or the next day depending on how much wine I need tomorrow night. :) The most dramatic differences in before and after will be Queenie(5th pic), Skye(6th pic), The babies(3rd & 4th pics), Tripper(last pic), and Mikey(1st pic in back).

A haircut!

So about a week ago I went in to my usual place to get my hair trimmed. I paid no attention to the fact that my hairdresser was stressed because her 16 year old son, on foreign exchange, had to have an emergency appendectomy surgery in Mexico!! Wouldn't every mother just absolutely freak out?!! I love Bethany, my hairdresser, who always does a great job. Actually this time she cut my hair just fine except that it was shorter than I wanted. So I went home and played with it alittle then realized that I didn't know what to do with it since it was so short. The only time I've had my hair short was the year my husband Marshall met me. He loves my hair this short and that was 25 years ago! So then I start thinking that my alpacas are getting a 'haircut' this week, except we call it shearing. It will take us all day for 4 of us to shear 9 alpacas and we'll be ready for a glass of wine afterwards. So my alpacas will have that 'what do I do with my hair now?' feeling that I just had.  I know exactly how they feel. When the first one gets done, and thats always my 'crankee yankee' Mikey (we always go light to dark, and Mikeys' white), he'll go back in with the other boys and he'll feel like he's the only naked alpaca in the bunch. Which he is. Of course the day after I get my haircut I only see women with long perfect hair. Oh well, my hair will grow back and so will the alpacas'. Patience! And BTW, no pictures of my me and my new haircut!

Anyone for a swim?

You're probably thinking, 'I didn't know alpacas could swim!' Well, as far as I know they can't however they will take a dip now and then to cool off on the really hot days. In the 2 previous years I have waited too long to purchase a kiddie pool for my animals. So this year we bought early and guess what? It's going to be 82 degrees on Saturday and all of my 'pacas are in full fleece!! Heat stroke anyone? So I put them out today so they'd be used to seeing them. Of course today was a very windy day so I had to put a few big rocks/small boulders in each one. We have no shortage of those here in the granite state. So they're out in the pasture and tomorrow we'll fill them with water so they'll be ready for Saturday. Alpacas, by the way, cool themselves thru their bellies, so what they do is step in and lay down one at a time. The pools are not very attractive so sometime in the next few years we'll arrange something alittle different. Something like a spray mat. They do like to get hosed down on the really hot days. The 'paca in the picture is Pendragon.

New vines!

Yesterday Marshall and I planted 60 new grape vines. Right now they don't look like much, as you can see from the picture, but in 4 years they'll produce bunches of blue grapes. The variety is called 'Aurora' and yes you read right, it'll take 4 years for them to mature. There's a saying among 'grapes for wine' growers that goes like this: You grow a vineyard and develop a winery for your grandkids, not yourself! It takes a good long time to see some profit in this so you have to either love it, have money to spare, and/or alot of patience! One of the other pictures is a man named Bill Lord. He's the one pruning a grapevine at Zorvino Vineyards and he is the grape guru! Marshall and I attended a seminar there about pest control and pruning. It's always fun to see what other people are doing with their vines and winerys.

Of course the cutest picture, even though it looks like she's dead, is of our maroon/bay black mega producer female Andromeda, or 'Drama' for short. She's sunbathing and rolling in the dirt. No sunscreen needed here!

Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

So sometimes it's allittle difficult for me, the blonde, to move around these pictures just where I want them. The top shot is of this crazy man who takes down trees, a limb at a time, for a living! Anyone afraid of heights? We have, or had, alot of big trees along the roadside of our property. While they were beautiful (and I loved them) they also took the sun and water away from some of our grapevines. So, they had to go. The bottom shot ( or the one with no tree in the middle as I'm not sure where the pictures are going to end up) is what it looked like after he took down that one tree. He did it w/o any limbs blocking the road and none of our grapevines smashed. The grapevines are very close to the treeline. Amazing! You want to know another cool thing? This man, Courtney, is trading his services for my husbands service of post-pounding!! I love living here! It won't quite be an even trade but we won't owe him near as much. How cool is that?  I'll try and get the placement of the pictures better next time. 

The day we 'hit the bottle.'

Thats our first bottle of wine at Camelot Winery! It's a Seyval from our own 2009 crop. Thats me, Sunny, in the picture along with my husband, Marshall, on the left and our winemaker John Jude on the left. We had a great time. After bottling Ellie, who will be our caterer when we start hosting events, brought out appetizers. Actually she brought out dinner! It was fantastic!You can see more pictures of the evening on the Camelot Winery facebook page. That page has lots of pictures of our property including our georgous alpacas. So the 5 of us, John's daughter Clare was there also, spent the next couple of hours eating, drinking (yum!) and planning. A super evening! Thanks John and Ellie!

Down Duck

Poor little Gracie. She's in jail. Gracie is one of our gray moscovi female ducks. We think she was either stepped on or maybe has an infection in her right foot. So, for the past 8 days we've had her in our dogs crate. This way she won't be stepped on and can heal (if she did get stepped on), and we can control her drinking water. We've been giving her penicillan thru her water just in case it's an infection. So she's sort of in solitary. Although she's in the barn w/everyone else. I've also included more pictures of the front porch going on.

A front porch!!

I'm not what you would call a control freak. However, I do like order. You know, the rest of the world is chaos so my world needs to have some kind of  order. However, Marshall is not all about order. He just drops things wherever. I don't mind that because he's usually dropping something on the way to doing his 'honeydew list.' He's great about that. Now though, my driveway and front yard are nothing but chaos. There's lumber, wheelbarrows, tools, trucks, and people all over the place. I don't mind this either. We're on the way to having a front porch! I didn't know I missed it until the decking went on. It's a wrap around porch. The house, as you can see from the top photo, looks kind of naked w/o a porch. It's like a Mr. Potato Head that someone forgot to put a nose on. What happened? He's not finished! So anyway, I'll keep uploading pictures as we go. I just can't wait.

Weaning. Day 2/3

So this morning I went up to the barn as I always do to feed and clean up after everyone. I noticed that Merlin, my newly weaned baby with the white face, was starting to do his usual thing when I'm in the same pen with him. That is, to stare at me and watch what I do. The significant thing about that is that it means he's already getting used to his new situation. Whew. Pender, on the other hand (isn't there always an 'other hand?'), is still humming like crazy. He is a month younger. However, this changing up of the herd has really changed the whole herd's dynamics. Lady is still wanting her baby, Drama and Queenie (the other 2 females in the same pen) are fine, but the male that I put in the pen with the babies is missing HIS buddy! Tripper will stand and just stare at Skye, his buddy, and then go over to the gate where he hopes I'll let him thru. Skye, does the same. They are too funny.  So today I felt bad about that! So.................I let Tripper back out into the pen with Skye. You should have seen those two!!!! You'd think one of them just came back from the warfront!!! They jumped at each other, ran around, chased each other, then came to a screeching halt when they noticed I was watching! Were they embarassed? Thinking that I wouldn't think they were macho? Hmmmmm. Do alpacas get embarassed? BTW, I didn't have my camera with me so the pictures are from earlier this year. Skye is the darker one.

Weaning. Day 1

Yesterday it was time to wean my 2 babies, Merlin and Pendragon. I've had to do this before with my other babies but this time just seemed very sad. Merlin is Lady's first cria and she seemed to really miss him. She would look for him then look at me. I hope she forgives me. Drama, Pender's mom, just layed out in the sun. This is not her first baby. So for most of the day both babies tried to be as close to their moms as was possible. Can you imagine going thru the 'empty nest' syndrome after just 6 months?!' They grow up so fast.',' We're so proud of him.', 'Remember the day he was born?' I feel so mean to have seperated them. I keep telling the babies that every alpaca goes thru this. That it's a necessary part of life. That they'll get thru it. But will I get thru it? Marshall and I went up to the barn last night around 9pm just to check on them and make sure they were okay. They were. I haven't had any nightmares yet, but we are just beginning. More tomorrow. We'll try and have a good one here.

Goat doings

So I tell everyone that I bought my 3 Nigerian Dwarf goats purely for entertainment. It certainly wasn't a practical purchase. I named them the 3 stooges, Larry (the leader), Curly (for one curly horn and he's the friendliest), and Moe (the fiesty, stand-off-ish one).  I've only had them for a year but they have fulfilled their purpose here! Yesterday, for instance, I just happened to look up towards the barn from the house. At that exact moment Larry, Moe, then Curly, one after the other, come flying around the corner of a gate heading toward the barn as if in flight from a predator. The predators, and I use this term in the absolute loosest way, were 2 of my male alpacas!! Right after Curly comes Tripper, then Skye. Right on their heels. Then they all screeched to a halt in their pen. This was all just for fun! Just for me! Then there was the time when Moe had jumped over a stall gate and walked out  the front door of the barn. As soon as he saw me coming he ran back in the barn. The closer I got the more he paced as if to say, 'Moms coming, I'm in big trouble!' Then he just up and jumped over the stall gate and looked up at me as if I'd been seeing things! They just make me laugh. Anyway, if you have goats you laugh more.

No whining! Only wining.

We finally have our first 'batch' of wine from our own grapes!! Woohoo! We tasted a bit of it, not too much or we'll just want to keep sampling, and loved it. It's so great to know that the wine is from the grapes on our own property! These grapes were planted 4 years ago and they're called Seyval grapes, a white grape. We'll bottle them this weekend with some friends of ours. We should get around 30 bottles. We can have alot of fun with that!! In the mean time Marshall is working on fixing up the winery which will be in our former 3 car garage.I'll upload some pictures soon. In the meantime heres what those Seyval grapevines looked like when we first planted them.

Spring Cleaning!

As much as I love the winters here in New England I'm always excited to clean out the alpacas pens when the temps warm up. After 4 months or so of piling on new bedding, cleaning out the poop, and the ducks and goats wondering around, if you know what I mean, they really all need cleaning out. So a couple of days ago Marshall and I spring cleaned! Woohoo! We cleaned the entire barn! While Marshall was hauling out the old bedding and bringing more sand and dirt in I was busy cleaning the water buckets, cleaning out the smaller parts of the pen that our tractor, and Marshall, can't get to, sweeping, and putting things where they belong. Can I tell you how good it feels to know its done?! I mean, I know it'll get dirty again, but at least for a couple of days when I go up to the barn it's all in order. Ahhhhhhh. Know what I mean? I decided to put my skirting table in a part of my store so I can clean last years fleece. Yep, I still need to do that. More on that on another day.