Sweet Harmony Farm

Our first week of raising alpacas has been basically, blessedly uneventful.  They’re such quiet and peaceful animals.  Not that we were expecting them to be constantly animated, but after a few hours we were saying ‘hey guys do something!’

I love to read other alpaca farms’ humorous tips and stories, and now we’ve acquired a few of our own.  These are in no particular order.  We will also keep this list in our "Other Stuff" section of our website and update it periodically:

 ~ There is always a pecking order.  Our boys were in a large herd and now there’s just the 5 of them of various ages, so by default it appears Julio and Guinness, our 2 geldings and the oldest at about 6 years old each, expect to both be the alpha.  We think Julio will eventually reign, but until then, there’s some spatting and occasional spitting.  When the spit starts to fly get out of the way!  Yesterday we both got caught in the crossfire.

 ~ When there is barn work to be done in the heat, humidity and rain, wear a bathing suit.  I wear a tankini with men’s swim trunks.  The trick is to wear a color your husband would never wear; mine are purple.  As you get wet from the rain or drenched in sweat, the suit will dry quickly.  And when you get hot, just hose yourself off.  This has been a wonderful idea for working in the garden (my mother in law’s trick) and it works great for the barn too.

 ~ Keep the herd out of the barn while you arrange feed bowls.  Ours have walked right into the tack room and started helping themselves, and all but attack us as we walk the bowls out to the stall.  I swear I think we were being orgled too.  (note to self:  order panels!)

 ~ Alpacas love the leaves on saplings.

 ~ Barn poopers happen.  Just accept it.  And it is easier to clean up then the poop piles in the pasture in the rain.

 ~ Always be grateful to your Mr.-fix-it husband who can finagle electricity to the barn while you are watching a weanling to make sure it is OK after an episode of choke.  Also, have a chair available for him to sit on.  He knew in his heart that our little boy would be fine, but waited in the barn with me for 2 hours anyways because he was worried about me.

 ~ Ladies, you will almost always find hay in your bra.

 ~ And also, Ladies, sometimes your hubby will actually forget to remove his shoes before entering the house.  Bleach (non-chlorine) will help you feel much better.

 ~ If you are the type of person who is always checking to see if the toaster and iron are off and unplugged, you will also constantly be checking gates and doors to be sure they are properly closed.

 ~ After spending thousands of dollars clearing 3 acres of land and fencing it in, your alpacas will spend the majority of their time on the 1/3 acre surrounding your barn.

 ~ Your dog may be mad at you for having alpacas (see my post: Oh Stella!) but your indoor cat couldn’t care less.

 ~ Work your poop piles from the outside in.  Your shoes will definitely stay cleaner.

 ~ Alpaca males can and will open gates when there is an open female, surprise!

Our dog is just wonderful and we’ve done an excellent job at spoiling her.  She just loves the attention and is happy all the time.  But now that the alpacas have arrived, suddenly she is sullen, clearly jealous, and not too thrilled with us!!  First thing every morning for months now, Dan gets up and takes Stella for a walk around the outside of the fencing.  She is always excited for this, and trots along checking everything out, sometimes darting off into the woods.  Not that first morning!!  She wouldn’t go anywhere near the fence.  Dan had to actually put the leash on her and pull her along till she finally started to walk on her own.  She would hardly look at me either when I put down her morning crunchers.  As dog lovers (and lovers of all animals) we personally are just crushed!!   We’re sure she’ll come around soon, but until then, we’ll just feel terrible.

Hmm, I guess this means we’ll just have to shower our wonderful little dog with even more and more attention, which we’ve been doing.  More walks and frisbee tossing, scratches and pats, sometimes hand feeding her, and always more snacks.  Thank goodness she likes veggies, tofu, and rice.

The other morning I was at the fence line taking pictures and Stella woofed at me jealously from the yard.  She happily came over to me when I called her, wagging all over, but stood with her butt to the fence, refusing to look at the alpacas.   Dan has gotten her to willingly walk around the fence line with him, but she just will not look into the pasture.   

But she is coming around; it’s just going to take a little longer than we had hoped. Such personalities our dog friends have!

I got up bright and early yesterday at 5:30 a.m., nuked up some coffee and starting checking email, the weather, and the news.  Suddenly, poof!  The power went out.  A bright and sunny summer morning, no wonder the power went out; this is rural New Hampshire after all.  Dan was listening to the radio (back up battery) and apparently a squirrel had gotten into a substation and ............ which knocked out power for several towns!  While I feel terribly for the squirrel, we found it to be a rather amusing story, and what a way to start our day, the day ‘the alpacas come home.’

The dragonflies were at it again yesterday morning, flying around the yard and pasture gracefully.  We’ve been playing phone tag with our neighbor for a few days now.  Our first order of business wass to swing over and pick up some hay.  Our beautiful new wooden feeder will be ready in a few days, so for now, our yellow muck-wheelbarrow, new and still clean, will serve as the hay feeder.  It makes for some interesting pictures!  Their grain and minerals were on order and due in some time Thursday, so we  ran to the feed store later on in the afternoon.

Our little crew arrived at lunchtime with Pam beaming ear to ear.  Yeah, she loves our place!  The boys were a little confused getting out of the trailer but we easily got them into the barn.  We put out water and hay, and they all drank and started munching away.  We stood and watched them for a while, while they investigated their new barn and pasture.  They’re even enjoying what little grass we’ve got growing.  All in all, it seemed to be a simple, stress-free transfer for them.  What a wonderful way to start our transition to alpaca farming.

Welcome home, Julio, Guinness, Bo Jangles, Coty, and Arlo!

We’ve finally had another stretch of hot, sunny days so it feels like summer.  I’ve actually had to water the vegetable garden for the first time since I planted it.  Our mid-summer flower gardens are blooming with many brightly-colored hybrid daylilies, purple coneflowers, black-eyed susans, liatris, and hostas.  All the nearby fields are filled with bloomers too, goldenrod and queen’s anne lace, wild black-eyed susans, ragweed, and many others of which I haven’t got a clue.  In the late-day summer sun, our yard and pastures are teeming with hundreds of beautiful dragonflies.  Walking by the nearby fields there are clouds of them, hovering and swooping, their presence so magical and uplifting.  Sometimes one will land on us while we’re floating in the canoe or in the gardens.  We love to sit and admire them close up, such a fascinating little bug.

We love to see the dragonflies and have planted many of the flowers that attract them.  Dragonflies are harmless to people and animals, and because they eat so many mosquitoes it only makes sense to have plantings that attract them.  These same plants also attract many insect-eating birds too, another bonus.  And when it comes to eating mosquitoes, we don’t argue with the bats that show up at night either!  Attracting dragonflies and birds (and bats), not having standing water, and fans in the barn are our top choices for keeping mosquitoes, flies, and other disease-spreading insects away from the alpacas.  We know there will always be some bugs, and plenty of them, in our humid climate, so every little bit helps.

Our alpacas will start coming home to our farm soon, and now is when we realize that oops!  There is so much more to do.  But like any farm, or business, there is always ‘more to do’ or ‘something that needs getting done.’   All farms are a continual ‘work in process,’ and ours certainly will be no exception.

I suppose there will always be a new gate or gadget needed, an extra water bucket here, move the grain feeders there, that sort of thing.  Running through all the major things we’ve done .......We’ve cleared land and improved the pastures with, oh my, lots of drainage.  We’ve built the small barn with an awning.  We’ve installed the hydrant for water from our well.  We’ve put up fencing and adjusted gates and sealed off the low areas where rainwater has washed out underneath, allowing small critters such as the red fox access.   We’ve seeded the pasture with pasture grass mix and excitedly watched as it started to grow, albeit in large splotches!  Our first piece of alpaca equipment is appropriately enough a poop scooper and large 2-wheeled wheelbarrow.  Our hay feeder is on order.  We’ve secured a hay source and grain/feed source.  We’ve decided how to divvy up the barn stalls and which directions to put the gates and panels. We’ve purchased that very well used but sturdy horse trailer. We’ve prayed for clear, cool days and sunny skies.

So now we sit back and say, the alpacas will be here in a few short days, and we’re not ready!  We have waited for this moment for almost 2 years so how could we possibly not be ready?   We’ll need some grain feeders and oh yes grain, something to store the grain in, water buckets, the wire type tape to block off the area behind the barn where it’s still a bit mucky, and that tape to block off the stall where we’ll store some hay, oh yes ~ hay!, panels to divide the stalls, a scale, one of those awning things with metal supports to store our tractor in as we need the barn space for the alpacas now, where to put the pile of poop, and also...............  I’m sure after they arrive, we’ll constantly be saying ‘gee we really need to get a .......’  Until then, we can improvise.  Dan is very good at improvising, or as he says ‘mousing it.’

We are life long animal lovers and in that sense we are not nervous about the alpacas’ arrival.  Even though we’ve never owned livestock, we are comforted by the fact that there are several alpaca farms with kind alpaca owners within a 30-45 minute drive, our vet is walking distance away, and of course Pam is always available for our multitudes of questions.  Thanks Pam!  Your patience and kindness to your animals, and now ours, is cherished. 

We are first and foremost an alpaca farm, and we are always excited when we can blog about the alpacas.  Yesterday we drove up to Longwoods Alpacas in Maine to welcome our newest cria, Sweet Harmony’s Henry, whom we will call Hank.  On our farm we love ‘the boys’ and little Hank is no exception.

Hank is our second cria from our beautiful girl, Longwood’s Caitlin’s Alana.  He was sired by the Upper Farm’s stunning Milo Rawhide.  Hank weighed in at a sturdy 17.5 pounds, very straight legs and bite, and perfect conformation.  His fleece is shiny and soft, dark brown in color with black points, with a teeny white spot on his front fetlock.  He appears to have both his parent’s density.  Just lovely!  We are so thrilled with what this match has produced that we shall be breeding them again for a 2010 cria.

Pam went out to her back pasture about noontime and saw this wonderful surprise pronking around gleefully, nursing easily, and happily playing with her other crias born recently.  Such a happy and well adjusted little fellow, and we can’t wait to have him pronking around here in our pastures.