Sweet Harmony Farm

For several days now, we haven’t had any snow.  Some days are still rather cold, but things have been warming up a little bit.  And sunshine!  Even on cold and windy days the sun is melting snow.  Water is pouring down off the roofs and turning the driveway and pathway to the barn to mud.  It refreezes overnight to a thick sheet of ice, and now we inch our way carefully walking down to the barn.  The paddock has become a yucky-mud and ice-poopy mess of late winter thawing.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to that!  Over fields of white snow, the sun can be blinding for a few moments, but most certainly a welcome sight.  Oh please, Mother Nature, send Springtime soon.

Since the arrival of Henry and Cowboy in December, it brings our total number of alpacas here to nine.  And lugging hot tap water for 9 alpacas is quite a bit more work than for just 5 alpacas, so we decided to hang up 2 five gallon heated water buckets.  At first I wouldn’t; I was terrified of fire but have since learned they are very safe.   Now the alpacas have warm water all the time, and we don’t have to worry about their water freezing.  The funny thing is, the boys will drink one bucket until it’s dry, and hardly touch the other one!  Silly alpacas.

With all this sunshine, the alpacas have been coming out of the barn more and more.  At first they’ll be squinting, look around, and casually stroll across the paddock, and down the little path into the pasture.  They’ll stroll around a bit, sometimes play a bit, and sometimes cush in the sun and nap.  Almost always the first one to venture out is Julio, or North or Coty, and lots of times it’s Henry.  Henry is always accompanied by Earth.  They’re buddies and are inseparable.   Once one or two are out, the other seven follow. 

Yeah, now I can look out my window and see my little herd of alpaca boys.  And what do they do when they come out?  They eat snow.  They’ve never done this before.  Yet now that there are heated water buckets with nice warm water that never freezes, they’re eating snow.  They’re all lined up in the paddock and down the path, eating snow like they’re grazing on grass.  Every last one of them.

Silly, silly alpacas.

I woke up this morning at daybreak and noticed that it was snowing.  I’m not sure if I should end that statement with again or still.  Dan was out on the tractor for almost 5 hours yesterday, clearing and widening our driveway and the path down to the barn, clearing the paddock and making paths in the pasture, and clearing snow from around the trailer where the hay is stored and our tarp-and-pallet woodshed.  The snowbanks along our driveway and along our street are at least as tall as me or higher; I am 5 feet 4 inches tall. 

Yup, the alpacas will hardly leave the barn.  Yup, Stella gets stuck when she runs in the snow.  Yup, snow is up to the porch and just under the window.  Yup, we have to dig out the mailbox. 

Yup, I don’t think we’ll see grass again until July.

This year’s winter is definitely for the record books!

My heart both aches and yet rejoices.  I have heard that by the end of today, all of the remaining llamas at the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary will have been evacuated.  (In fact, all of the animals will have been evacuated.)  Today was the deadline given for the rescue workers on site to leave the property.  The llamas are en route to, or have arrived at, their foster home destinations for proper care and feeding, rehabilitation and training, and eventual re-homing to forever homes.   There is even a group leaving in a critical care trailer with one of the workers, Gayle, who has so eloquently described this very sad journey of an animal sanctuary that was everything but sanctuary.

I have been there in spirit and prayer, hearing the screams of the llamas in my head for a few months now.  I am not strong enough a person to be there in person, to witness this scene of unimaginable tragedy.  I cannot express my gratitude enough for those people involved in rescue, this rescue in particular, this, the largest animal rescue in our country’s history. 

The really hard part begins now.  The wonderful people who have taken in the llamas for foster care are working so hard to restore these animals to health, and to give back to them a sense of trust for their human caretakers.

Once again, I list a few websites if you are able to donate to the care of these llamas.  Please note on your paypal donation or check ‘Montana Rescue.’

http://www.northeastllamarescue.blogspot.com/

http://www.southeastllamarescue.org/

http://animeals.wordpress.com/

http://www.fortlucasfarm.com/rescue/index.html

Thank you all for reading.  ~ Mona

Alpacas most definitely have their own little personalities.  Some may be quite timid with people, some may be much more vocal than their herdmates, some are more dominant over issues such as hay or spaces in the barn, and some tend to be very quiet and submissive, and so on. 

One thing about a males only farm is that they can be very, very silly more often than not.  Their only job is to grow fabulous fiber.  And boys just love to play!

Silly, silly alpacas are a simple joy.

Last night the boys were still cranky.  Another day of snow and cold wind, and they’re just tired of being in the barn cooped up with each other.  They can go out, but generally don’t.  If they do wander out, it’s not for very long.  Dan will need to plow out paths for them again this weekend.  It’ll be cold again, but thankfully sunny.

Snow started up again overnight so I didn’t venture out to the barn till it stopped around noontime.  Let’s hear it for heated water buckets!  As I walked up to the barn pushing the wheelbarrow, I could see everyone cushed quietly inside on their thick layer of straw.  At least no one’s spitting was my first thought.  I greeted them with my usual sing-song-y, cheerful ‘Hello boys!’ and turned on the lights.  I usually quietly do a head count when I first come out and for some reason I started counting out loud.  ‘1, 2, 3, ......... 7, 8, 9!’  I was still speaking in that sing-song-y voice.

The boys were all eyeing me very intently.  Ears started to go up.  Julio was the first to stand, then North, then the others.  As each stood up, I said ‘Oh good boy! There’s 1!  Oh good boy! There’s 2! .........’  Within seconds all 9 alpacas were standing, all with ears straight up, huge eyes following me.  No one had moved from their spot, but apparently they were finding me entertaining.

It’s not very often a human can have the undivided attention of their alpacas, especially all at the same time.

So I continued sing-song-ing. ‘Yeah, all the alpacas are up!  Yeah!’  I even jumped and down and clapped a few times.  Yes folks, there I was, a 40-something woman, in my barn jumping up and down, clapping my hands, and cheering ‘yeah!’  9 alpaca heads bobbed up and down as I did.  9 sets of alpaca ears were standing up straight.  9 sets of alpaca eyes were watching me.  9 alpacas made me burst out laughing in joy.

9 alpacas were probably thinking ‘Silly, silly, human!’

Although, perhaps with the alpacas we should refer to this as ‘Barn Fever.’   It’s the dead of winter, lots of snow on the ground, the days are barely above zero, and any slight breeze is simply bone-chilling.  Usually people just remain inside their homes, snuggled up near woodstoves and curled up on the couch with blankets, sipping tea and hot chocolate and knitting away. 

After a while, we all go crazy being inside so much and just feel a need to get out.  Sometimes Dan and I will slip on the snowshoes and walk around the pasture and into the woods.  Stella runs along beside us, leaping through the snow.  If the roads are clear and down to pavement, then we’ll just take a little walk.  Activity always helps to warm us up.

The alpacas don’t care for the deep snow and have been staying in the barn, cushed on their straw bedding and munching away at hay.  The tarps keep most of the wind out but it’s so dark in there even during the day.  I keep reminding them to come outside, get some fresh air and sunshine, but they just look at me with an ‘are you kidding me?’ look.  Dan cleared out the paddock after Wednesday’s snowstorm, but still they’ve hardly come out.  Being inside the barn so much is making them really cranky.  I find fresh spit on the posts and barn walls whenever I go in. 

But Dan on the tractor gets them out!  The boys will all greet him at the gate as he rides in.  Yesterday Dan plowed paths for them around the pasture, and the boys just loved it.   They’d follow behind him as he plowed, pronking and all but dancing.  They ran and ran, as one beautiful herd of alpacas.  Such a sight!  As they come up to the barn, you can hear the pounding of their feet like a small train coming in.  They stand in the paddock for a minute catching their breaths.  Then one of them will walk quickly down the little hill and look over their shoulder as if to say ‘C’mon guys!’ and suddenly all of them are running, around the paths and sometimes into the snow, leaping and pronking and chasing each other, having a great time.

I had a wonderful end to last year / start to the New Year on Friday morning ~ I went to Sallie’s Fen Fibers to pick up another batch of my yarn!   I had this yarn done in a twist.  There’s a ply of white yarn, courtesy of Bo Jangles, and a ply of medium fawn yarn, courtesy of Coty and his mama Alana.  It’s a perfect rag-wool style yarn!  I think I’ll just call it ‘The Twist.’  Funny, Bo and Coty are always wrangling, wrestling, playing ‘Twister’ with each other, so a twist yarn from their fleeces is just perfect.  There was actually more fawn than white (yeah!) so I also have a small cone of just fawn. 

Yummmm........  Yes, yes, pictures will come. 

Wishing you all a joyous, peaceful, healthful, and prosperous New Year!

(most of today’s post is a re-print of last year’s post)

I love New Year’s and the hope for new beginnings that it brings.  On New Year’s Eve Dan and I like to sit back and reflect on our past year and create our goals for the New Year.  Our reflections start with the good, i.e. all the goals we did accomplish or are completing, and then on to the setbacks.  But instead of dwelling on any bad experiences that we may have had, we talk about what we’ve learned from those experiences so that it may help us in the future.  And then we laugh and talk about what we are looking forward to, jot down ideas, and from there our new goals are formed. 

It’s the end of the year.  Every end is a new beginning.

With the alpacas physically here it is much easier for us to visualize the direction our farm is headed.  I’m sure all farms sit back every year and say ‘Hhmmm, what needs to be fixed?  What do we need to buy this year?  What could we improve?’  Necessity and the budget usually dictate what will come first.  If the alpacas could speak, I’m sure they’d like us to keep working on a better pasture, free of rocks and roots, and filled with lush, green grass!

We’ve had a wonderful 2010.  2011 can only be better.

Here’s to wonderful new beginnings!

Wishing you all a joyous, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous New Year!

Bright Blessings,

     Mona

Looks like 2010 is going to end with quite the bang up here in New Hampshire.  We usually refer to these huge snowstorms as ‘Nor’easters’ but the weathermen are all calling it a blizzard, probably because of the strong winds.  They keep ‘upping’ the forecast and this evening it now looks like we’ll get 14 – 21 inches of snow by the time the storm is over tomorrow evening.  No matter what you call it, that’s a lot of snow for one storm.

Alpacas don’t like to be closed in, and we’d never sleep knowing they didn’t have a way to ‘get out’ should something happen to the barn.  But all this wind will definitely blow snow into our open barn, so this afternoon we spent a few hours with tarps, scraps of plywood, a staple gun, and a cordless screwdriver.  First Dan dragged in their outside hay feeder and then we set out to block the openings of the barn.  We covered over three of them and half of the fourth one, leaving about a 6 foot wide opening.  We wanted it wide enough so that if something startled them, they could all run out pretty much at once.  Their small hay feeder is positioned right in front of this opening, so we moved that against the side of the pen wall.  We spread out a bale of fresh straw in this protected section of 4 pens, put out 2 buckets of hot tap water, filled and fluffed the 3 hay feeders, told them to stay cushed together for warmth, and be nice to each other.  I doubt any of them will venture outside tonight!  It’s awfully dark in there now so we’ve left the back porch light on as a bit of a nightlight for them.

Stay safe, my alpaca friends. 

On the twelfth day of Stitch-mas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve knitters knitting

Eleven cones a’ winding

Ten orders shipping

Nine rugs a’ hooking

Eight yarns a’ dyeing

Seven needles felting

Six sample cards

Five spinning wheels!!!

Four pounds of fiber

Three nuno scarves

Two socks on one needle

 And a yarn store that understands me

(I'd love to take credit for this great twist on the popular Christmas song, but I found it on the Halcyon Yarn Store website.)

We’ve been transitioning to our winter routine.  We can’t leave the house until we’re ‘loaded up’:  winter muck boots, heavy coats and gloves, hat/headband, and lots of layers.  Barn chores take much longer this time of year.  We’re trying to remember what we did last year for snow removal around the gates, what worked and didn’t work so well.  We’re so not ready for snow just yet.  We’re lucky that so far it’s just been cold and windy.  What little snow we’ve had is gone within a day or two.

It seems as if the alpacas have grown their own winter coats overnight.  Suddenly they’re all so very fluffy looking.  Those fluffy cheeks are beginning to look like teddy bear faces.  We’ve been putting down straw for them to bed down on but in the morning light we see that they’re all cushed outside!  Apparently they’re a lot warmer than we are. 

There’s hardly anything left to graze on in the pastures so we’re starting to go through more hay.  That’s normal this time of year.  I try to keep all the feeders really full and well fluffed.  We’ve been feeding them a little more pellets in the evenings too.  The boys never say no to extra pellets.

The past several days it hasn’t even reached 32 degrees so the water buckets are frozen over mornings and evenings.  So it’s back to hauling down gallons and gallons of hot tap water!  Arlo used to always greet me last winter but now it’s North.  Once he realized I’m bringing down morning and evening ‘tea,’ he runs right up to me.  I can barely get the buckets down on the floor of the barn and he’s drinking and drinking .......... he’ll drink a whole gallon of warm water at once.  Silly alpaca.

The other thing with cold weather returning is that it’s harder to rake up the alpaca poo.  I wait till mid morning to do this, hoping that with the sun up over the barn, the beans won’t be frozen to the ground so much.  When you try using the rake to scoop frozen-to-the-ground-beans, the beans develop a life of their own and sail across the paddock.  So now it’s ice pick time.  The ice pick breaks up the frozen beans easier, but it also makes it easier for the beans to sail faster and more unpredictably.  Ever have this conversation with a co-worker?  “Well I had to get out the ice pick to shovel manure this morning and whoa!  The beans went straight up!  Only had a half dozen or so in my hair.  Thank god my mouth wasn’t open.”  I don’t recommend it.  Unless they have livestock, they just won’t understand.  They’ll look absolutely horrified, possibly more so than when describing how your favorite alpaca spit in your hair.

Alpacas’ cute personalities and fabulous fiber (!) outweigh all these ..... these ..... winter oddities.

I wouldn’t trade my alpacas for any other livestock in the world!

I went out to the barn this morning to do my usual morning chores.  It’s sunny today after a day of foggy, wind swept rain, and all the alpacas were out in the pasture.  North and Earth came into the barn while I was scooping alpaca poo.  I pushed the wheelbarrow out to the Big Pile to dump it and when I came back into the paddock the rest of the alpacas ran up too.  I greeted them all by name as I usually do.

Coty was standing near the outside hay bin.  I casually asked him how his wound was doing this morning and walked into the barn to begin refilling the hay bins.   Here I am fluffing hay when Coty sauntered in, bleeding all over again!  Yikes!  Quickly I went into ‘vet’ mode and shut the barn panel, herded Coty and North into the pen, turned on the inside barn lights, and got paper towels to clean him up again.  He must have rubbed his head on something and pulled off the scab.  At least it wasn’t a new wound!  He winced strongly when I first applied pressure against his gash, such tender ears alpacas have, and then stood calmly while I waited there for the blood to stop.  North was a good companion and didn’t leave his side.  Earth fussed from just outside the pen door.

I did a quick couple of wipes down Coty’s neck.  It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the other night and I know that this blood on top of his fleece will eventually wash off on its own.  I let him and North out of the pen and opened up the barn again.  Bo and Arlo came in quickly to check out the new hay.  I finished adding and fluffing hay to the other bins and re-filled water buckets.

And that’s when I realized that Coty had managed to bleed on just about everyone else.

Welcome to our farm!  We have a small herd of red-spotted alpacas!

Coty’s mama is our beautiful Alana.  When I first saw Alana she was still a cria, and I knew I had to have her.  She has stunning rose-grey/fawn fleece that in the sunlight has a pinkish hue and is oh so soft to the touch.  Now as an adult alpaca she is very tall and statuesque and still has that stunning fleece.  Coty is a male version of her, his fleece a shade or two lighter and more a fawn color.  That fleece is heaven on your hands and against your cheek.  He is a little shy and apprehensive around humans, but stands quietly for you when held.  Around the other alpacas he is always gentle and rarely spits.  At two years old he is a very tall alpaca and all but struts when he walks.  Personally, I’d love a pasture full of Cotys. 

Last night, Coty sent me into a panic. 

We went out to the barn as we usually do in the evenings to feed the boys.  Dan has wired the outside lights of the barn so that we can also turn them on from inside the house.  As we walked into the paddock ............ you know how you ‘just know’ that something isn’t right?  The boys were all quietly standing around or eating hay.  Bo slowly approached us and as he walked past the light we noticed a little spot of blood on his side.  ‘Hhhmmm ........ thought he was all done teething’ I mused out loud.   I started scanning the rest of the boys in the shadowed paddock.  Coty started to come towards us.  My normally very quiet and calm husband exclaimed ‘LOOK at Coty!’  There under the light, the left side of Coty’s head and down his neck was just covered in blood.  ‘Coty, my Coty!’ I screeched.   It is hunting season and the worst possible scenario ran through my head.  I went into the tack room to turn on all the barn lights.  Of course now Coty looked much worse.   

I ran back to the house to get rags and warm water and the phone to call the vet.  Here’s my soapbox to have a phone in the barn with the vet’s phone number right there.  When I got back Dan had all 7 alpacas enclosed in the barn, with Coty, Arlo, and Julio in the pen.  We scooted Julio out.  Dan had inspected Coty and determined ~ thank God ~ that it was not a gunshot wound.  More likely, one of the alpacas had bit his ear and yanked out fleece along with some skin.  Which alpaca would have done that?  Hello Guinness.  It must have just happened because the blood was so fresh; none of it had dried.  Dan held him.  Coty rested his chin on the pen wall while I gently washed off his neck and side of his face with the wet rag.  Blood was basically on top of his fleece and some of it was starting to clot.  I slowly made my way over to his ear and that’s when he winced.  Poor Coty!!  Oh that must have hurt.  I held the rag with gentle pressure on his ear to stop the bleeding.  Coty was a real trooper and just stood there.  Sometime he’d rock his chin on the pen wall a bit but he never fussed.  Bo was very concerned and stood closely right on the other side of the pen wall watching and watching the entire time.  Whenever I’d turn around to wet the rag again, Bo would nose Coty and Coty would nose Bo right back.  How sweet!

After getting Coty all cleaned up we went on with our usual evening routine of refilling the hay bins and water buckets, and feeding alpaca pellets.  It was very quiet in the barn, no fussing or fighting at all. 

Thanksgiving time is my favorite holiday.  I love that whole ‘harvest time’ theme.  The smell of the turkey and all those veggies cooking make the house smell oh so good.  And pie!  Lots and lots of pie! 

We are grateful for the many blessings in our lives.  As alpaca farmers sometimes these blessings are unusual things.  For instance, this morning I am grateful that Guinness didn’t spit into my hair!  When I’m in the barn, if one of the alpacas is going to be spitting, 90% of the time, it’ll be Guinness.  He’s usually defending some freshly fluffed hay, which he thinks is all for him.  Usually his cohort in spitting crime is Julio, but sometimes it’s one of the other alpacas.  They will usually turn their head when Guinness starts to fuss, then Guinness will spit at them and fuss some more, and if I’m not fast enough .........eeewww!  Spit spray will end up in my hair.  And other mornings, Guinness just quietly chews hay side by side his fellow herd mates.

Yes, this morning I am so very grateful for my clean hair!

Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This is the scene now every morning.  Mornings are down right crisp but the boys come out at daybreak and start grazing.  They graze for hours, coming back up to the barn in the afternoon for long drinks of water and ‘siesta time.’  I’d love to know what they’re finding to eat!  There just doesn’t seem to be that much, but they did this last year in late fall too.  Someday ........ someday our pastures will be as green as the lawn beside it!  They usually all stay together in one group as they move through the pasture.  It’s so good to see that the 2 new boys have integrated into the herd relatively seamlessly.

It’s good to see Julio being his usual self.  By his usual self, I mean spitting with Guinness over hay, threatening to spit at Bo, Coty, Arlo, and the new boys over hay, being the first to finish eating at dinnertime thereby trying to steal the others’ feed, and some mild body-slamming of the others to push them out of the way ~ just because.  And perhaps a kick if we humans are too close to his back legs.  Not that any of these traits are particularly endearing, but they are who Julio is.  It’s autumn now, cold and windy with shorter days, and he’s also resumed acting as the guard, first to check out any possibility of danger.  He is back to being our alpha!

At the beginning of summer we’d noticed him acting a bit ‘off.’  He’d stand around a lot, or cush more than usual, he’d eat his pellets slowly and sometimes not finish them, nibble at hay rather than enthusiastically chew, and ignore Guinness at the hay bins.  An alpaca that doesn’t ‘stay with the herd’ is one that is probably ill.  Then we noticed he had a small lump on one jaw.   Over a few weeks the swelling would go up and down and back up and sometimes poor Julio would even drool.  I kept in contact with our wonderful vet, Amy.  Once we noticed that he was clearly thinner, she came right out.  Our poor Julio appeared to have either a tooth or jaw abscess!  She drew up 5 injections of an antibiotic for us to give to him over 10 days.

Amy gave Julio the first shot with ease, giving us instructions on how to do an intra-muscular injection, something we haven’t done before.   Yikes!  Two days later Julio must have been feeling better.  He also must have sensed our apprehension and thought it would be a fun game to play ‘keep away from the humans.’  At dinnertime we would entice him into the pen to eat with Arlo and then we’d corner him to do his shot.  We’d catch him, but he didn’t want to stay caught!  Julio is a tall alpaca and very strong and he’d push forward against me almost knocking me down.  Dan could hold him longer than I could, but Julio would literally take him ‘for a ride’ around the pen with Dan hanging on.  I wish I’d had a video camera for that scene!  He’d kick at us and try to climb up the pen walls to get out.  Stressing him is not good, so we’d give up after about 20 minutes and just let him out to rejoin the herd in the pasture. 

Julio needed his shots.  Several days of trying went unsuccessfully, each time with Julio taking Dan for a ride in the pen.  By Saturday we were frantic.   Val came right over!  Having had alpacas for years, and having over 70 alpacas on her farm, Val is a natural. She came into the pen with us and Julio just watched.  She talked to Julio in her calm, soothing voice.  She scratched his ears and neck and showed him the needle.  Our little hoodlum just stood there.  She very gently held him.  She then instructed Dan on where to stand and exactly what motions to do with his hands.  Dan administered the injection, and Julio never even flinched.  All this couldn’t even have taken 2 minutes.

The remaining 3 injections, we caught Julio, I held him, Dan gave him the injection, then DONE.  No drama!

Yup, that’s our man Julio, the Drama Queen.