A Busy Day

After a week of mixed but mild weather, today was a 'real beaut' with warm sunshine for most of the day.  A day to get things done and even the boys sensed there was a bit of action to come.  Left to right here are Gully, Gaucho and Rufus all looking as if butter wouldn't melt etc!  First job then - round up the guys and get them into the pen.

'Get ahead - get a hat' as the saying goes, Robbie in the catch pen wearing Fergus, who is at the front left, with Gully on the right.  Faro is behind wearing the blue halter and Fyta at the rear.  It was Robbie's turn to fit the halters today, we do it time about, and I joined him so that we could trim some nails.  For the first time we've had to trim Gully's back nails and he was as good as gold - Fergus was also obliging today!  We trimmed Wee Eck's fringe as we're convinced that he couldn't see through it -  now we can see his eyes quite clearly so he must have better vision.  I've noticed that Eck  has been chewing the gate bolt recently and wondered if he was teething, so we had a look at his teeth.  He had a discoloured tooth at the front and I've now discovered that it is missing but it looks as if there is a new tooth coming through.  Their incisors are deciduous as we know and a couple of years ago Fyta had double teeth at the front for a short while until a couple fell out.  Scary looking! 

One of the paddocks has a drainage problem and after each winter there is always a large pool in place.  We wanted the boys to get the benefit of the grass but firstly had to section off the pool.  Robbie spent more than an hour shifting most of the gates whilst the boys looked on, knowing that shortly they would get into the new grass. Here the gates are lying on the ground waiting to be connected.

After a stampede down to the new grass, the boys immediately start tucking in whilst Fyta checks out the gates.  The pool is out of sight on the right but there is a lot of boggy ground around it, just the sort of place for alpacas to wallow in given half a chance.  The boys were enjoying their new grass so much they had to be called later in the day for their supplement - normally they are waiting by the gate for it.

Couldn't resist taking this photo of a flock of Waxwings on our Scots Pine, having earlier descended on our Cotoneaster hedge and polished off what red berries were left after the Blackbirds, Fieldfares and Redwings had almost stripped the hedge throughout the winter.  Our digital camera doesn't take the best pictures but magnified, the tufts of feathers can be seen at the back of the birds' heads.  Lovely migratory birds which we don't often see in this part of the world. 

And finally............wanted to take this photo today in the Spring sunshine.  The Snowdrops and Crocuses are all out and the Daffodills are beginning to form heads.  There were two honey bees flying around the flowers, so considering we have been suffering from a lack of bees over the past few years, to see two honey bees this early in the year must be a good sign.  At the top right of the picture can be seen the covers for the winter over the Gunnera plant  and they will stay on until April until the worst of the frosts are over - hopefully.