OUR SMALL HERD

Our original four boys came from Ardo Alpacas in Aberdeenshire. We are not alpaca breeders and have our boys purely as pets. Our experience is that you don't need to be a breeder and that a 'batchelor herd' can give much pleasure to the owner. We have 5 acres including our big garden and grazing for the boys, 15 miles north of Inverness, Scotland. I spin, knit, felt and crochet with the fleece from the boys.

Clicking!!

Just a reminder that clicking on (most) of the photos will show them greatly enlarged.

Sunday, 13 July 2014

Woodleigh Lodge Alpaca visit - and more.

We paid a welcome return visit to Wendy and Paul at Woodleigh Lodge Alpacas on the Black Isle early in the week.  Sammy is on the left of the photo here with Baby and Prudence in an adjoining pen.  Baby has recently been mated with Sammy so great things are expected in due course.
Pru's paddock is nearest to the garden pond so she gets the best view of the water lilies and the various wildlife which comes around.
Baby is on the left here.  Paul does a great job in managing to shear the alpacas with just Wendy's help.  Not an easy annual task but one that Paul is committed to getting more experience at.
Wendy is an expert knitter and these are just some of the excellent items she has produced recently.  The wee chap in the middle (front) with the green hat is nestled in a doughnut!
This tooth pixie is my favourite however because on his belt he has a pouch which opens allowing a tooth to be deposited by a child!  Really clever stuff.  Thanks for a lovely day Wendy and Paul, for the terrific lunch and for the cakes which the Grumpy Gardener is slowly demolishing!
Later in the week we had a visit from old friends Alan and Kath, all the way from Ardnamurchan who had brought their three grandsons with them to give them a bit of history and culture around some castle sites.  Gregor (left), Jordan (middle) and Julian seemed to enjoy their first meeting with alpacas - before going back onto their ipads, tablets, iphones etc!  Nice to see you guys - keep up the drumming/baking, IT stuff and farming respectively!
And finally...........plenty of colour on the Ceanothus (Californian Lilac) this year.  It's been a busy old week here - had to get the vet to have a look at Faro, sent his faecal samples away to Claire Whitehead for checking and the vet will be back tomorrow to take blood samples.  More on him next week.  In the meantime, Robbie has a wasp's nest to deal with in the new field shelter and we're still waiting for the hay to be ready in Karen & Dave's fields.  Have a good week.

Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. Debbie, Barnacre Alpacas14 July 2014 at 22:20

    Hope Faro is ok.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Apple Vale Alpacas14 July 2014 at 22:38

    Hope Faro is ok.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Judi B15 July 2014 at 09:21

    Fingers crossed for Faro, hope he is soon back to normal.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Zanzibah Alpacas19 July 2014 at 10:45

    Hope things are ok with Faro. It's nice to have a catch up. Sounds like you have lots going on at the moment. The knitting is great. I also like the 'tooth pixie'. But I hope I'm not going to be needing him for sometime !!! Jayne

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)