Sunset & halters

At the end of a long day there is nothing the boys like better than to lie down and watch a lovely sunset - nothing as strenuous as 'roamin in the gloamin' for these fellas!    Gully (left) has settled down next to Fergus, which he often does.  Fergus does not mind Gully lying next to him, but he won't put up with Wee Eck, our black boy coming anywhere near him!

Gully and Fergus again with Gaucho lying further away from them and Rufus in the foreground.

Fergus likes his neck rubs, but Gully isn't into that - unless he's in the catch pen!  Fyta has appeared, always the nosey one trying to find out what is going on - and if there is any food about!   Sometimes Fyta will tolerate neck rubs, but just as often he walks away.

We also put the boys into the catch pen this week so that we could check them over and put their halters on.  I put some Neem cream on a couple of bald spots on Wee Eck's ankles and also on Gully's ears which are much furrier than they were but still need some occasional cream.  The flies have been a menace again for the boys this week but the awful smell of Neem does help to keep them away.  Here are Gaucho (right), Rufus (middle) and Wee Eck at the rear, waiting to be haltered.

And finally......Gully, haltered and ready for walkies.  He walked quite well, as they all did but Fidget as always did not like having the halter put on.  He's OK when it's on it's just getting it over his nose which he does not like - obviously a sensitive area for him.  More practice needed by humans in this procedure I think!!

Hurrah - shearing is finished!

James and Kym Dixon have really 'played a blinder' this season for alpaca owners in the north.  Having been rained off several weeks ago they returned north to dubious weather forecasts and to catch up on all the 'stragglers' they had missed.  Today we were delighted when the weather in the morning was lovely and warm and friends Angie and Liz, each with their respective small herds, were due to have their animals sheared.  We went to help Liz with her 4 boys, and as usual, when an alpaca is sheared, the other animals look at them as if they are total strangers.  Here are Torquil (rear) and Ragnar when they see Hector after clipping!  Hamish has already rushed at Hector and a spitting match started.  Only after a lot of sniffing each other was peace restored.  Ragnar (front) is quite an old boy and was in need of a good short back and sides, dental attention and pedicure...............

And here he is - doesn't he look smart after James and Kym have spent some time on him?

Here are Torquil (left) and Hamish, two of Liz's boys waiting James's attention.

After James and Kym had left to continue their work in the north, we went to visit Angie and Ian who had had a visit from James earlier in the day.  This seems to have induced Bianca (left) as she gave birth to Bailey (the same colour as a certain Irish creme!) about an hour earlier.  This was James's second visit and the second time one of Angie's girls had given birth as a result - James obviously has this effect on girls!  Bianca and Bailey were safely inside as thunder and lightening struck followed by torrential rain! 

This is Twix (he takes the biscuit!), another one of Angie and Ian's family.

Earlier in the week we had a visit from sister-in-law Sheila, husband Jim, daughter Pauline and grandson Matthew.  Sheila is trying to coax Gully to come closer - without luck!  We also had a visit earlier in the week from Lorna and Sandy of Ardo Alpacas and the weather for these visits was fantastic.  As the week has progressed, so has the rain and storms.  Really strange summer weather this year.

Our Cardiocrinum Gigantium  ( Himalayan giant lily, introduced into this country by the explorer George Sherrifs) is excelling itself.  It's now about 7 feet tall with these fragrant, beautiful flowers on display.

Heat n' hydro

Those of you with alpacas will know this heart-stopping scene, when you first look into the paddock and there are animals lying all over the place!  The boys are just testing our pace-makers of course because they are all actually sun bathing.  A scorching start to the week saw them all flat out in the sun, using the sand pit, the grass and the water trays to try to keep cool.  Good job they've been sheared recently.  The weather for the rest of the week went downhill rapidly and ended with localised flooding, thunder, lightening and torrential downpours.  Those golfers amongst you may have seen on TV the landslips and damage caused by the weather during the Scottish Open just along the road near Inverness.

We've had a busy weekend with friends Ken and Sandy visiting.  Ken is a great photographer and got shots of the local birdlife, including an Osprey, as well as some terrific head shots of the boys.  From the left, the boys in this photo are Fyta, Rufus, Gully, Gaucho and Fidget's rear end!

Sandy gets acquainted with Fergus and Wee Eck.

On Saturday we all piled into the car and drove the short distance to Dingwall to see friend John McKenzie who is  an alpaca owner - and much, much more!  John has worked hard over the past 5 years to establish his farm and set up a number of electricity generation projects using renewables.  He has a wind turbine on the hill, solar PV panels on the barn roof, planted a small wood for a future renewable wood source, and most impressively, built a dam and uses the water to create hydro electricity!  Over the years he has thoroughly researched these power sources and his farm has now become a source of knowledge and research into these energy uses for farms.  On the animal front John keeps cattle, including belted Galloways, Saddleback pigs, his four alpaca boys and Barclay the black Lab!  The informative plaque above is fixed to a huge  granite boulder near his hydro generation shed.  John is a mine of factual information on renewables for farmers - details on the plaque above.  A really interesting visit John - thanks again.

And finally..... it's getting bigger and the 'trumpets' are beginning to appear!

A 'harrowing' experience.

The harrow is the latest bit of kit being employed to try to keep the buttercups at bay so we dropped the grass collection box and fitted on the new purchase.  We don't like spraying, so try a lot of different methods, including liming the soil, to try and stop the weed's unceasing march across the paddocks.  No doubt that the harrow does a good job of scarifying and raking, so hopefully this will help - in due course!  We've seen several fellow bloggers harrowing like crazy, so we'll see how we get on with this idea. 

A lazy Sunday morning in the sun for four of the boys.  Fidget is at the back, Wee Eck on the left, Fergus in the middle and Faro on the right.  We moved the boys down to the bottom paddocks a couple of weeks ago ready for the shearing and they like being in this steading as it's deep and dark and the flies don't get in there!

Here they are emerging into the sunlight with Rufus lying on the ground.  The flies have been a real pest this week and the boys don't like them, spending hours lying inside eating their hay and chewing the cud.  They enjoy the cool evenings best when even the midgies have gone.  We've put the boys into the catch pen a couple of times over the past week and lightly sprayed them with fly repellent to help them.  Gully's ears and between his front legs have had Neem cream applied as he has been scratching quite a bit.  Wee Eck also had some applied to bald patches on his ankles.  The cream works, but boy it stinks! 

And now for something completely different.... we bought this Cardiocrinum giganteum 4 years ago from the Explorer's Garden in Pitlochry when we visited on the day before we got our first four alpaca boys.  During the past 3 years it has grown no more than a foot high, been ravaged by slugs, then died back.  This year - probably due to a very warm April - it has shot up to over 6 feet high and is still growing.  If we are lucky, white trumpet-like flowers should appear soon.   Watch this space for  a photo!

Whisky with rain water!

What a week for shearing!  On Monday, James & Kym arrived after shearing on Skye, did our boys and  3 other small local herds then moved on to Jayne at Zanzibah.  We got the best day of the week as Tuesday turned out to be a dreadful day although Zanzibah were sheared as you will have seen from Jayne's blog.  The weather for the rest of the week stayed wet with sunny spells.  This played havoc with James's shearing list and he will be returning to finish off those he could not shear.  I think we all know how differently many of the alpacas behave as soon as they are sheared as they look different, and perhaps smell slightly different to each other after the fleece comes off.  This is Faro, herd guard, immediately after shearing when he strutted his stuff around the paddock.

The rest of the boys are in the catch pen waiting to be sheared and can't quite understand why Faro looks so different.  Faro paraded in front of them for quite a while as if to say, "It's OK guys, it's me - honest!"  Then as each boy in turn was sheared there was a lot of smelling of each other and quite a bit of spitting until things settled down.

No chance of mistaking Wee Eck, even after shearing, with those big radar scanner lugs and his shiny tooth!

What a poppet - Fergus!

Gully looking a little bewildered shortly after the clip - but he soon recovered and was running around with the others, jumping in the air, high kicking with his back legs and obviously pleased to have his fleece off.

Rufus has ended up looking rather elegant after the clip.  He had his protruding teeth seen to and his fighting teeth snipped but he didn't enjoy that part of the procedure.  Within minutes however he was grazing peacefully with the others. 

And finally....... as we have a bachelor herd we can't compete with all the lovely cria photos from the other blogs.   However, friends Angie & Ian had a visit from James on Fri morning but unfortunately the animals were too wet to shear.   Coco (mum) had a due date some time in July, but 2 hours after James had visited she decided that as shearing wasn't an option and the rain had stopped, she might as well give birth to Whisky.  This is Angie and Ian's first alpaca birth, so well done you two and Coco - and welcome to Whisky country  -  Whisky! 

Shearing is nearing!

It's an alpaca's life, lying in the sun, soaking up the morning rays!  Fyta is a real sun lover, getting down and pointing his belly at the sun whenever he can.  It's always a bit heart-stopping seeing an alpaca like this initially, as many of you know, and it's always a relief when the animal lift's it's head to confirm that it is OK.  Fyta is lying here next to Gaucho with an assortment of hay buckets thrown around the shelter - also the work of Fyta!

Heads down, grazing time again.  The cloudy sky was the first sign that heavy rain was about to descend .  We still have a section of this paddock 'fenced off' as the large pool of water refuses to budge - normally by this time of the year it is completely dry but we've had so much rain over the past month that it is still there.

Rufus (left) and Gully grazing head to head.  The boys are due to have a visit from James the shearer on Monday afternoon so their thick coats will soon be in bags!  When this photo was taken this morning they were all nice and dry but would you believe they are now soaking after another day of rain.  The forecast is a bit better for tomorrow (Sunday) which I hope will give them a chance to dry out, if not they'll have to be inside tomorrow night to make sure they are ready for their Monday perm.  James will do the small herds in this part of the world before heading along the coast to Jayne at Zanzibah to do her lovely beasties.  On Tues and Wed he will be in Moray and Aberdeenshire shearing bigger herds and we hope to catch up with him again then.

And finally........... an update on Duncan (Hunkey - Dunkey) the Buff Orpington cockerel we were given recently.  He's settled in really well with his three hens and this is a shot of him with one of them, 'Buttercup.'  We bred her ourselves with several others 8 years ago, so she is doing very well.  Her mother was a Sicilian Buttercup breed, well known as 'flyers' and this little girl can still get over an 8 feet high enclosure with no problem!  She is still laying as is another of the trio who is also 8 years old, and the third is a Maran who is 5 years old, so they must be happy hens for sure.

Early ablutions

Fyta loves water, as did his mum,  Ardo Pie.  Here he is getting ready for the morning ablution.  The boys have just over a week to wait before James arrives to shear them.  Fortunately the weather hasn't been excessively hot this year, the sun only very hot on occasional days and often cooled by wind or clouds.  The boys are grateful for this but it will still be a relief for them with their coats off.

It looks slightly undignified, but he knows what he is doing.

Almost there now.

Thats it - now for a soak!

Gully is not over keen on water and he doesn't get in the water tray at all.  Here he is with his pal Gaucho behind in the shelter.

The veg garden continues to work it's wonders.  This photo was taken early this morning with the mist just beginning to clear in the background.  The peas, runner beans and broad beans in the middle plots are doing well with the tatties behind them also growing.  The brassica (cabbage, cauliflowers etc) are growing slowly as are the two plots of swedes which are for the boys during the coming winter.  The poly tunnel is producing lovely early tatties and baby carrots from thinning will start this week.  The wee plants have had to put up with some horrendous weather since they were planted, but once they get going, they soon catch up.

And finally.......the fact that we are going through peanuts by the sackful just now is down to this little fellow and his pals!  We have families of Blue Tits like this, totally unfazed by humans at this early stage in their lives plus Sparrows, Siskins, Green Finches and Woodpeckers devouring the nuts as if they are going out of business!  We also have a red squirrel who loves peanuts but he's harder to photograph with our modest camera as he's shy and keeps his distance.  If the RSPB wonder where all the Sparrows have gone from the south, they're here in our hedge!