Snow fair!

You'll be able to tell the weather conditions for most of this week from the photo!  Storm Caroline brought us high winds at the beginning of the week followed by the white stuff!  Fidget is left wondering where all his green grass has disappeared to.

The boys make good use of their shelters when the weather gets rough.  They are quite happy to lie outside on a clear, frosty night but when snow starts falling they go under cover.

Viewed from inside the shelter, three snow clad boys survey the scene - Faro (left) Fergus (nearest)  and Fyta.

Drinking water is essential in wintery weather, firstly because the troughs often freeze over, especially at night and secondly because the boys are eating a lot of hay and haylage instead of grass and so get thirsty.

We've also been feeding sugar beet this week.  We use the pellets which are soaked in water before being dished up.  The boys really like it in this weather but ignore it if there is grass to be had!

Faro is a slow eater and always last to finish any feed.  Fergus looks as if he is pleading for a second helping - which he does not get!

This photo was taken this morning as the boys wandered over to the furthest paddock in the strong sunshine, probably hoping to find some grass.  A helpful human gets out his snow shovel later and shifts some snow to give the boys a taste of their grass.  Pampered or what?  Incidentally, we had an email this week from a Taiwanese family who visited the alpacas during 2014.  Teng-Wei and his family enjoyed their visit then and subsequently posted photos of the boys, and details of their visit on their blog back home in Taiwan.  I know you all read this blog Teng-Wei, so greetings to you and your family from Tigh Mhor alpacas in a very snowy Scotland!  Hope you'll visit us again sometime - after the snow has gone!

And finally.............. this photo was taken during a snow shower and shows the top of the south facing gable end of our house where the House Martins built two nests.  It's always the case that the Sparrows inhabit the nests over winter then get chased out in the Spring by the returning Martins.  During this week's gales one of the nests was completely blown down whilst half of the remaining one was blown off.  This left a very irate male Sparrow making his displeasure known from the remains of the nest!