A DAY OFF AT THE SEASIDE

Woke to another stunning morning and a forecast of exceptionally warm sunny weather ... so after doing the feed rounds I asked Peter what his plan was and he said he was going to poo hoover the top field, unless I had a better idea. We could go to the beach,  I said... well, blimey he was ready in a jiffy!!

So off we went in Pixie (camper van) to Hill Head near Lee on Solent, not far from us and incidentally, where the Meon Valley River goes out to sea. The beach was quiet, just a few fishermen, some energetic runners and the odd person sunbathing and one even swimming ...  the sea was calm, deep blue and very dazzling in the sun and the air warm and fishy. Costa del (South of England) sol. First stop a cup of rather good real coffee (won't be able to sleep tonight) then a walk along on the pebbles for an hour or so. The sea air made us hungry and so we made our way to the Jolly Sailor at Bursledon for a very welcome half of best and a delicious lunch overlooking the boats and gin palaces before visiting a garden centre on the way home - bought a lavender plant to fill a gap in the garden and had a look at some Marine fish in their aquarium, Peter's new hobby..  I fancied a couple of little blue jobs, but apparently the tank is full.... All in all a really enjoyable day out which made a real change and made the most of the Indian Summer.

Some photos from the day and some of the pacas in the field this evening .... and Jazz too.

View from The Jolly Sailor

Hill Head Beach

Cotton Candy

Makes a nice screen saver!

Jazz

Bonaventure

NEW ROUTINE - NEW FIELDS

I love September, chilly starts and warm sunny days (well today anyway).... had a lovely time just doing stuff with the alpacas. The last spit off of the year and I'm fairly sure we have 24 pregnant, maybe 25 .... out of 27 that's pretty good going. We'll get them all scanned next month and then again in March.

I weighed the smaller crias and then moved all the females down to the bottom of the farm into one big group. There's so much grass down there and I want them to have it whilst there's still some goodness in it. They look great all together, just have to watch out for any changes in behaviour of the females with cria, some prefer to be in smaller groups and get a bit shy when feeding.  Just a change in their routine and mine, won't take long for us all to adjust I'm sure -  it's a huge field so they should be fine.  It's fascinating watching them all get re-acquainted .. and aunties and grandmas meeting the new crias, and crias meeting other crias - I wonder who will be the new leader of this large group...   Oh sh.... just knocked my wine over - went straight into the pot plant - I bet I couldn't do that again!

Anyway, seems really strange not having any next to the house, but those fields can now have a bit of a rest whilst the grass is still growing.  Dark outside already and only 8.30 something...

CRIA PHOTOS

A lovely evening for taking photos - here's just a few to share with you...

Bruno and Bliss the 'bottles' doing really well.

Baylee - this boy is so cheeky

Adele (who refuses to keep her collar on) and Baylee

Archer and The Sorcerer

SOME PICTURES OF THE SHOW

A GREAT SUCCESS!!

Been like a zombie last couple of days, just so tired after the show. Then had all the catching up to do so forgive the lateness of my report of the show:-

Show Day - after a restless night in the vdub my phone alarm went off at 5.30am (felt like I had only just gone to sleep) disturbing a dream I was having of eating a delicious curry... ?? It was still dark and amazingly quiet on the show ground apart from some mooing from the cattle marquees. I was determined to use my whistling kettle, having remembered the matches this time and with my cuppa watched the sun slowly rise making the clouds all pink -was this the calm before the storm?

Everybody arrived on time - we had 89 entries altogether and just a few withdrawals. Despite the awful weather forecast and rather threatening black clouds from time to time, the rain held off til lunchtime, as arranged of course, and as if my magic it cleared for the afternoons judging. Tim Hey, our Judge, did a great job, as did all the stewards and John on commentary and Nikki Hayton my co-organiser of course.  We had a large crowd around our show ring all day and the marquee was packed with the public during the lunch break  - alpacas being one of the big attractions of the day.

Our own small show team did rather well - Bonaventure Champion Beige Female, Bonami Champion Fawn Male, Cassandra Reserve Champion Fawn Female and little Andromeda 4th in the same class, we're very happy with those results!

At the end of the day loads of people chipped in and helped put the hurdles away, and we arrived home about 8 pm - fed the rather hungry bottles, stuffed the show team back out in their fields and then I sent Peter out for that curry I had been craving all day ...  though I was really too tired to eat it and too wired to go to sleep.. all in all though a great success.

ALMOST READY FOR THE SHOW

Well this time tomorrow night I will be at the Romsey Show Ground all cosy (I hope) in my little green bus "Pixie" on security duty in the alpaca Marquee, or just outside it anyway ... this will be my second night ever spent in the old vDub and this time I must remember to take the matches so that I can light the gas burner, for the morning cuppa! I have too admit that owning a VW Campervan hasn't quite lived up to my expectations - mainly because of the rubbish summer we've had, but mostly because I just haven't had the time to take off in her as intended... maybe we'll have an Indian Summer and I can get a few weekends in before I decide to sell her..

The forecast for Saturday seems to be different whenever I look, so not going to look any more - nothing I can do about it anyway. Besides, it could be a shopping opportunity, our family motto being "You can never have enough coats!" and I haven't bought one for months! I seem to have so much to take - the car is packed to bursting with show stuff including 6 box plants that Park Place Nurseries, have very kindly lent us for the weekend, they stink of cats pee for some reason???


Meanwhile, on the farm, everyone's had a pedicure and the last mating of the season took place today between Akela and Ardingly, as I was short of time it was a quickie in the field with all the little boys trying to join in ... the couple seemed oblivious... the postman wasn't ... I felt a little embarrassed, God knows why!

Just to add to the fullness of my day, I had to go to B & Q and buy flooring for a little project we're doing, I was in a mad hurry and just couldn't make up my mind, some of it's down now and I'm not liking it much - oh dear.

ROMSEY SHOW - THIS SATURDAY

Been horrendous weather today, gales and just so much rain, I just hope it means that it won't be like this on Saturday for the Romsey Show. This is the first show for The Southern Alpaca Group and a first for Romsey too. They're really excited about it and yesterday we had their Chairman and Joint Presidents here for a photo shoot with our alpacas... it rained, but we stayed dry in the shelter.

Anyway, we're almost ready for it, though I keep remembering stuff to add to the list - (tubs of flowers just been added - must get tomorrow) - how did I get talked into being Joint Organiser?   Whatever the weather throws at us we will have a good time I'm sure - just as long as everyone remembers to bring their GSOH - and their waterproofs!

ALRESFORD SHOW

Been glorious last couple of days and I've been busy getting the last of our breedings done for the year. All the females have been mated now except one, who refuses to sit, I think she may have retained a CL from watching breedings a few weeks ago, annoying to say the least as I know full well this can happen but thought she'd be OK as it was only days since she had given birth. Anyway, I'll give her a couple of hormone injections and have one last go in a few days time.

We're off to Alresford Show tomorrow, hope it's nice weather - I think the forecast is OK - they look after us very well there and give us a nice big marquee. We're going to take a bunch of boys, as much as I'd like to show off a couple of females with crias, I don't think it's fair on them and they may reabsorb their pregnancies, just not worth the risk.