Karen's alpacas

A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMN DAY

Today was our first frosty morning, we had bright blue skies and a beautiful sunrise, the start of a perfect Autumn day. There was no way I was going stay indoors for long, so first a dog walk to enjoy the frost and then the usual feed rounds and check of the pacas. Domestic chores followed and then some visitors and then another lovely dog walk with the girls this afternoon in the Forest of Bere which is just up the road from us. It seemed that everyone from miles around had the same idea, I don't think I've ever seen so many dogs, fortunately the Forest is big enough to find plenty of empty space and it was looking beautiful.

Forest of Bere

It's been fairly quiet on the farm lately, we wormed and AD&E'd everybody a couple of weeks ago - next job toe nails, but not for a couple of weeks. We've had quite a few enquiries lately and yesterday we had a lovely family come for a Beginners Course. I need to add a few more animals to our sales list ... I never like parting with them ... but can't keep them all. It won't be long and we'll have weanling boys on it from this years crop, they'll be ready to go in January and February.

All our females are in the big fields and so I'm being lazy and not poo hoovering - I just wouldn't know where to start! I'll harrow them when they come out of there in a couple of weeks and then hopefully we'll get a few more frosty days to help clean it all up. Our grass has still been growing a little and the next fields they'll be moving into look lush and still beautifully green. They're eating a bit of hay now and my supplies are pretty low, so I must soon go on the hunt for some good hay, I hope that won't be too difficult this year after our appalling summer. Anyway here's some pics I took late this afternoon.

Crias keeping their eye on the Marmalade our cat

Macy Grey

Cotton Fields

Topsey Turvey

Cassidy

Some of the girls

Cassidy

The boys

Phew llama breath!

The boys with their guardian Yerba

Home sweet home

ONE OUT AND ONE IN

A couple of years ago we found a lovely home for two of our retired stud boys, Grayling and Ocho, just up the road in the next village with Liz and Gus. They are extremely well cared for and loved and so I was really pleased when they decided to take Sir G under their wing as another retiree, the three amigos seem very well settled and it's rather nice to be able to see them every now and then when I drive past their field. Thank you Liz and Gus!

Ocho, Grayling and Sir G

This summer I decided to retire some of our older females too. I'm quite happy to keep them here but realistically we should move them on as field pets to make room for the next generations, and the occasional auction acquisition..... Yes, we went to the Alpaca Classic last weekend and had a very good day. This event was really well organised, with great speakers and beautiful animals and one of them - Bozedown Jumper is now in our field. Well you only live once...

New addition Bozedown Jumper

Today we brought the cria group in for their weekly inspections. Lots of smelly lotions and potions to combat harvest mites and midges. I'm trying out 3 different things and I'm not sure which is working the best but something is as they're definitely better than last week.

One of our older girls Akela is a very spitty madam when pregnant but when she's open, as she is now she's very cuddly - as you can see in the picture of Rebecca with her and others wanting to join in.

Another job today was to put the boys into a different field. Loads of grass - they are very happy.

ROMSEY SHOW REPORT

I woke early this morning and thought about yesterdays show - all in all it was a very successful day and I really enjoyed it. It started very early, as it did for a lot of the competitors. It was chilly too at 6.5 degrees at 5am, the sky a clear black with a mass of stars. The journey was easy with hardly any traffic and light when we arrived.

From an organisers point of view the first part of the day was the trickiest. Our unloading area happened to also be the main thoroughfare for Trade 2 traffic and at one point we had a bit of road rage going on as we had about 6 trailors parked up unloading and queues both sides of very impatient Trade 2 traffic - some actually driving between exhibitors with animals - not ideal and that will be changed next year. Everyone in and our Judge Liz Barlow arrived, our PA System hadn't. We were due to start in 20 minutes. More frantic calls and my version of running halfway across the show ground to the main PA Tower where I staggered breathless and begged for our system to be delivered.

Judging underway and I was first in the ring with The Sorcerer, our grey Intermediate. Crikey it was already quite hot - this day was going to be a scorcher. Somewhere in the background I was aware of someone putting up loud speakers - thank goodness. Another mental note for next years double-checklist. We were awarded a second, shame we like the red ones much better!

The sun just got hotter and hotter, and the crowds bigger and bigger - we attracted a constant crowd around our ring, unfortunately there just wasn't time to open up our tent officially to the public as we had the Junior Handler classes going on in our short break for lunch, which incidentally co-incided with a very noisy band of spidermen - the kids did well to hang on to their animals. We had opened the sides up so people could wander round and see all the animals. Quite a few of the public snuck in though, despite penning them out for their safety - one even ended up wandering into the ring apparently!

The rest of our show team did well - Eros 3rd and BobbyDazzler 4th in the Intermediate Fawn Male, then Bonami won his Adult fawn male class and then went on to win Champion Fawn Male - his third this year, so I was happy. Our 3 Invincibly Elite xx intermediate white boys came 4th, 5th and 6th.

The Alpaca Stud deservedly won both both Supremes - their amazing grey Nyetimber, who looked just stunning and who our grey Ardingly always came second to when shown, taking the Huacaya - many congratulations!

My thanks as joint organiser go firstly to Nikki who did most of the pre show stuff this year and then to our team of volunteers - Cathy and Graham, Lisa and Ray and Keith and Allison and then John on commentary, Jay and Gary and others and, of course our Judge Liz Barlow you made it a great show. Oh and thank you to all those exhibitors who came and supported us and very kindly stacked your penning away for us, it made such a difference.

Not many pics as only had phone camera... and I kept forgetting to take any!

Eros and Bonami being led round by Donna and Rebecca

The very noisy, quite good band of spidermen - I'm not sure who they were but possibly not the most attractive
shapes in lycra!

Bonami being awarded Champion Fawn Male - handled by Terry

Suri Supreme Line-up - winner 2nd from left

ROMSEY SHOW TOMORROW

A really quick note just to say that I hope to see lots of you tomorrow at Romsey - we're all ready (I think) and team Meon Valley are in the yard handy for a 5.30 am load up ... I probably won't sleep tonight, never do when I know I have to get up early. The forecast is great, warm and sunny - we have a bigger marquis and show ring than last year with more entries, around 130, so our Judge Liz Barlow is going to have a busy day. The public can wander through the marquis during our lunch break - do come and say hello!

The show team watching me load up the trailer and car

Yerba, our llama being left behind - arrh

Team Meon Valley - ready for the off, I hope they stay dry the dews are pretty heavy.

Being one of the organisers I have had a peek at the schedule - our grey The Sorcerer is first in the ring! He's looking good - I hope the Judge agrees!

AUTUMN SHOWS

There is a change in the air ... distinctly September, mind you this year it's been hard to know what month we're in for most of the time. Today is wet and windy, just been out with the dogs up on the hills and the countryside has changed colour, the harvesting mostly finished and the fields are being ploughed up and drilled already. They never seem to leave stubble for long now do they. I used to love galloping about all over stubble fields, the only time when it was unofficially permissible to trespass on horseback. I love Autumn, it's my favourite time of year - misty mornings, warm sunny days (if we're lucky) and chilly nights in front of the log burner with a good drama on telly. Bring on the casseroles!

On the farm I'm still having to top fields, unbelievable amount of grass ... half of our fields have been completely rested since April and with all the topping (6 or 7 times!) they look fantastic. I've run out of diesel now though and so can't do any more this week, our little red tractor is having a rest. My new ear defenders have been a partial success - the radio part seems to get interference from the engine, particularly the poo hoover - very annoying, I find Radio 1 gets the best reception, or Classic FM - real mood changers! Sometimes I get both at the same time, thats weird!

Melissa or "Middy Lips" because she has the same way of pushing her lips out as her brother Midlington!

And again - rubbish fleece at the moment but this may change!

All the cria are doing well, playing a lot more in the windy weather - I've stopped the breedings a couple of weeks ago, not sure how many we have pregnant yet, I know that one or two have reabsorbed which is annoying, but I'll carry them over til next year now as I really want our birthing to finish by the end of July next year. They're all due their Autumn wormer in September, some have been done already as they were getting itchy, probably from harvest mites, gave them cydectin and been treating a couple with sore noses with various potions with varying degrees of success.

Rebecca and I are off to Alresford Show on Saturday - one of our favourites - they give us a really nice big marquee all to ourselves. It's one of those lovely old fashioned Agricultural Shows with lots of livestock and craft tents and heavy horses, huge tractors for sale and plants. I always see loads of people I know, some that I only ever see at this show and so we have a whole year to catch up on.

I've not made up my mind yet which alpacas I'm going to take, probably the intermediate boys, the exposure to all those people and dogs will be good for them before being shown at the Southern Group Short Fleece Show at Romsey the following week. Anyway, it's a great day out so come along and pay our marquis a visit we'd love to see you, we're next to the cattle lines.

SHADES OF GREY...

Firstly, I feel I must apologise for my lack of postings lately, life just a little hectic here during daylight hours, and I have to admit I got rather absorbed in the olympics and also a certain trilogy of books I felt I should read, whenever I got the chance...

Anyway, I've been topping grass again, I think most of our fields have been done 4 or 5 times this summer - I've never known anything like it here before - thank heavens for my radio ear defenders which Peter bought me for my birthday, they have kept me from going insane with boredom as I go round and round in ever decreasing circles. Most of the time I have been driving along keeping an eye on our birthing paddock ... which has resulted in a cricked neck on a couple of occasions when a tractor wheel bumped into rabbit holes!

Now as sods law dictates the last 3 to birth were late, but at last yesterday, at 11 months 21 days Medusa gave us a lovely dark fawn girl 'Melissa' by Snowmass Invincibly Elite, I was expecting a white boy same as last year (Baylee) from the same pairing. Then this morning when I looked out of the window first thing BonBon was looking slightly uncomfortable at 11 months and 22 days and enormous I was not surprised, but hopeful we could get another one out of the way. At feed time she was definitely in first stage .....and Akela, the other of the last 3, was humming too! Would be so good if she birthed today. Back to BonBon and all was proceeding well and by coffee time a little pink and white nose appeared, and then the whole head and then a leg - just the one. Thankfully Rebecca, my number one assistant held on to BonBon whilst I had a quick rummage about and found the other leg. Now last year she had Midlington a white boy, same pairing, another Invincibly Elite again, this time she gave us a light fawn, maybe beige female - Bonnie - what a result!

Whilst all this was going on Akela decided to unpack her cria too, almost in the same place. At one time I thought she may beat her to it. Now this breeding was with our lovely grey boy Ardingly, Akela has had greys in the past and this is what were were hoping for. So imagine the excitement when a little black and white nose and face appeared - ah, but then the rest of the cria.... is very dark brown, a shade of grey, maybe?! Anyway, SHE is beautiful and we have called her Anastasia-almost-Grey!!!!!

So that's it for another year - birthing box packed away. 10 boys and 11 girls - for us thats pretty good ;)

Medusa and Melissa

BonBon and Bonnie

Anastastia-Almost-Grey

If you look really closely there is a bit of grey here!!!

Akela and Anastasia

A THOROUGH SOAKING

Well what's been going on - a bit of Summer mainly, very hot days and dry weather for over a week ... until today, that is, when my good friend Nikki and I took the dogs for a walk, via the pub, as you do, where we had a wonderful curry buffet at the White Horse in Droxford. More of that later.....

This week we have had crias from Missy, a rather stunning dark brown female by Snowmass Incan King, Andromeda a cute little boy who's a 'sort of light fawn' by Snowmass Invincibly Elite xx and then today Ena, our spotty girl, had a rather gorgeous female by our own 'Mr Grey' - Meon Valley Ardingly. Ena very cleverly waited until a very heavy downpour had finished to produce her cria ... this one I had been really looking forward to - well what would an appaloosa produce from a grey ... see the picture below - I'm loving the result and will definitely be repeating that breeding!

Back to this afternoon's walk - well we got about 5 minutes way from the pub and an almightily rumble of thunder heralded a "shower" .. ..do we go on or do we go back??? A quick look at the sky and we decide to go on ... WRONG! Rain got heavier, and heavier and heavier, then hailstones, big ones, more thunder, lots of lighting - we tried to shelter under a hedge ... worked for a bit but then the rain which was now torrential came through! I peeped out to have a look at the sky and an enormous bolt of lightning came down about 100 yards away followed almost immediately by a huge clap of thunder - "Oh dear" I said!!! Actually, I said something else, but I know who reads this.... By now we were soaked and laughing hysterically - actually very funny but really rather scary, which of course makes it all the more funny- if you know what I mean. It took us about 25 minutes to walk home, lots more thunder - lots more laughter - sOOO much rain! As we walked up our drive the sun came out and the rain stopped ... I think they call that sods law? We stood outside the kitchen door still giggling about it all and as I was wringing my socks out a final enormous rumble of thunder that just went on and on directly over our heads heralded the end of the storm ...