Catching up

The weather is much improved this week and yesterday I made a start on clearing out the barn where the alpacas have been sleeping for the past couple of weeks. We have put an advert in the local village shops offering the bedding as garden manure that people can come an collect. It only cost 20p per week in one and a donation to the air ambulance in the other, so it won't break the bank if we don't have any response.

Although they were weaned quite a while ago the young males have remained in the main herd and their mothers were separated. They have all been back together for quite a while now and at the weekend we took the three older boys and Esteban, the youngest, and put them into Alario's paddock. Alario has been on his own for some time as he fights with the other males - mainly Pedro, our brown stud male. We have tried re-uniting them on several occasions with no success,but thought as a last chance we would see how he got on with the weanlings. He seems to ignore them - in fact they pester him more than he them. We shall be keeping a strict eye on the situation as when the testosterone kicks in with the youngsters there might be trouble. We are hoping that they will sort out a workable pecking order, as he used to live quite happily with the other boys until Pedro grew up. The weanlings are all for sale as non-breeding males so he probably won't have their company for too long anyway.

Having had a few days of dry weather we are able to get feed to the bottom paddocks now and David and Mike managed to get the landrover out of the mud where it has been stuck for weeks.
Our thinking is that even if the weather does take a turn for the worse again, it should just be normal winter weather which the alpacas are more than happy to cope with. If we do get more blizzards, snow, deep frost, etc: we will still have the option to re-instate the barn as a night shelter.

What with regular trips to the hospital to see Mum as well as everything else, halter training has gone out of the window, but as the young males are easily and quickly accessible now they will be first on the list for some intensive work.

I had a meeting with my mother's consultant yesterday and it seems (as was already obvious to me) that the physiotherapy has not improved her condition very much. She is propped up in a chair for about 2 hours a day and she is now able to take a little nourishment by mouth. It has gone up to 5 teaspoons 3 times a day and the rest is still by tube. If she makes any further recovery she will be able to go to a nursing home but at the moment even that looks unlikely, so we will just have to continue to wait and see. She cannot go to a nursing home until she is able to take nourishment by mouth. When I visited her yesterday she was asleep and although I woke her up she could not stay awake. The Dr. said this is probably because she is tired after being up in the chair in the morning. As visiting is only in the afternoon I do not see her at her best, apparently. We are hoping for the best outcome with as little discomfort as possible for her.

The injured kitten has made a complete recovery and has joined her twin in being totally out of control, demanding, naughty but quite affectionate (as far as cats are).

Chickens still laying well. Mike's family came down for Sunday lunch and it was nice to be able to give them fresh eggs to take home. Our latest grandson was a delight. He is going to be 1 year old next month and already he is taking swimming lessons!! He cannot walk yet but we are hoping that walking will catch up with the swimming soon.