Alpacas to go

The last week or so has been quite mixed.   We did not seem to get back into our usual routine for quite a while and the jobs we left before we went away caught up with us.

One of the main jobs that Mike had hoped to get done was re-hanging some of the farm gates which had dropped through a combination of rotting posts and the dry summer which changed the position of some of the posts.  The photos show Mike and Nick pondering the problem with Jake supervising whilst guarding the old rotten post which has been replaced.

Mike has also been fixing the brakes on the tractor and the parts he was waiting for arrived today so he is hoping to have it back in use very soon now.

On Saturday I went out for the day, meeting my friend, Pauline, for lunch in Shaftesbury, followed by a spot of retail therapy and a cream tea!! 

On Sunday Mike and I went to Honiton Hill where they have an annual "Rally" which includes tractors, vintage cars, demonstrations such as axing, lots of stalls, old Hurdy Gurdy organs, and an agricultural auction.   We saw one or two things in the auction which Mike made a note of but in the event we did not go back yesterday to bid because we had agreed to take some alpacas along to Hawkchurch Village Fete in the afternoon.

We just took 4 boys who were very co-operative.  They loaded into the trailer without any objection at all and behaved themselves really well all afternoon.   Their pen was constantly surrounded by visitors and I wondered if they would get too worried but after a while they continued to eat their hay, kush down for a rest and generally do normal alpacary things whilst their admirers oohed and aahed.

We took some products from the shop as well as some of our yarn and sales went very well.   We enjoyed sitting in the sun chatting to interested customers and even managed to have a look round the other stalls , visit the beer tent and watch some of the events in the arena all to the jolly sound of the silver band.