Well, the start of 2012 has brought a visiting dog. We are looking after Dolly's brother for a few weeks. He seems to have fitted in with our pack quite quickly and is best friends with Charlie.
Larry, our builder (and neighbour) was hoping to start on the retaining wall for the sunken garden- the area left when they excavated earth to form a level pad for the new barn - today, but like most of the country we were visited by extremely high winds and heavy rain. The male adult alpacas were hardly seen all day as they chilled out in their shelter, the weanlings stayed an extra night in the barn. We have been bringing them in for a few nights a week to get them used to being handled and start halter training. The females were quite brave and continued eating despite most of the weather, although even they were seen running for cover at times.
The bucks, like the alpaca boys, did not venture out for most of the day and we shut the does in because we were worried that little Seven might get wet and chilled. As she seems to be gaining weight and making progress we did not want to risk her getting caught in one of the awful storms.
Nick came in as usual but was only able to give Mike a hand taking the haylage round before leaving us his December bill and driving home to a dry and warm environment. I was hoping to do some husbandry with Nick's help but handling soaking wet alpacas in the pouring rain is not an option however keen you are!! When we have the new barn up and running we will be able to get the animals under cover the day before and keep them dry if we know it is going to be wet on Nick's day. No skiving off to the woodburner then!!
Another neighbour visited us this afternoon. He has offered to help us remove the laurel hedge and is itching to get going with his chain saw!!
The dumper arrived, but due to the weather we have already wasted one day of the week's hire, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that Larry and his trusty aide will be able to start work tomorrow.
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