Letter from America

We made our first sale of a hand made aran sweater to the USA today. The lady had tried to pay on line but our website only accepts UK credit cards at the moment, so I promised to look into how she could pay. I phoned my bank who were very unhelpful. Their way was either very costly or if she sent an international cheque it would take 6 weeks to clear. I mentioned to the customer services person that we were actually in the 21st Century and how could it possibly take that long to clear a cheque? No wonder the banks are in trouble if they cannot even do a simple transaction like that!!

Anyway, I had a look at paypal which we mostly use for ebay and found that she could send me dollars and they would convert it into sterling straight away no worries. It arrived this afternoon and her sweater will be despatched tomorrow.

Tilly is looking well but I took her and Maddy to the vet for vaccinations and the vet checked her heart and it has still not improved. She seems happy, which is the main thing.

Mike went to Shepton Mallet hospital today for his pre-knee replacement. He is going into hospital on the 7th January and is hoping to be back to normal by Easter.

The last of our cria have just had their second blue tongue vaccinations and we have started to halter train the weanlings. Last year we left it a bit late and it was quite embarrassing having to drag them around at their first show, so we do not want a repeat this year.

The chickens have made two new nests in the barn. Luckily they are just on different levels of the straw stack. Not sure where they will go when we have to use the straw, but at the moment we do not have any alpacas in the barn so it is not needed. They are still laying well and I cannot remember the last time I have to buy eggs.

We are trying to get the kittens on to mixed food like the dogs. So far they have tried their biscuits with egg over them, a little cheese, some raw liver, and some left over eggs and bacon. All seems to have been accepted with no ill effects. They have been out with the all the dogs in the living room quite a few times now and today they went into the garden with the dogs, so progress is being made. They come when called and the neighbourhood rings with my repeated cries of "come on girls" when calling the alpacas, "Chick, chick, chickens" (in an egg laying tone)for the hens, and "puss, puss, puss" for the little kitty kats.

The longest Day

Today was almost totally taken up with taking Tilly to the Vet Hospital near Gloucester. Mark Paterson the heart specialist discussed the options for Tilly's treatment. Her heart beat is EXTREMELY erratic and although she seems to be coping very well at the moment he warned that she could suddenly drop dead. Still, couldn't we all?

They are still not certain what has caused this problem since she must have been perfectly OK last year when she was vaccinated as they do a health check at that time. Mark Paterson thought that a pace maker might be the answer which would cost £3-4K. Mike and I had already discussed this possibility and felt that as she is 13 years old the risks were too great against the potential benefit and the specialist agreed that at her time of life she had probably had 90% of it and the pacemaker would perhaps increase her projected life by a small percentage. Different if she was a 3 year old. He did, however, recommend some more blood tests and a heart scan, so I had to go away and kill about three hours, which I did in a local garden centre. Caught up with the Christmas shopping and had a snack lunch.

Back at the Vet Hospital Mark showed me her scan. There is a nodule between the atrium and ventricle which might be inhibiting what he described as "the wire" through. This might be the result of some sort of infection which may or may not be confirmed by the blood tests or worst case scenario it could be a tumour although that would be very rare.

In the meantime he has given her some medication to increase her heart rate. At least we now know the probable cause of the heart problem but not the cure. She might make a natural recovery or might need antibiotics to fight an infection and if the damage is not permanent she might get back to normal.

At the very least we know that a pace maker is not the answer - even if she was 3 years old.

So far it has cost over £1000 to get this far. Makes you appreciate BUPA or the NHS!!

Tomorrow I am going Christmas Shopping (that actually means a quick look at the shops followed by a leasurely lunch in a nice restaurant) with Pauline, my bestest friend. We decided years ago that it was pointless buying each other Christmas presents so we just have a girly day out together. Poor old Mike will be on his own again (I think he quite likes it really).

Still I am doing driving duties and delivering and collecting him from the Garage (his Salisbury business) Christmas do on Christmas Eve. A great sacrifice worth many girly lunches in my book!!

Just a quickie

Lunch with the family went well and the kittens were popular. We had shut them in the barn whilst we had company because of lack of space but during the afternoon they had plenty of attention and luckily did not escape from their enclosure, even though they are both experienced climbers now.

Still finding new places to find eggs. We blocked a small hole behind the straw bales in the barn but whoever is laying over there decided to lay her eggs on top of the straw bales so we now have to climb up daily to find the eggs.

The alpacas are doing well and enjoying the few days of sunshine which we have had over the past week or so. They are eating a lot of hay and alf alfa now that the grass is not growing..

Our older dog, Tilly, who was so ill recently, is going to visit a cardiologist tomorrow. It is a 2 hour trip and I am not sure if it is a good route to go down. I don't think she should have any treatment which involves anaesthetic but maybe they will be able to control her erratic heart beat with medication.

The shop is still doing well as are our internet sales, although I keep having to remove stock because it has sold out. I am trying to get to grips with altering the website myself but so far have not been very successful.

Hotting up for Christmas

Our farm shop is getting very busy now and stocks are getting low. We'll be millyonares soon!!

The alpacas are coping very well with the changeable weather. One day it is freezing cold and the next milder and very wet. Last night we had torrential rain and many roads were blocked by flooding. Luckily the farm is on a slight slop so there are usually some dry areas, but we are dreading doing toe nails next week. Often when everything is so wet - and don't forget what a wet summer we had - we find that their pads are getting damaged. It also seems to make their toe nails much softer and they grow quicker which makes them more liable to get damaged.

We will also be topping up with vitamin D to make up for the shortage of sunshine.

All the field shelters were very wet this morning and the alpacas had obviously taken shelter from the terrible rain as they all needed to be mucked out much more than usual. Mike put straw in them to try and absorb some of the mud and poo.

The kittens are doing very well. All the dogs have met them off lead now but we think they are still a bit small to face six dogs all at once. I took them outside as they have been kept in the house for their first week here so they get to know where home is. They immediately went under the house and did not seem in the least bit interested in coming back to me. I had deliberately chosen a time when they normally get fed, so luckily after a while the lure of a bowl of Whiskas outweighed the adventure of the great outdoors. I think I will leave it a few more days before I risk losing them again.

The chickens are still laying a few eggs a day. They are getting very demanding and perch on the feed bin when I go near it and then mug me for their layers mash. They are venturing a bit near the A358 sometimes so I think we will have to think of a way to curtail their free-ranging a little bit. Don't want scrambled chicken.

My Mum's sister and family are coming to lunch tomorrow - that makes 9 in all, so I had better get into domestic goddess mode and start peeling potatoes and making pastry now.

Really cold

Well yesterday was the coldest up to then but this morning was even colder with the frost really thick on the ground. Still let's hope it will kill the bugs - blue tongue - midges etc:

We are going through a lot of hay and alf alfa now that the grass is not too good. Alpacas are used to sparse conditions in the Andes so they probably feel right at home.

Kittens

Today must have been one of the coldest of the winter so far. When I did my morning rounds with the dogs even the thickest and soggiest mud was set.

The alpacas looked very happy. It must be a real treat for them to have kept their pads reasonably dry for a change. Mike has put some new hay racks in the biggest shelter where the main herd goes at night and they had emptied both racks and were busy demolishing the hay in the mobile hayrack in the field. Looks like we'll have to order some more hay shortly.

We have been out all day today and got back just in time to put the hens to bed - or rather shut the door on their house, as they had already gone in. They are such obliging creatures!!

The kittens are starting to be assertive and began mewing almost as soon as we got home. I assumed correctly that they thought it was about time they were fed.

They spend most of their time in the puppy pen when the dogs are around but they treat the living room like the wall of death when they are let out to run around. They tightrope walk the chair rungs. Last night one of the ran at the gas fire, which, luckily is enclosed, bounced off it with one paw, and obviously found it rather hot!! She spent ages licking and looking amazed at her poorly foot. We inspected her front paws very carefully but could see no sign of permanent damage, so hopefully it is just a painful lesson learned.

New Beginning

Hello if there is anyone out there still!!

I knew I had not made any blog entries for a while but was shocked to see it is well over a month since my last update.

Well we have several new additions to the Laurel Farm family. First of all we now have eight chickens. I have never really liked birds because they flap around and as a child I used to get chased by my uncle's geese. I have, however, always associated having chickens as part of farm life. The same uncle also had chickens on his farm and they were truly free range including frequest forays into the kitchen. Mike has always been against having them as he thinks they attract rats, but as I pointed out we already have animal feed around the place so a bit of layers' mash for chickens won't make much difference!!

Searching for a hen house was a major problem as most of them see to cost about £200 and there are few second had ones. Those that came up in the Free-ads either sold very quickly or were too far away. In the end Bob (who sells hay and straw to us) told us that he had seen some cheap sheds in Focus. Off we trotted and found a shed of just the right size reduced to £100.

Mike built a nesting box, fixed up perches and cut out a little door for them to go in and out of. he also added skids and made it as fox-proof as possible.

They are delightful and a great source of amusement. We thought that they were going off lay in November until we found a stash of 15 eggs in the hedge and only yesterday I found 8 eggs hiding behind the bales of straw in the barn.

Millie, one of our border collies, has developed yet another new talent on top of competing manically in agility, she is a brilliant alpaca dog and today she scented out eggs, picked them up without breaking them, and after a lot of persuasion gave them to me. I am hoping to build on this great new skill and teach her to help collect the eggs daily!! So far the retrieve is brilliant but the present needs some more work!!

Well, I'll teach Mike to worry about mice and rats!! The latest arrivals are two cute little kittens called Polly and Soukie. They are eight weeks old and are destined to be farm cats but their (accidental) breeder tells me they have to stay in the house for the first week so they do not run away. They started off in the porch but this proved to be inconvenient so now they are in a converted puppy pen in the living room. The dogs are fascinated and line up to watch their antics. We have had them out a few times and although we have not allowed them to run free with the dogs around yet, everyone seems to be behaving very well.

Back in September we took some of our yearling alpacas to the village street fair and we found out that a lot of people did not realise that we sold alpaca products or that they could come and visit the alpacas, so we advertised that we would be having open days every Tuesday and Thursday until Christmas. These have been very successful indeed. We have sold loads of wool and many of our hand knitted jumpers as well as the hats and clothes that we import from South America. Now there is rarely a day when we don't have a sale in the shop and we are also selling one or two items a day on the internet. A lot of this is obviously for Christmas but we are hoping to build on such a good start afterwards.

Tilly Tonkers, my lovely hairy lurcher who has been a great agility dog has been seriously ill this week. She was sick and then became very listless last week. She was diagnosed with kidney failure and her heart was EXTREMELY slow - only 20 beats a minute and irregular.

She was in vet hospital for 3 nights but came home on Friday and today she is looking quite good and back to eating, drinking and walking fairly normally. She is not out of the woods and she had more blood tests today. The feeling now is that the heart problem may have caused the kidney problem rather than the other way round. After the blood results we might be looking at scans etc: to find out what is wrong with her heart. Fingers crossed it will be something that can be controlled with medication.

I will try and be good and keep the blog more up to date. It would be a bit rash to say I will do it every day!! Some days there is not much worth reporting.