What's this -suns shining and no mating?

The weather turned so mild at the weekend the Toft Alpacas Stud males were beginning to stir again and spent all Saturday hovering over the fence looking for talent. 

Be patient boyos. The job was done a while back. Spring will come soon enough and there's a lot of weather to get through before then methinks.

Toft Alpacas cutting grass in December???

Can you believe it? It's the 1st of December and I spent this morning cutting the last 4 acres of grass on the new land we have taken on.  

We have just taken on another 14 acres of grazing at Toft which adjoins our current pasture. The down side is - it probably hasn't been grazed for 5 or 6 years which means the grass is three to four  feet high and the ground ridged with huge mounds of tussock. So it's out with the flail, choose a low gear and contemplate life for a couple of hours as I slowly move through the paddock cutting it for the first time in ages.

 The conditions were perfect this  morning so it just had to be done. When the rain comes again it probably won't stop until the ground is unworkable so it just had to be done. Three weeks until Xmas and I'm cutting grass? Incredible. 

Made a lovely job though. Just the hedges to cut back over the next few months so we can see the fenceline and the fences to put right and we might just get some alpacas on it by Easter!

If the truck won't come to the bench then the bench must go to the truck

The Chosen Men obviously got a little bored being chained to the bench whilst we were shunting things around in the truck. So well it makes sense ' if the truck won't come to the bench then we'll take the bench to the truck'. Sound!

What a lovely looking grey alpaca- meet Bradley Wiggins!

There are some alpacas that just stand out. In humans it's called charisma. We alpaca judges tend to talk about presence. This intermediate boy certainly has it. He belongs to Du Prem alpacas and is currently living in our quarantine facility before he goes to live  in France. 

Every time I pass he seems to stand to attention and offer his best side looking for a photo opportunity. Well today I obliged. One must. There really would be no point in keeping alpacas if you didn't enjoy just looking at them.

Startled Suris ...

No matter how elegant they appear in full fleece - until it gets there the Suris always look as if they fell into their fleece by accident giving them a permanently startled look. These two wee juniors are no different and are badly in need of some hair wax and a comb!

Who put that new fence there then?

Cold night last night with thick frost in the early morning. Caught this pic of the weaners looking over an 'imaginary fence' ? Those straight lines even as shadows need to be obeyed!

A hacking,slashing and burning weekend...

Much thanks to Paul Beswick of Du Prem alpacas who gave up his Saturday to give me a hand cutting back the overgrown hedges on a new parcel of land we have taken on at Toft. 

This new addition to the Toft Alpaca Stud will be a real bonus and is self contained which will enhance our general farm biosecurity and once we have cut the grass a dozen times the alpacas will love it!

It's about 14 acres and directly adjoins our farm which is the upside. However the downside is it hasn't been grazed for at least six or more likely possibly eight years. The grass and weeds were four foot high last weekend but six hours with tractor and flail mower made short work of that to enable us to see the fences.

Much hacking and slashing at the weekend means we can now at least see the fence in one of the fields. That's the good news, the bad news is there  are three fields and the other two need a bit more work than the one we started on.

Once we can see the fences then we can repair them. I think this is definitely called work in progress and there are no prizes for guessing what I shall be doing every spare minute over the winter.

The burning however was a disaster, three cans of paraffin, much huffing and puffing and not a sustained fire in sight. As a good Boy Scout I was very miffed I indeed, hey ho the burning will wait for another day.

Thanks again Paul - you'll be as fit as a butchers dog come the spring if you keep at it!