Fruits of our labor

Happy Labor Day!

Check out the plums on our plum tree at the farm! We had lots of plums and lots of apples in our "mini orchard" this year. As I type this, my mom has a home made apple pie baking in the oven and it smells deee-licious!!

I realize that for many people Labor Day weekend is a time to relax, but I don't know that we've ever done that at the farm. For us, it's an extra weekend day to get more projects done. I got some work done at home, thanks to my boyfriend. We put up a rain gutter on my house and dug up and "reset" my patio blocks which have been moved over the years by tunnelling chipmunks. It was a lot of work so I was very disappointed to see a small hole next to the patio this afternoon with a pile of gravel next to it. Nasty little rodent!

Once I finished with my home projects yesterday, I headed back to the farm just in time to put three loads of hay up in the loft. After putting the hay up, we fed the animals and I was about to collapse by dinner time around 5:30!

I was hoping Labor Day would produce an extra cria at the farm, but Misty is still holding out. She's looking good, has a great appetite, and seems in no hurry to "criate" the newest addition to our alpaca family.

Victor is looking good, too. I can see he's getting taller. I'm sure he will be very excited to have a new playmate. As usual, I'll keep you posted...

Wet hay

This is a picture of our wet hay on the field. Since this past weekend, the weather reports had shown a sunny 5-day forecast so we started cutting hay on Tuesday. Then I believe there was a 30% chance of rain in the forecast for Friday. Last night on the news, we saw a 50% chance of rain. I was hoping the rain would bypass Marinette so that we could get our hay dried and baled, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.

During the night and this morning, we received a significant amount of rain. If it clears up soon, maybe we can salvage our hay on the field without any problems. All we need is some sunshine and a nice breeze to hopefully dry it out. I'm not getting my hopes up though.

The alpacas, however, are enjoying the rain after several days of hot, humid weather.

Leroy asks...

As you know, we entered our first fleece show recently. Leroy and Lucas (left to right) aren't the only ones anxiously awaiting the results of this past weekend's AFCNA Fleece Show. Hopefully we properly prepared our entries. We'll just have to be patient for the results.

Other than that, we are waiting for a few days in a row of dry weather so that we can cut and bale more hay. We had a lot of heavy rain this past week and I admit, we really needed it. But now, we need some baling weather. There's a 70% chance of rain tomorrow so we won't be cutting any hay tonight for weekend baling. That's probably alright since the temperature is supposed to get into the 90's over the weekend. It's not fun stacking hay in hot temps like that! Maybe next week will be better.

Making hay.

Since my last post, I've been busy studying fecal samples with the new microscope, talking with farm visitors, training for and running a 10k run (last week), and this weekend we baled hay.

Although our cut hay had gotten rained on the other day, it still dried out enough this weekend for us to bale. At one point we had two balers going and finished the day with about 260 more bales up in the hayloft.

We did need the rain and I hope we get some more soon. However, I hope it rains before we cut hay again!

I want to say hi to my new friends Joanne and Phil from North Carolina. They were in town for a family reunion last week and stopped out at the farm with Phil's mom to see the animals and the old family homestead. (Phil's mother's grandfather and family built the farm. My parents bought it way back in the 1960's.) Coincidently, while in town, Joanne signed up for the 10k run and the two of us ended up running together. We were both really pleased with our time of 1:07. Thanks again, Joanne, for keeping me motivated to make it through the whole 10k! Thanks also to Phil, our cheerleader who cheered us along throughout the route. It's funny how a short stop out to visit our animals turned into a last minute running partner for both of us and a nice friendship!

Getting it all done.

I don’t know how we’ve done it, but we’ve been getting a lot accomplished around here.

Two weekends ago, we squeezed in the task of roofing my house thanks to my boyfriend Marc and my brother Rick. Add to that, baling hay and regular chores, plus our full time jobs during the week. Marc completed the roof this past week. On Sunday, we loaded more hay up into the hayloft and put up fence and a new gate so that we could put two more alpaca boys in a pasture outside. Last night, Rick and I completed siding the front of our barn and it looks great. We have half of one side of the barn to do and we’ll have completed this siding project we started a few years ago.

In addition to baling hay now and then, we’ve also bought a couple of loads from our friends John and Cindy. John was kind enough to drive both loads to our farm from their home about 35-40 minutes away. If you’ve ever pulled a wagonload of hay behind your truck before you know that this isn’t an easy – or quick – task. In fact, John even experienced a flat tire on the wagon with the first load of 200 bales. Our hayloft is looking very well stocked at this point but we will still need more to carry us through to next spring. We estimate that we’ll need a total of about 600 bales since we use almost 2 bales a day for our herd of 16 alpacas and 7 llamas.

Tonight we will put up a small fence to provide an enclosure for Frances and Lucas on one side and a couple goats on the other side. We have a group of visitors coming on Friday from a local daycare. The short 36” high fenced stalls will give the kids a chance to get up close to the animals while I talk about the farm, fiber and the difference between llamas and alpacas.

Well, my lunch break is over so that’s all I can write for now. I’ll try to post more pictures over the long holiday weekend.

Time flies...

Over the last couple of weeks since I updated this blog, we've baled hay two or three times. Here's a picture of Rick with the haybine, cutting one hay field back in July.

He and our brother Terry were both baling on Saturday morning until it started raining. What a downpour! Rene' was out in the field picking up hay with her truck until Terry got back out in the field with the hay wagon. The rain didn't last long, just long enough to soak all of us. Rick brought in his wagon load and we put up what we could for the day, spreading it out up in the hayloft to help it air dry over night.

Today they picked up where they left off and we put up another small load. I think we've got about 600 bales so far but we'll need a lot more than that to cover our herd of alpacas and llamas, plus Terry's cows, yaks and goats.

There is always lots of work to do at the farm. I plan to make more time for the blog though. I've been asked to do a farm tour for a small group from a daycare before school starts. I have a lot of preparation to do before their visit...