I was up early and keen to get the irrigation running in the alpaca paddocks, so that I could catch up on the time lost yesterday. But as I pulled the water cannon out the drive chain came off and so I had to call out the engineer once again. The equipment is not very well designed in my opinion and there is what feels like a steady stream of modified parts being shipped by the manufacturer to solve various design problems...... I know Italians can design great cars but I really wish they would outsource design and production of this water wheel to China!
The service rep is here as quickly as possible complete with a faxed diagram from the US importer that helps us assemble the drive chain correctly. We then have to pull off all 500 feet of hose and re calibrate the winding mechanism. Then wind in the 500 feet of hose all of which takes about 3 hours.
In flicking through the latest Alpacas magazine I see an advertisement for Alpacas of America...all the staff are wearing matching t-shirts for the photograph and there are almost 20 of them....I ponder the prospect of having a staff of 20 to run the farm... just two people full time would be great..but it isn't going to happen this side of Christmas.
Adrian Stewart
