Dr Richardson called to say that the smear sample she took from our female alpaca on Tuesday of last week is negative which is reassuring. Now we just have to wait for the blood work to come back from the lab at the end of next week.

Mac and I have installed guttering along the side of the old hay barn and as a result the stable is now much drier and as we piped the rain water into the irrigation pond we now have a pond all year round and not just in the summer when the irrigation canal is in use.

Installing the guttering was an interesting challenge as the old roof wandered up and down along its edge. So by the time we had the guttering in place and sloping correctly there were some big gaps, which caused water to overshoot the gutter as it came off the roof. So I fastened a roll of aluminium to the edge of the gutter as a splash back and it works really well.

I wonder if we could keep ducks on the pond?

I guess if I built a small island in the middle of the pond then providing the ducks went back there each night they would be safe from predators. Wel its an idea....

The new guttering with additional aluminium splash back.