Well that's the big day over for another year and its amazing just how quickly these days come around.
I spent the morning taking down the flags and other bits and pieces from the day before. I must have somehow erased some of the pictures I took of yesterdays party and the very talented Marimba player...oh well c'est la vie.

The parade really was exceptional this year and I spent far more time clapping and waving than taking photographs.



I was hoping we would get the hay baled today but it looks like being very late Sunday or even Monday before we will get it out of here. Which is a something of a shame as I was expecting to run the hay field irrigation on Monday and Tuesday but that is quite impossible if there are hay bales in the field.

Hopefully the replacement part for the irrigation will be in on Monday so we can get the unit back up and running...how it broke I will never know - it is very unusual and I can only think that one of the farm hands has broken it somehow...but no obvious explanation. And that's another good reason to get the hay out of here as once the part is replaced on the water wheel all the tubing has to be pulled out so that the winding mechanism can be reset.

the alpacas are starting to feel the heat and enjoy nothing more than being hosed down with a cold stream of fresh well water - they just love it!

Yep its Independence Day here in the USA and what could be more nostalgic than a London Bus in the Ashland 4th of July Parade.......



The local children loved hoping on and off the bus as it made its regal way along the parade route....headed for Victoria Station.......

Hope your day was as good as mine.....Southern cross is still hanging on to her cria so no new news on that front.

Very hard to get going today as I am still feeling the effects of yesterdays road trip. But there is no rest in the alpaca farming game. We have had contractors in painting the house exterior for the last two weeks and their work has now come to a end thank goodness.

The hay is starting to dry out very quickly now so I do hope we can get it bailed straight after the glorious 4th of July. I could say I am in the hands of the gods on that one but the truth of the matter is that I am in the hands of John Pierson the local contractor who cuts and bails all of our hay.

Latte who I brought from Portland yesterday, has settled straight back in with the other alpacas in the herd and its just like she was never away. Southern Cross her mother is due to have a cria this weekend so I will be on cria watch from the 6th of July onwards.

When I was driving up to Portland yesterday I was overtaken by Bill Schweitzer and his mother. Bill is my most recent alpaca client and is now busy upgrading his fencing and creating a building to house his new alpacas which are still here at Mulberry Alpacas. Then if I didn't go and bump into them in Cost Co this morning while stocking up on goodies for July the 4th.....its a small small alpaca world.

Oh well must keep going I better go get out the flags and start hanging them up for tomorrow.

As quickly as they arrived the storm warnings have now been lifted and so its time to mow that hay field.......there was talk of a crop circle forming but John Pierson got here with his mower and two hours later it was leveled.



This is a shot looking along one of the rows with the grass still standing on the left and the newly mown grass on the right....the grass dries out and then we can call it hay. But I bet you knew that anyway...didn't you?

I have kept hay out all year this year and it fascinate me that there are times when the alpacas prefer the hay to fresh pasture. I don't discourage this eating of hay as I am sure it helps to keep their stools firm. But thats just my theory.

Off to Portland and back via Grants Pass in one day tomorrow so I need to gas the truck and prepare the trailer. Everything has to be connected and set up as i want to be on the road no later than 5am tomorrow so there is no opportunity to start sorting things out in the morning.

Here is my trailer preparation check list;

Tire pressures including spare.
Safety chains
Electrical connections (lights indicators etc)
Emergency brakes
Battery for cooling fans and closed circuit TV
Halters and lead reigns
Temporary fencing (in case of breakdown)
Alpaca first aid kit
Fresh water
Fresh pellets
Hay
Wheel jack
Tire iron
Instant tire repair.
Road flares
Torch (latern as Americans call it)
AAA membership and cell phone

I am not totally sure if it is possible to have a Hurricane in the Pacific North West but whatever we had last night came pretty close and we saw it come speeding up the valley then slam into the house. A combination of very strong winds, wild rain and an electrical storm thrown in for good measure. My daughter tells me that Hurricane is from the Mid-16th century. Via Spanish Taino hurakán "god of the storm" - laptops and Google where would we be without them?

Luckily we only suffered minor damage to some of the older trees so no real harm done.



Just as well we didn't mow yesterday.....

Just as I was getting my hopes up that we would be able to mow the hay field today I heard that there are storm warnings for Saturday, Sunday and Monday so that puts grass cutting on hold. Its been bad enough having to wait this long for a decent stretch of good weather but it would be very disappointing to mow the grass and then have it get wet...so once again we find ourselves waiting.

The real problem with these unexpected delays is that I have skipped irrigating for almost a month now so that the hay field would be dry and easy to cut. Now it is totally parched and I fear the quality might be below its usually high standard.

Time to keep one eye on Southern Cross who is due to deliver in the next few days and one eye on the weather forecasts, fingers crossed.

As usual I was busy minding my own business just assuming that the irrigation was doing its stuff on the alpaca pastures when I noticed the pump had shut off. This usually means that the last filter is full of weeds - but today as I restarted the pump and a gusher shot skywards I realised it meant the high pressure hose had failed and while I was tempted to run and take a picture of the spectacle I opted to fix the problem.

Fortunately like most major parts that are likely to fail time and bitter experience has told me to keep parts close to hand. Its ironic really because even the local dealer is dreadful at stocking parts which are bound to fail every season.

Thinking about it more I guess its just a great way of reducing inventory and pushing the cost and responsibility of stocking parts onto the farmers... well that's enough speculation on the motivations of irrigation companies.

I am going up to Portland on Wednesday to collect two female alpacas one of my own called Latte and another for a friend so I need to find out exactly where the second animal has to be delivered to as i will be just a bit bushed after 12 hours of interstate driving with a trailer. Speaking of which I better make a note to prep the trailer on Tuesday.

I have decided to go up to Portland next week on the 2nd of July and collect Latte one of our pregnant female alpacas from NWA and bring her home. I will also be bringing back a female alpaca belonging to another farm and that is good because with gas prices the way they are it always pays to share these journeys.

The question I am mulling over is who to take up to get pregnant but I dont have any answers on that front.

I must also get the ARI registrations filed for the two new arrivals we had this year. I don't know why but I have been putting it off for ages now. I( guess once winter is over and the sun is shining it is just so tempting to be outside and with the alpacas.

Which reminds me I really must get the alpaca fleeces weighed and the samples sent off for analysis.

Oh well onward and upward it can't all be fun and games !

Well if you didn't know today is the longest day of the year. That is to say the biggest time gap between sunrise and sunset....so still the usual 24 hours but from here on in the days are slowly but surely getting shorter.

It also happens to be my birthday so we will be having a quiet day on the alpaca farm, running the irrigation is about as energetic as I will be getting.

See you tomorrow for more tales from the alpacas farm and the alpaca industry.

Its strange how sometimes things that change very gradually just go unnoticed - like a glacier sliding down a mountainside.

So it was with the blades on the tractor mower deck. We have given them hell over the last four years and before we pulled all the rocks from the alpaca pastures every time we topped a pasture we would shear the safety bolt at least twice by hitting some huge rock.

The quality of the cutting was starting to show and despite altering the angle of the deck and other adjustments there was only one conclusion. New blades were needed.

I put the whole mower into the back of the alpaca trailer and shipped it up to the John Deere dealer who has the tools to replace the blades. So now 8 hours and $300 later the mower is in tip top condition once again.

Sometimes you just can't believe your eyes and looking at the moon tonight will give you that feeling. On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside after sunset and look to the east. You'll see a giant shape rising At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and "seas" but this Moon is strangely inflated.

There's no better time to see the full Moon than June 18th as it is a "solstice moon", coming two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon.

On a much more practical note one of the things I have learned about alpaca farming is that certain pieces of equipment will break at the worst possible time and if you live even 30 minutes from the nearest store then a journey in and out of time can be very time consuming and frustrating. So create your own mini store on the farm and keep the items you are most likely to need close to hand. It does tie up some cash and space but makes life much less stressful when something suddenly lets go unexpectedly. And with gas prices going up all the time any trips that can be avoided should be avoided.

Today we were up before the sun had risen...well not all of us the teenagers were still in bed at 8.30am. Anyway there was plenty to do and we started by separating Minne from the other female alpacas in the herd and breeding her to Conman. She wasn't very enthusiastic at first but soon succumbed to his advances. This breeding sent the young (intact) Leroy Brown into a complete frenzy so he is now in with the male alpacas...I thought he was too young but obviously he is mature for his age.



Once the alpacas were sorted we started the cycle of irrigation which runs for a whole week. Here you can see the water from the irrigation gun arcing through the air and "over" mount Ashland....well almost !



The hay in the hay field is now the tallest it has ever been and as you might expect is falling over in places. With luck we should get the contractor here to cut it on Saturday which will be a big relief. It has been standing and drying for some while now and I wonder just how much of the nutritional value has been lost.

The chickens are on good form and laying eggs faster than we can possibly eat them. In fact when we had the garden party last weekend we gave away at least two dozen eggs to various visitors.

Once the beetles had done their thing. Gill would degrease and bleach all of the alpaca bones.



I wasn't quite sure how I would feel about getting Felina back as a skeleton when I went to meet Gill.
And this picture doesn't tell the full story, but the amazing detail and perfect mating of joints is truly a thing of beauty. It really is fascinating to see how these wonderful creatures are put together.
The next and most daunting part of the whole task for me is to reassemble the skeleton or "articulate" the alpaca skeleton as they say in the trade.
A few minutes on Google and I had found a man in Alaska called Lee Post The Bone Man who publishes books on how to articulate various skeletons. He recommended his Moose book for an alpaca.

Here is Lee with the skeleton of an Orca whale which he articulated...for the last 20 years Lee has been working mainly on marine mammal skeletons in Homer, Alaska. Luckily for me Lee had written a manual on how to articulate a Moose skeleton and he told me this would work fine for the alpaca.



As always I will keep you posted on developments.....

Following on from yesterdays entry today is the slightly gory story of how the beetles ate the alpaca and left behind just her bones.


In the picture below you can clearly make out Felinas pelvis and rear legs, all left in pretty much the same position they were laid down in 12 months earlier.

Just over one year ago a female alpaca of mine called Ms Felina simply dropped dead. The necropsy showed she had died from heart failure. Quite a shock for every one as she was only 7 years old which is no age at all for an alpaca. Somehow the idea of tossing her into a land fill didn't feel like the most appropriate end.



I then explored the idea of using her as a teaching aid not just her dead body but to strip off her flesh and articulate her skeleton. The local vet put me in contact with Gil Doersch otherwise known as the skull doctor.

Gil explained that his beetles would strip away the flesh and then he could clean the bones.
It felt like the right thing to do so I agreed. You can read more of Felinas Story in tomorrows blog.