Wednesday January 7, 2009
I would like to start off by wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2009. May all your alpacas stay healthy and your sales be better then expected.
We spent the first few days of the new year brain storming and planning out the year. It’s always somehow inspiring to see everything laid out in front of you on paper. It’s too early yet for the reality of the tasks to have any effect so, we are both now, full of new hope.
It will be an exciting year with Mel ramping up her knitting business. We expect it to be busy as there is a
definite demand for Canadian made product. Just think what it would be like to offer not just socks and
mitts made from your own alpaca but sweaters and other clothing as well. Not only will your product be
Canadian content but it will also be Canadian manufactured – a truly 100% made in Canada product. Look for
the Twoloom Alpaca Boutique site to be up in March and for Mel’s products at the Alpaca Ontario Show in April.
I on the other hand will be busy creating more work on the farm, working at Capella (my daytime job), designing websites, and creating marketing material for all our and others varied businesses.
It is nice to have order in our life again. The month of December can only be described as chaotic.
The beginning of the month saw us without water for 3 days and then without any pressure for about a week
after. We finally found someone that would tackle our water problem. Our well, pump, and pressure tank
were located outside in a metal shack, called the “pump house”, down in a cement bunker that was 5 ft deep.
The well head was below ground level which made it susceptible to contamination. The well head had to be
raised above ground level, the pump replaced and put down the well, the pressure tank moved into the basement
of the house, the plumbing changed, and a line run to the barn for the hydrant taken out of the pump house.
We conveniently added a challenge by shovelling 3.5 ton of gravel into the basement at the point were the
water line came in. The water system is currently suspended from the ceiling awaiting the spread of the
gravel and pouring of cement.
Just about the time the guys were getting done with the water system, the other guys came in to install the
wood cook stove. This involved putting down a ceramic floor as well as putting in the chimney system. This
meant we had to clear everything out of the entrance way and part of the kitchen. We were walking around piles
of things for weeks. They were still working at it the week before Christmas. We are happy to report that
they did get it done and it works extremely well – Mel has had the house as warm as 85 degrees F.
During the 3 days without water, Katie had 11 puppies born to her female chocolate lab. They are now a month old and are really cute. The puppies will be ready to go on January 23rd. If anyone is interested in a quality CKC registered Labrador, let me know. They are a steal at $600.00 each.
At the end of the month Mother Nature proved once again that she was boss. We woke to the shuddering of the house as it was blasted by greater than 100 km per hour winds. That was followed shortly by a thump bang which ended up being the greenhouse parting ways from the garden shed. It promptly rolled down the hill jumping 3 fences to land in the middle of the field on the next farm over. It sat quietly until we were within 10 feet of it and then it launched straight up in the air. You will be happy to know that the force of gravity still applies and what goes up must come down and it did, shattering into a thousand pieces. So much for the green house. We will have to build a new one out of glass and wood and anchor it well.
We had another tragedy at the end of November. We lost another alpaca – Paxton. The vet figures it was
pneumonia as it was prevalent in the area and we had a second alpaca that had a temperature. Looking back we
can determine that it started with Oreo near the end of October. He had a 3 day period where he would not
defend his food if one of the other boys challenged him for his dish. He showed no other symptoms, no runny
nose or eyes, no cough. He was eating hay, drinking water, and moving around fine out in the field. A few
weeks later Paxton was a little slow coming in on a Saturday afternoon and ate some of his food but didn’t
dive into it. He looked to us like he was a little cold. We put more bedding in the stall and he was fine
the next day and for the remainder of the week. The following Saturday he did the same thing. He seemed to be
a little colder this time but wasn’t shaking. He ate some of his food but showed no other signs of anything.
We assumed that it would be the same as last weekend and left him for the night. Paxton passed away sometime
overnight. The next night Matrix came in and was shaking uncontrollably, had his eyes at half mast, and refused
to eat. We threw a coat on him and called the vet. Two hours after the vet gave him the antibiotic he inhaled
his kibble and was fine. He has been fine since and we are happy to report that no other alpacas have shown any
signs of having anything.
Oh, did I mention that I was happy a new year has begun!
Wednesday November 12, 2008
Aaaaaaaah! That’s the sound of me finally breathing. You think after all these years I would have learned something. Every year in January/February we sit down and plan the year’s projects. Spring and then summer come and we become complacent thinking that the warm days will somehow last forever. Near the end of summer we start to think that we really should have gotten a little more done as we hurray to buy the material we will need to get that next project going. And then, we get that that first snowy day causing utter panic to set in. We then crank it up a couple of notches, pull all nighters, and come screaming in under the wire. The latest projects being the garden shed and the back porch.
Mel built the porch platform as the snow was flying last year and we swore that we would not go through
another winter with the north west winds blasting our entrance door. We started the porch last Thursday,
worked on it Friday after work until after 10:00pm and managed to get the walls up and secured and the roof
trusses in place. We spent Saturday putting the plywood and then the shingles on the roof.
Both of us were popsicles by the time we were done. We were back at it Sunday morning putting plywood on the
walls, plastic over the window areas and a door in the opening, and, voila! We have a covered porch.
The windows will go in the upper part of the garden shed today to completely close that in as well. The siding for both will have to wait until next year. We made a concentrated effort in October and cleaned up the barn, garage, and house area. We removed the skeletal frame attached to the front of the barn and then removed all the debris. We cleared the area between the garage and driveway. Mel managed to spread some of the manure pile on the back field. Did about half the five acre field and barely made a dent in the pile. The area under the pile was so soft that Mel had to quit before she buried the tractor. We are hoping that we can at least get enough to finish the field before the snow covers the ground. It’s kind of weird driving in now as there appears to be so much space.
We are finally getting our water system fixed. It currently resides in a concrete bunker about five feet underground. The well head, pump, and holding tank are all in the pit and the hydrant empties into the pit. It’s never good when electricity and water mix especially when one has to go down into the pit every time something breaks. It has broken a couple of times a year since we moved in and froze up during one of the winters. We had a break in October. Mel was in the middle of cooking supper, Katie was trying to have a shower and I had just come in from bringing the alpacas in and poof no water. The clamp on the pipe to the barn broke and the pipe came apart. There is no shut offs so we had to unplug the pump and then get it clamped before the system lost pressure while in a pit after dark. Mel does good work…
Our alpaca visitor from New Brunswick went home near the end of September as did Fiji, the companion animal that Garry had brought with Darby. Garry was very pleased that we had handled her and taught her to lead. He was able to go in the stall, put the halter on without any fuss, and lead her to the trailer. He offered to leave some of the alpacas on his trailer with us so that we could halter train them as well.
All of our ladies have been bred and have spit off. We are looking forward to six babies next year, 3 from Matrix, and 3 from Oreo.
We got the results back from Guelph on ‘Junior’. It was a miracle that he lived as long as he did. His eyes, brain, heart, thymus, and lungs had serious problems. The eye damage put the time frame that the feotus was effected between 90 – 120 days. The left and right eyes were affected differently suggesting a viral infection as opposed to a hereditary problem.
‘Tira’ on the other hand is completely healthy and growing like a weed. She should be pretty close to her mother’s size when she is done.
Sunday September 14, 2008
No, we haven’t fallen off the planet. OK. So I was a little optimistic thinking that I could do updates once a week, especially in the summer. Time certainly flies when you are having fun.
The herd has increased but not through births which is another story. We have gained 3 more females, 1 more male and sold a male. We sold BH Nibbs to Salem Alpacas and bought Hallie, a CPeruvian Rafael daughter. Darby, a black WA Black Magic daughter arrived with Ring Ranch Matrix. Recently, we added Bonita, an Alpamayo daughter and Victor Vaccoyo grand daughter. Prince William, a PPeruvian Javier and Victor Vaccoyo grandson, came with Bonita. Prince William is light fawn and doesn’t fit into our breeding program so is for sale.
We have had births this year. The first one was a heart breaker.
“Junior” went full term but was born very premature with evidence of oxygen deprivation causing brain damage. We looked after him for almost
9 weeks before we made the difficult decision to take him to Guelph for research purposes. Our second birth happened this past Sunday. We have
a healthy baby girl. She is out of a solid brown mother, RE Katie, and by a black father, RFA Oreo,
so we expected either a black or a brown cria – not what happened! She is mostly white with black, caramel and brown patches. It’s the most
extreme tuxedo pattern I’ve ever seen! Apparently, breeding for black is not as easy as you’d think.
Over the summer we put up another 2 fence lines to give us a 4th pasture. We have 3 more lines to go in to finish the pastures to give us a total of 6. A shelter went up fairly quickly to provide shelter for the horses so we could leave them outside. We decided to foster a horse from Heaven Can Wait equine rescue to keep Brew company. Leaving the horse outside freed up a stall in the barn that we could use for the ever growing alpaca herd.
Had to run between the rain drops to get anything done outside this summer. We put forth a concentrated effort and with the help of a bin and a local scrape yard we got a great deal of the property cleaned up.
We have siding! Did I tell you we have siding? No more lovely house wrap.
Our most recent project has been a garden shed. In order to clean up the shop, basement, and move the broken green house, I needed somewhere to put my stuff, so we are building a garden shed. I took time off work during the third week in August, in the middle of the week when the sun was actually out, to get it started. One day to get the gravel base in and levelled, one day to put patio stones, deck blocks in and level them to make ready for the floor, one day to put the floor on (Mel did this by herself), and one day to build the walls and put them up. That is how it currently stands as it has been raining since then. Looks like we can get back at it this coming weekend. I am taking Friday off so am optimistic that we can get the roof on and the sheeting started.
We really lucked out on weather when it came to haying. We managed to get our hay cut, baled, and in the barn during the only 4 day dry period between mid June and September. The hay was cut on July 4th, raked and baled on July 6th and in the barn by the end of day July 7th. A very special thank you to the people that showed up to help – David & Trixi Lloyd, Lori Jones & Tom Vanhanen, Jeff Macdonald, and Norm Stephens. The rain and the spring fertilizer worked as we got 532 bales off a 5 acre field. Last year with the dry conditions, we got 250 bales and the year before around 450 bales. Later this year we plan to spread the 5 year collection of well aged manure on the field and then seed it.
"In early August we got hit by a hail storm. I had called Mel at home to warn her that it was coming and the small amount of time that I
spoke to her on the phone was her window to get the alpacas under cover. She ended up with all the alpacas in the round ring cushed with her
holding an umbrella over them as best she could while she got pelted with marble size hail.
Sorry, no, I don’t have a picture. She did
eventually get them in. The hail came down so hard and fast that we had ground cover. The tomato, zucchini, and carrots did not fare well.
The swiss chard was OK as the chickens had eaten all the leaves leaving only stalks. One of the Manitoba maples did not fair well either and
dropped one of its main trunks down beside the barn.
There has been lots of alpaca and alpaca related activity since the spring show.
May 10th and 11th saw us at Arriba Linea for a shearing clinic with Cathy Merkley and Trudy McCall. Shearing alpacas is a little more difficult then shearing (body clipping) horses which is where my experience lies. Alpacas have a much finer skin and more awkward areas to get to. Everyone had the opportunity to shear a couple of alpacas and to sort fleece. I sheared Oreo. It was a success because I managed to not cut him. Black is not an easy colour to work with as you really can not see what you are doing. Apparently I was very intense while shearing and had a propensity to throw the fleece instead of putting it on the table. Mel started shearing Rev but gave way to Trudy because he was so tiny and had so much loose skin. Mel did carry on and shear a couple of Arriba’s alpacas without incident. Kudos to the Arriba crew, Cathy and Trudy for putting on a very well run and entertaining weekend.
We were confident enough after the clinic to shear our own alpacas. Special thanks go out to Arriba Linea for lending us there shears, Cedar Ridge Alpacas for lending us there table, Amazing Graze Alpacas for lending us there sorting table and assisting with the shearing, Lori and Calvin for helping with shearing and giving us insight into a different method from another shearing clinic, and to Gentle Glade Alpacas for their help with the shearing. Whew! Just like the Juno’s!
We sent Rev’s fleece out to Olds College for their fleece competition. He won 1st place and impressed the judge enough for her to make the comment “it was a beautiful fleece, good quantity for his age and she sure hoped it was a male to reproduce more, just like him!” It came back from Olds just in time to send it out Navan where it won reserve champion in his colour class.
We were back at Arriba Linea June 28th and 29th for a Camelidynamics clinic with
Marty McGee. We had been to the one day Camelidynamics clinic with Marty put on by Alpaca Ontario several years ago but had not had a
chance to put anything into practice. Marty was sensational! She is always learning new things and constantly adapting her training so
you can always learn from her. We certainly have made use of what we learned. Once again, the weekend was well run and entertaining.
For those of us that stayed Sunday after the clinic there was a special lesson from Marty on how to put an alpaca in a sub compact car!
I gained additional responsibility in July when I assumed the presidency of Alpaca Ontario. That hat was in addition to Alpaca Ontario webmaster and active member of the marketing committee.
The Alpaca Ontario education weekend has just passed and once again it was a great learning experience. Dr. Tibary has such a wealth of knowledge that he could probably speak for a week and still have more to pass on. Melody did her first ever presentation on the Sunday. She spent 2 hours letting people know the process and procedures to setup a farm, where to apply for grants and how to go through the environmental farm plan, and how to get your books ready for your accountant. Dr. Erin Wilson spoke about parasite control in your alpacas and Tyler Allair did a brief presentation on taking pictures of your alpacas for marketing purposes. The weekend event was hosted at Guelph University. We where given a tour of the facilities by Dr. Whitehead who is Alpaca Ontario’s contact at the university.
Thursday May 8, 2008
First off, I have to apologize to all those that anticipate my weekly dialogue, I have been tardy of late. Spring is a busy time and it seems that everything needs to be done at once. The gardens need tending, the fences need mending, and the money seems to flow out the door faster than it comes in.
The gardens are a constant ongoing battle but the yard is slowly starting to resemble the image in my head.
Campbellford Farm Supply dropped off the fertilizer for the back hay field on Monday. Mel was able to get it spread after a slight modification to the tractor; she had to cut the ball off the back because she couldn’t unscrew it.
The big barn doors on the back of the barn have been deteriorating for years. Last fall, after dropping out of the track numerous times, the
larger door jumped its track and attempted to take Melody out. Fortunately, it caught and she was able to escape. The roller had broken so it was
doomed for all eternity to remain on the ground after that. The replacement of the doors was a fall ‘roundtoit’ that we never got ‘round to. It
topped the list this spring after we had to keep chasing the chickens out. They had decided that the straw bales were better nest boxes and they
should lay their eggs there. The framing required more expertise then Mel felt she had so we called on my brother, Warren, to come and help and he
graciously accepted. It’s amazing what promising to feed him will do. We got a bonus in two more helpers, Shawna and Walker, my niece and nephew,
although Walker ate us out of house and home.
Warren showed up on Friday afternoon and he and Mel got the door framed in and the header started.
We were back at it on Saturday morning after breakfast. I added my expertise in custom demolition and disassembled the old barn door so that we
could reuse the plywood. All was going well until Warren and Mel put the header up. Warren had been careful to make sure the header was square.
He soon discovered what we’ve known all along – the square and the level are new inventions and neither of them existed when the buildings on
this property had been built. The buildings were built using the ‘close enough’ guidelines. The header had to be rebuilt to match the opening.
This, of course, delayed the door installation just enough so that Mel and Warren had to put them up in the pouring rain.
Tuesday April 22, 2008
It was a pretty quiet week; I was on autopilot for most of it. I finally caught up on my sleep by Friday, just in time for the weekend. I’m off to Toronto today for my ‘one month later’ check up at the Low Back Clinic.
Certainly can not complain about the weather, it’s been beautiful, but I’m going to anyway. It got so warm on Saturday that it caused my
mini irises to wilt and the flowers to die. I didn’t even have time to get a picture of them in bloom. The other spring bulbs are beginning
to bloom and the forsythia should be a brilliant yellow soon.
I spent the weekend outside. We had several cord of wood dumped at different locations in the fall and 3 of them never made it into the drive
shed before winter snow buried everything. I got the one pile into the shed before the show and put a second pile in the shed over the weekend
with Mel’s help. The last pile will be in the shed before I go to bed tonight. I spent the remainder of my weekend time in the garden reclaiming
what was lost last year when I blew my back out. It doesn’t take long for the crab grass and wild phlox to reclaim what I had previously stolen.
I am optimistic that I will win the battle this year.
Mel spent most of the week doing all required paperwork left over from the show. She did take Wednesday off to go out to Salem Alpacas to help
shear. She took the trailer with her so that she could stop at Cedar Ridge and pick up a young Suri alpaca. His name is Senor Ruff.
The Alpaca Canada Futurity Stud Auction has started and it will be exciting to see who the lucky person is that ends up with the breeding to Matrix! You can bid at www.alpacainfo.ca/studauction.
Tuesday April 15, 2008
I’m a little slow this week as I’m still recovering from the show. Yesterday was a complete blur – I don’t think I actually gained complete consciousness at any point during the day. Today is only marginally better.
Several days of shovelling snow
away from the pile into the driveway and breaking up the ice underneath cleared the way to the trailer and we were able to get it out. The new
truck was ready on time and we were able to pick it up on Wednesday night. The truck ended up being ‘beige’. Mel wanted ‘white’. The second
choice was ‘silver’, the third choice was ‘beige’. Just for the record, I actually like the ‘beige’. Apparently I’m alone in my colour class.
The most popular question over the next couple of days was: Why did you get a ‘beige’ truck? I pointed out to Mel that we didn’t have a lot of
time to get a truck which prompted the response that we got ‘beige’ because no one else wanted that colour. Enough said.
We were a little late leaving for the show on Friday; I slept in. We got there in good time without any problems. It was a very busy weekend
with Mel helping out in the office and me helping the photographer.
The lack of the second testicle did cause us to get knocked down in the placings and subsequently knocked out of a championship placing.
The judge liked his fibre so much that he quite literally took about 10 minutes trying to find the second one. We were really not disappointed
with the results as the judge had confirmed what we already knew. I’m sure he will be fully endowed in the next month or so.
Saturday April 5, 2008
It’s finally starting to look like spring although I still maintain that it will be June before all the snow completely melts.
We had our first adventure in toenail and teeth trimming last Saturday. Mel had her daughter, Katie and Katie’s friend, April to
help as I am still recovering from a herniated disc. My job was to take pictures of the action. We were anticipating something along
the lines of a rodeo – April kept referring to it as ‘Alpaca Wrastling’. It ended up being a rather quiet morning. All the alpacas,
including the 2 baby boys, stood to have there feet trimmed with the exception of Sabrina who cushed – no panic, no rodeo. The same
went for the one set of teeth that needed trimming; we expected a fight and got none. The tooth trimming was pretty cool! We borrowed
a Tooth-a-matic from James and used that. Getting the device on the teeth is a little awkward but once you have it set it takes less
than a second to actually trim the teeth. The angle of the device is important and it would be best to do it while the alpaca is cushed.
Unfortunately for us, the boy we were trimming insisted on standing so his teeth ended up slightly off angle. He still has a nice smile!
We have been obsessed with testicles. One of our little boys, destined for the Alpaca Ontario show April 12th, had none 3 weeks ago and 2 weeks later had one. Did the other one go on vacation? Did it take a peek and decide that ‘hay it’s too cold out there?’. I really hope the other one shows up before the show this coming weekend.
I think the saying goes ‘it never rains but it pours’. We took our old GMC pickup truck in to be serviced last week and we still had not heard anything by Friday. Mel gave our mechanic a call and teasingly asked if it was a ‘write off’ and he said YES. The oil had antifreeze in it which is bad! It would cost more to repair the engine then the truck was worth and the truck was falling apart anyway. The mechanic’s recommendations had the word ‘wreckers’ in the sentence. That brought a ‘deer in the headlights’ look and then a complete sense of panic. We needed a truck for next Friday. The Show is on Friday!
I ended up taking off work a couple of hours early and going with Mel to the local Toyota dealer to buy a Tacoma. I think we made the sales persons day. I doubt the typical reply to the query ‘Can I help you’ is ‘yes, we need a truck and we need it by next Thursday, I don’t care what colour it is as long as it pulls a trailer’. We bought the Tacoma or rather leased it. I have no idea what it looks like but we should have it on Wednesday.