Author: Miss Lynne

Yesterday we were seriously concerned about the long term viability of our dear boy, then at midnight he just stood up without any help from us ( i was actually asleep and Mr Rob was watching on the webcam) by the morning he had got up a few times more under his own steam and by the time the vet arrived there was significant improvement! As i posted on Facebook, Alpacas’ are like having small children around, they can’t tell you what or where it hurts, they try to be stoic and the swing to either very poorly or a lot better is dramatic. Add all that to the tug they put on your heartstrings and you can imagine what the past few days have been like.

We are now cautiously very optimistic about his improvement and he is now back in with his mates, although we will continue to keep a close eye on him.

I would have liked to use the term “roller coaster” but that implies highs as well as lows and we have yet to have those.

My Favourite Alpaca boy, the gentle giant, collapsed on Thursday. I was away and Rob had to get the builders currently working on site to help load him into the trailer and off to the vet’s. The fear is Meningeal Worm which attacks the nervous system, unfortunately there is no test for it and so you just have to treat for everything and keep your fingers crossed that its not the case.

We have seem some improvement and he can stand for periods of time and walk around as long as we help him to get up, Vet is coming back tomorrow so we will know more then.

On top of that the house sale in NY has collapsed again. So annoyed after nearly a year we had 2 buyers, one could not complete for 3 months and the other was a cash buyer. So we went for the cash buyer, only it seems they misrepresented their financial position and have a property to sell first, So we are back to square one.

Our blogs up till now have been full of the joy and adventure that moving to Georgia has brought us, so I hope you will forgive me for venting in this one.

Saturday morning, some new friends that Mr Rob had made at Bee club came to visit. It was very nice to meet Mr Hal and Miss Sherry. They had a good look at the Alpacas no signs of any more new arrivals. The men went off to look at the bee hives and apart from a few stings on poor Mr Hal ( he was not wearing gloves) it was pretty uneventful.

They offered us 3 stray kittens that had adopted them — they will arrive early next week – pictures to follow….. Later in the afternoon Mr Patrick brought his sister and Miss Claudia over to see us ( well see the Alpacas really ) Saturday night we went out to dinner at a friends house and a great evening was lubricated with a few glasses of wine. Those that know me, understand that 2 glasses of wine is actually a lot for me.

Next morning I was feeling a little “delicate” so Mr Rob did the morning farm feed and clean up. After a lazy breakfast we were just on our way out of the door when the phone rang. It was Miss Nikki, she had just looked at the pacacam and we were having a cria!!

Mad dash to change back into farm clothes and off we went to the barn. There it was head and feet sticking out of No Doubt’s butt. We stood by and watched while she did a great job of giving birth to a really cute little boy, pure white and about 17 lbs. It was so much fun to see all the other Alpacas willing her to have it then trying desperately to kiss and smell the new arrival.

We will be calling him Cumulus – 30 days late but worth waiting for. Just need Miss Sadie to get her act together.

Sunday morning and Kloud was now 17 days overdue. I decided to vote with my feet and stay in bed. I heard a strange noise, probably just a chicken, but I went to check on the video cam in the office and there was Kloud lying on her side with something dark coming out. Shouted upstairs to Rob and started flinging on clothes and heading out to the barn. Much to the gratitude of anyone on the Pacacam, I managed to get my T shirt on before getting there.

Kloud was very calm and the feet and head was out with no obvious issues. I was concerned about the noises that the baby was making so phoned George and Judy, the owners of the farm that we got Kloud from and attempted to reproduce the sounds to them over the phone. Good news, it was normal. The thing that made me laugh was they had literally landed at the airport this morning, arriving back from a holiday in Alaska. I swear that they must have told Kloud of their holiday plans before she came to our farm and was not risking her baby to the “newbies” without back up support from George and Judy.

I texted some family and friends and they got onto the cam to share in it with us. How cool is it to be able to share the actual event with relatives in the UK.

After a rest Kloud tried to push out the rest of our little cria – took a few attempts to get those shoulders out but eventually out they came.

Closely followed by the feet and then the placenta, I will spare the general audience those images, but if anyone is interested then please let me know and I will email them.

We had bought a book about Llama and Alpaca neonatal care and I was a little concerned that he was still gulping air through his mouth, quick read of relevant paragraph and then cover mouth and blow into nostrils to inflate lungs …….. and it worked, how good do I feel now!

He was a little cold – it is quite cool under the eaves, so put the coat on him just to get his temperature up a few degrees.

Mum was loving on him and all the other Alpacas wanted to smell him, kiss him and welcome him to the herd.

Young cria are up on their feet very quickly and looking to explore their world

Also next job on the list is to find that milk bar… Check.

and last but not least work out how to coordinate four legs at the same time…… oops clearly harder to negotiate downhill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrived Saturday morning, picked up the rental car and had a moment of panic while i reminded my brain how to change gear and drive on the other side of the car.

Off to Kidmore End to pick up my daughter and grand daughter then a long drive to Wales. My mum was definitely pleased to see us all !! I was hankering after good fish and chips from the chip shop and so that was on the agenda for dinner.

It was nice to see the coast and also the bluebells in flower out in the woods. Just wish the rain had held off for a few more days. On the Sunday I went to visit an old friend that I had lost touch with about 25 years ago. We have know each other since I was 12 so plenty to catch up on and a lot of shared history to reflect on. Back to Kidmore End on the Monday.

My daughters house is very small and so I stayed in the Pub in the village. Alana decided it would be fun to stay with me and she was right we had a hoot. Tuesday we went to clear out my old house ready for the sale completion on the Wednesday – Thanks to the help from Ricky and Carol. They also brought Ellie May with them and Alana and Ellie had a great time tearing around the garden pretending to be witches. Trip to the park on Wednesday where we met some of Alana’s friends.

Thursday we went to Beale park – which has a few animals and some more play areas – in the afternoon I had to go walk the money from the sale through the process to get it over to the US, which was just as painful as I thought it would be.

Thursday night dinner out with Alana and Sarah and then said out goodbyes – all trying hard not to trigger the tears in the others and all failing miserably. At least they will be over to see us in the US in the Summer.

Flew out Friday with very mixed feelings – clearly miss family and friends but I have to say that America and especially our place in Georgia really feels like home now. I was very happy to wake up there on Saturday morning and just spend time with the all of the animals.

I am sitting at the airport, waiting to board a plane for the UK. I have very mixed feelings about this trip back. I am, of course, really pleased to be going to see my Daughter, Grand daughter and Mother. But I am also going to clear the last things that remain in my UK home as I have now sold it.

I took so much less time that we thought, we had a brief conversation about putting it up for sale when the next rental period came up and then just a week later we got an email to say there was 2 months left and did we want to sign up for the next 2 years.

A quick call to the estate agent to assess the market only to find out that we had a very popular location at the moment. The local school is riding high on the league tables and everyone with school age children were looking to move into the area.

Within half an hour of putting it on the market we had a firm offer just above asking price. Although my head knows this is the right thing to do, my heart is not quite sure what to think. Its been a strange year so far. Really looking for it to settle down a bit.

Anyway as I started this piece I said the thrill of seeing the family will over come everything else. Be prepared to be bored to death for the next week with lots of pictures from dear old Blighty.

A late flight back Thursday and a quick pit stop at a fast food emporium. Friday after work I settled down to finish off my  alpaca spinning. Still not quite got the hang of plying. its either too tight or too lose. Ah well, practise practise practise!

Saturday I spun up the mystery batt of the month that had arrived. It was called Aurora Borealis and it was really pretty, a mix of many different fibers but it spun up very nicely.

I decided to make some little boots for a friends baby daughter – the suede is a kit but then I knitted the tops in alpaca and stitiched it into them. Very soft, warm and cute.

Mr Rob was very busy as well — he has installed a web cam in the barn, so now i can check in on my little darlings any time I want to.

I can move the camera around from either my PC or my phone so I can see what they are up to. Sunday I had to leave for work a day early but in order to myself buy on the flight I have started off another pair of socks. I love knitting them and they are so easy to carry around.

 

 

Tuesday we were told that there was a yes another snow storm coming to Connecticut (where I am currently working Monday to Thursday) sure enough by Wednesday morning there was a good 10 inches of snow with more to come.

Going to the office was out of the question so we all planned to work at hotel. Apart from a quick break lunchtime where we all met up in the lounge for some pizza, i had not left the room. I was going stir crazy.

Then I got an email from one of the team to say he had located a night time ski resort within 25 minutes of the hotel. To make it even more appealing, his girlfriend was the same size as me and was offering salopettes and ski jacket. Woo Hoo, three of us set off and sure enough great ski resort 25 minutes away. I hired skis and boots and we hit the slopes. The guys were both snowboarders but we were all able to get down the slope at about the same time, so no hanging around. The conditions were fab – plenty of powder snow, about 30 degrees and no wind.

For one or our runs we were able to be the first people down after the snow plow – perfect groomed powder. Perfect!

So much fun — thanks both.

So step 1 is to think about what you are going to do with your fleece, there are people out there smarter than me that can give you more details around this. But for us it meant separating the fleece by animal into 2 bags – one with the main blanket, the other with the neck and belly.

Step 2 take your blanket and “skirt” it. Remove any second cuts, guard hairs and large bits of vegetation.  We then pick through it to try and get out as much dirt as possible.

Step 3 and  you will find lots of different opinions on this, but for us as we have white alpacas and good old Georgia clay, so we stuff as much fleece as we can into a lingerie washing bag and put it in the washing machine on woolen cycle twice – we were advised to use Eco liquid detergent from Sams club and have to say, we get great results with it.

as you can see that gives us nice white fiber — but it actually does not come out as fluffy as this.

so Step 4 is to pre fluff the fiber. Our method depends on how clumpy it is, and varies between pulling apart by hand, using hand cards or using our Picker.

Step 5 — We have a Strauch manual drum carder and we like to use that for the first pass. this gives us a batt with all the fibers pretty much laying in the same direction.

Lately I have been then weighing my Alpaca in a 70/30 ratio with some Tussah silk before moving to step 6.

Putting it through my very lovely Pat Green Super drum carder.  If I am blending in the silk I will put it through the carder twice to make sure it is really well distributed. The result is this lovely Batt or sometimes I take it off the carder as roving.

You can either dye it now or dye it after spinning.  I have been spinning on my new mini electric Hansen mini spinner with lace flyer. Here it is as a work in progress and below that some of the fiber I have already spun.

First some nice natrual grey alpaca with silk – 2 ply

Followed by black alpaca, un dyed, no silk and single ply

The day started very well, Mr Rob had got up early and lit a log fire so when I came in from feeding the animals I was greeted by a lovely warm living room and pretty flames licking up in the fireplace.

After a leisurely breakfast we started to get Skype calls from the UK, great to speak to family. But I have to say one of my highlights was not only getting to talk to my daughter and granddaughter but also seeing in the background that my daughter was following a fine old family tradition.

When she was little and money was a little spare, I saw a picture in a magazine of a branch minus its leaves decorated with pretty lights and Christmas decorations and thought what a great idea. Killed two birds with one stone, saved money and looked stylish and so the legend of my “Christmas twig” was born. It was the source of much laughter and tales over the years.

I was thrilled to see that she had taken Alana out to choose a branch and decorate it and so keep the tradition alive.

Midday we drove up to Alpharetta to have a Christmas buffet lunch with friends. There were over 20 people visiting and there was an abundance of good food, fine wine and great company. We have enjoyed our first Christmas in Atlanta and we are now waiting for my sister and her family to arrive tomorrow. I am also going to have another weaving lesson tomorrow with the wonderful Miss Linda. I think we are going to start placemats.

Hard to believe but on Saturday we will have been the proud owners of this property for one year and also the official owners of our first 5 alpacas,6 chickens and 3 cats.