North, South, East and West (Paul)

Evening all, well it's beautiful weather, if you're a duck!  And our Twitter followers (@BarnacreAlpacas) will know that duckling number one is doing well and now out of the egg.  I'm sure Debbie will update you all on it tomorrow.

A few days ago when Little Lady was being born (the fawn girl born to Snow, one of our livery girls) I took the camera out with me and took a few photos of our land and the views.  As it was a sunny day back then (the sun is a big orange ball in the sky, in case you have forgotten) I thought it might cheer everyone up by seeing some sunny photos.

First up let me give you some perspective on the 'livery girls' field, it is at the top of our 'bottom field' (the one the house, shed and alpacas are in). You might be able to make out the livery girls field shelter in the distance?!

Can you also see the 7 strips I mowed with the 4 feet wide flail mower a couple of days before?  What do you mean no, it took me ages to mow that 28 feet wide strip!  Maybe a close up will help...

Yep, there sure is a lot of mowing to do round here!  If anyone nearby (or not) fancies driving my quad and mower round for a couple of hours just let me know - it is actually quite relaxing (tea occasionally supplied)!

These first few photos I took in the 18 hectare/45 acre 'middle field', that's the one where the Black faced sheep (non pirate versions) are living.  They have a great view to the West down the Redesdale valley towards Otterburn and the border hills of Scotland (the border is only 18 miles away), you can just see the roof of our house and the shed roof to the right of picture.

Next I hot footed it to the 'livery girls field' where the North, South, East, West theme continued.

So, to the North we look down the hill (we are only about a third of the way up it in the livery girls field!), again you can just make out the shed roof, and over the hills to the North are the Cheviot Hills and just beyond then live John and Juliet Miller of the Border Mill and Lavender-Bee Alpacas (can you see them waving?) And a long, long, long way North is a nice mad woman, hello Jayne!  Oh yes, and the 3 alpacas in the North photo are all on livery, they are Lily, the grey girl and then Luca is just popping his head up from behind his mum Isadora:

To the South we look up our hill (the other two thirds) although the perspective is really weird and it doesn't look far (it is a good 30 minutes brisk walk to the top from here) the trees just popping up top left of picture are actually huge conifers a couple of hundred feet high I reckon and they are all along our Southern boundary!

At the very bottom of the hill we have our hay field at 180 metres (590 feet) above sea level and the very top of the hill is 302 metres (990 feet) above sea level although we have some wooden steps up their so you can get to 1,000 feet and be on top of the world!!!

Let me zoom in the South shot a bit for you:

There are several items of interest in the 'top field' (if you can find them in the ranging 51 hectares/127 acres - it's a big field!), and two of them are in the shot above.  Closest to us is one of our stone sheep folds.  The stone in there comes up to my chest and the fold is 12 metres (40 feet) across (diameter).  I have found them annotated on a map of the 1800's!  To the top left of picture is a big stone set in the side of the hill called 'grey mare'.

To the East we look back over the sheep field and just 25 miles away is the East Coast - a beautiful place in case you have never been!

Finally, we look to the West.  You have already seen the view from the Scottish Black Faced sheep's perspective and now here it is from the alpacas' perspective:

Some of the livery girls are in the foreground and last years weanlings are in the background.

Well I hope you enjoyed the sunny photos and 'North, South, East and West'.  I've got a few more blogs in mind to do over the course of the next few days including the (imminent) arrival of the 'mine is 38.4 metres long' and 'who is using my suitcase'...catch you soon blog followers/watchers and commenter's!
Paul