Happy Birthday to me

Just a short blog tonight as I was trying to get Paul to do it but he won't!

Today is my birthday, I've been trying to convince my niece that I am actually 4, the same age as she is, as noughts count as nothing, but she wasn't having it!  I have been very spoilt, no soap this year (if you can't remember Paul's present from last year or don't undertand I suggest you go back 12 months).

I can't quiet believe I'm 40, where does the time go.  Of all the things I thought I would be doing when I was 40 breeding alpacas wasn't one of them.  Happily married with two or three children and a few pets maybe, but 70 alpacas, over 200 sheep, goats, cats and chickens not a chance.

I eventaually realised the children bit wasn't going to happen, so the animals became even more important and things have just grown from there I suppose and I wouldn't be without them.

Kealani's baby, who we haven't named yet is getting stronger and gaining weight which is good and is now able to feed from mum which is fantastic news.  It is still early days for her but things are certainly looking better than they were.

The girls have moved onto fresh grass today, I did take some photo's but don't tell Paul I can't find the camera to download them so they will have to wait until another night!  As you can imagine the girls didn't want any tea tonight as they were too busy stuffing nice fresh green grass down their necks.

On not such a nice note I have lost one of my cats today, Izzie is missing, so please keep everything crossed for her safe return.

Sleep deprivation following the last birth

Thank you to those of you who have phoned, texted or tweeted to make sure we are ok due to the lack of blogs and tweets, it is down to sleep deprivation and not enough hours in the day.

Since my last blog we have been over to see last years young boys we sold, and to help with injections and cut some toe nails (not that many nails needed doing), been to a very wet Glendale Show and had a very weak cria born which has needed round the clock care.

Despite the rain the alpacas proved popular at the Glendale Show, the boys didn't seem to notice the rain as much as Paul did, being under cover with the knitwear thankfully I wasn't as wet as they were; until we packed up!

Thanks to Rachel Simpson for this photo of us in the parade of champions - Seymour was wanting to make a call of nature all the way round!!

We have now had our final cria of the year born, a very weak little white girl from Kealani and Legend of Spartacus.  We have had her in the house in front of the aga to try and get her warm and keep her warm and she has now been reunited with mum in the shed under a heat lamp.

She is now strong enough to stand for short periods but with very little lower muscle strength she soon gets tired.  She is managing short feeds from mum and with additional bottle top ups of milk we are milking from Kealani (which she is far from impressed about), there has been a tiny weight gain today.

This baby marks another Barnacre milestone, our first home bred girl Oonagh is a grandma!! 

August or October

The weather has been awful today, it was just starting to rain when I went out to do my 5.30am Kealani check and it's hardly stopped all day.  It has varied from heavy to torrential rain and back again, the fields are soggy, the alpacas are filthy and it's August, can you believe it.

The goats didn't want to go out this morning but I did manage to convince them at lunchtime it would be an idea for them to go and stretch their legs, but it wasn't long before they were back banging on on gate wanting in. 

As I nipped to the shed to get some bits for the phone charms I was making someone turned the rain tap on full pelt so I let the goaties in much to their relief.

With the weather bad it's been indoor jobs all day, Paul has been working on the website all afternoon and evening.  At one point tempers got rather frayed when the whole website went pear shaped, but after a lot of head scratching it is working, in fact he has managed to get our new logo limited addition tea towel in the shop.

The home page also has a new look as have a few other pages, can you spot them?

A palace awaits

I seem to be having so many issues with blogger since it all changed, some nights I can't sign in, some nights it wont upload photo's or I can't comment on other peoples blogs, does anyone else find it a pain?

Anyway, enough complaining today has been another busy one, this morning we had Mary to spit off.  Now Mary is a bit of a choosy girl and only likes darkies so you have to make sure you use the right boy or you might get a wrong result. 

So Loki being our black stud (and Mary's boyfriend) got the job, this was her 21 day check and I could tell as soon as we got close she was going to sit.  She usually starts flashing her eye lids if she's not interested.  Plonk, down she went, not ideal as we are reaching the end of our mating season here.

This afternoon we headed over to a prospect alpaca owners new field which we were checking over for them.  A lovely couple and a fantastic alpaca palace awaits some very lucky alpacas.

On the way back home we nipped in to Carol & Dave's as Dave had been shopping for me, Carol had some more knitting ready for Glendale Show on Monday and there were some bits of tree for the lucky goats supper!

Thanks for the kind comments on our caricature of Casiphia, Paul has been busy updating the home page of our website with the new logo too.

A hot date to forget your worries

Today we were heading over to Cumbria with the trailer as we had a date with Black Sabbath at Beckbrow. Well I say 'we' had a date, I'm talking alpaca dating obviously!

Geena, our stress head black girl, and mum to our black stud Loki was a bit of a nightmare to get in the trailer. As we haven't quite got the channel all the way down to the shed yet we had to do a lot of convincing (in the rain) to get her down but we got there in the end, slightly later than we had hoped.

As soon as we arrived she was humming away, in fact the only time she was quiet was whilst she was being mated! She's a floozy and soon forgot her worries at the sight of a boyfriend, it was soon back to stressing afterwards, in fact it continued until the trailer pulled off!

Despite her stress in the past she has always taken first time (with the exception of the year she tricked us into believing she was pregnant when she wasn't), so hopefully the same will be said for this year.

Thankfully Kealani was fine when we got home, no cria. We had assessed her before we left and if we thought there was any chance of her birthing Paul would have gone on his own. Maybe she's waiting for mum to come at the weekend.

The hot news on the duck front, this evening all but the youngest two ducks were in bed when we went to chase them in. Yoko and Ju were snuggled up next to the coop making out the ramp was too high for them to get on!

And the chicks are now a week old, and exhausted tonight after trying to work out what to do with their wings!

 

On the job training

Despite the mixed weather forecast it has actually been very nice until this evening when we had torrential rain and a thunder storm - and yes it started just as I went out to feed.

This morning we had a couple of spit offs to do with the livery girls, one of which resulting in a mating, the other in me being spat at.  Great start to the morning odour a la paca!

This afternoon we have had two lots of visitors, firstly some of our old neighbours.  They were saying how empty the fields looked without them and how they miss seeing the alpacas.  Jackie couldn't resist going home without a couple of Barnacre goodies.

Just as they left Jan and April arrived to see their new girls who will be heading off home with them soon (as soon as they are all holding pregnancies and spitting off).  They were also coming for a bit of hands on experience.

After we'd been to say hello to their new girls and the two cria, who you did a fab job of picking out girls, we went on to do a spot of husbandry.  Jan is a qualified nurse so was happy to give injections a go, and she was a true pro.  Toe nails clipped, teeth checked, body scoring (all alpacas obviously) it was time for the fun bit, matings and spit offs...

Molly, one of their girls was due a spit off today and Mallika and Gabby needed mating so the four of us got the girls in and left Paul there whilst we went to get the boys. 

Hughie was a very naughty boy and thought he'd show Jan just how strong alpacas are (sorry!) and then Sandstorm didn't want to come to have his head collar put on, but in the end we got there.  Guinea was his usual obliging self trotted over for his head collar to be put on and stood happily with April whilst we got Sandstorm.

Again happy to get stuck in Jan took Sandstorm in to Molly, who wasn't at all impressed, I warned Jan to duck just in time!  Great that's week two for Molly.  With a rebuff from Molly Sandstorm went on to Gabby and Guinea went to work on Princess Mallika.

Whilst Sandstorm was waiting for Guinea to finish he decided to spit at Jan for not letting him have another girl - sorry again!  Luckily despite getting pushed about, spat at and trod on we haven't put them off which is good and Jan even rang this evening to say they'd enjoyed it.

We enjoyed seeing them again and loved the fab cupcakes that Jan had made; thank you.

Finally before I go I thought I'd just show you another of our visitors today, a lizard.  This was in one of the livery girls water buckets.  Snow loves to paddle in them and tip them up and this seems to attract them.

3 lots of visitors

After a damp start to the morning the sun came out and it turned out to be glorious.  It was funny because as soon as the sun came out all the cria starting chasing round the field doing the conga, kicking their legs out and pronking in step.  My phone camera wasn't good enough to get them in motion but I did get some of the boys relaxing afterwards!

 

Talking of relaxing, the hay seems to provide a good place to relax, this morning Anka flopped straight onto the hay Paul was putting out to go in the hay heck. 

And Tilly has her bed sorted in the bales, you either find a head poking out or a leg!

The sun seemed to have bought with it a string of visitors today, the alpacas always love visitors, one lot was prospective alpaca owners, the other a customer wanting to introduce their family to the alpacas and the final set was Carol & Dave who can armed with knitting and a couple of willing pairs of hands to help out with whatever we wanted!  Oh where do we start........ 

We have had lots of visitors of late, here is a link to the blog of a recent visitor on one of our farm walk and talks.

We also managed to find time to do three matings, and no Jo I'm not next (see tweets for anyone who'd concerned), sort out the poor goats feet who seem to be struggling and nip to morpeth to get some food before the cats had to go hungry - I can live on tea but Smudge wanted gravy!

Sunday job list

So much for an early blog and early bed, I don't know why I even bother saying it because it never happens!

We have been working our way through the job list today.  After the morning feed rounds we gathered up the lowland sheep, our original pet girls and their lambs.  This task is somewhat easier than gathering the 200 blackies they live with.

All you need to do is shout their name and if they don't hear that and come running, rattle a food bucket and they are like Usain Bolt on the 100 meter straight!  The 5 girls, Mia, Mocha, Ebony, Ruby & Annie all happily trotted back to the yard where they had their nails trimmed and were taken down to the hay field.  Mia's eyes almost popped out of her head; nice grass and no wild sheep.

Then there was a bit of hay moving to be done, you'd think we'd moved all of Northumberlands' hay supplies the amount of time we've spent moving hay!

We managed to fit in a spot of fencing before the heavens opened so then it was back indoors.  I've been bagging up our latest Barnacre Alpacas poster, it's great come and see it at Glendale Show Bank Holiday Monday.

Before the rain arrived I did manage to take a photo of Paul with the livery girls, so this one's for you Hilary.

With it being so wet the goats seems to be suffering a bit with their feet so they are all shut in tonight so dry them off so I can have a good look at them tomorrow and try and sort them out, one had a hot foot but there was nothing obvious wrong; other than it was covered in mud.

Ducking out

The weather once again hasn't been very good here despite me getting texts for opposite ends of the country telling me how hot it's been the three youngest cria have had their coats on here all day!  It did finally brighten up by tea time which s something I suppose.

The wet weather did make me sort out the latest knitwear that needed labelling and entering onto the stock sheets, a job I really don't like doing, but needs must.

Today was the day I decided that the ducklings could venture out onto the pond.  I left them shut in the house for a little whilst so they knew were bed was, then we opened the door.

Eventually the grey and white runner braved the outside world.

 

And it wasn't long before the six of them were back with Jemima and Beatrix. 

Unfortunately shutting them in this morning didn't make getting them in any easier tonight.  It took Paul and I ages to get them in, and we got eaten alive by the midges for our troubles.

Whilst I was out with the camera I managed to get this shot of Neelie, she was the first female Gianmarco's Masterpiece cria, born April 2011.  She had had a real fight early on to stay with us, suffering one thing after another following her early birth, but in true Blossom (her gran) family style she is  a fighter and is just fine now.

Finally I snapped this tonight in between trying to get the ducks in.  As the saying goes Red sky at night, shepherds delight.  So here's hoping tomorrow is a better day.



In out, in out

The weather has been awful today, I have been in and out like a yo yo getting soaked as Kealani has been looking like she would really like to give birth if the weather was a little better.  She's a maiden so I wasn't sure if she'd be able to keep her legs crossed, but she has.  Poor thing looks so fed up with the whole thing!

Kealani is a real loner so I'm really hoping that she has a little girl so she will have a long term friend to buddy up with.  She gets her solitude from her mum Oonagh who is very similar, but she doesn't let her daughters hang round with her so we will have to wait and see what happens.  Mind you saying all that the way we are with boys this year it might be blue.

I have spent most of the day labelling and logging all the new knitwear, Carol has just returned from her holidays and despite her son getting married whilst they were away she has still managed to bring a good stash back - thank you Carol.

If you are wanting to come and see the latest knitwear and some other special limited edition Barnacre goodies come and see us at the Glendale Show on bank holiday Monday.  We'll be there with some alpacas and all of our quality produce.

Runners through the farm yard

It has been another couple of hectic days, although we did manage to fit in a meal with friends last night hence the lack of blog.  It was a mad rush as we'd been over to Townend Alpacas for a mating, Emery our lovely grey girl from Loki and Kate needed a boyfriend.

As I was so tired after the 5am check on Kealani this morning I went back to bed for a bit, which took Paul by surprise.  I never wake him when I get up but I made him jump getting back in bed!!

Now that the bales of hay have had time to stand we have stacked them in the shed, as is usually the case when directions are required it resulted in raised voices on both sides but the hay is now in and stacked nicely.

I've managed to get Wesley our Blackfaced tup sheared, thankfully he's a nice boy so those big horns didn't cause me any damage and he is now enjoying some fresh grass in part of the channel.  As you can see the yearlings are more interested in him than he is in them.  Typical boy all he's interested in is filling his belly.

Today is Freyja's 2nd birthday, sister to Kealani, she is from Oonagh our first home bred girl and Gianmarco's Masterpiece.  We have mated her Legend, however spit offs are proving difficult as Freyja hasn't a clue what she is supposed to be doing so I think we will have to scan her to find out what's going on.  She will be the first Marky daughter to be covered by Legend so we are very keen to see what she can produce next year.

We have had runners through the yard today, no not human ones, runner ducks!!

These are some of the ducks I hatched that are getting ready to join Jemima and Beatrix on the pond.  They have a little trug in their pen but they are getting big enough to venture out and keep wandering so I think at the weekend I will put them out.

Here comes the boys

Wow, it's been another hot and sticky day today, very still and no air and the main herd of girls have drunk an awful lot of water - we don't have the water troughs piped yet so we fill them with a bowser so it's easy to see how much in being drunk in a day.

Once I'd established that things were ok with Kealani, our only remaining girl due to birth we headed over to Hexham to get our new trailer sign and wheel cover we'd ordered.  Following the move to Liberty Hill Farm we have been steadily working our way through the literature updating our address and contact details.

Then this afternoon we nipped over to Morpeth (the opposite direction) to get a trailer load of hay, these are small square bales which are easy to move about in an emergency or if a quick drop is required.

I've also been out with the camera taking a few head shots.  I love cria head shots and I know they are always popular so I thought I would share a few.

First up we have Geena's little boy, whose name is still under debate.  He is such a cutie, although not wanting his bottle the last couple of days so he's in trouble!

Next is Chiquita's son, we are arguing, well more debating I suppose his name. 

And here we have Olly Impic, he's Gabby's son and a few days older than the other two.

The final head shot is from Seymour who is a year older and lives with the stud boys as we are hopefully that once he is fully grown he will be a working male so he needs to learn the ropes.

How deep...........

Today has been a back breaker, after yesterday's shearing of the sheep lets just say the shed wasn't pleasant so I have been shovelling and scrubbing all day!  It's a good job we're not on a water meter, as the water has been flowing all day, we supply ourselves from one of our springs.

As anyone with animals will appreciate there are lots of not so nice jobs that need doing as well as the nice ones.  I'm used to being dirty so s**t shovelling is fine by me, a necessary activity to ensure that everything is clean.  Conveniently Paul had a meeting in Leeds to go to day so no shovelling for him! 

The chicks are continuing to hatch, as I type we are up to 14, I don't think the final 3 will actually hatch but I'll give them a couple more days yet.  Aren't they just adorable.

On the hay front we only got 15 round bales Jayne but they are huge.  Someone different cut it this year and the bales are massive, I've not actually measured them but I would guess they will be getting on for 6 foot.

I am so tired I'm struggling to keep my eyes open so it will have to stop here or I'll be typing mumbo jumbo.

Shelling peas?

Today has been manic, I was up at first light to check on the birthing alpacas and get things ready for the remaining sheep gathering exercise.  Thankfully Dave had rung last night offering his pied piper services (he seems to have a nack of getting the sheep to follow him), with about a third of the ewes in and the shearer arriving at 9am it was imperative we got everyone in.

Thankfully round two went much more to plan, and once the sheep were in Dean (Paul's brother) and Dave stood one end on guard whilst our 2 year old nephew Archie stood guard the other side.

I think he quite enjoyed himself here, riding round on the quad and the tractor and stomping in piles of I'm not sure what - I'm not sure doing it in his nice blue suede shoes was a good idea though!

With everyone having a job allocated shearing was soon underway .  There was a little excitement just before lunch when I noticed in the distance that Palm-Olive had given birth, 329 days and not giving much away when she had her breakfast; thats maidens for you. 

I was straight on the phone to her new owners to let them know and they came up, armed with the camera and lots of excitement.  This photo is couresty of Phil, a lovely white boy from Gianmarco's Masterpiece.

Just in case shearing and a cria being born isn't enough for one day we've also hatched 13 chicks, mainly our legbar hens............................

and if that wasn't enough we also now have hay baled!!!!!!!!!!  So that needed moving under cover as the forecast isn't good for next week.

More details to follow tomorrow, but I'm worn out now and been my bed.



Flying out the field

It's been another manic day today, starting off with spit offs and matings, well a mating.  Sandstorm was the man of the moment, in fact he had a queue forming outside the mating pen.  Princess Mallika and Geena fancied a bit of Sandstorm, not today ladies!

Then we had some toe nails to trim and a batch of routine vaccinations to do which all went according to plan. 

We also took some photo's of Seymour for his sales page, we have decided to sell this potential stud, he is a very nice boy who has great genetics and exciting potential.  You can read all about him on our sales page. 

There isn't actually much left on our sales page as we have just sold four girls who are off to form tart a new herd in a few weeks time.

Jan & Phil, new owners of Molly and her cria (called Dillon), Palm-Olive (from Accoyo Remarque), Lady Godiva and Celestial (half sister to Seymour, same sire, Loki) called in yesterday to say another hello to their girls and take some photo's.

Here's Jan having a close and personal moment with Celestial.

 Molly was too busy keeping an eye on her son to take much notice of her new mum whilst Mary was casting an approving eye over her daughters' (Celestial) new mum.

And what's this?  It seems Molly has the eye for Phil!



This evening we have been trying to get the blackie sheep in as they are being sheared tomorrow.  Things didn't quite go according to plan so we now have some in and some out.

Farm walk and talk

We've had another busy day on the farm today, it was another early start thanks to the cats mainly.  As you will probably recall from previous blogs I get up early, especially during birthing season, however this morning the cats decided that I wasn't getting up early enough, 4.10am and all three of them were howling at different exit points, Izzie at the kitchen window, Tilly at the hall door and Smudge on my pillow just in case I couldn't hear them!

So up I got and let them out, not Smudge though at 18 years old she prefers to lay in front of the aga.  Her issue was someone had drunk all the water.  Seeing as I was now wide awake I thought I may as well clean some of the kitchen island mess before doing my early morning check.

We had two lots of visitors booked in, one was a family for one of our Farm walk and talk experiences.  The sun shone for them and they had a thoroughly enjoyable walk taking out Angelica, Minimus, Piccolina and Nadia.

Angelica, the white girl at the front is from Willow and Legend and isn't one of the 'usual' walkers however she lead the way and seemed to quite enjoy her walk further up the hill. 

If anyone else is interested in getting up close and personal with our alpacas and fancies one of our experiences do drop us a line, they are proving rather popular and make a fantastic gift.

More on our other visitors tomorrow......

A grass shortage?

It has been another real scorcher here today, so much so that there has been paddling in almost every water trough and the boys don't usually do such things!

Chiquita obviously thinks there is a grass shortage in their current field as yet again she has spent hours with her head though the fence.  You can see how much she does it by the neck length stripe down three sides of their field.

 

I'm hoping that there will be no shortage of grass in our hay field which has been flicky flicked this evening following a day of full on blazing sum to dry it off.  By the way Rosemary it's not our equipment, our neighbours is doing it for us thankfully

Last year we got 15 and a half big round bales from the 3 acres, Paul and I have had bets on how many bales we will get from it this year.  All guesses greatly received!

Paul & I have been hanging two more gates this evening so hopefully next time the fencing gang come they'll notice the difference - well they'd better!!

Relaxation is contagious

After Paul's lie in the other morning (and thanks for your support ladies; not so sure about your comments Rosemary!) I think the goats have been taking notes from Paul.  They can actually see into our bedroom as we still have no curtains. 

They have 25 acres of grass to graze and laze on, but instead they choose to sunbathe on the mud, which incidentally doesn't seem to have much seed growing.

The state of exhaustion seems to have been caught in the alpaca field too.  Imala was stretched out and Palm-Olive who is next to birth was struggling to keep her eyes open, she couldn't even be bothered to walk too far away from the poo pile! 

 Many of you, and in particular Rosemary will probably recall Paul's obsession with hay making.  Well I'm pleased to say at last our grass has been cut.

My super hearing heard a tractor and immediately knew it was in our hay field so thought I'd get Paul a little excited.  We was skipping round like a 2 year old so excited, it was so funny.

 We now have to hope for good weather so it can be flicky flicked and baled.

I've got to be honest even I got a bit excited about getting hay in the shed in readiness for winter.

This evening we have been to a vet talk put on by our vets all about sheep worming.  It was extremely interesting and the speaker was happy to apply it to our goats and alpacas, both of which are slightly different to sheep which was good of him.

Cold wet tea

Today has been another busy one, which began with a Monday morning cold cup of tea for Paul.  I took him a drink to bed which he left to go cold because he went back to sleep!

So whilst doing spit offs I had to listen to Paul complaining he was thirsty because I'd made him a cup of tea with cold water.   

The spit offs had mixed results.  Godiva locked her legs and refused to sit which was good, she doesn't do spit.  Unfortunately Molly & Ursula both sat, Ursula got another visit from Golden Guinea, but we didn't remate Molly.  She was actually mated to Legend just before he headed up north to Scotland so we wanted to sleep on the options for her.

Then it was off up to the livery girls for spit offs and matings.  Isadora has clearly ovulated as she was not at all happy that Gianmarco's Masterpiece dared to sniff her!  Ally happy sat so she has been mated so we will see what happens next week.

It has been a bit of a case of coats on coats off with the three littlies, this afternoon we had a terrible storm.  It arrived just as we were heading out to do a bit of a reccy (more on that some other time), so I got soaked on gate duty, we have a couple of gates to go through to get onto the road, and opening and closing them is always my job.

I was going to share a photo of Imala stretched out sunbathing to show you how nice it was first thing but it was so bright the quality was rubbish, sorry.

Fencing, friends, family and fun

Today has been another busy day, after yesterdays fencing activities with my brother and his family and the Pearson family Paul and my brother had planned to get some of the netting on this morning.  However heavy rain this morning meant attention was temporarily switched to drainage before we were swimming outside the back door!

Despite the additional job by the end of the day we have got the next bit of netting on and the posts on the left hand side come right the way down to the culvert which is great.  We have more gates on order and hopefully Paul and I will get them fitted this week along with a little more fencing.

This afternoon we had a visit from a family thinking of beginning a life with alpacas.  It is always nice to be able to share you enthusiasm with perspective new owners and see the pleasure they gain from these wonderful animals.

Despite the thunder, lightening and torrential rain I did manage to get some of the babies weighed tonight and they continue to grow nicely.  Geena's little boy is enjoying is bottle top up and seems happy to take it from anyone which is always a good thing.  Over the weekend he has taken it from my 4 year old niece Faith and Gill (Pearson). 

The goats are really at home with us now too and have completely settled.  I love them and it is pretty clear to see that Paul does too, despite the fact he wasn't in the slightest bit interested in them when I first mentioned them.  He is enjoying feeding them carrot and tree!

He was even happy to let one of the boys climb up to get the carrot - some things can get away with murder. 



Was it a lucky find or a clever one?

Who needs a farm cat when you've got hens?!

1001 green bottles sitting on the wall

We have had a lovely day today, after the morning feed rounds and another breeder coming to fetch some Camelibra from us we headed off to a meeting - very exciting it all is too!

Then we went over to see Gill, Ross and Taylor and had a walk along the cliff top and had an ice cream at enjoyed the view of St. Mary's lighthouse.  Fish and chips for tea were great followed by Gills home made cheesecake - how lucky are we.

We called in at the tip on the way over as the 1001 (well maybe not that many but the boot was full of them!) plastic bottles we'd been using to collect water from friends and family are now redundant as we have a lovely clear and clean water supply of our own.  So we also no have a usable utility and hopefully tomorrow I will have a cupboard door on the missing one!

On the alpaca front all is well, Geena's little boy is happily taking his bottle top ups and is gaining weight steadily.  Chiquita and Gabby's boys are also growing well, despite being the smallest Chiquita's little man has gain the most weight and now weighs 7.24kg which is great.

Palm-Olive is looking increasing uncomfortable, she is at 320 days now and does have some milk.  She is from Remarque and pregnant to Gianmarco's Masterpiece so we are very exciting to see what she will produce.

Time to go and find my naughty missing cat!

Olympic high jump or steeple chase?

Despite being many miles away from the Olympic stadium Barnacre Indigo (big grey cria!) has decided that he should be including in the GB athletic team.  He thinks he stands a good chance of bringing home a medal in the high jump or steeple chase.

Why, I hear you ask.  Well whist we were filling up the girls hay heck he somehow managed to jump or climb into it!!

Once inside he soon tucked into the nice fresh hay before anyone else to try it.   

Being the live wire that he is he decided the best way down was to jump over the lid - not your best move Indigo as he didn't quite clear the height.

In the big boy field today Sandstorm was in trouble.  He has a lovely light fawn fleece which he obviously thought needed darkening up a bit, maybe because his darker stud friend Golden Guinea had a visit from an outside lady today!

He only managed to wipe creosote all over his neck off the telegraph pole in his field.  Can you believe it, we only had confirmation from National Power Grid that they would come and put something round it to protect our fleeces last week.

Luckily we already had some photos taken for his stud page which has gone live today.