Barnacre fireworks put London in the shade (Paul)

Happy New Year everyone.

In case you are wondering, yes Debbie does still have fingers and can type, her fingers have been worked to the bone over Christmas so I'm helping out with a few blogs.

First up, the great Barnacre fireworks, lighting up the Northern Skies like you've never seen before.  Well, when I say fireworks maybe I'm taking a little artistic licence with my description (surely not).

Chris (Twitter: @CSimpson019) will enjoy that photo I'm sure!

Debbie has been bending my ear again about New Year's resolutions, which I don't make.  However, anything for a quiet life and so I dutifully resolved to regularly watch the girls hard at work, here's a photo as proof:

Debbie (far left) and her mum, Janet (far right) are busy filling up hay nets supervised by Liberty (middle, black and 4 legs) as the relentless rain has led us to keep the herd inside our alpaca shed for what seems like an age now.  The hay consumption has shot up to two big round bales a week and what seemed like a full hay larder in the summer now looks like the leftovers from a rabbit hutch (well maybe a little more).  Our hay nerve finally broke and we made a quick trip over to see Mr T - our friendly Northumbrian sheep farmer to collect 2 big square bales which the alpacas sniffed out in seconds!

The pesky Blackfaced hill sheep continue to suffer in the wet weather too.  The 'dry them out and fix em up' corner of the shed has a few residents now, most of which are on the mend, much to the delight of Basil the goat (top right) who is looking forward to seeing the back of his 'mates'.

Finally, today we dosed the pedigree Shetland sheep that are living in the hay field.  We should have taken the camera with us because we inspected their fleeces and you wouldn't believe the fine coloured crimp that adorns them.  We just hope that Galaxy (our 3 year old Shetland tup that we bought earlier this year) is doing the business with his lady friends!