The introductions begin

Sorry Dave, I was very tired last night so thought I'd keep you in suspense; plus I wanted photo's of the new arrivals.

And here they are, yes I know slightly more than the four we were supposed to be picking up.  It wasn't all my fault, Paul was as much to blame if not more, it was him who asked Mary-Jo to get a few alpacas in that met the criteria we were looking for.

I will start with the cria as they were easier to get some photo's of.  Here we have Cara's little boy from Bozedown Wisdom.

Next up we have Divinity's boy from Bozedown Rodrigo, a super fine boy still carrying 21 microns at 15 years old. 

Next up is one of the 'extras' that found themselves in our trailer, well how could you resist those fluffy ears and gorgeous apricot fleece. This boy who is about ready for weaning is from Bozedown Omen. 

Next up is the only female cria of the bunch, not that that seems to bother her, she is from Bourbon the Brown Futurity Champion for the last 3 years.

I'll save the adults until another night or this blog will be huge!

Home at last

What a busy few days we've had.  Thursday we headed off down to Bozedown to meet our new girls we purchased in the Alpaca Classic auction and bring them home, we were both excited about seeing them!

We ended up heading off much later than anticipated due to various issues, one of which was leaving mum and dad with the water not working.  So what was meant to be a leisurely drive down to Bozedown admire our girls, chill in the hotel and have a nice meal ended up with me driving on fumes in the pitch black looking for somewhere to park the trailer so we could eat.

After various calls to mum to make sure the animals were OK and they were managing with their depleting tank of water, a quick swim in the pool and sauna we headed off like a pair of kids on Christmas morning to meet Divinity, Cara and the two boys.

Having never been to Bozedown before we were very impressed with their setup, and as for our girls they are as stunning as the photo's.  Having looked at some more alpacas Mary-Jo had picked out for us we headed home with a full trailer via Beckbrow Alpacas to drop off their two girls too.

Literally from the minute we hit the A34 all the way up the M6 we sat in queue after queue after queue.  As I'm sure many of you can imagine this was a very long slow drive home what with traffic and alpaca stop checks it was very late when we arrived at Barbara's, who thankfully offered us a bed for the night. 

We wanted to let the girls have a bit of a stretch of their legs and answer a call of nature as they had not been at all in the trailer despite the the regular stops.  Down went the back door and out came the girls and cria, which had multiplied, Paul Heatherington's face was a picture, he thought they were going round in circles!

Bet you want to know what we squeezed into the trailer.............

A day of two halves

Today has been a day of two halves, this morning I want to try and forget and this afternoon a much pleasant experience; we went to collect some more angora goats.

I will talk more about this morning when I have something to report at the minute I would rather stick to a happy blog - this week was supposed to be a nice one.

So off we set to Scotland as mum and dad set off for our house, first one there was on the feed rounds - that was mum then!

We found the small holding we were heading too with no difficulty at all which is pretty amazing with our satnav which is only any use if you are looking for a town centre type address.  Anyway the six angora girls were shut in a stable waiting for us.

They are so sweet and will be a great addition to our existing flock, so instead of 7 goaties left to shear I now have 13 - umm Rosemary are you sure Carl doesn't fancy a bus mans holiday!!!

By the time we got home it was dark so no photo opportunities and mum had fed everyone with the exception of Azrael who was making out she'd done his bottle wrong.  Once I got home he took it from her no problem which is good because we are off on another long exciting drive tomorrow and mum's in charge here..........

Additional heads to count

Today we have been adding to the head count here at Barnacre.  Today it was Shetland sheep, we choose a tup for our girls a few weeks ago and we had arranged to go and collect him today, we also managed to coax three ewes out of the same prize winning herd.

When we got there today Phillip, the young owner had sorted out two other girls he thought we might like, so instead of three new girls we came home with five.  So our new tup (who in true Barnacre style needs a name) has 9 maybe 10 girls to tup in the next few weeks. 

He can't actually go out just yet as we want to go to the Alpaca Championship show in April so I can't lamb too early as leaving mum and dad to look after the farm is bad enough without the posibilities of babies too!

Shetlands have for generations been noted for their very soft and well crimped fleece, with their wool being the finest of all native breeds which is why I have chosen to keep them.  They also show an amazing variety of colours and patterns.  Our new boy who is brown has a lovely fine fleece which is surprising long.  It was too dark to take a photo when we got sorted so that will have to wait.

On the alpaca front, the girls all stayed in today as it wasn't very nice, they seemed quite content to sit in eating hay; as did the goaties!

Bridie's sore has been bathed and filled with intrasite gel, she is one tough cookie and takes everything in her stride.  She has started bending her legs a bit but having had them in plaster most of her short life it is clearly something that doesn't feel very normal.

Free to roam

I'm not sure what happened to last nights blog, I had plans to write one, but after a long day out in the fields and evening in the shed we sat down to watch the grand prix and I did some knitting and I just couldn't keep my eyes open again - it was late; honest!

Gill and Ross came over, Paul and Ross were fencing whilst Gill & I mucked out, well Gill actually did most of the mucking out as we had alpaca visitors so I spent the afternoon with them showing them round and talking alpaca.

It was great to talk alpaca with some very enthusiastic potential alpaca owners.  The girls took great delight in showing off how friendly and approachable they are and Barbilla too a real shine to Fran.

Today was a big day for Bridie, she was booked in to have her plaster casts removed.  She's never really been too keen on these ones so I was looking forward to getting them off as well as I hated seeing her with them on.

She was her usual waiting room crowd pleaser, she is so calm and relaxed.  Having been cut slightly when the last lot were removed Sam was paranoid about his none cut saw!  First to come off was the right leg, the worst of the two and it looked good.

Second was the left, this one wasn't quite such good news.  When he started sawing I thought I smelt something not very pleasant, but just before we'd left I'd been dealing with a smelly goats foot so thought it might have been my hands (despite washing them three times!) so I didn't say anything.

Unfortunately it wasn't me it was Bridie's leg, she has a nasty dressing sore of the back of her knee.  I wonder now if this is why she has not been happy with this set of casts.  Her sore has been cleaned and treated and I will do this for the next few days and this will hopefully heel nicely.

Her legs are looking much better so we will see how we go, because of the sore we couldn't put anything on her left leg even if we'd wanted too.  Sam was pleased with the improvement which was encouraging.  This girl is a fighter......

soup, pastie and coffee? (Paul)

Evening all,

Debbie is yawning her head off to I'm going to publish a few words on the blog tonight otherwise we get text messages of 'wheres the blog??!!'.

Today was an early start - like so many Barnacre mornings! I thought I'd let Debbe wake up first (at about 5am) for a change, regular blog readers know that I'm often up first and bring her a cup of tea to bed, but today she just beat me by an hour or so.

We were off to Morpeth farmers market, a favourite of ours and despite a -2 degrees start to the day and very icy roads, we made it there and set up in good time.  The morning weather wasn't the best, it was cold and drizzling with rain, but the alpaca watchers were soon out in force and new and regular Barnacre Alpaca customers were soon packing the market to our fellow traders delight and Michael, the market manager who always makes us very welcome.

This year's regular trio of Minimus, Niveous and Seymour were as good as ever.  It always brings a smile to my face when I get asked (every 10 minutes or so) 'why are your alpacas so friendly?' - ha ah!

Thanks to everyone who came to see the alpaca, us and the knitwear.  We had another really good day and I suspect we are going to sell out of everything, again, before we get to Christmas.  So if there's something in our online shop that you have your eye on you'd better buy it, email or phone us quick!  A newish face on the market was a good friend of mine, Louise and her (nearly) able chaperone, Colin who sensibly invested in a new Barnacre Alpaca beanie!  Louise makes brilliant hand made cards so if you need one for a special birthday or christmas, please drop us a line and we will put you in touch.

Debbie and I also spoke to several people who are considering the alpaca dream.  Can you believe it is nearly 6 years since we got our first 3 alpacas - what a change from the cat we had at the time!  We have learnt so much along the way and we know how difficult it was to get good advice in our early days.  This is something Debbie and I are very passionate about sharing.   Alpacas and owning them is brilliant, so is good honest advice.

Seymour had some very special visitors today at Morpeth market, his new owners! So if you had your eye on a promising black stud male then sorry, but you are too late!  More details to be revealed in due course!

As for the title, a special thanks to Pat for the soup, Carol for the pastie (and more knitwear) and Dan for the coffee. It was a very cold day and I'm glad I had my alpaca hat on, and equally glad for the warm things that these kind people bought me.

Right, I have a bit of paperwork to do and then it's time to hit the sack myself.  Now shall I wake up first or second in the morning...

Night all. Paul

Farm walk & talk

Just a quick blog tonight as I still have lots to do before tomorrow's Morpeth Farmers market.  It's always the same I end up running round like a headless chicken the night before a fair.  The boys are tucked up in the barn though for an early departure!

We had a lovely family round today for a farm walk and talk.  Minimus, Piccolina and Angelica had a good walk up the hill, they all really enjoy their stroll up the hill and don't mind at all that they are being led by complete strangers.

The girls went out for a bit this morning, getting them in there field wasn't quite as easy as getting them into the shed.  Some ran past their gate others ran back to the barn, but we got there in the end.

It was much easier getting them back in this afternoon, they all ran straight down to the gate, with the exception of Little Miss Irraquoy - need I say more; she's bonkers!

Ladies that lunch

I've had a lovely day today, the alpaca have all enjoyed a spot of sunshine before the rain has returned again tonight and I've enjoyed some time with a great friend.

After the morning feed rounds, filling all the hay supplies and giving the two boys their bottles I headed off for a meeting about  new event for us this year, the  North Tyneside Victorian Christmas Market.  We had been invited along with our alpacas so wee needed to check out space and location.

They have a great spot for us, so mark your diaries, we will be there 8th & 9th December with some of the boys and whatever knitwear we have left, there have been more on-line sales today and we are at Morpeth Farmers Market on Saturday morning.

After my meeting Gill, young Taylor and I went for lunch, very nice it was too.  It's not very often I get me time so I thoroughly enjoyed it.  So thank you Gill we will have to do it again sometime, it made a lovely change neither of us having to cook.

This evening I have been weighing a few of the cria, there are some huge variations this year in weight gain.  Thankfully Azrael has gained weight today, mind you the way he's been tucking into his milk and nice warm sugarbeet today I should hope so.

I have quite a little following now, Azrael, Bridie and Liberty all want to eat sugarbeet from my hand and Prodigiosus comes for his milk; it's so nice to be popular!