The Ice Man Cometh!

I had to run errands in Olympia last week, and fortunately, I did them on Monday. Snow began falling in earnest on Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon, this was the scene that greeted me as I hauled manure out to our back field.

Bill ended up telecommuting for a couple of days, and took the shot below after the sun came out on Thursday morning.

We so rarely have any significant amount of snow in our area that there's virtually no local snow removal plan, and very little equipment. Only the main highways are cleared. A couple of hours after our friend John drove his tractor over on Thursday afternoon, and cleared our driveway and the section of our private road from our place to the corner north of us, the snow plow came whizzing by on the county road, and piled packed snow back up across the end of our road. Bill was unable to make it through the pile of snow in a single effort, and had to shovel our van out several times over the next few days in order to make the turn onto the main road. He did manage to get out Friday morning, though, and make it to an early meeting in Olympia.

The cats wouldn't set foot more than 2' past the doors, and the three female alpacas spent the whole time inside their shed, but "the boys" didn't seem to mind the snow at all.

Gearing Up For the Rainy Season

Today was Veterans' Day, so Bill was home from work for the day. We had a steady rain falling for most of the day. About 2:30 this afternoon I went out to do chores, and discovered there was so much wet mud in both barnyards that the alpacas were having trouble walking. I ended up hauling load after load of 3/8 minus gravel from a pile beside our driveway out to the barnyards. Bill woke up from a short nap, and realizing I had never come in from cleaning up pacapoo, he came looking for me. A few minutes later he joined me with a second wheelbarrow. We worked until dark, and then I turned on the outside lights, and we continued to haul and spread gravel until after 6:30 p.m. The West barnyard now has about 3-4" of new gravel, but we ran out of time and energy before we could finish the East barnyard. We actually need at least 6" more added to both barns and barnyards, so I'll need to order more gravel tomorrow. I'll take pictures tomorrow morning if it isn't raining too hard.

By the time I came into the house, I was soaked to the skin, and my muscles were already stiffening up. I took two ibuprophen tabs, and a long hot bath. After relaxing on the computer for a while, I threw together a kettle of chili with canned mushroom soup and diced tomatoes, salsa, black beans, and leftover chicken. We had leftover biscuits that I had made on Sunday night to go with our chili. It all tasted pretty darn good after four hours of hard work in the rain.

Welcome Home, Buddy!

I've neglected this blog for much too long.

At the end of April, I drove down to Rogue River, Oregon to pick up Buddy, a gelded llama I adopted from my friend Ronda. The slide show has a few pictures of him, but here's one of my favorites:

When he first arrived at Rosie Borders, I housed Buddy in a 10' x 10' shed in our north pasture so he and the alpacas could get to know each other through the fence for a while. After about a week I could see Buddy was adjusting well, so I introduced him to the boys, and he began sharing their barn. At the time, our two-year-old, Marco Polo, was still intact, and I suppose it was inevitable that he would eventually decide to "check out" this tall, dark, and handsome newcomer. I happened to be working at the other end of the pasture when the fateful day arrived.

Evidently, Marco's investigation must have gotten him a bit too close to a critical area when Buddy informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he needed to keep a respectful distance, as in "out of spitting range." Of course, Marco let out a yell of protest, and when I looked up to see what was happening, Charles and Coco Puff had come to "rescue" their little brother. A great deal of indignant screaming followed. I scooted down to the gate where the fracas was occurring, and shunted the three alpacas into the barnyard.

After spending a few more days alone in his pasture, Buddy was delighted when I let "the ladies" into the pasture adjacent to his. The interest was mutual, and knowing he had been a gelding for many years, I decided to try letting the girls into his pen. They all got along just fine, and have been together ever since. He moved right into the girls' barn, and he seems to very much enjoy overseeing his harem. He is an "older gentleman," and our little yearling, Starla Jo, has taken a real shine to him. She follows him everywhere, and if she gets to be a pest he has a gentle way of letting her know it's time to let "Grandpa" alone for a while. He and Flo Jo had a discussion over food fairly early in the game, so I bought Buddy a special feeder that hangs on the fence. At meal time, he heads right out of the barn yard to his dish, and I keep the gate closed until after the girls are fed. That worked great over the course of the summer and fall, but I'm trying to decide how to handle things once the rainy season arrives. All in all, though, Buddy has been a wonderful addition to our herd. Someone once told me that llamas and alpacas have very different personalities, in large measure because llamas are truly domesticated, whereas alpacas are only semi-domesticated. I would have to agree. The alpacas are my animals, but Buddy is a real friend.

Seeing Clearly

Saturday afternoon our friend John brought over his backhoe, and removed from our pastures all of the stumps from the alder trees we had removed. We've been having rain again, on and off, so the soil is pretty wet. Once things dry out a bit, John will return with is big Kubota tractor, and harrow the fields so we can fertilize and replant them. For now, it's a pretty mucky mess out there. The pasture is clear now, though, with lots of space for forage grass, and no more messy "weed trees." I like trees to stay in the woods where they belong, and I like grassy, open pastures for my animals.

We had John pile all of the stumps up in a small clearing in our woods. Over time, the "snag" they formed will become a habitat for lots of little critters.

Our neighbor, Michael, brought us a dozen and a half eggs this evening. His chickens have begun laying again now that we're having more hours of daylight. He prefers to let them take the winter off, and just let nature take it's course, rather than "lengthening the day" with artificial light. He's building The Henhouse Extraordinaire, but it's not quite complete, so the hens are creating their own Easter egg hunt all over the neighborhood, and even in Michael's woods. His kids had fun on Saturday afternoon searching all over their property for eggs.

The hens are cute and funny, and they are very good at begging treats at my door. A month or so ago, I made the mistake of feeding them some dried corn that was past it's prime for grinding into corn meal, and now I'm their "best friend forever." Unfortunately, they repay me for my occasional hospitality by "fertilizing" my front and back decks!

They watch (listen?) for me to return from teaching Seminary in the morning, and then hurry across the street to greet me as I get out of my car. When I ran out of corn, I stopped feeding them for a while, but they still continued to greet me, and to congregate on the front porch, especially on rainy days.

One of four barred-rock (salt & pepper) hens is smaller than the other chickens, and has a crippled foot, so she's last in pecking order. She is slower than her "sisters," but is particularly friendly. I don't know whether Michael has names for his chickens, but I call her "Sweetie," and I talk to her, and protect her from her greedy flock-mates. Well, evidentally, they've figured this out. After I hadn't given them any treats for several days, Sweetie appeared outside my (glass) front door, "all by herself," looking so cute and vulnerable. I just couldn't resist; I stepped out the door with a little container of cracked corn (YES, I bought more). No sooner had I opened the door than the whole flock came charging around the end of the garage and up onto the porch. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were hiding, and had sent Sweetie in as a shill! Here's a shot of them enjoying a treat; I don't think Sweetie is in the photo. When it's cold and wet, she tends to stay in her henhouse because it's such a struggle for her to navigate.

Michael thinks it's only a matter of time before I succomb to "chicken fever," (not to be confused with avian flu), and buy a little flock of my own. He keeps pointing out that I have a couple of unused outbuildings, either of which could very easily be converted into a henhouse. I'm reading about chickens now, and enjoying the incubator webcam on the University of Nebraska website, and I have even subscribed to Backyard Poultry magazine, but I haven't decided to take the plunge...yet.

Pressing Onward

This week we had our friend, John, who does tractor and earth-moving work, come by to give us an estimate for ridding our pastures of the stumps we left when we removed a bunch of alder trees last year, for leveling things up a bit, and for "dragging" the fields in preparation for replanting forage grass. "Ooh, this not be cheap!" Nevertheless, redoing the pastures is definitely cheaper than paying for alpaca boarding at other farms, so on we go.

Yesterday, Bill continued the process of removing leaves and branches deposited (or, in the case of the branches--relocated), by the flood water. He figures he's gotten rid of about ten percent of the mess from the areas inside the pasture fences. John will be here next Saturday, March 1, so I'm thinking that debris removal will be my chief job for the next week.

About a month ago, I had Brian, a consultant from the Thurston Conservation District, visit our farm to give me advice on how best to rehabilitate our pastures, and suggestions on appropriate use of our woods and meadow. At his suggestion, we are piling all of the stumps, branches, and leaves, and perhaps even some rocks in the wooded area surrounding the slough, rather than burning or dumping them. The "snags" formed by the piles of debris will become habitat for small critters that inhabit our woods. Brian also told me (Hurrah!) that it is not only legal, but desirable, for us to remove the non-native and very invasive blackberry brambles from the understory of our woods. He gave me a list of plants, trees, and shrubs that would be attractive, thrive in the area that is wet during the winter, and even help control flooding, and that would make good replacements for the blackberry vines.

While Bill was removing debris, I was in Olympia running errands. I attended the annual Native Plant Sale sponsored by the Conservation District, and, for less than twenty dollars, I bought about fifteen small trees and shrubs to plant in and around our woods. We plan to reopen the walking paths through the woods that the former owner of our property used to keep cut back, and I bought a few wild roses, dogwoods, and other pretty plants with beautiful bark, flowers, and/or berries to plant where they will be visible from the paths.

One of the bushes I bought is the American Cranberry, which is an upright bush that produces lots of berries that make delicious sweet-tart jams and jellies. Don't be watching your mailbox this Christmas, though. The three-year mantra for growth of newly-planted bushes is "Sleep> Creep> Leap, " so it'll probably be summer of 2010 before we get a significant crop of berries.

Toward evening, I headed outside myself, and finished raking leaves and twigs from the front and back pastures at the south end of our house, and then I used a spreader to apply Ferrous Sulfate to kill the moss that invaded the fields after the flood. The vet wanted that done before I bring the animals home. It was almost dark when I finished, and the directions on the moss-killer package said to water the area immediately after application. It was too dark to drag hoses out by then, and I was concerned that the chemical wouldn't penetrate the soil as needed. I trusted Heavenly Father to take care of things for me if I kept the Sabbath holy, though, and I was rewarded with a nice little overnight rain that washed the stuff right down into the grass. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Apart from the outside chores, I've been working on getting the inside of our house in order. We finished relaying all of the laminate in both bedroom "stalls." The wallboard repairs were completed last Monday. I painted the laundry room a pretty, light spring green. We picked out light aqua blue paint for the master bedroom, and bought two gallons early last week. After I painted a small area, though, we both hated how it looked on the wall. We decided to "live with it" for a few days, but by the end of the week, we still couldn't stand it. I took it back to Home Depot on Friday afternoon, and left if to be "doctored up" and toned down. There was a miscommunication (or no communication) between the lady who took the paint from me, (who doesn't normally work in the paint department), and the mananager who came in on Saturday morning. When I stopped by about 11:00 to make certain they knew what I wanted them to do, the paint had already been added to the "Opps" shelf, and the note I had left with it was nowhere to be found. On Thursday, I had bought one additional gallon of a color we both liked, and tried ragging it on over the aqua, but that didn't work. When she heard about the "retinting" mixup, the mgr. of the paint dept. , bless her heart, mixed up a second gallon of the replacement color for me, and wouldn't charge me for it. To my delight, a lady walked up to the counter while I was waiting for the paint mixer to stop, and bought the two gallons I had returned. In the end it was a win-win situation, and I look forward to getting that last bedroom painted so we can move our bed back in from its temporary home in the office.

Jumping In

Welcome! Does having my own blog mean I'm a grownup, or does it mean I'll probably never grow up? Hmmm...I'm afraid I already know the answer to that question. I thought this might be a good vehicle for sharing with my friends and family the day-to-day joys and sorrows of life on a wannabe alpaca farm, and perhaps even my random (though somewhat rare) thoughts of reason and sanity. So, for better or worse, and with encouragement from my son, Erik, here I go.

Before we bought our property in December 2003, we asked the former owner whether it was subject to flooding. He told us that the house is four steps up from grade level, and the property is not classified as being in a flood zone. However, there is a slough across the property that takes seasonal runoff from the nearby Black River. Sometimes the water does flow up on the next-door neighbors' property, and it may then enter the low corners of our place. Also, a few low areas of the pastures get some water pooling in them during heavy rains, but this is very temporary. During the infamous "hundred year" flood of 1996, (recently reclassified as a three hundred year flood), the water came right up to the garage doors, but it didn't get inside. He said he also had a small amount of water under the house, but that it went down quickly and readily, and there was no permanent damage. In the spring/summer of 1997, he built bermed gardens around the house to protect the foundation from future flooding, and he told us they had worked very well ever since. We opted to purchase flood insurance, "just in case." Smart move.

December 2007 began, here in the Pacific Northwest, with a big ol' flood. Rosie Borders Alpaca Ranch was covered in some areas with more than two feet of water, and the house and decks became an island from December 4th to 6th, and we ended up having quite an adventure. At some point, I'll tell the whole story of the flood days, but not today.

State Farm came through with the money (almost $9,000) to pay for needed repairs to our laundry room, garage, and crawl space, however, we had to do a lot of ripping out and cleaning up ASAP after the flood. The insulation and vapor barrier under our house were replaced last week. Later this afternoon, the contracter we have engaged to repair the damage to our house and garage will be stopping by with the project foreman to estimate the materials needed. They will begin work next Monday, and expect to complete everything by the end of that week.

Just out of curiosity, where would you put seven very expensive alpacas if flood water
came up so suddenly in the pastures that there was no way to evacuate them?

..........Video 1. Girls' Dorm: Safe But Not Happy.........................................Video 2. Bubble, Bubble, Toilet Trouble.........