Lickity Split

Holy Cow.... what a banana day! One left yesterday and got back today and is too tired to talk. One leaves tomorrow morning and I am packing lunch and supper for her and helping her get her stuff together. She leaves at 6:30 a.m. .... ouch! Then the other is leaving tomorrow afternoon and has to pack tonight when he gets home and it is almost 10:30 p.m. now! He left about a half hour ago to pick up one of the canoes. There are three canoes going and six fellows with several others doing the ferrying. We will all be so wasted by the time Sunday rolls around that I'm sure we're all going to collapse. Still it will be good when it is all over and everyone has had their adventure and life goes back to normal.... you see I'm quite a mother hen at heart.

Onward goes the embroidery... nothing ever goes as fast as you would like it to. The big j.c. is still being worked on, with sewing tomorrow... then a little more embroidery.... then a little more sewing. It's coming along...... but now there is a boomerang. Olds College emailed me today to say that the level 4 students will require 182 yards of hand spun wool in a multiple of skeins for the dyeing room and this needs to be finished and labeled by Monday the 28th.... argh! So as I am writing I am waiting for Daughter #2's supper for tomorrow to cool as it just came out of the oven..... and I am waiting for several pounds of wool from Wingy's 2010 fleece to soak a little longer before rinsing the damn thing and setting it to dry overnight on the clothes line. I guess I will have to work on the big j.c. by day and the fleece by night. Then there is a vest to finish before I go to Olds (don't worry that was woven last summer) and a felted bag for a fellow who's trading a Navajo spindle for it (the flets done I just have to sew...... and all before Olds. So yes, "lickity split" is a good adverb for moi and what I'm doing, right now.

Shearing?!... what the hell's that?! Poor sheep they must be so hot..... oh well soon the little ones can be weaned and then there will be a few bullets in the head of the louder more obnoxious bullies. Lambs will be done in the fall.

I've decided to cull my flock as hay is at an all time high of $60.00 a bail..... at two and a half bails a month....that's $1800.00 a year... too expensive. Hopefully hay will be at a better price this year. And with a substantially lower number of sheep there will be less cost.

I've made some changes to my business future but I won't go into them yet. Soon though I will let you in on my secrets.

Anyhow, Teapot returns and the oven is dinging letting me know that I need to finish packing Daughter #1's meals... that fleece needs rinsing so I had better get back to it.

See y'all on the other side of crazy....

Another Book

I just finished reading another book about two days ago. Generally I don't bother with book reviews on my blog.... it usually has to be an outstanding book to make me want to write about it anyway. Besides that's not what I want for this blog..... reviews on books can be found at any number of websites and if you are into that sort of thing, generally you will look it up at literary websites...

Having said that I have just finished a book that I debated about writing about. I love reading and a day wouldn't be complete without a chapter or two being part of my daily consumption.... usually at night and usually in bed. In the last few years I've had a hard time finding a book that grabs me and makes me wonder what is going to happen next. They are all too predictable and I generally get the feeling like I have read it before, which really is a bit disappointing. A few weeks back I wrote about a book that I read and was quite happy with called, The Help. It was a good read and I was happy to find something that I actually enjoyed.... then I went to the library two weeks ago and picked up A Fraction Of The Whole by Steve Toltz.Let me say that I am first amazed that I was able to find a book that really grabbed me (2 in less than a couple of months.... I'm on a roll.... makes me wonder about my granny's old saying... things always come in threes.... I hope I'm able to find a third book that I enjoy as much). I would have to describe this book as wry philosophy. It is all over the place and so keeps you off balanced which is a good thing for me. I did find that it dragged a bit at the end, but otherwise was a good read. It was full of witty remarks that made me smile and some of the scenarios actually made me laugh..... though I would not say that it was a funny book, just that some of the depressing bits were lightened with humour. It was nostalgic, and wry, unpredictable and philosophical while keeping you irritatingly interested. I wouldn't say it was a pleasurable read but it was a pleasure to have read it. It was full of juxtaposition and while the characters were well developed it was a book where you disliked liking them.

It is not a book for everyone.... but it is worth a read if you are into different things.... if your idea of a good read is the next installment from Danielle Steele then this is not the book for you.... it would be like eating the darkest rye bread when your craving Wonderbread.

Anyway, hope you guys don't mind the book review.... but I do love recommending things I enjoy. So go ahead, have a slice of rye.....

2 Things.....

Round two of romance is going to happen this evening. Coal and Mishka will be put together for another hootin' and falootin' time. I guess they need several go rounds of hootin' and falootin' before she will catch.... eventually she will get pi---d off and hiss and spit at him and then you know she's finished with him. Then 11 1/2 months later.... well, you get my drift..... mind you nothing is for sure.

So the big j.c. ,.... yeah,..... nothing is for sure, alright.... I keep thinking, "well, this is it, this is the day I finish, but something always comes up and though things are progressing they are not progressing as fast as I would like. I have the sleeves done and sewn up and I am now proceeding with the embroidery work. There is a day's worth so my goal today is to finish the embroidery. Tomorrow my goal is to finish the lining and put it in. Then I need to put on the collar and do the buttons and button holes. Hopefully there will be no more interruptions this week. Wouldn't that be nice!!! But progress... well, at least I am making some.

So I had better have at it for today is a flyin' by.

Motherhood Struggles

All year I have been watching as Daughter #1 becomes much more independent. Daughter #2 is growing up too. Daughter #2 will be going into high school next fall. This is her last year as an elementary student. I will watch her go off to her first day of high school just as I watched Daughter #1 do last fall. Both of them have had their ups and downs in school this year as they do each year, but I am proud of both of them they have done outstandingly well (knock wood).

Daughter #2 has, at the end of this week coming a camping trip to a nearby outdoor learning centre. She has gone there many times before, so I am not overly anxious about it besides it is only a half hour ride from our home and if anything should ever go wrong, then it would only be a short ride to go and pick her up.

Daughter #1 has, at the end of this week, a bit of a longer trip. She will be heading off with the Academic Ethics Honour Group for a trip to a location about 14 hours away. I am anxious. She is almost 15 so I am trying (really hard) to remember what it was like when I was 15, to go off with a group from school for trips of this nature. She will be having a grand old time at different venues but I'll be honest.... I can't wait till she gets back. Teapot doesn't seem to be worried at all and I know you can't hold on to them forever.... you have to let them go eventually ..... but I'll be honest.... it's really hard. 'What If' rears it's ugly head in my mind on a regular basis. It is easy for bad things to happen.

Being a parent has never come easy for me.... from my earliest struggles of being just about thirty and having had two previous miscarriages and worrying if I would ever have a child and for that matter if I was ready to have a child, to struggling with the idea that at some point I was going to have to pass something about the size of a good sized Honeydew melon through a portion of my body that didn't look like it could stretch that far, to sitting on the floor of the porch crying because preparing for a trip to the Doctor's office for a check-up was not going to happen after baby had spewed its guts over itself for the fifth time. None of parenting has been fun but I can safely say that having children was the best achievement of my life. Winning a Noble Peace Prize wouldn't have come close. Parenting has been the scariest, most heart stopping roller coaster ride I have ever been on while at the same time it has been the hardest, most exhausting thing to figure out more so than.... well I don't know what.

Two days ago a close friend of my family had a grandson die at the age of 18 in a car accident and it is at times like this that I reflect on my children and how much I want to hold on to them and keep them safe. You want to keep them close but in doing so, you are doing them no favours. They need to get out and see the world and experience things for themselves. You can't just keep them wrapped in a bow and sitting on a shelf to take down and hug when the mood strikes. That's not how it works. They are not yours no matter what you think.... you may have brought them into the world but as soon as that cord was cut they became their own and that needs to be celebrated.

So Daughter #1 will go off on her trip..... and I will think about the bus and an accidents and the tents and tornadoes and getting lost in the malls and being coaxed to go off with a stranger and never finding them again. I will think all sorts of horrible things but mostly I will hope... hope that my Daughter comes back to me safe and sound and that her life will be full of wonder and pleasant discoveries as she walks the same walk of independence that I once took.

Daughter #2 will soon be in the same position but in the mean time I will hold on a little longer as I won't be able to much longer.

I think I will go and give them a great big hug.

Rice and Lamb

I never thought about it and I have to say that I felt pretty bad about it after, but last night I served Teapot Teryaki rice and lamb. Under normal circumstances this would have been good but poor Teapot... he could barely get it down. And he never said a word....

Queen, our merino sheep is an old girl and this year she lambed a twin.... twins are hard on a ewe at the best of times but this old girl seemed to be having a really bad time. We've been watching her and she really doesn't want to feed her lambs at all. However, she does let them suck every now and again just to keep her bag from hurting. The lambs are not thriving under these conditions. This week after Coal and Mishka finished dating in the solitary confinement pen, we put Queen and Zig and Zag in to the solitary confinement pen, that way she wouldn't have to fight with the others to get to the food. She seemed to be wasting away. Teapot got into the pen and trimmed her hooves which needed trimming and checked her bag for mastitis. All seemed well.... but it was as he was getting her on her feet that we discovered that there was more wrong than we were aware.

Teapot noticed that part of her wool was coming off in a flap..... this at the best of time is not good.

We had alway heard of a problem called Fly Strike. It is nasty and starts when a sheep gets a cut... the flies strike alright. They lay eggs in the cut and then when they hatch the maggots basically eat the sheep's flesh. It lifts the wool off the animal like a sheet and leaves a really raw patch underneath. The sheep languishes and will eventually die if not caught early enough.

Teapot got down to it and cleared away the wool and cleaned out the maggots the best he could and her poor flesh was terrible. We proceeded to shear the old girl and now she has a patch of raw bare flesh the size of a dinner plate. I'm worried. I'm not sure the wool will grow back in that place..... which is a worry with -40 degrees of winter looming in the distance.

It was after Teapot came in from cleaning up the mess of maggots on her haunch that I served him a plate of lamb and rice! I had no idea that he would look at supper and think about the mess he just cleaned. Need I say more?!

Jiggs ran away this week. It was about ten in the night. She took off after Teapot scolded her for scaring Queen and her lambs. She disappeared into the forrest with her leash trailing behind her. I spent 1 1/2 hours looking for her and calling her and no sign of her and dark falling I felt that hopefully she would come home on her own. She didn't disappoint. Woo hoo! She is starting to know that our home is her home. It was almost midnight when she arrived at the kitchen door and though she wouldn't come for Teapot she did come for me. Good girl.

It has been a busy week with the big j.c. progressing. The sleeves are finally done and I am starting to sew everything together. Shearing has also been a time consumer this week. We are almost finished the alpacas and will get them done today. There are still a few sheep to be done but they are being butchered in the fall so will not be requiring thick fleeces for the winter.... I'm not worried about how late it has gotten for those animals.

Dexter is the latest alpaca to receive his haircut. He looks very different. Here's before....
This is Dexter after the shearing.

Another week ahead of shearing and the big j.c. and the countdown to Level 4 is ticking off day by day.... I have received word of my official extension on level 3.... I have till the end of the summer to finish my work. But I still get to do the level 4 course. I will not be allowed to do that next year.... level 5 is a whole different ball park. I do have to come up with a thesis topic for this year. It has to be approved before I can stat and that has to be finished by the time level 6 rolls around. I have two in mind but am having a hard time choosing which one I want to do..... I wonder if they will let me do both.

So there you have it..... what's happening in your neck of the woods?

How Interesting... I've Never Seen that Before!

Let me tell you about the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees..... oooooh.... and a thing about love!

Yes this was the weekend of luuuv.

With a grunt and what can only be described as.... weird..... I actually don't know how to describe the noises ... actually I can't quite describe any of it.... it was all too foreign....

Let me begin at the beginning. It's the season for shearing alpacas. So on Saturday we started. I decided that this was the year that Mishka (my only female alpaca) would be bred. Coal was the successful applicant mostly because he doesn't have any relation to Mishka that I know of. Breeding works better if there is very little hair in the way, so with that in mind Teapot and I got down to it and sheared, first Mishka, and then Coal. We have a little fold/paddock that we can close off from the other where a sick sheep or a nursing and worn out momma can go. If there's an injury or someone needs to go into solitary confinement for a while then that's the place for them. When we finished with Mishka we put her in there and then we went to work on Coal. It generally takes about fifty minutes to deal with one of those animals from the time you catch them, get the halter on them walk/carry/encourage/kick them to the table, where you use a wrestling manouver to flip them onto their side on the table and proceed to tie their head down as well as both front legs and back legs. At that point you take a deep breath and get the shears. We have a set of electric shears and Teapot welds them very well but there have been problems in past years as the alpacas like to roll in the dirt and a set of blades per animal is about what it takes to finish. As a point of reference one set of blades will do all of my sheep. Teapot works on the body starting from the tummy up over the side and then forward to the front shoulder and then back to the hip and bum. Then he shears along the back bone and up the neck which is where the problem begins. When the blades hits that back bone and neck area there is so much dirt from rolling that the blades go dull almost instantly. That is why I now buy a set of cheap scissors to work along the backbone and around the back of the neck. I also give my alpacas a doo on top cleaning up any missed wool around where the halter is. Gingerly we then untie all ropes and flip the animal over who really wants off the table by now and is having nothing to do with co-operating. Once on the other side Teapot again ties them down and the whole process begins again. As soon as the fleece is off I begin grading it and separating it into different bags. Meanwhile Teapot is now giving the alpaca a manicure. They have funny feet, it is not a hoof at all... it is more like a birds foot with a pad like a dog's and two nails sticking out. These grow constantly and twice a year need to be clipped. After that, if their teeth need to be cut, we do it with a dremel tool and a piece of leather to protect their mouth. I squirt water at the teeth while Teapot cuts them and enamel flies everywhere. After that we give them a shot for disease and a shot for parasites..... then we untie them and get them back on their feet, lead them back to their stall and then we all go for a drink before starting the next one. We do two a day as we find more than that is just too much.

This year instead of leading Mishka back to the far paddock with the ewes and lambs, we brought her over to the small pen. Then Coal got his work done at which time he was lead to the small pen too. Daughter #1 and I sat and watched (I felt like a voyeur). Daughter #2 who was too squeemish took off for the house. Teapot was doing other stuff around the yard but was able to see. Hmmm.....

Coal sniffed her nether regions and Mishka sniffed his and they did that for quite a while all the while circling each other. About five or ten minutes of this occurred and just when the other alpacas in their own paddock, were starting to roll their eyes because it was taking so long, finally Coal got his mind around the idea that this was THE FEMALE and jumped on her hind quarters.....

She laid her ears back and wasn't sure about this but automatically went down on the ground assuming the position.... (it's a good thing I knew they mated while on their knees) He got down to business and sat there with a glazed look in his eye making the weirdest noises which I can safely say I've never in my life heard before. He puffed out his cheeks, he groaned and grunted, he sighed and wheezed all at the same time. But there was no doubt that he was quite happy. She on the other hand was kind of looking back at him with a look that indicated a cross between boredom, indignation and curiosity. I don't think she was against it but she didn't look like she was particularly enjoying the process either. This went on for quite a while..... a good half hour. Daughter #1 and I got bored and wandered off, but Teapot says they got up for a bight to eat and then went at it again..... then that was it, except Coal was a little wobbly in the hind legs for a while. It was all over.... I went out a little later and Coal was nuzzling Mishka and Mishka was obviously in love with him..... but then today they were kind of stand offish..... well I figured the fire works were over and so this evening Mishka is back with the ewes and Coal is back with his very horny brothers..... You would never know that in the womb of that woolly white body lurks a miracle in the form of an embryo... well at least we hope.

So there you have it..... 11 1/2 months from now hopefully there will be a baby alpaca.... which is also called a Cria.

I can't wait...... It will be something else I've never seen.

Panic

Awwwwwwww!

Sheep need to be sheared..... they should have been done two months ago.

Alpacas need to be sheared.....

The big j.c..... that's all I'm doing.

Level 3.... oh dear.... I guess I'd better email the college.... I'm going to need that extension.

Arggh!