A New Life in an Old Market Town

 

My mother’s move has been completed and she is busy unpacking boxes and settling in to her new apartment in the historic market town of Baldock, Hertfordshire.

 

Baldock High Street is a picturesque place with a variety of old buildings, wide streets and trees.  There is still a market held here every week, although we have yet to make it out to the market.  Being on an old coaching route several of the old buildings have arches through which horse drawn coaches could have passed.  The town has a lot of character and history, there is a presentation on the history of Baldock at the local community center in May, but I will have returned to the US by then and so will miss it, maybe I can catch it another time.

 

So far we have been impressed with the friendliness of the people we have met, people on the streets smile and say hello, those we have met in the shops have been helpful in finding us all that we need and the people we have met at the nearby dog park have all been ready to welcome a new dog owner into the area and tell us about the dog walks close by.

 

Peanut, my mother’s dog (we call her a jacksund as she is a cross between a jack russell terrier and a dachshund) has settled in well to apartment life and is enjoying her trips to the dog park, her little legs galloping and her tail held straight up in a salute to the new scents she encounters on the way.  She is still a little prone to barking at other residents of the apartments when she sees them, which gives them a bit of a start as she has a loud bark for a small dog.  Gradually Peanut is learning though that she has to share her territory with others and over time I am sure the barking will subside.

 

Not far from the apartments is a school for preschool and elementary age children, it was interesting to me to see the children out playing in the rain the other day, for in the US they would have been kept inside if the weather was inclement.  Here in the UK where rain is a way of life the children were quite happy to be out in the rain, playing with their coats on without a care about getting wet.

 

At home Ric is starting to sound a tired, between caring for the alpacas and his substitute teaching his work plate is a little full!  This weekend he will be helping Bob and Regina Dart of Llano Soleado Alpacas as they shear some of their herd, and the rest of the time he will be preparing our shearing area so that we can start shearing when I return home.

 

According to Ric the pregnant girls are looking as late term pregnant dams should, waddling around the pasture and taking it easy.   Not long now and the new crias will be making their appearance.

 

On Saturday I helped my friend Linda with her book signing.  Having written and published her autobiography Linda is now in the process of promoting her book and I spent Saturday with her at a book signing at a Waterstones bookstore in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire.  The book signing went really well and she sold several more copies of her book.

 

Sunday was set aside for Linda and me to walk a beautiful walk around Tring Reservoir.  Linda’s brother Martin joined us and we enjoyed our time together walking in the countryside and looking at the birds, ducks, geese and swans.  Halfway through our walk we stopped at a local tearoom for breakfast, and were fortunate to be there under shelter when the heavens opened and the rain fell.  By the time we had finished breakfast the rain stopped and we went on to the second half of our walk – perfect timing!  

It’s a great time of the year for walking, as the trees are a brilliant green from their new spring growth and many are starting to blossom. 

 

Today my friend Val will be joining Linda and myself for a trip to Windsor to see Windsor Castle and we will have an easy day enjoying the town and the local dining.  The three of us usually arrange a spa day together when I am over, but with my mother’s move it was difficult to arrange a set date and so we have opted instead to go to Windsor which is a place I have only ever driven through, so it will be great to stop there and see all the sights.

 

On Wednesday I will finally get to see Laura and her new baby Aida who has already grown three inches and now weighs 10 lbs.  At that rate she will soon outgrow the clothes I have brought her.  Laura seems to be enjoying her first experience of motherhood but says that it now takes her two hours to get ready to go anywhere and both she and Ren are ready for bed by 9:30 pm.  The joys of parenting!

 

It is hard to believe that I am nearly at the end of my trip here, the time has gone really quickly as there has been so much to do.  My brother Chris has now returned to Italy and we both find it hard to believe that we managed to get as much done as we did.  It was great to spend some time with Chris, but hopefully next time we spend time together it will be doing something more leisurely!  My mother’s move was an enormous task, but we got it done and have told my other brother John, that should my mother decide to move again it will be his turn to organize things!

 

Rosemary

Fish and Chips and Champagne

 

Well part of the move is completed, but only a small part.  Thursday night my mother spent her first night in her new apartment.  My brother made an arrangement with the management at the apartment complex that we could put the moving boxes into the empty apartment next door to my mother’s so that the first time my mother saw her apartment with furniture it looked as we hope it will look once the moving boxes have been emptied and the contents put away.  Of course that initial view only lasted a short while as then we had to move all the boxes into my mother’s apartment in order to unpack them.  Oh well it was nice while it lasted and hopefully we will eventually get everything unpacked.

 

We celebrated the moving in night with a meal of good old British Fish and Chips, accompanied by a bottle of champagne, not a traditional drink to accompany Fish and Chips, but definitely a traditional celebratory drink.  By the time we got to eat it was past 11 pm – a bit late in the evening for dinner but by then we were more than ready to eat.

 

While we thought storing boxes in the next door empty apartment would be our only time there, we soon found out different – the hot water in my mother’s apartment is not working and the plumber is not available until Monday so we are being allowed to use the empty apartment for showers.  We just have to coordinate with the realtor who is selling the apartments to make sure that when she is showing the one next door she doesn’t end up giving her potential customers a surprise if one of us is in there taking a shower!

 

The old house still has a tremendous amount of possessions in it and my brother Chris and I are starting to wonder how on earth we will get it all cleared out by next Friday, especially as Chris returns to Italy on Tuesday.  If we get that accomplished it will miraculous, but you never know when a miracle will happen.

 

Back in New Mexico, Ric is still “enjoying” the windy weather that has been a constant theme of 2008.  He reports to me that he has had some calls regarding breedings to our herdsires, it’s that time of the year when an alpaca breeders thoughts turn to breedings and our herdsires will be happy to meet some new girlfriends.

 

As of Ric’s last report all of the alpacas, dogs, cats and horses were fine, but I have not been able to speak to him since Wednesday and have not had access to an internet connection.  It’s a little unsettling that at the moment Ric has no way to get hold of me if he needed to, but hopefully he would get creative in an emergency and be able to track me down and most likely there are no emergencies and everything is ticking along as normal at home.  This blog entry is being uploaded from the computer at my mother’s old house (during a quick break from house clearance) and I don’t know when I will have internet access again.  Ric is still trying to figure out the new WordPress control panel – he will probably figure it out the day before I come home!  That’s okay as I still think I will be more than ready for a vacation by then!

 

Rosemary

Time to Get Busy

 

Having arrived in England it’s time to get busy with preparing my mother for her move on Thursday.  There is a lot to do!  Yesterday was spent trying to assess what is going to go to the new flat, what is going to be given away or donated to charity and what is going to be disposed of.  We made some progress but there seems to be an endless amount of things to go through.

 

My trip over to England went smoothly even though my first flight was delayed by 30 minutes.  I always allow a lot of connection time between my flights when flying overseas as it seems that the airlines love to land you in one terminal and then challenge you to get to the terminal furthest away collecting your luggage and clearing customs on the way.  I would rather spend a few hours sitting in the airport than doing the airport dash!  I was a little disappointed that in my hurry to leave the house and get to the airport I forgot to grab my alpaca energy mat, the flight just was not the same without it.

 

My friend Linda was at the airport to meet me and drive me to my mothers, the journey on the M25 to Heathrow is a little better than the journey to Gatwick, but the M25 still had an enormous amount of traffic on it, especially compared to the traffic we get in Clovis, New Mexico.  Linda and I took the opportunity to stop and have a cup of coffee together, catching up on our latest news including hearing about Linda’s recent radio interview on Three Counties Radio, a local radio station.

 

Back at home Ric has been busy too, doing some substitute teaching and keeping up with chores.   The visiting girls were ready for behaviour testing following their breedings.  Celeste was pretty definite that she did not want to see any male alpacas, but Marti and Cariad were a little less certain.  With Marti being a maiden she may be confused about the signals her body is sending her, it is not unusual for a maiden alpaca to be a little difficult to read when it comes to behaviour testing.  Cariad though has been bred before, so her behaviour might be telling us that she has ovulated but has not conceived a pregnancy.  The next behaviour test will give us a better idea of which girls could be pregnant and which will need rebreeding.

 

The next few days are going to be very busy here in England, the removal van is booked for April 17^th and once everything earmarked for the new flat has been moved we will have to finish clearing out whatever has been left at the old house, but once the job is done it will be a good feeling.

 

Ric has told me that he has a blog entry to upload in the next day or two, so hopefully I will get a chance to talk him through the new control panel on WordPress that was installed just a few days before I left for England.  The new control panel is, to me, less simple to follow and it might take Ric a few attempts to get his blog entry loaded.  So keep checking back to see if Ric is successful in loading his blog entry and what he has to tell us about “A Taste of Life at Windrush Alpacas” during my absence.

 

Rosemary

 

It’s That Time of the Year Again

 

For today I head off to the airport to catch a plane to England.  I usually go back to visit my homeland every spring, but this year I am going a little earlier than usual.

 

My mother has sold her house and is moving, it’s been a while since she last moved house (about 44 years or so) and in the meantime she has acquired just one or two (or many more!) things.  So my brother Chris from Italy and I will are both flying over to help with the move.  My other brother John, who lives in Massachusetts, will be flying over to visit my mother after she has moved, giving my mother something else to look forward to once the house move is behind her.

 

It was a difficult decision for my mother to sell her house.  The house was designed by one of my uncles and built by my parents using direct labor.  It is the house where my brothers and I grew up and naturally has many happy family memories attached to it.  But circumstances change and with them bring other changes, my father is now in a nursing home, my mother is not getting any younger and the house has is a lot to manage.  It is a large house with a large garden and beautiful though the house and garden are they create a lot of work for one person.  So after much thought my mother has bought herself a new, efficient retirement flat.  The flat is smaller than the house and will be easier to maintain, which will hopefully make life a lot easier for my mother and give her more free time to visit my father and enjoy life in general.

 

It is always good to go back to England and visit my family and friends, although this year will be much more of a working holiday as there is a lot to do for the house move.   Still I will also get to spend some time with my dear friends Linda and Val and I am sure the laughter will be flowing freely among us.

 

Of course there is another reason for visiting England too, I get to see baby Aida and her parents Laura and Ren – Ric is so jealous that I will get to meet Aida in person before he does, but he will be traveling over later in the year to meet the latest addition to the family.

 

Leaving the farm is always hard, it is such a big part of my life and the animals are my other “family”.  It takes a while to prepare to be away from a business for this length of time and set everything up to run smoothly in my absence.  Ric will of course be here to take care of everyone and I have had a word with all of the animals and asked them to behave while I am away, whether they listened though is anyone’s guess!  In particular I had a word with the pregnant girls and asked them to hold on to their crias until my return, Ric will have enough to do without delivering crias too!

 

I am told that the weather in England will be in the 50’s and the chance of rain is good.  As cool of a spring as we are having I don’t know that I will notice the difference in the temperature, but seeing some rain will be nice and I doubt that the wind will be as severe as it has been here recently.  This last Thursday was horrifically windy with sustained winds of 40 mph and gusts around 60 mph, accompanied by one of the worst dust storms I have ever seen.  Let’s hope that is the last we see of that sort of weather for a while!

 

During my trip I will update the blog when I can and Ric has promised to write an entry or two.  I am not certain as to what sort of Internet access I will have, but I will have my laptop with me and I am sure I will be able to upload posts from time to time.

 

I will be returning to the US in early May, just in time for the girls to have their crias and shearing season to commence – after which I will probably need a vacation!

 

Rosemary

Rain, Rugs and Au Revoir

Yesterday we woke up to a rumbling noise which at first we thought was the sound of rail cars being moved around on the nearby rail road track, but then there was a bright flash followed by more rumbling – it was thunder and lightning.  Listening to the sound of the thunder and lightning we started to hope to hear the sound of raindrops, and after a few minutes our wish for rain was realized.  The rain was light and fell slowly at first but then it picked up intensity and for a short while we had a good rain, something we were desperate to hear and see.  While we had a little snow at Easter it has been well over six weeks since we last saw any measurable precipitation, so yesterday’s rain was nothing but good.

 

As the rain grew heavier the alpacas took shelter in their various barns but even some of them chose to sit out in the rain to enjoy the moisture.  The rain soon stopped and there was just the occasional light shower throughout the day.  The additional moisture in the air made our alpaca’s fleeces feel softer than ever, what a shame we cannot have some moisture in the weather every day, but then no doubt we would complain about things being too wet all the time.

 

Following chores it was off to the bank to make some deposits and then a quick stop to show off our latest shipment of alpaca rugs that had arrived on Tuesday.  The alpaca rugs and energy mats are selling well and since the arrival of the shipment two of the rugs have already sold as well as one of the energy mats.  The energy mat I sold to the FedEx driver who delivered our shipment, as someone who sits all day he was interested in the energy mats and wanted to try one out to see if it will make his long days of driving any more comfortable – I bet it will.

 

The rest of the day had been set aside to help our friends Justus and MJ pack up their removal van in preparation for their move to Colorado.   Between us we managed to get everything packed except for those few items that just would not fit in either the removal van, their vehicles, their trailer or their travel trailer.  It looks as if Justus and MJ will need to make one trip back to collect those final things.

 

We will miss Justus and MJ; they have been a part of our lives now for several years since they first arrived at Clovis when Justus was still in the Air Force.  We were their sponsors and soon grew to love them for their great sense of humor and their love of life.  Over the years they have helped us shear, helped with one of the crias who got an infection and was very sick (including a heart stopping moment of anaphylactic shock following a dose of penicillin) and have even ranch sit for us on occasion.  Since they announced their move to Colorado I have been joking with them that perhaps they should advertise as ranch sitters in their new community as there are a lot of alpaca farms in the area they are moving too.  It may turn out that my joke becomes a valid suggestion, you never know!

 

We hope from time to time we will be able still see Justus and MJ, they will be on our route to the Great Western Alpaca Show which takes place in May every year, and being only seven hours away they are relatively close in a Southwestern terms.  So rather than say goodbye to them yesterday we bid them Au Revior as we are sure that we will be seeing them again.  Good luck in your new home Justus and MJ, we all (alpacas included) will miss you being so close but know that you will always be a part of our lives.

 

Rosemary

The Other Side (Part 2)

When I wrote my blog entry on April 7  entitled “The Other Side” I hadn’t intended for there to be “The Other Side Part 2”, but one of the alpacas decided he too wanted to be the subject of a blog entry.

 

In our bottom pasture we have four older boys, two suri’s and two huacayas.  The four have been together for most of their lives, the oldest is Cristobal who will turn 16 in May, the youngest is Comet who recently turned eight, and it was Comet who decided to go exploring on his own yesterday.

 

The four boys have a small dry lot area by their shelter which we keep them in overnight or in inclement weather.   From the dry lot area there is an alleyway that leads to an old roping arena, during the day we let the boys out into the alleyway and the arena to graze and have some space to roam in and get exercise. 

 

In the summer the roping arena has dry land wheat growing in it and so all in all the boys have a good deal.  With our current drought the grazing in the roping arena is pretty sparse but the four boys still enjoy going into the arena during the daytime.

 

Yesterday Ric was on his way to substitute teaching at one of the local schools and as he drove past the bottom boy’s pasture he noticed that three of the four boys were in the arena as they should be, but the fourth boy Comet was standing in a different pasture.

 

Ric called me to let me know that Comet had somehow got out of the arena area.  With the ever blowing winds, we wondered if perhaps a gate had blown open allowing Comet to get out of the arena.   I walked down to the arena area and could see Comet happily grazing by himself in the front pasture.

 

I checked all of the gates in the roping arena and they were all firmly shut.  The three other boys by this time had noticed that Comet was enjoying greener pastures (not very green, but still there was more vegetation in that pasture than the roping arena) and were pacing the fence trying to figure out a way to join Comet.

 

I herded Comet to the top of the pasture where there was a gate that led through to the roping arena and opened the gate allowing Comet to rejoin his friends.

 

For the rest of the day I checked on the four boys every now and then and all four were in the roping arena, but by the time I went out to do chores Comet was back in the front pasture on his own.  I again checked the arena but all of the gates were firmly shut.

 

I remember Comet’s previous owner telling us that Comet used to let himself out of his pasture from time to time and they could never figure out how he managed to escape.  Comet has always stayed in his pasture since he came to say with us, until today that is when he discovered how to get to the other side.

 

For now the boys in the bottom pasture will have to be kept in their dry lot area until we figure out how Comet is escaping.  While the pasture Comet is getting into is fenced, it only has a three strand barb wire fence, not at all the right type of fencing for alpacas.  So no more escaping for Comet, no matter how much he enjoyed the green grass on “the other side” of the fence.

 

Rosemary

 

Feeding – When Pen Assignments Change

With the merging of the visiting girls with the main herd of girls we had to decide how to incorporate the five extra alpacas into our feeding routine for the main herd.  As it was the visiting girls and crias figured out for themselves where they should eat.

 

We feed supplement to our girls and crias in various groups within catch pens based on their nutritional needs and their personality.  What’s personality got to do with feeding you may ask, well if we put a timid alpaca in with a group of dominant alpacas we can pretty much guarantee that the timid alpaca isn’t going to get much to eat.

 

The way we feed our alpacas works well for us, some people having watched our morning routine think that it must have taken a lot of time to train our girls to go into the various pens, but alpacas are intelligent creatures who love routine and usually once you have fed a particular girl in a particular catch pen she will head back to that catch pen at feeding time.  Some of the girls even beat me to the catch pens as I am feeding and are patiently standing in the pen by the time I get there.

 

The male groups are fed differently with us placing the required number of bowls on the ground and allowing them to figure out who gets which bowl.  Male alpacas usually have less nutritional changes during the course of the year making their feed requirements simpler, but we do still monitor their weights and observe their behavior.  Should we have a male alpaca in a group that is not being allowed to get to the feed or hay then we would either make an arrangement where we could give him access to feed and hay on his own for a while, or possibly move him to a different group of alpacas.

 

With the visiting girls in the main herd, the first couple of feedings after joining the two groups was a little confusing, but only really for the visiting girls.  The main herd all know which pen they are assigned to, but the visiting girls Celeste, Marti and Cariad plus their crias Skylar and Copper were trying to find their place and so tended to go from pen to pen. 

 

Interestingly Marti, who is a maiden alpaca, immediately headed to the pen where the expectant maiden girls eat, she seemed to identify that group of girls as being similar to her and decided that is where she should eat.  Celeste headed into the second pen of girls that we feed; these girls eat at a moderate speed and are heavily pregnant.  Celeste has only just been bred, but is still nursing her cria Skylar and so is receiving a little extra supplement and it was a good fit for her to eat in that pen.

 

Cariad decided initially that eating with the llamas might be a good idea (Cariad loves her food, perhaps she thought that as the llamas are bigger they would get more to eat).  By yesterday she had changed her mind about having llamas as feeding companions and went into the same pen as Zoie, Chai and Rosie, all three of which are dominant fast eaters like Cariad and that arrangement seemed to work well.

 

The crias Skylar and Copper also did well as they headed over with the other crias to their pen.  They were a little hesitant about going into the pen though and we had to gently guide them in.   Being with a group of crias of a similar age will be good for Copper and Skylar, they were born within a short time of each other and being the only crias at their home farm they are closely bonded.  I hope am hoping that interaction with other crias will help them become a little more independent of each other.

 

We only merged the two groups on Saturday afternoon and by Monday afternoon they had everything figured out – and we think we’re the ones making the decisions.  I sometimes have to wonder!

 

Rosemary

The Other Side

 

Over the weekend we decided to put the girls who had been in quarantine in with our main herd of girls.  We originally had planned on leaving the visiting girls in the quarantine pen for the duration of their stay, but our neighbors have a new puppy and one of the visiting girls, Cariad, kept alarming at the puppy.  The puppy was well within the boundaries of its owner’s property and not doing anything to threaten or upset the girls, but its mere presence was obviously upsetting Cariad.

 

As we had bred the visiting girls this weekend we didn’t want them stressing out because of the puppy and either failing to get pregnant or losing any possible pregnancy.  The girls had finished their quarantine period and the farm that the girls come from has not had any incoming alpacas in over a year.  Additionally that farm has not been to any shows in several months, so we felt the risk of exposing our alpacas to these girls was minimal.

 

We decided that we would open up the quarantine pen and the area between it and the girl’s pen and allow the female herd access to both areas.  No sooner had Ric opened the gate than there were alpacas flying between both areas – a real case of “the grass is always greener on the other side”.  Our girls were joyfully exploring the quarantine pen and the visiting girls and their crias busily investigated our girl’s pasture.

 

There is absolutely nothing better or more interesting in either pasture, but the fact that it was different was enough to cause each group of girls to check things out.

 

By lunchtime all twenty-six alpacas in our female herd plus the three guard llamas were crammed into the small quarantine area.  They had made it to “the other side” and were not relinquishing their newly claimed area.  Not wishing to miss out the visiting girls and their crias (a total of five alpacas) had staked their claim in the much large main female pasture which they considered was “the other side”.

 

The girls remained that way for the rest of the day, but when it came to evening feeding both groups forgot about the excitement of being on “the other side” and joined together to eat.  That proved to be a little confusing for the visiting girls, the alpacas love of routine throws them off kilter when they suddenly find themselves being fed in a different area.  That evening’s feed and the following mornings feed was a little bit of a challenge – but that’s another story!

 

Rosemary

And Here She Is ……

I promise not to make this a Baby Blog, but I have had several people ask to see a picture of the latest addition to our family.  So here she is Miss Aida Elena Pienescu (along with her mother Laura who looks amazingly good considering she has just delivered a baby!).

 

 

 

For those interested in details Aida was born at 8:16 a.m. and weighed 8 lbs 1 0z.

 

 

I spoke to Laura and Ren today, they both sound very happy and were enjoying their new daughter.  Through the wonders of technology we were able to see Aida via web cam, which was a wonderful experience.  It’s amazing to me to think that not too many years ago (well maybe 20 or so but that isn’t very many years in the big scheme of things) we would have had to wait for the snail mail to deliver photos to us.  Now we can just go on line and see Aida one day after she was born.

 

 

On the alpaca side of things (and related to babies but those of the furry alpaca variety), we will be starting some spring breedings today.  The three girls from Texas Celeste, Cariad and Marty have now finished their quarantine period so it is time for them to meet their dates.   We will see what the three girls think about the boys.  Hopefully they will be receptive and we will soon have three confirmed pregnancies.

 

 

I’ll keep you posted on their progress.

 

Rosemary

 

An Exciting New Arrival

Yesterday was an exciting day for us, April 3 2008 turned out to be the day our first grandchild was born.   

 

Aida Elaina Pienescu made her entrance into the world at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon, UK just after 8 a.m. British Summer Time.  Aida’s birthing was a little difficult but thankfully both Laura and Aida are doing fine now.  I am not sure we can say the same about Aida’s father Ren who is no doubt excited and exhausted following the birth of his daughter.

 

With the arrival of Aida the phone calls were flying around the world.  We live in the US, Ren’s parents live in Romania, and Anne a close friend of Laura’s mother lives in Canada.  That so many people in so many different countries were awaiting the news of Aida’s birth is a sign of the times, many global barriers have been removed and many of us enjoy the freedom of traveling and living all over the world.

 

When we first received news of Laura being in labor Ric was in the process of painting the floor of the feed barn.  It was probably a good task to be doing, as I don’t think he could concentrate much once he knew that Laura’s baby was on her way.  It was a long wait from hearing Laura was in labor to getting the news that Aida had been delivered, I am not sure how productive we were during that time, but I know we were relieved to hear that both mother and daughter were doing well.

 

Laura’s brother Paul has promised to send us some pictures of the latest member of the family, but we have been told that Aida has dark hair, dark blue eyes, pointed pixie ears, Ren’s dimpled chin and Ric’s feet!  She weighed in at 8 lbs 1 oz.

 

Grandpa Ric is beside himself with excitement, he will not get to see Aida until later this year, but he is hoping that by the time he gets to England Ren and Laura will be ready for a break and he can have Aida to himself for at least a couple of days! 

 

Laura is anxious to go home from the hospital and should be home later today – and then the real fun begins for Laura and Ren as they learn to live with their first child.  I am certain that both Laura and Ren will make excellent parents and Aida will grow up with their confidence, humor, values and their love of life.

 

Rosemary