Our first WWOOFers

Earlier this year we joined an organization called World Wide Opportunities on Farms (WWOOF). For the past week an Austrian couple (Clemens and Eva) have been staying with us and helping us out. They have been great. The two of them have helped with the weeding of the gardens, sorting the fleece from this years shearing, setting up feeders, planting and harvesting of early vegatables plus other odd jobs. We have also had them leading the alpacas and helping out when we gave the heard their quarterly needles.

In the spring time we often get behind on the additional chores as the alpacas keep us busier so their help has been most beneficial. Additionally we have enjoyed great conversations during and after dinner about their travels and life in both Canada and Austria.

On Sunday we took the two of them to the top end of the Annapolis Valley region to the Grand Pre Exhibit, Windsor, Wolfville and also visitied a few wineries. They found the Maple wine unique and the Best wine of the day was the Alchemy from L'acadie vinyards in the Gaspereau Valley. They are currently Nova Scotias only certified organic vinyard. The other two wineries we visited on sunday were Sainte-Famille and Gaspereau

Breeding Season Starts

Now that we are in the middle of June we have started breeding. This year we set up a temporary pen in the middle of the girls pasture. Kiana who we think reaborbed her cria during her choking problem in November was our known open female. She quickly went down for Perilli. As this was in the pasture the other females all came and checked out the situation. Most of the girls then walked away and kept a little difference.
Nikki though came by sniffed around and then cushed a few feet away from the fence. She then rolled around and after about 5 minutes got up and walked away. Nikki did have a positive Ultrasound in Junuary.
A bigger concern though is Sweet Dreams. She came up to the fence of the breeding pen about 15 minutes in and then cushed right next to the pen beside the mating couple. She stayed in this position until the end 15 minutes later as if waiting her turn. Immediately after we had led Perilli away Sweetdreams then went into the breeding pen and sniffed around for 5 minutes. This would be disappointing if Sweet Dreams reabsorbed as we had done an outside breeding for her last September. We have had no indications that she was stressed in away during the winter that would have caused the cria to be absorbed. Her ultrasound was mixed but the vet did have issue getting a good position on her compared to some of the other tests but at the time we were not concerned as she was spitting off well.

Our first 2009 Cria

And it is a girl.

After 2 weeks with almost no rain. Sedona chooses to have her baby on a day with heavy and steady rain. Thankfully baby is doing fine with good temperature, teeth, 4 nipples and walking if not running around. She weighs in at 20.1 pounds.

Alpacas in the pool

In the summer to help keep alpacas cool we bought a few of the 1 foot deep hard plastic swimming pools for little kids. The alpacas will then go and lay in these pools to cool their legs and bellies. On Sunday being hot we were filling them up again as they had been emptied when we were moving the soil around. The girls have two pools and were in the first one as soon as the water started running. Meanwhile, SweetNS had climbed into the pool on the male cria section and layed down in it despite it being completely empty of water. I was quite funny to see him stay there for over 5 minutes. He would look over at us almost suggesting - Hurry up...I waiting for my swim.

Stuck in the Mud

Last weekend we had 3 loads of topsoil delivered to help the recovery of some ground near the barn. We had put down the winter manure and bedding mix and now wanted to cover it with a layer of soil before seeding. This will add another 4000 sqft of pasture for the cria section. On Thursday, Bill the local dairy farmer who helped pull out the dump truck last weekend came by with his front loader to move the soil from the dump spot to the locations I needed and smooth out a couple of old manure (now soil) piles.

It rained on Friday, so I waited to Saturday late afternoon before I started smoothing Bills small piles with my little tractor and blade. I was about 90% done on one the second area I was working on and found a very wet hole that was nicely covered up by soil. The entire rightside of the tractor went it and was not coming out under its own power. Caroline was not pleased and said I should have known better (which is true but I had the time and new I was pushing the limits and had lots to get done.)
I went up and got the 4 wheel drive truck hoping to tow it out. But this was unsucessful as well and ended up chewing up more ground. Caroline even was frustrated with my stupidity. I at least did not get the truck stuck and called it a night.

Sunday, thankfully, was sunny and hot which helped dry somethings some more. I waited until after lunch before tackling the job of digging out the tractor. I had dug around the tractor removing some of the soil from the driving path and was about to attempt another pull out with the hard earth now being dry. Tony our tenant though arrived and said that would still not work and we needed to jack up the tractor, stick wood underneath and then drive the tractor away. So I got the 2.5 ton jack, some 2X6 planks and a few big rocks to stop the jack from sinking under the weight. After an our we had got the tractor high enough to get to pallets under the right side and were able to drive the tractor away.

While I did not get the two other sections done for spreading, I at least finished this one and then mowed the lawn.

Alpacas in the pool

great weekend weather

Now that the Mayflower show and shearing are complete we are able to focus on other activities about the farm. The weather was great this weekend with temperatures in the high 20's (celcius) on Saturday and cooler and overcast on Sunday but no rain until the late afternoon.

• Things accomplished included giving all the lawns their first mow of the season (also helps dandilion control).
• Did a full trim with the trimmer around all the fruit trees and other spots from the spring growth. Used a tank and half of gas.
• Caroline planted the tomatos and peppers from the sunroom to the greenhouse.
• reorganized the interior fencing for the cria pen so that we can rotate them from one week to the next.
• had three tandem loads of soil delivered improve pasture area for reseeding in cria fields
• full pasture was fertilized. (fertilizer costs have all but doubled this year from last. OUCH!)
• Finished planting the upper garden with less frost hardy vegatables
• Tilled the lower garden so it is ready for Squash and Corn plantings later this week.
• Planted some more gooseberry and blueberry bushes so in a couple of years our crops will be closer to our needs.

We also had time to enjoy our property a little bit.

• This included seeing a doe and her new born fawn move across the field from one copse to another.
• Found a baby painted turtle about 1 inch in diameter about 100 yards from the nearest water source. Probably a new born from last years egg layings. We gave it an assist to the nearest pond.
• Watch a rabbit eat our dandilion heads. He can eat as much as he wants but not the garden please. I am scared though to have him invite his friends.
• The leaves are now on coming out and the bird life in plentiful. A couple of highlights were a magnolia warbler about 4 ft from me and a purple martin (a property first) flying around with the barn swallows.
• The hummingbirds are back and put out the second feeder this weekend to ease the territorial pressures.

While there are still things that need to be done some of the early spring pressures are now complete and a more relaxed pace and continue for the summer season until harvesting time.

Thanks to our volunteers

On shearing day we had 9 volunteers who I just wanted to thank:
Lynn, Brian, Ben and Josh
Jackie and Ray
Darren and Adelaide
and Flame.

Caroline and I really appreciate the time and efforts you all contributed. You all seem to enjoy yourselves and we hope you will be willing to come back next year when we will have 21 animals to shear.

Hopefully next year more will be able to stay for the barbeque at the end of the day.

Shearing is over for another year!

Phew! It was a big job this year with 6 more animals to do. We were a bit better organized this time with 12 people in all including Lukas the shearer.

The screamers screamed and the quiet ones were thankfully quiet. We got started at about noon, a bit later than expected and wrapped up at 5pm. Once again Lukas did an excellent job.

We got the fleeces skirted and sorted except for our prize winners. Those fleeces I will prepare separately to send to the fleece competition in Navan in August. Then off to the mill for processing into yarn.

The white fleeces will be sent to the Co-Op in Calgary for credits for alpaca products.

Today just some final barn clean-up and funny looking animals.

Shearing Day on Saturday May 16

Tommorrow is shearing day. Shearer is expect to arrive at 10 am. Tonight we have to halter an weight the animals, clean the shearing area and set up the fleece sorting tables.

The day will end with a barbeque for our volunteers.

Mayflower Show 2009

May 9 and 10 was the Mayflower Show. Rocaro Alpacas had a great showing. We took our cria from last year and were very successful.

Oreo - First Junior Black Male
Toblerone - First Junior Fawn Male & Fawn Colour Champion
Callebaut - First Junior Brown Male & Brown Colour Champion
Blizzard - First Junior White Male & White Male Colour Champion
Cocoa Blanca - Third Junior Multi Female

Then in the Best of Show Competition which included our four young males the judge spent over 5 minutes choosing between Blizzard and Toblerone.

Aztec Artic Blizzard won Best in show.

NS Farm Investment Fund

Last night we went to a meeting on the this years Farm Investment Fund (FIF) program that is sponsored by the provincial and federal governments agriculture departments. The fund includes money for business development, training, farm health and safety, environmental protection, energy efficiency/sustainability and farm improvements that relate to these areas. Funding is everywhere from 25 to 75% of the cost to get the work or equipment done.

Last year we used the fund to help cover the costs of our protection from predator fencing, website development, and bringing water to the barn.

This year we hope to utilize some of the funding for training (internet marketing, fleece sorting course), manure handling and storage, runoff control from buildings, and a nutrient management plan.

Good news that we got last night was that new start up farms now how five years instead of three to reach the gross revenue goal of $10,000 per year.

For more information go to the following website:

http://www.gov.ns.ca/agri/prm/programs/fifguide.shtml

Upcoming events

Things that are about to happen include:

Mayflower Alpaca show in Crapaud PEI on May 9/10
Shearing Day - May 16th

Last week of May is when we can start to expect our first cria for the year. Sedona is the mother.

Garden needs to be tilled and planted.
Pasture needs to be over-seeded.
Barn repairs/improvements need to be organized and started.

With the arrival of spring the farm becomes a busy place and going to work on Monday becomes a place to rest the aching muscles.

I hate Dialup

One of our biggest problems with living in rural Nova Scotia is ....Dial up internet. The connection moves so slow that it makes going on the computer a frustrating chore versus a quick search, update or pleasant time. For the past two months the situation has got worse. The connection is often failing, connection speeds are now 26KBs at best instead of 30-32KBs. Alaint our provider does not seem to care and they now charge highspeed at the same price as dialup but highspeed is not available in our area. None of the competition is in our area either. The Nova Scotia government has mandated and awarded contracts so that all of rural Nova Scotia will be have highspeed access by the end of 2009 but I will believe it when I see it.

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived in the last few weeks. Only remnants of the 6 foot drifts of snow at the edge of the woods are still around. Temperatures are finally hitting double digits and the heavy winter coats are put away. Crocuses are flowering and other spring bulbs are at early shoots

Alpaca wise; the winter manure and bedding layer has been removed from the barn. All the animals are healthy and now scrounge the pasture for any greener that is starting to grow.

Clean up has also started on the flower gardens, apple trees are sprayed, some vegetables are started in the sun room for later planting.