Barnevelder chick hatches!

Our first of the next batch of chickens has started to hatch! Early too! I think this one was in the incubator for 19.5 days! (Rather than 21) however it is the only one to hatch today. Hopefully more will hatch tomorrow!

Update: this poor little chick was premmie and we aren't sure if it will survive, it's not looking promising. Only one other egg shows any sign of hatching more than 24hrs later and evn then only has a few cracks in the egg. 

Alpacas bolting for food

We have been feeding our alpacas some bought food as a treat so they are used to our presence. It works brilliantly as they associate me with food so when I call they come! It's so useful for bringing them into our pen to care for them. They are the funniest runners! When I call, even if they are the other side of the paddock, they put their heads down and bolt! I took these photos this morning of the alpacas running to be the first to the food.

Goldie is already sitting in the area waiting. She is a bit uncomfortable and we are hoping that her sitting by herself is a good indication that she might be ready to have her cria soon. She was mated a couple of times from October to January last year so she could be ready to have her cria any day now... Or she could hang onto it for another 3 months, who knows? We are hoping for soon!

Surprise potatoes

Today we have been digging up the veggie patch in preparation for spring planting and I was very pleased to find more potatoes! These will be very tasty!

The orchard is starting to bloom nicely, have a look at the beautiful espalier peach. They are only young trees and we haven't had much fruit off then yet but we have hopes for this year!

Baby quilt for friends

Wow it feels like such a long time since I've done any quilting! It was so relaxing to have made this baby quilt for some friends who have just had their third child.  

It was finished late last night. I love the high contrast of the colours to white and the raw edged appliqué gives texture. Perfect for tummy time and the pram. It went in the mail this morning. Hope they like it!

Fencing and more snake news

Life is never dull here at adagio alpacas. Yesterday we had a huge scare when we saw an altercation between the goldens and a very unwelcome visitor. The snake had made it into our backyard. There are very few entry points to our backyard and with two golden retrievers and very little cover we really didn't think a snake would venture into the backyard. Silky silly naive me. So I'm feeling rather paranoid. Luckily the goldens are ok. After a rather expensive vet trip the snake bite test came back negative. Either the goldens' thick coats saved them or they had somehow avoided getting bitten. Either way they had me very very worried!  I think I'm going to choose to believe that the snake that was at the front door (that we haven't seen again... Yet...) was the same one or this city turned country girl will want to flee back to the city!

On good notes our magnolia tree is about to bloom.

My husband has been very busily fencing!

We are dividing our front and main paddock up into 3 more manageable paddocks. We found when we were running stock and particularly both alpacas and steers we had difficulty in moving the stick around to rest and/or maintain the paddocks when they were just set up as two, a front and back paddock. Also the very large front paddock was a nightmare to bring stock in for care. So in the 3 years we have been here we have considered the best way to divide the paddocks and finally settled on a lane way and 3 paddocks for the front paddock and at this stage the back paddock will remain as one. We had implemented the lane way, some yards and the first of the paddock splits some time ago but had run out of steam when it came to the final divide. We are nearly there over the last couple of days my husband has been fencing and it should be complete tonight or tomorrow. Very exciting! The above photo is of the progress this morning. Since then all of the posts have been sunk and he has started stringing the wire.

The following photo is the view out my lounge room window, the alpacas and steers are quite sweet all in similar parts of the paddock and the chick is having some sun in its temporary hutch.

Steers and alpacas

It is another stunning spring day here at adagio alpacas. I just can't believe this weather! 

The steers and alpacas seem to be keeping each other company, with Julie playing queen of the castle on top of the bluestone rock pile and the steers sitting back and watching it all. A wild duck has wandered up the lawn as well.

One day we plan to dig up the bluestone rock pile. We have been told that that was where the bluestone building blocks for the region's old courthouse were dumped but I don't know how much truth is in that information. We are curious to know how deep the pile of bluestone really is though! They are rather large old style blocks of stone. It would be nice to use it in a project or sell it onto someone to use for heritage renovations one day.

More teddy bear ears!

Steers again @ adagio

Since our steers have been absent (populating our freezer...) our place has been sadly lacking their presence. The grass has really started to take off with this lovely warm weather and we couldn't believe how empty the place felt without cattle!

The first two steers arrived this afternoon. We decided they slaughtering 3 steers I'm one go was a bit more than we can handle at the moment so we have decided to get 2 steers now and another 2 in 6-8 months time and try to establish a continual rotation. 

They are Galloway steers and are so tiny! I had forgotten how small they are at 8 months old!

And very, very cute!

Light was fading... Will try to get some photos of the teddy bear ears over the next few days!

Scary scary scary scary

I have a phobia of snakes. It's barely spring and we have already seen one! Right outside our front door!!! It was there last year but we thought it had moved on! (We thought a cat had got it.) Sadly no! 

My toddler and I went right past it! 

So terrifying. I'm still shaking. 

Remind me again? 

Why is it I want to live on a farm? 

I have trouble remembering on days like today when I'm even scared of my own front door!!!

Chick outside

It's such a glorious day here at adagio alpacas that we decided that the chick could have a first short stint outside!