Before anyone starts, yes, llamas are a good deterrent for keeping foxes away, but the chickens have to be in the same field as the llamas. The llamas need to be young males, whose job it is in a herd environment to protect, and female llamas with cria are going to protect their young first and not really care about what happens to the chickens.

We currently have two lots of chooks, one lot free range over about 2 acres, whilst the other lot have a nice 6′ enclosure to stay in that provides some protection from the fox! It’s about 25 square metres and whilst it would be nice to let them out to join the others, we do leave ourselves open to day time attacks.

A couple of weeks ago we lost 3 of our exbatts, who were learning the ropes of free ranging, and Vicki managed to scare the fox away and to drop the cockerel that it had in its mouth & remarkably the cockerel is none the worse for his adventure.

We are very diligent at dusk, making sure that the chooks are safely locked into their coops at night, and so any night time visit is of no concern. It’s the day time visits which are the ones we find hardest to deal with. We don’t want to stop the chooks free ranging & so unfortunately we have to just put up with the odd visit, or do we?

Anyone know of a good way to deal with daytime fox visits?

Vicki’s son Tim got married yesterday (Saturday 12th May) and we traveled up country on Wednesday and have had a roller coaster of a few days of parties & time out for a bit of relaxation as well.

On Wednesday we traveled and met our grandson Finn for his 6th birthday followed by the wedding rehearsal in the church followed by dinner with the bride & her mum, and of course Tim (the groom).

Thursday we spent wandering around Windsor – shopping – and then met my sister who had traveled over from Boston, MA. There was lots of wine involved that night, lots of gossip to catch up on as well!

On Friday we had a walk around Savill Gardens – a brilliant time of year to go with rhododendrons & azaleas in full bloom!

The colours at Savill Gardens

That evening we hosted a drinks evening with other guests from out of town – a good 20 or so people staying in various hotels around & about – another chance also to catch up with Tim who came along for a couple of drinks with one of his best men.

Then all too quickly Saturday arrived and with a midday wedding it was all go!

We met up with Tim & his best men to get our buttonholes sorted & boy didn’t they look smart!

The groom & his best men

The wedding service itself was great & Lucy the vicar did a great job of keeping us all entertained whilst doing the professional bit as well. The two mums signed the register as witnesses and what a proud moment for them both!

The two mums & the bride & groom

We had a great reception at Monkey Island afterwards, the sun shone, a string quartet on the lawns, excellent food and some of the best wedding speeches that kept everyone amused & tearful and the same time! We had a great evening party & then the next morning a chance to chat and start the reminiscing of the night before!

Our final thanks though, go to Amanda, who came down from London and house sat – she did a great job of looking after 19 llamas, 15 pygmy goats (2 only a day or so old), 2 dogs, a cat and quite a few chickens – thanks Amanda – we were able to have a great relaxing time knowing that you were in charge!

We also have Nazca, unproven as yet, and just coming up to his 3rd birthday, and he is such a good looking llama we thought he should be given the chance to to replace Pepsi as Pepsi is coming up to retirement age!

We have 3 girl llamas ready to be mated at the moment, Wispa & Eclair – both about 2 years old and ready to be mated for the first time, and Bella, Beau’s mum, who is one of the star mums of our herd. Wispa & Eclair would be perfect for a visit from Nazca and Pepsi was to come down for a visit with Bella, after all Beau was such a nice young cria, it would be nice to have another just like him!

The weather forecast for North Devon was good this weekend and so our whole weekend was planned around doing what we are all about – breeding llamas – but what a disaster!

Firstly, Pepsi – he has lost his Mojo – he was very lethargic and not at all interested in being haltered  & walked whereas last year he knew what was going to happen and toddled down the lane with great enthusiasm – not this year, he had to be nearly dragged to meet Bella, and whilst Bella snorted and had a loveable spit at him – normal foreplay – he wasn’t the slightest bit interested – poor Bella – spurned! Pepsi ambled back to his field and was much more content getting back to munching grass!

Well, that put a different complexion on our planning for the year – what to do!

Whilst we thought about that it was Nazca’s turn – Wispa was ready – hopefully willing & able – she wasn’t willing – Nazca tried really hard to do what he was supposed to do, Wispa, bless her was not having any of it, so Nazca had to trot back to his field very disillusioned with the whole affair – it is supposed to be easier than that!

That was Saturday!

Having slept on it, we decided today to have a go at the obvious – Bella was willing & Nazca was up for it as well – so Nazca was brought down to meet Bella!

First signs were great – Bella, snorted and had a playful spit – her ears were back  & she was willing – Nazca though thought “I don’t want another fight like yesterday” & ignored her!

Poor Bella – spurned twice!

Nazca though – didn’t care – trotted back to his field to play with his mates!

What next – maybe we need another stud!

We are in the process of selling our cottage and we are due to exchange contracts any day now … in estate agent terms that means any time in the next month, but we have agreed a completion date which is towards the end of June!

We have most of the weeks booked out until mid-June but we do have a couple of weeks available – week commencing Saturday 19th May & week commencing Saturday 26th May! (If you are reading this in 2013 or after then these dates are in the past)!

Both of these weeks are available at a knock down £300 for each week and it will be a first come first served – in fact if you fancy a 2 week holiday then you can have both weeks for £500!

Our cottage sleeps 4 very well, with a double and a twin room – the twin room can easily fit a cot or a camp bed to make it suitable for the larger family! the cottage has a large enclosed garden and you can have access to the smallholding as long as you don’t enter an enclosure with animals in! Yes, we have nearly 12 acres in total and are home to llamas, pygmy goats, lambs, chickens, a couple of dogs and a cat!

To take advantage of these two weeks please contact us as soon as possible via the contact page on the website!

Thanks

The other field however was awkward – the previous owner had planted an awful lot of trees in their – deciduous trees in the top half and apple trees in the bottom half. It seemed such a shame to lose all of them – as the llamas would slowly but surely just eat them, strip the bark off and kill them, so we decided to create a small orchard paddock, about an acre in size to protect some of the apple trees, and also a small half acre paddock to protect some of the bigger deciduous trees. The rest we would let the llamas have.

The problem with this idea was that we would have two small paddocks that would need the grass looking after, or we could put some sheep in to graze it.

We have plenty of neighbours who would have lent us a few sheep, but why not have a go at getting some of our own. We decided, mainly because they are cheaper, to get some tame lambs, these lambs start out in life as either orphans or a small triplet that would be able to fend for itself, and are too much aggravation for for the farmer and he is happy to sell them for a small fee, so that is what we did.

We signed up to the Devon Association of Smallholders (DASH) Lamb Bank initiative and when 3 young lambs became available we popped over to the farm and heh presto, we came back with 4 young lambs. Two of them were about a week old and two were less than a day old – this was Tuesday of this week just gone and all of them seem to be doing very well!

They are currently sharing a small pen inside our workshop and have our goats as neighbours. On Monday they will start to get used to the outside world where they will have a shelter and a bit of outside space, and within 5-6 weeks they should be big enough to take down to the paddock.

Pictures will follow!

We only went for 5 days (4 nights) – a city break to Madrid – a great city, wonderful people, vibrant, clean, felt safe – but with Tim, our son, doing the llama sitting, we were a bit nervous that he would cope, and fully expected some tragedy to have occurred on our return, which hadn’t happened.

Of course there is the then dreaded email in-box to tackle and the feeling that there will be loads of work to do on my return, and yes there is, but all seems to be relaxed about the deadlines.

I am sure I have forgotten something, but no one is shouting at me!

I think I’ll do it again!

I put my exbatts into what I thought was quite a large run – 20′ by 12′ – and in no time at all they have turned it into a muddy mess, ducks couldn’t have done a better job.

Last week they got given some extra grass to play on, but this was only going to be temporary, and it was only going to be a matter of time before this disappeared as well.

Much against the finances of the day, we have invested in a nice 6′ * 4′ shed, and the exbatts have been moved where they will shortly be joined by my oldies – a light sussex and a couple of marans, well past egg laying duties. I want the exbatts to sort out territory first, so that they have the upper hand when the oldies move in!

From here, they will be fenced in a small area for a week – no grass to mess up – and after that they will have the whole 11 acres to explore. They won’t explore it all, but they will have so much grass to play around on that they won’t mess up any of it.

Lucky birds!

We haven’t really had a winter and this is the first real wintry weather we have had, the snow is damp, it’s cold and it isn’t very nice!

No pictures as of right now, as it is dark now and it only started an hour or so ago, but it was the exbats that made me laugh – obviously they haven’t seen snow before and a few of them were like little kids chasing the flakes – definitely one of those moments when you really wish you had a camera!

They’re all safely tucked up, but they are still without a full set of feathers, so I hope they stay warm!

This week I happened to spy the “Grow Your Own” magazine and it had 4 packets of free seeds – tomatoes, leeks, brussels & peppers – always a sucker for a bargain, I bought the magazine – the February edition – and was amazed to be told that I had better be getting on with things. I’m amazed every year mind, and always am surprised at how quickly time flies by & I’m always late in sowing my seeds!

This year we are still harvesting leeks & parsnips, although with the mild spring the parsnips are starting to shoot new leaves already and so the rest will be dug up and put in the compost; the leeks no doubt will start to bolt as well, so I had better start giving a few away, as we also have loads!

This year I will be concentrating on just a few veg, leeks & parsnips again, I’m going to have a go at carrots and beetroot, and maybe swede, and definitely Brussels sprouts (although I’ll have to do better at protecting them from the chooks) – I have a few spinach packets of seeds and may have a go at those too!

Last year I planted 3 asparagus plants, moved some rhubarb and we have loads of raspberries, a few gooseberries & blackcurrants and blackberries dotted about – I also built a few more raised beds and have a space I want to build another, maybe to put a few spuds in!

I’ve got a polytunnel & one large and one small greenhouse and plan to grow tomatoes and chillies and an occasional herb, oh & strawberries!.

That’ll do me, but I had better get on and start sowing some seeds!

So, receiving these vouchers prompted us to actually do something about it!

The giver of the vouchers, our son Tim, was also kind enough to include a voucher to sit the smallholding!

So we’re off to Madrid towards the end of February!

Lucky us!