Friday, September 27, 2013

Kookaburras!!!

Wow! I woke up this morning to hear the sound of a kookaburra chorus! I hope I spot one soon!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

photos of adagio alpacas


Tulips in bloom
Ebony
I love this time of year, we are planting veggies, attempting to keep the weeds under control and generally enjoying the warm weather! My husband has had a beautiful camera for some time but I've never really had a play. On the weekend I picked it up and had some fun!
 The tulips are just starting to bloom. They are my favourites...







Some alpaca action photos, the photo of Ebony is so cute, she was checking out the camera, probably wondering if she could eat it! Its nice to have a good photo of Ebony, usually she doesn't come out well in photos as she is too black and needs a really good camera to show depth.










Have you got food for us?

Run! Maybe there is food?

The young steers, just watching...

All the fruit trees are about to bloom, hopefully we will get fruit off this one this year.
 I don't normally post photos of my boy, but he was being so cute! So lucky to grow up on a farm!
 We had a huge pile of rocks in the middle of the veggie patch that we originally intended to grow pumpkins on, however we found it was just a fabulous home for snakes. This last week we organised for a large digger (excuse my ignorance... a backhoe, I think?) to come with an operator and remove the rocks. It looks so good and ready for a new garden bed to be built! Now we just need the time...
Veggie patch area renovations

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Poor little chick

We aren't having much luck with hatching chickens. I think my cheap incubator wasn't worth even the small amount we spent on it. Next time I'll invest in a better one. 
The lone chick from the latest batch is struggling too. It has some trouble with its legs, splayed leg, I think. So I've been reading the forums and one suggestion was to use a bandaid to stop its legs from coming out from under it and it initially seemed to help but the chick is too weak. I've been dipping its beak in water regularly throughout the day but that doesn't seem  enough so I've made a gruel from the chick starter and milk. The poor chick is really too week even for this! I've been dipping its beak in and hopefully it has ingested enough to get some energy.  I'll be so sad if this poor chick doesn't make it!

Monday, September 16, 2013

Barnevelder splash chick

To my surprise it seems our next chick to hatch is a splash chick! I don't know much about the barnevelder breed yet but it seems this is fairly rare from the forums I've been reading. Hoping that some of the rumours linking splash chicks and blue bloodlines are correct as we would really like a flock of blue barnevelder chickens! In the meantime I'm going to observe this splash chick with great interest! 
It's very cute!
I really hope some friends hatch for it!

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Barnevelder chick hatches!

Our first of the next batch of chickens has hatched! 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!





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. 



Thursday, September 12, 2013

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!


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

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!


Tuesday, September 10, 2013

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!

Monday, September 9, 2013

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.




Sunday, September 8, 2013

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.


Friday, September 6, 2013

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!



Tuesday, September 3, 2013

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!!!

Sunday, September 1, 2013

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!