It has been raining all morning and you can see the hay mangers going down as the alpacas pile into some dry forage rather than sodden grass. It is back to normal weather in Devon with the trees and hedges growing like mad. We are drowning in green. I am hoping the blackberries will get big and fat shortly as I have an enormous number of jam jars waiting to be filled.
Our alpacas are popping their cria at 11 months now or a little earlier. Out of the last six births, five have been girls which is good as we had a bit of a boy run a couple of weeks ago. All the males we gelded are fine, we inspect their bottoms every day in case of fly strike but the Crovect spray has worked. It’s a sheep thing and we put it into a flower spray bottle so it is easy to apply.
I have a glut of purple french beans at the moment but all my lettuces keeled over before the rain arrived. I could have watered them but honestly couldn’t be bothered as we had a lot of salads out of them earlier. I spotted a courgette that had turned into a marrow yesterday, one moment they are small and the next giants. Anyway it is stuffed now and waiting to go into the oven for dinner tonight. I’ve also made an apricot and bread and butter pudding. I bought some brioche in Tesco yesterday not realising it had creme patisserie in it so I’ve layered apricots and brioche, chucked some milk and beaten egg in it and left it to burble in the fridge. This sudden bout of cooking is because Tania is coming in with her alpacas for some breedings this evening. I know very well that unless I get everything ready we’ll be starving by eight oclock and there will be nothing sensible to eat.