Snow

We have some very serious snow here and it is drifting too. The barn is full of alpacas – the weanlings and the mums with cria spent the night indoors. We did contemplate sending them out this afternoon when the sun came out but sadly that was very brief and it is snowing again now. All the other animals, pregnant females, young males and the studs are out there, poor things.

Chas has gone out to Tiverton accompanied by Alex and Andrew and a snow shovel. Hopefully they will return eventually with new supplies. We are low on animal feed as a new delivery was expected this week but there is no way a lorry will get up the lane and our minor roads are totally ignored by the gritters. Still we have loads of hay for the animals and plenty of logs to keep us lot warm.

Only one tap is working for the barn and is a very slow trickle so I am slowly filling up buckets for the alpacas in there and a couple of flagons for tomorrow which we store by the heated towel rail in the barn loo to stop them freezing. Luckily the field with the most females in it has a small stream that is unfrozen so they’ve got water. Breaking the ice in the water tanks in the fields is now very difficult, excellent for the arm muscles no doubt.

I have a three glove system working at the moment. One glove is on and the other two are warming up. I really need to find someone who has no left hand to share pairs of gloves with. Our house is full of beautiful unused right hand gloves.