The biggest problem with this time of year is the lack of daylight hours and trying to get all the necessary jobs done before you can no longer see... and that includes the late afternoon feeding of all the animals. The alpacas get just a small handful of pellets but because other feeding jobs involve carrying hay; getting the goats inside to feed; and giving corn to the poultry before they start to roost, these jobs tend to go better if we can see…. and as such, the alpaca feeding tends to get left till last.
Hence this picture of Jupiter all close up and personal, as the light fades… his expression saying it all: ’Ummm, don’t you think we should have been fed by now?' Today was pretty productive nonetheless: Jack got the matting and straw down in the cow field shelters-to-be as well as two ‘door barriers’ to stop the woodchip and the straw mixing up (these won’t stop it completely but it will help, we hope) and David got the stakes in and the ground ready for planting our newly arrived fruit trees. These achievements were of course on top of the usual mucking out and endless toping up of hay racks – the grass really is not providing much at all any more!!
Today was also the first day in the last week that we did NOT move any woodchip. That will change: as soon as we have finished the cow area, we move onto building the goat woodchip path. Cannot wait!!!