The Garden Share Collective - April

I have to say, I am loving these Garden Share Collective posts. They give me a monthly calendar of the veggie garden. I've just been looking back over them and it's very cool to see what it all looks like month to month!

So, April...

The main thing this time is the veggie garden. It was well past its best. Lloyd and I have just spent a couple of hours totally clearing it.

BEFORE
Loads of dead stuff, pumpkins and squash all over the place. Just general mayhem!

AFTER
Now that it's clear, I can get my head round what I'm going to plant and where. I don't work well in chaos. I need order!

A few more before and afters. Pumpkins growing all over the asparagus ferns ( which really needed cutting down)

Nice clear beds, and the pumpkin haul. Not too bad from only one crown pumpkin plant and one butternut squash.

I'm really pleased with these. I only bunged them in because I had a spare bed and didn't want to waste it.

So that was a hard graft, but it feels good to have got it done. We are enjoying an Indian Summer in Northland in NZ so we have to make the most of it.

In the greenhouse
I am still getting hundreds of tomatoes. One of the plants I planted last autumn is STILL producing tomatoes! It's the wonder plant!

These cherry tomatoes are so sweet. (Sweet 100)

There are chillies coming out of our ears. We've got about 5kg of them in the freezer. Lloyd does a stockpile then makes a gigantic batch of chilli sauce when we've picked them all.

Theres some more basil in there and a few tomato seedlings to go in as well.

This month - PLANTING
I don't do a lot of winter veggies. But this year I am going to do broad beans - always do these, and some parsnips.
I just planted a load of sweetpea seeds.

Also will collect a huge trailer load of alpaca and horse poop - put it on some of the beds -  definitely the asparagus bed - then cover with a thick layer of hay. By spring it will have mulched right down and will make a weedfree ( almost! ) bed with lovely top soil!

HARVESTING
Tomatoes, potatoes ( Agria and Maori) loads of herbs, chillies, the luffahs, globe artichokes, passion fruit, feijoas, figs, bananas, spring onions...


In the rest of the garden...
we've got flowers all over the place

Brugmansia like a detura !

Castor oil plant flowers

My swan plants are still bearing up under the onslaught of monarch caterpillars. This year has been great, so many of them have hatched! It's so cool!

This month the alpacas were all injected with their boosters, drenched, toenails trimmed and the ones that have genetic dermatitis got their cream put on. We don't do all this ourselves. The lovely Keenan from Waiheke Alpacas comes and does it - I run around like a daftie trying to catch them and generally making a fool of myself. This year one of the girls spat in my eye! That wasn't fun!

Oh and remember the elderberries from last month?  Well, I did make something from them. I made 2 batches of elderberry elixir - its lovely!

Today was a good day and incredibly productive. I also cleaned out all the chicken houses and put new bedding in them.

                                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Garden Share Collective is the brain child of Lizzie from Strayed from the Table. There are a group of bloggers from all over the place who chat about what is going on in their gardens, with hints and tips. Pop over and check out all the others.

It's Alpaca Shearing Time

In the past, we've found alpaca shearing time fairly stressful. This year it was not.
We had a new shearer - all the way from Waiheke Island. Keenan from Waiheke Alapaca came up with Renee, and it was a lovely experience. Sadly I missed almost all of it as I was called for jury duty. ( didn't get picked as the trial was cancelled! But only got home in time for coffee!)

This year as well as shearing and toe nail trimming, they had all their injections, drench and a couple of them even had their teeth filed. We learned a lot about dermatitis in alpaca. Sadly we have 4 that are genetically susceptible to it and the humidity up here doesn't help at all. But we got some wonder cream to put on. All in all it was a totally amazing experience and we can't thank Keenan and Renee  enough. They are lovely, kind, patient people.

It's given us a new lease of life with the Alpacas. A few weeks ago we were very down and sad about things, as we'd had to have Vienna put to sleep. She was an old lady, but she was one of our favourites. She had the most lovely, gentle personality. And was an amazing mum. It broke our hearts and we were all for selling them all and jacking it in. However we've come to realise that this was a knee jerk reaction! We are blessed with three of her crias, though.

Anyway, here they are pre-shearing. All fluffy and very round looking.
In the middle is baby Cupcake, we found out today that she has super amazing fleece :) Which is a bonus, really, and has made us rethink our idea about getting a blanket woven.

A very poor quality video of their fluffiness I posted on Facebook.

Post by Laura Jerome.

Keenan has a very good shearing table. It has a padded side and looks comfortable for the alpacas. Tetley was incredibly interested.

Poor Truffle got the short straw and was first up. I only saw her being sheared then I had to leave.

Doing the gentle task of shearing her head. The others all watch on.  Often they come right up to the table and stick their heads under the shearers arm to get a better look!

Delicate tail end!

Actual Shearing

 

And after!! Look how freakishly skinny they look! This is Earl Grey and he is our biggest alpaca. Here he looks like a wee shrimp!

What we have found rather lovely is that even though all our alpacas are together and love eachother, they stick very firmly in their family groups. These are all Vienna's children. I don't know if it's a smell thing or an instinct, but these guys were all born over a year apart, but they know, somehow, that they are brothers and sister. Front is Cupcake, then Herbie (white) and Tetley. They are always together.

And this is another family group. Mum Coco, Stella and baby Leaf.

And Earl Grey, again! looking all regal! He is our gentle giant.

Cupcake always looks kind of cross!

Something else that was rather lovely, for us, was Keenan said we have a gorgeous wee alpaca herd. He said they all interact really nicely with eachother and you can tell they are loved and very well looked after.  When you start something new - even with all the reading you can do and the help you get - I still worry that we're not doing it right. Or something! So, it was nice to hear that we're doing ok!

Alpaca update

Leaf and Cupcake are doing brilliantly.
Cupcake has turned into a right bruiser. Vienna's babies always do this. She puts her all into them, and really suffers for it. She is very thin. But we're feeding her about 5 times a day, every time her trough is empty we put more in and finally she's beginning to look a bit better.

Leaf's leg has fixed itself beautifully. He's a completely different build to Cupcake. He's very tall and slim. A really lovely boy.

 Here he was one afternoon, having a wee snuggly nap on his mum. He was still wearing his coat here as it was a bit cold and wet. I made this one by using Cupcakes one as a pattern. It came out pretty well.

He's all fluffy and clean compared to the pics when he was just born. Steve and Christine had a check of the fleece (fibre) of the 2 babies and said it's really incredibly good, so we'll keep these to use.

Look! He's smiling for the camera

 And here's Cupcake - look at the size of her!

The 2 mums and babies are in a paddock together so that they can get a lot of extra food. Cupcake has been used to being the only cria for a month until Leaf came along, so she's pretty independent. But Leaf just wants to play, and jumps all over her. It's really funny.

More pics of coat off!

Mmmm this fence looks good enough to eat.

This was taken seconds before leaf jumped up and did a lovely kicky leg thing!

 Aw look how handsome he is.

Kopi, just hanging out with her pals.

I couldn't resist this! Rachel just follows us around the paddocks like a puppy! Hard to believe she's 45 now!

At Last!

The wee cria we've been waiting for arrived. As is our usual experience, we knew nothing about it till all of a sudden there it was! No signs from Coco the day before or anything. However she had been looking absolutely huge and was almost at 365 days!

He's a wee boy. And when I say wee, he is scrawny as anything, but very, very tall with long gangly legs. He's very quiet. And as ever with our cria births it wasn't all sweetness and light.
He seemed to be walking even more unsteadily than our other crias and one of his back legs just didn't look totally right. So I spent the morning worrying, then thought sod it! I'm phoning the vet. She duly arrived, took his temperature ( normal) listened to his heartbeat ( normal) but I wasn't being completely paranoid, as he has a relaxed ligament in his back leg - that's why it looked squiffy. Vet said this can happen when a baby has been in the womb and is a bit overdue - can happen in horses supposedly! Anyway, it will right itself over the next few days. However I am glad I called the vet - I was totally honest and told them that it wasn't an emergency, just paranoia! I don't think I smiled properly until they gave him the all clear!

So, sticking with the tea name theme, we're going to call him Leaf, as in tea leaf.

Here he is still all wet and soggy, about half an hour old. Check out those super spindly legs.

Here he is with his mum, Coco, and half of his sister, Stella.

It is so lovely how our family groups stick together. Last years babies went down to Naturally Alpacas to be weaned but as soon as they got home they went straight back to their mums. They never tried to suckle again, just wanted to be near mummy. Now both Vienna and Coco are part of a family of three and last years crias, Herbie and Stella are most protective of their new brother and sister. Usually making sure that the cria is inbetween them and mum, in a sandwich!


 Still a bit gunky here. I did clean it off later I just wanted him to bond with his mum first.

Almost! He actually suckled really well. He's the first one we've had that we didn't have to start off with a bottle.

Much that Coco did the right thing and gave birth on a lovely sunny morning, the weather very quickly turned to custard and this poor wee guy has had a lot of thunder, lightning and even some hail to contend with. Thankfully he's all rugged up in his wee coat.

I think I mentioned before that this is the last time we'll breed from our girls. We're not cut out for it at all. I find the whole thing terribly stressful, so we'll just stick with our four babies, two girls and two boys!

A new Cria

Vienna had her baby a few days ago.
It was expected but out of the blue if that makes sense!

We knew the due date was near, but since alpacas can give birth a month either side of the date, unless they show you some signs it's very difficult to tell!
Vienna had given no clues at all.
However when Lloyd went out to feed them, a little later than usual as we'd had a long lie, I heard him yelling. I ran out, and lo and behold, an absolutely perfect little Cria. She was still very wet so wan't all that old.
We named her Cupcake, as I was just making cupcakes when he shouted.

But as ever with cria births on our farm, nothing was a simple as it could have been.

Firstly she was trying really hard to drink, but nothing was coming out. A quick read of the internet and I found out that there is a waxy 'cap' on the nipples and obviously this little cria wasn't sucking hard enough to dislodge it.
In the mean time we bottle fed her about 50ml of colostrum stuff just to be sure that she got some into her as quickly as possible, then I had the rather awkward job of getting rid of the waxy cap. That was fun - not.
Luckily Vienna is the most biddable of alpacas and just stood there while I fiddled around under her. All terribly dignified.
Anyway, milk appeared and wee Cupcake got her first drink from mum. And all was well. Until evening.
I'd been out in the feeding pen for about an hour just watching and all of a sudden Cupcake seemed to get incredibly dopey, floppy and not at all interested in anything. When we stood her up she fell over.
Steve and Christine from Naturally Alpacas had come up and Christine said that this wasn't great. So the vet was called. Cupcakes heart beat was fine, and so was her temperature. Vet and Christine both thought that the birth may have been difficult and that perhaps she'd been starved of oxygen for a wee bit and maybe her brain was a little swollen.

She was injected with vitamin B1 and B12 and a steroid and antibiotic. We put her wee coat on and within about half an hour she was much perkier.

Then it was bed time.

In the morning we both woke up with rather hammering hearts. Lloyd put on his brave pants and went out to see what had happened in the night. Thankfully it was all good and little Cupcake was trotting around quite the thing!
And any day now, or in the next month we have to go through it all again with Coco who was mated at the same time as Vienna...

Anyway, introducing - Cupcake!

Here she is with her big brother, Herbie. Herbie is a wee monster, he's so in your face and completely funny but certainly has never been the gentlest of wee boys. However, he seems to totally adore Cupcake. He takes care of her, makes sure that Cupcake is in the middle of him and Vienna and is just so incredibly gentle with her - I'm amazed.

With her mum, the lovely patient, Vienna

 We have everything crossed for a smooth delivery from Coco. Then Cupcake will have a wee playmate!

 So, after the stress of all that I decided that we needed to eat a lot of home made biscuits!
Lloyd found this stunningly beautiful foody blog - the food dept. The photography is to die for and so it would seem are the recipes!
I made some of the peanut and cinnamon salt biscuits  - they are amazing.
The recipe is super simple
(I've taken this directly from them so all credit is theirs - and I hope this is ok)

 

  Recipe

Makes approximately 20 biscuits

• 125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 free range egg

• 1½ cups self-raising flour

• 1 cup roasted peanuts

• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

• ½ teaspoon salt flakes

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºF (360ºF). Combine the butter and sugar in a bowl, cream together using and electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well.

2. Add the flour and beat in on low until well combined. Using a wooden spoon mix through the peanuts.

3. Using heaped tablespoons full of mixture, shape into balls and place onto a lined baking tray.  Lightly flatten.

4. Combine the cinnamon and salt flakes in a small bowl. Sprinkle onto the biscuits and bake to 10-12 minutes or until golden.

5. Cool on the tray and store in an airtight container.

Suffice to say these were all gone on the same day - I had a meeting in the evening so took them along and we ate them all!!

Disaster of a day yesterday

On a farm you've got to take the bad as well as the good.
Yesterday was a bad day.

Truffle was due to give birth. The day before yesterday she had been making all the signs. Restless, keeping herself to herself, visiting the dung pile, walking that funny way. We checked her often and everything seemed normal. Sometimes they do this then don't even give birth for another week!

Anyway, yesterday morning she was looking pretty uncomfortable and I had a bad feeling. I checked her and there was a small amount of bloody discharge - I was sure that wasn't right, so we spoke to Christine at Naturally Alpacas and she said - nope not right, call the vet.
The vet was here in 15 minutes - no idea how she managed that. I can only assume she left while still on the phone talking to Lloyd.

The news wasn't good. The cria was very big and in breech position. It was also dead.

To get all this way and to die at the last hurdle. It's completely heartbreaking.

It's also incredibly rare to have a breech. Some alpaca breeders go their whole lives without having one. Poor Truffle was just terribly unlucky. Some breeches can be delivered but again it's incredibly rare and most die. The vet assured us that even if she'd come earlier it was completely unlikely that anything could have been done. And as Truffle had been looking normal yesterday we would have never known.

Not that that makes us feel any better.
Thankfully the vet (who we hadn't seen before) was amazing. Calm, and fast and very caring. It can't be nice for them either.

Truffle is dosed up with antibiotics and anti inflammatories and seems to be alright. She was up and about this morning having breakfast. She still looks a wee bit uncomfortable, but hopefully she'll be ok. I can only think that it must be terrible for her.

The cria is buried near the orchard, along with the chickens, and 2 of our cats, it's getting awfully busy in there :( I hate this.

And we feel like crap.

Alpaca shearing time

I can't say it's something I look forward to particularly as some of the alpacas are nice and quiet while being sheared and some of them make a right racket. I get the impression it's not something they love, but the second it's over they're totally fine again. And it has to be done or they would be boiling in the summertime.

Anyway, yesterday the lovely shearer arrived early in the evening and we all set to work. It's actually quite hard work - first catching them, cos Lloyd and I are pretty rubbish then getting them into position and holding various legs while they're getting it done. Our shearer uses a table and I like this.
Our original boys were all very quiet this year, even Darjeeling who was a noisy sod last year. The babies were quite good, Stella made a bit of a racket, but Herbie was very good. Our older girls, however, made a right noise! You'd have thought we were torturing them. I hate it.

Here are the before photos

 Stella is in the middle with her ears back - you can see how much she's grown.

And here's the afters - I had to take them today, because it was getting a bit dark by the time we finished yesterday. We were also very tired and very, very dirty!


Herbie, looking very small, Vienna his mum and Tetley in the front. You can probably tell that Vienna is Tetley's mum too!  It was a huge surprise that when she had Herbie he was white as she always has wee black babies.

Vienna

Earl Grey and Truffle

Herbie and Vienna

The rest of them weren't very hungry, either that or they weren't feeling all that photogenic after their haircuts!
I think they look adorable - tiny, but adorable!

Remember last year I said that we were thinking about getting a blanket made with the fleeces? Well, I've looked into this and its going to be incredibly expensive, I think it's a lovely idea, but just too much money. So then we were in the quandary of what to do with the fleece. It's not like our alpacas have the highest quality fleece! Then as luck would have it we got a postcard in our mailbox from a sort of syndicate that sells the fleece in bulk. I suppose it works because there are so many people like us that just have a few alpacas. It's done by weight and we don't even have to clean it. Result! So this is what we've decided to do. We haven't included Herbie's and Stella's fleeces because they were twig magnets and it seems very unfair to give such messy fleeces! But all the adult ones have gone... or will do once it's bagged and dropped off.

So, all in all a job well done!