Merry Christmas from Indiana….

It’s Christmas eve and it’s very quiet in the convent. The other two interns left on Friday to spend time with their families. Linda was hoping to come out here right after Christmas to spend some time with me but couldn’t find anyone to watch Boomer. It’s tough enough to be apart for the holidays but now she is sick with something that resembles the flu. She has body aches, a high temperature, and a sore throat but decided to go to her son’s house anyway so she can spend time with them over Christmas. It would really suck to be home for the first time in the seven years, that we’ve been on the road full-timing, and not be able to spend it with family. Should make her feel better.
I work with Ann in the morning, on alpaca duty, so it will help her get out of here sooner. I’m on alpaca close all week (takes me about an hour each afternoon at 3 p.m.) and watering the new seedlings in the greenhouse. Somehow all of these critters and plants don’t understand that it’s a holiday for people….they just know that they need to eat and be taken care of and those activities don’t take a day off. Tomorrow, after I do the close routine, I’ll go to Sister Maureen’s house to have dinner with her and Sister PB.
Last week we moved thirteen alpacas to their new home, about 30 minutes from here. It wasn’t too bad to halter that many animals and load them up. Two of the thirteen were put in the mini van for the ride to their new home and the rest were loaded into a horse trailer. There is a large lake near their new pasture. When we got them into the new area, they took off for the fence and just stood there looking at the frozen lake. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a body of water like that before. I don’t know if it was either the smell or sight of it that intrigued them so much but they thought it was the coolest thing. There are several more crias to be moved but they won’t go until they’ve been weaned from their moms. Peanut is one of the crias that will go to a new owner. That will be a sad day….I’m hoping that it will be after I’ve left in February.
Yesterday I finished skirting the last blanket of fleeces from our alpacas. Wahoo ! Sister Mo thinks that this is the earliest that they’ve ever finished with the skirting. Now we will start in on some of the fiber that another alpaca farmer gave us from his farm. The goal always is to get each year’s fiber processed before it’s time to shear again. The fiber that has been skirted can now be shipped to the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool to get processed into hats, gloves, scarves, boot inserts, etc. for our store in the White Violet Center. I’m still hoping to learn how to spin and weave before I leave here in eight weeks. There are some workshops coming up in January and February that I should be able to take that will teach me those things.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my project for my internship. Each intern is required to do a project while they are here. My project is on how the dining units can benefit more from the produce raised in the gardens here as it ties into the land ethic that the sisters have created. It’s a twenty page report that I’ve been working on for the last three months so it will be great to see that done and turned in.
It was really cold here this morning. With the wind chill, it was –5 degrees. Once the sun comes out, the temps in the greenhouse really heat up. When I went to water the seedlings at 3, it was 80 degrees in there. Everything is covered in the high tunnel….nice and comfy. The thing that we have to watch is that when the sun comes out, it can create a lot of condensation on the roof of the high tunnel.

If it gets too drippy in there, the plants will start to rot so that is when we need to open the sides or ends to ventilate it and get the condensation out of there. We haven’t had to do that in quite a while because it’s either been really cloudy or cold. We keep an eye on it though.
Guess that’s all that’s going on here. We’ve missed some of the recent snow and ice storms, which is fine by me. Hoping everyone has a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Until next year, be safe and have fun with friends and family this holiday season.

A Day of Snow

Wow, this has been a really busy week. On Tuesday night we went to Robyn’s house to learn how to butcher (is that a nicer word than slaughter ?) two chickens. When you buy baby chicks, you don’t necessarily know what their sex is. There are actually professional “sex-ers” that can tell what the sex is of the little ones but apparently Robyn didn’t have that done to hers cause three of what she thought were hens were roosters. Darcy’s life was spared and came to live at White Violet Center and is doing wonderfully with his new harem. Since Robyn lives in the city, the other two roosters needed to take a trip to her freezer. She had sent us video links that we were required to watch before coming to her house. I did that and it all seemed to make sense but the actual killing didn’t go as smoothly as we all would have liked. I thanked each rooster for his service on earth before she took their lives and some valuable lessons were learned. First and foremost, your knives should be really sharp. I won’t go into any of the gory details on the whole process. If you want any specifics cause you have chicken butchering on this week’s to-do list, shoot me an e-mail. It was an educational day for sure.
Wednesday was CSA day (just one more week to go !) and my turn to hand out the bags to customers as they stopped in. Everything went super smooth and I was done an hour early. Wahoo !
Thursday night was our staff Christmas party. We started off with a number of different games. We played the card game “Blink” in groups of three and the winner from each group played each other in the playoff game to crown the champion. What a hoot that was ! It’s such a fast paced game and we were all hooting and hollering at the last three people…..I think they were all holding their breath trying to discard all of the cards in their hand. After all of the games and frivolity, we ate lots of yummy food. Sister Ruth brought apple pies, made from White Violet apples…so yummy ! Then we had the gift exchange and I got a beautiful piece of pottery made by a local artist. It was a super fun night with all of the White Violet staff.
On Friday I worked all day, wet felting bars of soap for orders that have come in. Sister Mo has been doing some awesome marketing of our wares cause she took orders for a total of 43 bars of soap. Holy Cow ! One lady wanted regular soap and home-made soap so I made a trip Thursday afternoon to pick up some Earth Drop soap, which is made in Bloomington, IN (I think). They make some amazing scents like Minty Swirl, Gently Rosemary, Sweet Olive, etc. We work in natural colors because they don’t dye any of the fiber here but when you mix different fibers, you get some beautiful combinations. I don’t consider myself a very artsy person, nor am I crafty but I can do this really well and I enjoy it. I started in at 9 Friday morning and worked till 3 (took time off for lunch) but didn’t get everything done. So I went in this morning and finished up. When I looked outside this morning I thought the weatherman goofed again with his prediction for 5-7 inches of snow but once I got outside, I could see that we had gotten a lot of snow. I tromped over to the center and got done with my project. I put the bars on a sweater drying rack so the air can get under the bars to get them dry. Sister Mo will wrap them in pretty ribbon and get them ready to be picked up. Another woman ordered 12 of the nesting cages, which are the suet cake holders packed full of alpaca fiber for the birds to use in building their nests. So cute and an inexpensive gift for someone !

This is my little work area, near the big sink in the back of White Violet Center. After two days of felting soap, I have the cleanest hands in Terre Haute (and have also used the most hand lotion in Terra Haute).
While I worked away out back, the annual Christmas open house was going on out front, in the center. It was just like Santa’s workshop…working behind the scenes. I have close to 50 bars done so Sister Mo can pack the order. She’s going to pick up some more soap and some more suet cages, cause there’s still 10 days till Christmas ! We have really gotten wiped out of a lot of things in the store. It’s been a busy Christmas season for alpaca items.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about going with Tracy to pick up a new alpaca last Sunday. She and I took the center’s mini van and drove to Effingham, Illinois to meet an alpaca owner at a Cracker Barrel. The deal went down in the RV parking area of Cracker Barrel. There were multiple alpaca farms there with horse trailers to pick up or trade animals with this woman. I bet customers were surprised to see alpacas all over the place in that end of the parking lot when they pulled in for blueberry pancakes that morning. Probably had to do a double take.
White Violet traded a couple of breedings from their sires for a young female alpaca, named Esperanza. Oh, what a cutie she is ! She is so sweet. She rode the whole way home, standing up (usually they cush (sit) while riding) but she was curious and looked out the window, poked her head up through the barrier to say hello to Tracy, etc. Once we arrived and she saw the horses, at the equestrian center, she started humming….she was excited to see other animals. Then we got her out and introduced her to the herd, through the fence. Everyone came over to sniff her and say hello. Then Tracy took her into the pasture and let her loose.

Within 15 minutes she was eating hay with everyone and was fitting right in. Yesterday Bree put a halter on her and she came up to the center to greet the guests coming to the open house. They all loved her and she was photographed and filmed for the 6:00 news. What a sweetie she is and a nice addition to the herd.
So that brings us to today….I finished up the soap and have been relaxing since then and enjoying the beauty of the snow. It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas around here…












Until next week….May the peace of the season fill your hearts with joy !

First Taste of Winter

Yesterday the remnants of a winter storm passed through Indiana, dumping varying amounts of snow. We lucked out here and only got a couple of inches where some areas, a little south of us, got as much as a foot of the white stuff.

Last night was Miracle on 7th Street, an annual event held outside in downtown Terre Haute. There are large tents and vendors have booths set up inside the tents. It ran until 10 p.m. Weather was super cold but there was a good turnout, considering that it was a little icy and stormy out. For anyone needing any roving or yarn for their favorite knitter in the family, White Violet has items for sale on their Etsy page. Just click on this link:
 http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhiteVioletAlpacas



Here are the felted soaps I made…they’re called Luffuzz…get it ?

The other day we made some fermented turnips. Really easy to make….just shred the turnips in the food processor and then sprinkle with coarse salt and massage into the turnips until they get juicy. Pack into jars and either put a turnip top in the top of the jar to hold the contents down (otherwise the amount that is exposed to the air will darken) or a weight of some sort to hold down. Candace did a great job of carving a large turnip to make a top for the jar. You cut the side, angled inward (like with jack ‘o lanterns), so it will stay lodged in the jar. In about two weeks, the contents will be ready. This is a great way to process turnips that got too large, before you found them to pick. The flavor isn’t strong at all when done this way. They will also keep a long time in the frig, when they are fermented.

On Thursday, we got a Rooster for our hen house. His name is Darcy and he is gorgeous and so quiet, for being a rooster. I haven’t heard him crow even once since he’s been here. He has feathers on his legs and pretty iridescent teal feathers on his back. Ann can’t resist cuddling the chickens when we go out to the coop. Darcy will help protect the girls from predators (hopefully but he’s awful meek and mild) and if we ever want to have new chicks, we can hatch out some of the fertilized eggs. He’s going to be a great addition to the farm. Currently he is locked in the hen house so that he knows he has to come inside to roost, as opposed to roosting in a tree overnight. Locking him inside will get his GPS oriented to “home” so he’ll come inside at night.
A quiet weekend on the farm. Hope you’re having a happy and peaceful weekend wherever you are.

Kicking off a new week….

Although our schedules have changed to 9-3 (down from 8-4), now we have evening and weekend tasks to do that makes up for the reduction in our schedule. They feel that the new schedule will more reflect what it’s really like to work on a farm with daily duties and closing up the different areas. This week (Sunday – Saturday) I am responsible for closing the alpacas. That means that I have to go around to the five different alpaca pastures and check that they are ok on water and hay at the end of the day. It’s also watching the animals’ behavior to make sure that none are getting sick or have gotten injured. Mariah, the one who is sickest with the meningeal worm type conditions (we’re still not convinced that is what they have) has to be brought in from the pasture and put in a stall and given grain, hay and water. We’ve started giving Peanut milk supplement again because her weight had plateaued. We can now give the bottle to her standing up which is so much easier than trying to get the little wiggle worm onto our lap. We weighed her yesterday and she’s 19.4 pounds.
Yesterday was my first day of daytime alpaca duty and I worked with Tracy in barn 1. All of the alpacas are due for their deworming medication, which is done by injection. You run your hand down their front shoulder blade and there is a valley there. You pull up on the skin and make a tent and inject the medicine inside that tent. On one of the shots, I must have went in one side of the tent and out the other, right into my left index fingertip. I hadn’t injected any of the medicine yet so was just a poke but it drew blood and was drippy. I joked with Tracy that now I could have all the slugs I wanted to eat cause I was protected. (This shot is the one that is supposed to protect them from the meningeal worm disease that comes from slugs). That was wound #1 for the day. Later on while trying to get a piece of thorn bush off one of the alpacas, I got kicked in the knee and in the elbow. Dang, they are quick. I need to practice my wax on – wax off…Karate kid quickness cause you don’t even see their kick coming. Whap ! Thank goodness it doesn’t hurt…it just gets your attention. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’m all ready to trim their hooves. There’s a whole lot of kicking that can go on with that procedure. We have a bunch of them that need that done soon.

Veggies are growing great. Look at them go in the new high tunnel ! We planted more seeds in pots in the greenhouse yesterday. Swiss chard and kale…Over the weekend the micro greens, peas and lettuce mix came up. It was really nice this weekend. Temps in the greenhouse were up to 90 cause it was so warm outside. Today it’s supposed to hit 57 and tomorrow it will be in the 60’s. We’ll enjoy in while we can cause Thursday it’s gonna snow and this weekend it won’t make it out of the 20’s. Freaky weather !




Here are the vegetable areas of the garden mulched with straw for the winter. This helps to keep the soil moist so it doesn’t get rock hard over the winter and will be easier to prep and plant in the spring.

This is one set of the new bee hives we got from the guy who works on campus. On the warm days, the bees can be seen outside the hive, probably doing their housekeeping chores…cleaning the inside of the hive.
Guess that brings you up to date. Getting ready to go in to start my shift for the day. Hope everyone has a Terrific Tuesday !

Happy Thanksgiving from the farm….

  Blessings to everyone for a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. I will be having dinner with the sisters in Providence Hall (the other dining room where the sisters live) across the street. I’m sure it will be a great meal. Every meal till Monday will be over there so they don’t have to have two staffs here over the holiday.
Peanut has her cast off ! She went to the vet on Tuesday and he         x-rayed it. Everything looked great so off it came. She is confined to quarters for a week so she doesn’t get out in the pasture and go crazy trying to run and hurt herself. I saw her Tuesday night and she was walking stiff legged but the vet said within 2-3 days she’ll be bending it and walking pretty normal. Can’t wait to see her get turned loose in the pasture once she’s let out of the barn….look out other crias. She was giving them a run for their money WITH the cast on; she’ll be a force to be reckoned with without the cast.
It was really cold yesterday morning. 15 degrees outside but with wind chill it was 1 degree…..Luckily we only had to do some watering in the greenhouse so we weren’t outside for long. We packed the CSA on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday) in case were traveling for the holiday and they could have their food sooner. This week they got Japanese turnips, from the high tunnel. These are so mild and yummy. We also dug up the purple topped ones too. Just in one week they were frozen into the ground and we had to use a fork to get them out. We use a lettuce knife (I call it a machete) to cut the tops off while we’re out in the field. I had to use the handle end to remove the huge clumps of dirt, that were frozen to the turnips. With the spaghetti and butternut squash we had in storage, they had a pretty heavy bag of food for this week’s pick-up.
We have a really serious health issue going on with four of the alpacas that are in pasture 2. Last week, Tracy noticed that several of them were really wobbly in their hind quarters and their gait was off. She called the vet and once he arrived we moved the herd around so he could watch them walk. Two of them seemed to short step with their hind legs and when they turned quickly, they’d fall down and have a hard time getting back up. He checked their temperatures and tested their hind legs. With all four, it seemed to be their rear left leg that was impacted. The vet checked the pastures, for toxic plants, because we think it’s really weird that four have come down with something at the same time. Their symptoms mimic what happens if they are infected with the meningeal worm. It’s a worm that is carried in white tail deer. The life cycle of the meningeal worm requires terrestrial snails or slugs to serve as intermediate hosts. White-tailed deer become infected with P. tenius by eating snails or slugs that contain the infective stage of the larvae. The larvae migrate through the deer's gut and eventually move into the central nervous system where they mature into adults, produce eggs, and the life cycle begins again when they excrete the eggs in their feces. However, when P. tenius-infected snails and slugs are ingested by aberrant hosts, such as small ruminants, the larvae migrate into the brain and/or spinal cord and cause various neurological problems.
In an abnormal host, the larvae do not mature into adults, but rather wander through the central nervous system causing inflammation and swelling which damages sensitive nervous tissue producing a variety of neurologic symptoms. Experimental evidence suggests that it takes approximately 10 to 14 days for the parasite to reach the brain and/or spinal cord after the animal eats the infected snail or slug. It’s a very serious disease that can be fatal for alpacas. Mariah seems to be affected the most. They’ve put her in a pen in the barn so they can keep an eye on her. She is able to get up on her own and all the animals, in that pasture, are being treated with medication. They get monthly worm medicine so we’re not sure if they got a bad batch or what happened but they’re aggressively treating it to try and reverse the affects and save the alpacas. I’m hoping that they caught it in time so they don’t lose any of the alpacas.
We’ve started some flats of seeds in the greenhouse. We have 13 of peas (we’ll harvest pea shoots from them), 10 of micro greens and 10 of lettuce mix. They get checked daily to see if they need to be watered. Depending on the outside temps, if it gets warm enough we have to vent the high tunnels. It’s been too cold lately to open them; there’s a fine line between keeping the heat in and building up too much condensation in them that they have to be watched.  
Oh, I promised a picture of my hat. Once I finished it up on Monday, I’ve been wearing it and it really keeps my head warm in all the cold weather we’ve been having. I got a bunch of positive comments from the sisters in the dining room the other day. They thought I did a really good job on it. I’m happy with it. I might try to find a small mold, from which I can make a little alpaca, and dry felt it onto the front of it. Will look for that this weekend. Lots to do on my four day weekend. Football, reading, eating, felting, working (I start to do the close of alpaca pastures starting on Sunday night) and resting…..Hope you all have equally fun weekends as well.

Wet Felting

Today was my wet felting class. What great fun. A while ago Sister Mo had asked me what type of hat I wanted to make and I said a ball cap (are you really surprised ?). They didn’t have a mold for that so I found one on-line and they ordered it for me in my size. There were three other people in the class. A mom and her son, who own alpacas as a therapy program for war vets (he’s a vet of the Afghanistan war and was injured over there) and a woman who drove 2.5 hours and is a special ed teacher and lives on a small farm with about 100 different animals (goats, chickens, Alaskan Iditarod dogs, rabbits, alpacas, etc.). A great group of people to spend the afternoon with.
So you start with a pattern. It’s just a thin piece of plastic to form the shape of any type of hat you might want to make. Then, you take carded fiber (batt of fiber) and put three thin layers of fiber down, just as if you’re putting shingles on a roof. A little bit of an overlap and you go two inches beyond the pattern on all sides. We work on a sheet tray because the whole process gets kind of messy. On each layer the fiber runs in the opposite direction. Once you have that done and it seems to be even all over (you don’t want to wind up with any holes in your hat or thin spots), you make a second tray just like the first. Then there’s hot soapy water that is applied to the fiber under the pattern, but leaving the outside area dry. With gentle massaging, folding in, and flipping you ultimately wind up with this.
The hot water opens up the fibers and the massaging and rubbing bind the fibers together. Amazing how you can take a fluffy ‘ole pile of fiber and have it come out in a solid mass like this. Once the two sides are joined together, with lots of massaging, then the plastic gets taken out from the middle. The hat gets turned inside out and worked some more. You put it on a washboard and rub the heck out of it or you can roll it inside a wooden mat to get it to tighten up and start to shrink down. Fast forward to where it gets put on the mold. Using more of the plastic screen, as if it was sand paper, you work the outside to make it toughen up even more. Remove from the mold and rinse the soap out several times and this helps the fiber to have “memory” to keep its shape.
My cap is going to stay on the mold until Monday, when we’ll check it and trim it if it looks like it’s ready.(I took this picture early on in the process – the wrinkles are all worked out now) Wet felting is very easy to work with. You can walk away, cover it with a wet towel and come back to it or if you don’t like the way it’s shaping up, take it and rewet it and mold it again. Here are the hats that other folks made in the class.

Debbie’s hat (ironing it to dry it out and make it more rigid)







Joy’s hat (she’s trimming it to match the brim size of the mold)





Tanner’s hat (still on the mold, using the screen to firm it up)






The hats that the others made would look great accessorized with a scarf, belt around the hat or flower on it. The colors are so distinctive and with alpaca fiber it will be light but very warm. I used Chauncey’s fiber and I get to watch him in the pasture near the gardens as I work. A fun day spent learning new things. I will post pictures of the final result early next week when it comes off the mold…excited to get it and wear it.

Saturday

Since the summer CSA program ended, life has been much less hectic here on the farm. We only have 20 folks in the winter CSA so it’s quicker to pack the bags on Wednesday and there’s a lot less product to pick in the garden or high tunnels. Many of the items in the winter program are greens…radishes (the greens are edible too), purple top turnips and Japanese turnips (these are very mild), mixed lettuce, kale, swiss chard and spinach. In a few weeks we’ll have green onions, broccoli and broccoli rabe. We had several days early this week where the overnight temps were around 19 degrees and we thought we’d lose the lettuce greens that were in the outside beds. Luckily they seem to have survived. I brought one of the Japanese turnips home the other day. I sliced it up, sauteed it in butter with fresh garlic (from the garden) and it was delicious. It had a really mild taste whereas the purple top turnips have a little bite to them. The winter CSA runs until Dec. 17.
Weatherman is calling for severe storms tomorrow and strong winds. It was my job to open the two high tunnels today and vent the kale bed so it was no surprise when I went back tonight to close them up that the row covers were partially blown off. Because the heat in the high tunnels creates condensation on the inside of the plastic roof, it’s important to vent the tunnel to dry out that moisture. With the raised beds, where the kale is growing we had to partially take the plastic off the hoops overtop of the bed so the kale doesn’t cook from the sun shining through the plastic. Everything is all closed up and buttoned down for any winds that come along. The night time temps are supposed to be ok for the next few nights so we don’t have to worry about freezing temps.
On the cool mornings we spend time in the fiber room, skirting the alpaca blankets. The goal is to get all of them done before the next shearing in the spring. I’m actually getting into a groove doing the skirting and liking it. The level of enjoyment depends on how short or uneven the fiber is and how dirty it is. A black blanket (what the main body of fiber is called) we skirted recently was so dirty and  had flakes of what appeared to be dandruff in it and it was horrible to get that out of it. We use little brushes like you’d brush your dog with to fluff up the fiber and get the “vegetable matter” out of it. Usually while the other interns skirt, I would card the fiber that I had skirted before but I needed a break from that. I have enough batts done to make the baseball cap I want to make. The cap mold has been ordered so it should be here for me to use on the 23rd. There is a wet felting class where everyone will work on a hat, felted soap (we take two pieces of felted material and a bar of soap is felted into the center of it…kind of like a washcloth with built-in soap) and if there’s time, possibly a vase. Should be a fun and educational day.
Peanut is doing well. My phone is acting up and won’t let me send pictures to my e-mail so I don’t have any recent pictures to post. She is up over 16# and not being hand fed too often. Her cast should come off in two weeks and she’ll be ready to go. I had to try to feed her tonight and the two new kittens in the barn came around and rubbed all over her while I was trying to feed her and she didn’t like that. She only drank about a 1/2 ounce but she is getting plenty from mom so all is well.
All of us interns met with the sister who is the General Superior (top person here). Sister Denise is a great lady and easy to talk to. We were interested in learning more about the Sisters of Providence recent decision to allow seismic testing and possible drilling for oil on their land. She explained to us that it was an extremely difficult decision and one that they (all of the sisters) deliberated over for many months and sought out the advice of a local ecology professor before they decided to proceed. If it weren’t for the fact that their funding and the sustainability of continuing with their missions and programming was in jeopardy, they would have easily said no. They were approached by an Indiana oil company, Country Mark about the possibility of drilling. Country Mark is a co-op of farmers and has an exceptional record of no spills or accidents and truly were concerned that the sisters were comfortable with the process and accepted all the stipulations that the sisters put into the lease agreement. Currently they are in the “thumping” mode, where the truck is doing a seismic test on the roadways to get an image of the formations underground. There is a 50/50 chance that they will find oil. There is no fracing involved. It’s more of a sucking out of the oil because this oil formation is part of an underground coral reef. Indiana was under water millions of years ago and apparently a coral reef exists in this region. Isn’t that cool ? I’ve never heard of that but it makes sense that there could be a petrified one down there. All of the discussions and information has been shared with the community and neighbors in an effort to be totally transparent about everything. Sister Denise was sorry that they had forgotten to invite the interns to the information meetings but shared articles with us to bring us up to speed. We had concerns because of the Land Ethic that was developed in 2012 by the Sisters and this seemed to be a total contradiction to that. Many times in life there are no easy answers and when it comes down to a matter of survival for this convent, I think they did what was necessary to continue to serve the people in this area and around the world with their missions. If they could not continue with all that they do, many people would suffer. If they find a sizable cache of oil, they hope to look at updating their facilities to be more sustainable and possibly make some changes as far as their fossil fuel needs (they have 200 cars in their fleet that the sisters use). Let’s hope that there is a good outcome for all….Mother Earth and the Sisters of Providence.

What is your Earth Mission ?

I looked at our blog today and realized it’s been several weeks since I’ve put up a post. Usually I try to post something on the weekends but my weekends have been really busy lately. About two weeks ago I attended the Alpaca 101 workshop that was held here at White Violet Center. There was a nice size group and we learned a lot about alpacas, including how to give shots, trimming hooves and body composition. The vet came and gave Peanut a plasma transfusion. It didn’t take very long and Peanut behaved as well as you’d think a baby would when they get stuck with a really big needle. All went well though.
The newest baby cria had blood drawn to have her IGG checked. I haven’t heard the results of that so I’m thinking they must have been OK. It was an interesting workshop with one person driving up from Kentucky to attend. She and her husband just purchased two alpacas and she is trying to learn all she can about them.
I rented a car and went back home to see Linda and spent a few days with her. We drove up and spent an evening with mom. When we got back to Chambersburg I helped get the RV winterized. Right before we arrived home in August, our bathroom faucet starting leaking underneath, inside the cabinet, and I tore it apart to see if the o-ring was bad or something was out of sorts. All seemed to be fine so B called Thor this week and apparently they are having issues with that particular faucet and told her to call the manufacturer and they would probably send her a new one. The rig is only two years old….guess they don’t make faucets like they used to.
So I was home from last Thursday till this Wednesday…got back in time to help with this week’s CSA. On Thursday all of the interns and most of the White Violet staff went to a conference put on by “Our Green Valley”, an organization of businesses and like minded people concerned with sustainability in the Wabash Valley area. The keynote speaker was Betsy Damon and she was outstanding.

She has devoted her life’s work to working with water; whether it be in her artwork or in communities all over the world. Positive change to try and restore water to its natural state. She says that water is not meant to be encased and confined in concrete spillways, etc. but a free flowing entity that works with nature to restore balance. She has created wetlands and bioswales that take polluted water and cleanses it by putting it through natural means. I think it was pretty cool that I just happened to have my “Water is Life” t-shirt on the day of the conference because that was what the very first slide said in her presentation.

She has worked on some fascinating projects around the world and though they may seem prestigious, she pretty much lived in poverty while pursuing her passion. That takes true courage and focus to do something at great personal cost to yourself. I’m reading a book that my daughter bought for me at the Mother Earth News Fair and it’s called ECOpreneuring and it talks about something called.. “Earth Mission”. What have we chosen as our life’s work while on this earth. I think we know what Betsy’s Earth Mission is….water. Here is the video that she started her presentation with….it is trying to make the point that we are connected to water. Since our heart is 75% water and our brains are 78% water (when you have those mornings where your brain just seems really soggy….maybe you went over the 78%) and our cells are made up of water, we are connected to the earth in more ways than we tend to think about.

I went to two other sessions at the conference. One was on Energy Programs in Indiana, where they are doing home and business energy audits and offering some pretty great rebates. The other session was on Waste Management Streams and mainly geared towards a manufacturing process to eliminate waste and save money for the company and also minimize the amount of waste products. It was really interesting.
The temps are back around 50 after a week of really chilly temps and raw winds. Trying to catch up on things this weekend. Work on my project for here and I have to go guard the chickens tonight and when I finish that I have to go give Peanut a bottle. Last night she only took about a 1/2 ounce but she is gaining weight. She’s up to 14# now. Wahoo !

It’s a Girl !

You knew the week couldn’t end without another baby story, didn’t ya ?!? This morning Anne Therese started the restless behavior and officially went into labor after lunch. Here is the baby’s head and front feet, making their way out….Usually the head is above the feet..the position would be like that of a diver with their arms outstretched and their head tucked in between. The problem was that the placenta ruptured while inside of mom. Since the crias are in the womb for 11 months all of the urine and waste products are inside of that sack. Usually it doesn’t burst open until the cria has hit the ground or at least starting towards the ground. We could see that the baby was moving around (usually that isn’t evident when they are still inside the sack) but after an hour of mom pushing, she still wasn’t all the way out. What Sister Mo thinks might have happened is that the baby was getting hung up on the placenta that was still inside. Anne Therese was getting tired and would lay down. Finally, with gloves and lubricant on, Sister PB reached inside of mom and got a hold of the baby and pulled in a downward motion. The way the birth canal is in alpacas is angled downward and it has a little arch to it. Whatever Sister PB did worked cause out she came.

A 12# little girl and I’m sure mom was glad that was over. Tonight I had feeding duty for Peanut and took this picture of the new one while I was there. It doesn’t even look like a newborn, does it? She’ll all dressed in her little coat to keep her warm tonight (calling for overnight temps of 37). She was laying outside with mom when I left.


Peanut took 7 ounces of milk tonight, during her 7:00 feeding and then fell asleep on my lap. 
The doctor drew blood from her the other day to see how her IGG (something like immunoglobbin count) is. She scored 300 and it’s supposed to be near 1200, I think. This is how strong her immune system is and her ability to fight off sickness. The vet is coming tomorrow to give her a plasma transfusion. We have an all day workshop tomorrow (Alpaca 101), from 10 - 4 so we’ll get to see the vet give her the transfusion. She really seems to be doing great. She was out in the pasture today, galloping along…dragging her bad leg along.
Today was the last day for the Creighton kids. We had eight students here for the week from Creighton University. They have been on fall break and drove from Omaha, NE to spend time with us and learn about farming and gardening. Here is a picture of them unloading hay in the barn. Good bunch of kids. They are driving home tomorrow….back to Omaha and classes come Monday morning. Some of them are business management, some were pre-med and some are studying to be lawyers. They said that Creighton is known for the pre-med, law and pharmacist programs that they offer. These are tomorrow’s leaders ! They also got to watch the birth of the cria and they have a very special memory to take home with them.

Well off to bed with me….tomorrow I learn all there is to know about alpacas. Yeah….right. I feel like I’ve had a crash course in some of the things that can go wrong with them in the last couple of weeks but having a ball learning all of it.

Little Peanut

Wanted to update you on a new event here on the farm. In the last post I told you that I was on alpaca watch over the weekend with three expectant moms. Well I went and hung out from mid-day Saturday till after supper that night to keep an eye on them. Dominique is due at the end of the month and has a bad knee that the doctor doesn’t want to do anything with until after she’s had her cria. Anne Therese and Peoria are overdue. I finished reading the neonatal book and didn’t see any signs of them going into labor. Stage 1 of labor can be from 1-6 hours, if I recall from my reading. Stage 2 – the actual birth is usually under 2 hours so that is why it’s really important to catch anything wrong really soon because the whole event can be over in 2 hours. The only thing I saw that seemed odd to me was that Dominique was humming like crazy. The sound is like a vibration that they make….not sure if they are exhaling through their sinus cavities or what but I call it humming. They will do it when under stress or it seems to be part of the language they use when talking to their young. The last time I checked her, Saturday night, she was eating hay in the barn.
Sunday morning, while watching my political shows, I get a call from Tracy, the alpaca manager. She works on Sundays so I knew I wouldn’t have to check them on Sunday cause she’d be working. She arrived at work and found that Dom had delivered her cria and it was dry and running around. Add excessive humming to the list of signs to watch for….Sneaky little thing ! Not sure whether the cria had nursed or not, Tracy put the baby under Dom. Dom was a little spooked or something and kicked her baby’s right front leg. When Tracy saw that the cria couldn’t put weight on it, she felt pretty certain that her leg was broken. She called me to go and keep an eye on the other alpacas till she got back from the vet. Poor peanut….she was only 8.6# at birth (a cria should be greater than 12# to be considered normal so she technically is in the “at risk” category). Dom gets really nervous around people so add that to her being a first time mom and it’s double trouble.
Here she is after coming home from the vets. Since Tracy wasn’t sure if she had received any colostrum (the first milk from the mom), the vet gave her plasma. He puts a tube into their stomach and they absorb it into their system. They have to get the colostrum within 18 hours of birth, while the cells are open to absorb it. After 18 hours, it can’t be absorbed this way and the window of opportunity has closed. Doesn’t that cast look clunky ? It’s only 8 ounces in weight but it’s huge on such a little thing.








We are bottle feeding Peanut (that is my nickname for her) because Dom won’t let her get in there to nurse. I fed our calves as a kid and you usually stick your fingers in a newborn calves mouth, to get them sucking on them, and then you slide their mouths off onto a teat pail for calves (this is once you’ve taken them away from their moms). You can’t do that with alpacas so you put your one hand under their chin and try to open their mouth where it hinges (at the corner of their mouth). We are feeding her whole cow’s milk although you can feed goat’s milk too. You put just a drop of molasses or corn syrup or maple syrup in it to make it appealing but it’s still a little tricky to get them started. Once you get the nipple of the bottle in their mouths and they start sucking, they can drink down 4 ounces in a hurry. At this stage they need to have 5-7 feedings a day and consume at least 18-20% of their body weight. Today she had 22 ounces over 6 feedings so that’s great. She’ll put on some weight quickly if she keeps that up.
I just came from giving her the 7:00 feeding. I spent last night in the barn, keeping an eye on Peanut and the other two that are due. Tracy has a heated dog bed pad that she puts the newborns on to keep their body temps up on the cold nights. At midnight, Peanut was off her pad and almost across the pen. We have mom and baby in a small pen so they can stay together and bond and hopefully Dom will calm down and let Peanut nurse when we’re not around (if Peanut can get up to her).  Peanut jumped up after I gave her 4 ounces tonight and walked around the pen, dragging her front leg under her. She got up to Dom and fell flat on her face underneath Dom. I slowly reached in and picked up Peanut so Dom wouldn’t kick her or step on her by accident and put Peanut back on her pad. I’d like to think that she’ll stay on the pad all night but I think that is wishful thinking.
Peanut has a soft cast on that the vet will check in about a week. It is so long and awkward that it will take another day or two before she gets enough strength to be able to get it under her to walk. I can see an improvement in her walking today and she is starting to get the little skip in her step that the little ones get when they want to run. I give her till the end of the week and she’ll be unstoppable. She sure is a fighter for such a little thing.
Didn’t want a whole week to go by before I could tell you about Peanut….two more crias to go !

Chicken and Alpaca Watch

As usual the week has flown by. This was our last week for the summer CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) folks. They picked up the last bag of goodies on Wednesday. We have one week of no CSA and then the Fall/Winter one starts up the following week.
At the beginning of the week I had the awesome experience of watching a cria being born. This little guy’s mom went into labor Monday morning, while we were working on finishing the high tunnel. Mo let me leave to go watch the birth but wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have my camera with me to take pictures or take a video. It was pretty quick overall. You could see his nose and front feet sticking out of the birth canal and mom walked around like that as the labor progressed. Then she laid down for a little bit and seemed to be really focused. Then she stood up and walked around and started to push and little by little he started to come out. I thought that once the front shoulders would come out that he’d drop the rest of the way but that’s not the way it happened. Probably a good thing cause it might hurt them to fall that far to the ground. He was hanging with just his back feet to come out when he finally slipped the rest of the way out and gently fell on the ground. Tracy was nearby (she’d slowly crept up on mom) and she got to him and pulled the placenta coating off of him and held him up by his back legs to try and clear some fluid out of his lungs. It was chilly and damp on Monday so Tracy dried him off really good with towels and then took mom and cria into the barn. This is another first time mom but she did a great job with him. He’s a gorgeous peach color and boy is he spunky and strong. Such a cutie !
Update on the other new ones…Remember this one. See how her left leg is bowed in. The tendons are coming along but because she was a preemie, it will take some time for them to fully strengthen.

I think they named this little guy Dusk. He’s a rascal and full of spunk. He ran into the fence yesterday when he was running full tilt in the pasture. He’s ok…just a goof ball.
I’ve been given the Llama and Alpaca Neonatal Care book to read this weekend and I’m on alpaca watch. We have two that are overdue and one that is due by the end of the month so I need to know what behavior to watch for. Their anatomy is much more complex than I would have thought but it helps to understand the things that can go wrong with a pregnancy by reading the book. The big thing is to recognize (and possibly correct) something before it becomes a big problem.
Speaking of a big problem….we have a fox that is after our chickens. Hence me being on chicken watch. I might have mentioned this in the last post but last weekend, a fox got a bunch of our chickens. We are down to eight right now, from originally having 25 (some of those died this summer but we lost about 12 last weekend). Bree and I were asked to go out and check them at 6:30 and 7:30. Their door is set to close at 7:30 and we’re trying to figure out if some got caught outside when the door went down and the fox got them or what. Thursday night I watched some videos, on You Tube to figure out how foxes get into chicken coops.
 Not only can they get through a small opening but they climb fences like a person climbs a ladder….up and over in no time flat. After watching and reading about fox attacks on chickens, I was worried if we’ll be able to stop this fox before he wipes out our flock (or what’s left of it).
So, I went out at 6:30 last night and checked on them and all was fine. I had put laundry in when I got off work so I went back to the dorm to fold my clothes and figured I’d come back out to check them one last time and put them to bed. Got the clothes folded and walked back to the pasture. I called my sister on the way to the pasture to thank her for the awesome care package she sent me. She made me a beautiful shawl to keep me warm and lots of other goodies. I got to the pasture at 6:55 and stood just outside the gate that goes into the pasture, near the chicken coop.  The chickens were to the left of me under the apple trees. It was dusk and I was playing Candy Crush on my phone at around 7:10 when the chickens let out a hell of a commotion and came running towards and past me (remember I’m outside the gate). I instantly thought of the fox and looked to the left of me at the fence to see if the fox was coming over or under the fence in the direction we thought the fox is coming from. Out of my right eye, I see a blur of red and turn to see a fox coming straight for the chickens in front of me but it was coming from the direction of the orchard.

(The fox came from the bottom of this picture and I’m standing down at the end of the white tape fence, outside the gate). I screamed a bunch of profanities, (cause I’d be damned if that fox was gonna kill the chickens on my watch, let alone me standing right there) and started to shove the gate to get through to help the chickens. I forgot there are these latches you have to pull up on but I scream again and wave my arms in the air, hoping to scare the fox, who’s right on the chickens’ heels. I grabbed the chain that wraps around the gate and flung the gate open and just then the fox turns on a dime and runs back towards the top of the orchard. Heart pounding I do a head count and make sure that he hadn’t gotten any of the chickens. The fox ran towards the barns at the upper end (not in the direction we thought the fox was coming from all this time) and then I lost sight of him. I kept scanning the area and look straight up towards our gardens and here he sits, watching me to see if I’m going to stay or leave the chickens alone. Man, I was really ticked off now. The chickens were scared out of their little minds and huddled together in the corner of the pasture for about 15 minutes. I stood watch over them until 7:30 when they all got inside their coop, safe for the night. I got back to my dorm and e-mailed Sister Mo and asked her if they should stay in the coop all weekend, cause I was worried that as soon as they got let out this morning that fox would have breakfast. (Most people think that foxes only hunt at night but it’s not true….go to backyardchickens.com and you’ll read about plenty of attacks that occur in the daytime. If they are hungry and are feeding kits (baby foxes), they will hunt anytime. At 11:00. p.m I heard from Robyn that the timer needed to be unplugged so they would stay inside this weekend until they can figure out what to do. So at 11, I’m thinking about the long, dark walk out to the pasture and I don’t have a flashlight. I remember seeing a lantern in the bathroom so I go get that and it’s pretty bright so off I go to unhook the door timer. I called Linda, back in PA to talk to me while I made the trek out there. I wasn’t scared to go out there but just worried that the fox might be around and try to sneak into the coop when I opened the door. I got it done and made my way back home and to my bed.
Sorry this is such a long post….lots going on and I find myself too exhausted during the week to post anything so you get a novel to read each weekend to catch you up.
The high tunnel is done….We put the sides up on Monday and they finished up the ends yesterday. Both the ends and sides can be rolled up during warm weather. These “Z” strips, that snap into channels are what holds the plastic into place on the sides. There is a double channel and the ends of the roof section is fastened in the top channel and the sides snap into the lower channel. David has a machine that he pulls behind the tractor that creates the raised beds. The plants you see on the far left are broccoli and then we have beets, turnips, carrots, lettuce and spinach planted. Wire panels across the ends will keep the deer out. I read a neat trick the other day for keeping deer out of your garden. Deer can’t judge depth so if you string up two offset lines of string or something like the tape from an old VCR cartridge, they won’t enter the space. The VCR tape vibrates in the wind and keeps them away. So save all the weird blood stuff and scents that you scatter around. Just mess with their depth perception and you’re all set.
 
OK, I think that is all the excitement I have to share for one week. Hope your week is productive and safe. We have 25 college kids coming next week to spend their fall break with us. Should make for an interesting week….