Sunday, March 20th... Only 2 ½ Hours Until Spring and We’re Ready....And How!!!!

The redhead is Rafiki. The black one is Guiseppe.....

Yes, there is only about two and a half hours of winter left!! Hurrah I say...Hurrah, Hurrah winter definitely ends today!!! We’re now ready for the spring time weather, smells of the good clean earth and the flowers popping through. Once the mud and cold air leaves, it turns into one of my favorite times in the year. The most favorite is fall, when the smells of summer give way to harvest smells like apple, mustard, pine and the definitive smells of fall. The only season better is the spring....especially with fragrances such as blooming hyacinths and daffodils, which has me searching every leaf strewn corner near porches and trees around people’s yards. There’s just something special about the feel of the spring air with the sun blazing nice and warm. The smells carried on the drifting breezes from woodlot, across the yard. It constantly gives you that Easter Sunday morning feeling, taking me back to a time in my childhood when things were simple and Mom and Dad had all the worries......not me. It sure seems as though they did a much better job of dealing with those worries than me............BUT boy, do I ever enjoy dreaming back to when I that feeling on those warm, sunny, smelly spring days!
Today we left for the Helderberg Mountain region of East Berne, where we loaded Guiseppe and Rifiki into the horse trailer and brought them to our friend Isabelle’s farm in Coxsackie until they are sheared and have their fighting teeth taken care of. Guiseppe (Joey for short) is gelded, but Rifiki (Ricky for short) is still intact and needs to be gelded before coming home. We got Ricky for Dawna, our friend, without asking her......but Vick called her on our way home, saying we have a surprise gift for you.....meet us at Isabelle’s farm when we get there. She was totally beside herself and I don’t think her feet have touched the floor yet! Dawna bought two sheep last fall and keeps them here, allowing her to fulfill a life long dream of owning some fiber animals. Today we kicked that dream into high gear, because as of this afternoon, she became a sheep and alpaca farmer. Isabelle still has our youngest of three alpacas down at her house where he was being trained by her herd of alpacas and Max the Llama. As soon as Bollero is shorn, he will come home with Joey and we’ll have all four of our guys here again, finally. Dawna’s Newly Gelded, newly shorn Ricky will come then too, so later in May, we’ll have five alpacas and three sheep here. Perhaps later.....Isabelle and Ralph may be lucky enough to sell their house so they can move to Florida for retirement. If that happens we are taking Max, her Llama to live here as our own guard animal. We could even end up with some of her alpacas if she wishes us to take them too. By then, we’ll have enlarged the barn and increased the fencing system to include several new grass meadows and could house them easily.
Anyway......right now we have a the picture at the top and a video of today at Isabelle’s farm.
So, Click on “THIS LINK” to go to the YouTube video of the alpacas & horses. Then Click on “THIS LINK” for the latest of us with our guys in the pasture by the barn.

038352 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC