Kensmyth

November is galloping by in a whirr of hay rack cleaning, field rotation, mucking out and dare I say it … sticky clay mud. Well it is Clay Meadow after all but it seems only a few minutes ago we were seeing cracks in the ground due to the dry weather and now it is sticky mud.

To emphasise this fact, one of the Alpaca decided to demonstrate this admirably earlier in the rain today for me…

and I have finally bought my first Christmas present. Regular Blog readers will know I am usually very organised but alas not this year.

But I did see some very nice original cards in Cirencester Market…

but when do we put the Christmas lights up?

A rare night off indeed with hubby and one lanky legged teenager running the farm, Mitchell and I were delighted to attend the Raymond Fenton memorial Concert in Cirencester Church last night.

With “choral and instrumental works by Faure, Bach, Poulenc and Ridout” – The music was outstandingly performed, the programme involving the audience as the individual pieces unfolded.

Music played on the Flute, Organ, Cello, Violin and Piano uplifted the Cirencester Parish Church and every one was  just outstanding.

Katharine’s rendition of the story of Ferdinand the bull,  will stay in my memory forever.

It was lovely to chat with our friends from South Cerney.

Closing with Richard Lester’s superb Organ playing, we all sang “Jerusalem.”

Just fantastic – what a superb memory of a great individual and monies raised to the British Lung Foundation & Spinal Injuries Association.

Someone asked me how we did the lanes around the farm here at Kensmyth… simples they are set 8 – 10ft apart so that each group of Alpaca can be separate from another. makes weaning less traumatic for the cria and biosecurity fab!

well my Little darlings are at Cirencester College now – juvenile teenagers and definitely not “young men” as some would have them named!!

At parents evening this week they had a fab sign on the door – so much to their embarrassment out came the camera!!

Managed to have a look at a few of the cria fleeces developing – wow!

I thought something different from poppies but red for today. Lest we forget.

well with a long distance to travel on “shanks pony” – for those of you unfamiliar with that term, it means on your own two feet!! the hard frost meant that all of our refilling raised drinkers froze. Simples, fill up from barn non frozen pipe and give every single group a drink! A labour of love but females with cria at foot need water all the time to replenish for the provision of milk. Despite being camelids of course…

sooo much going on here I am so far behind on blogging it is untrue – sincere apologies!

We have had some amazing weather in the past week with 25 degrees followed by a frost followed by torrential rain and now just wet!

The pacas were all in the barns on the zero temperatures and so mucking out to the fore but the scene outside whilst they were in was quite beautiful…

and the sunrise that day was stunning….

Well with Bonfire night tomorrow, the weather is certainly playing its part. We are set for zero tonight and that’s pretty amazing after the soaring temperatures of last week.

Meantime, the lovely orchid purchased by our visitors to say thank you looked fantastic this morning looking out of the window…

and its definitely crack out the Crock Pot weather!

Andrew Coates for the Accessible Icon Project put this up… fab!!