Chickens

We got chicks at the ranch last week, well to be honest they are still in the house.... and a bit too close.  (Noisy, somewhat stinky) but darn cute!!  I don't know anything about chickens, so this has been fun.  They startle like babies..  They are also growing FAST.  They have been home since they were 1 day old.  Here's the one day old photos.. 

 

At the store ^

We got 10 Buff Orphingtons, 5 Rhode Island Reds, and 5 Golden Sex Link.  We wanted Barred Rock, but they were out of them.  We plan to keep at least 12 for eggs, and the others will find their way to the freezer.

Below are the photos from this week.... When I look at the photos they don't look all that different, but they are significantly bigger!

(Trying out the new Wings!)

We have yet to start the coop (busy building beehives you know.. check out my new post on the bee blog), but we are full of ideas where the coop is concerned!  If you have any unique suggestions for how to build a better chicken coop, please share ;-)

The Shadow of Death in the Winter of 2010

Well it seems my goal to post once a week this year went right out the window, as has my aspirations of doing a podcast... It's still on the agenda, so sometime it will happen.

In the meantime we are already well into spring, even considering the weekly snow we are still getting, interspersed with 60 degree days.  I know this because the wind is here with a vengeance, and because we are getting baby chicks today and our bees should FINALLY be here next week!

But the topic for the day is the death that took precedence on the ranch the first 3 months of 2010. Starting with Weston, one of our very promising little boys.  We noticed on Jan 2 that he was laying down a lot and lethargic.  He was also very thin.  We loaded him up on parasite treatments, and propped up his system for a few days, and he appeared to be improving.  But a week later or so started declining again.  The vet determined that he had a heart murmur, and that there was no treatment.  He basically was born with a weak heart and when he grew to a size that his heart could no longer support, he started to decline.  He died in late January.

Followed next by stillborn twins from one of the boarding alpacas.  Twins are very rare in alpacas, due to the ratio of baby size to Mom size.  They just frankly can't carry them.  To be fair there are a few sets of twins born in the US that get the care they need to survive, but most of the concieved twins either get one absorbed early on in the pregnancy of both aborted later in the pregnancy.  This was a girl the boarders had no idea was pregnant, but the twins were out there one day, two girls, one dark brown one white.. I have photos, but perhaps I'll spare you.  I also still have the fetus's in my freezer waiting for a trip to CSU. (Makes me think of Jackie's rabbit.. she knows).  The boarders also had a male that was just dead when we got out to do chores.  Don't know what happened to him.  Think he got kicked.  Their alpacas are older and have much more compromised health, due to their history and age.

We lost one of our great pyranees, Asher, when the two Anatolian Shepherds (from what we could tell), beat him up so bad we had to put him down.  We think Simba was just exerting his dominance (he is an intact male... gotta take care of that!).  Kipper, Simba's sister, I'm sure joined in on the fun.  We were out of town (of course) and the neighbor taking care of the animals called to report that they had been fighting and Asher's "insides were outside".  We called another neighbor to come evaluate who after a closer look said it was just fur and blood and matted mess, and that the wounds were bad but all topical.  So we had him spray some wound spray on it and we would take care of it when we got home.  Well, when we got home and got out there with a pail of soapy water, we found out that the hair/blood/mat was not connected to the muscle.  Asher had been skinned, from his waist to his rear legs.  He was oozing with infection, and hadn't eaten for three days.  We had to put him down.

That same day, someone hit a deer in the neighborhood, and left it crippled trying to scoot away.  It got caught up in the fence and Mike had to shoot it too.  The same thing happened with another deer a couple weeks later!  Odd, if nothing else.  But I'm sure with some sort of Native American significance, Asher was able to be buried with a deer companion, to help guide him or some such poetic thing.  I did think that was nice.  Sara said "I hope you killed him Humanely!"  Meaning a lethal injection at the vet, but there could have been no more humane way to go..  Looking up for help from his loving owner, he never saw death coming.

One of our two friendly Kittens seems to have disappeared.  Not sure if death is involved but the other sister is still here and the two were inseparable!  So that is sad also.  And we had another little boy, Rocky, 6 months old, die.  We were weaning him, and we are not sure what happened to him, except we noticed one day that he was REALLY thin.  We put him back in with his mom, but I guess it was already too late, he had shut down.  Perhaps we just didn't watch close enough, perhaps the stress of weaning got him, and/or he didn't eat enough.   But he should have been old enough and fine.  At any rate he died quickly and none of the other kids are showing any ill effects.

Another kind of death is the death of our boarding contract, that we had been living on for the past year since I was laid off.  The boarders lost their income as well (laid off from Northrup Grumman) and quit paying in late December.  We have been trying to work with them, but our situation is not such that we can keep them for free, so we have been looking for placement for their 48 alpacas.  So far we have homes and are down to 12 of them.  They will be all gone soon enough.  Mike is quite enjoying the lightening of the workload, but we will miss the income, especially as there has not been anything else steady in our employment efforts.

And finally on a different scale, my Aunt Winnie died on February 14.  I happened to be in Albuquerque, and weather happened to prevent me from going home, so I went to Indiana for the funeral, and was glad to have the opportunity to do that, support my parents, and see my cousins and their families.  My Aunt was my father's only sister and was just short of 88.  She had been having some health struggles the last year or two, but generally was alert and ambulatory until two days before her death (she was doing crossword puzzles on Tuesday).  She had a long, adventure filled life, and is survived by her five kids and 13 grandkids (don't quote me on that) so no better way to go, but she will be missed by many.  Aside from her husband who died more than 20 years ago, She is the first of my parents generation (siblings) to die.  So I have had a lot of self introspection this month around that event!

So, that is A LOT of death, even for a ranch with livestock.  I will remember this past season with that shadow.  But now spring has sprung, we are planting the garden, getting chickens (today), bees next week, babies from the alpacas any day now (11 due before the end of June), and Mike's Daughter, Sara, welcomed his 5th grandson into the world last night.  I am looking forward to leaving the Shadow of death behind!

New Year - New Focus

Well we are kicking off the new year with some solid business and personal planning, after all, without a map we won't know where we are going or when we get there!  My big goal is to keep life in balance.  This means between personal, Alpacas, Consulting and Send Out Cards.  One thing I have to learn how to do is to reach out more with my website, blogs, networking sites, etc.  This means one goal in place is to add some web content at least once a week.  This can be in the form of a blog entry, video, or even a significant website modification.  So what this means for you it I "should" be more regular in my blogging.  I have kept a topics list for things to blog about but topics get so old, I don't think I can go back.

Another thing we are researching is to do a weekly (bi-monthly?) podcast.  The content for this podcast would be very similar to my blog, meaning everything that is going on in life.  But I'd be sure to include a useful tidbit every week for alpaca enthusiasts.  I'd keep it under 30 minutes a week.. Any comments?

In other activity around the ranch, we attended the second annual Alpaca Show at the National Western Stock show last weekend.  For those who don't know, the stock show is a BIG deal.  In Colorado it gets more attention than the state fair.  No rides, but turkey legs and funnel cakes.  Also it is worth noting that it is a National show, so daily there are exhibitors and visitors from all over the country.  The show has been going on for 110 years.  Two years ago Alpacas were designated as livestock (previously classified as exotics), and as such are now allowed to show at the Stock Show.  The show was smaller than most of the shows we participate in and was not AOBA (our national breed association) certified, so some of the rules were different, but we took two animals and brought home two ribbons, so no complaints there.  Ultimately though the show was a fantastic marketing event and we did get a number of marketing leads.  We don't usually get those at a regular show.  Now to follow up!

So here is some of that old news I was talking about.  We went to a "Sales Conference" in December.  It was a day and a half, and fantastic!  I never really realized that I have never been trained in "sales" since I've never been in a direct selling job before.  Mike knew more of the content, but we both came away with a sense that we need to do a better job of keeping those strategies in front of us (following up being one).  2009 was a year of learning.  2010 will be a year of implementing, staying focused on our goals, pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone and building strong healthy businesses!

Now... how to add that podcast....

Business Owners Meet&Greet this morning. Aardwolf Alpacas presenting. Warm up for the National Western Stock Show in Denver this weekend.

Slipper felting workshop today @ Aardwolf Alpacas Ranch.

Went to a Time Management workshop last week... Now to put it in practice!

How many more social Networking sites do I need to belong to?

Hay Delivery

What a remarkable sight it is to have a semi-truck pull into your yard to deliver hay. Not much else to say about it except to show some photos.. We pushed it off the semi with the tractor, so it was unloaded in a matter of minutes, then could come back bale by bale (3x3x8 foot bales) to stack it in the storage. a fun job, except that without fail the rain seems to roll in about half way through the job, making panic arise, and robbing you of some of the fun. This is 21 tons of hay, about half of what we need for the year at Aardwolf Alpacas.

Chamber of Commerce Ribbon Cutting

____________________________

Ribbon Cuttings Get Exciting!

Mike Moser & Phyllis Swenson along with

Prospectors, Friends, and Staff (Alpacas)

get a “cut above”

At Aardwolf Alpacas

Now who could resist a face like that!

____________________________

As Published by the Canon City Chamber of Commerce.

Where did the summer go....

Well, once again I have neglected this blog for too long. July and August now gone, and trying to think back of what did happen to them! The girls did not come out this year for summer, so that is one thing. Mike and I got out less because they weren't around to do fun stuff with. Kelsey was in Summer School and Sara has decided she does not want to come up anymore, and with her Dad and the law on her side, guess I can't do anything about that. I did have a nice visit with them in Albuquerque in June. School started again for them both this week, so I guess life goes on.

We spent the whole summer waiting on bees and still haven't gotten them. More on that at http://aardwolfbees.blogspot.com/.

We have had a fair number of visitors this summer which has gotten us out to a few sights in the area, Bishops Castle, Fishing, the royal gorge, the local Brewpub, fishing.. etc. It was great to see these friends.. for Stuart and I it had been 25 years! We love visitors, come on by and try out our soon to be official B&B!

Shannon & Rich Koch from Idaho Falls

The Fleig Family from Albuquerque

The Zev Family from LA

Stuart & Robbie Self from Dallas

We also had a visit from Eric Bowman from Santa Fe and Mike boys, Dan and Josh, and Carla.

We have been working on marketing and increasing the numbers of visitors to the ranch. As such we have gotten our felting workshops officially off the ground. See our page http://www.aardwolfalpacas.com/workshops.html for more information on those, but they have been very well received and are growing. I have a few commissions for some products, so although I don't want to be a clothing manufacturer, it's all good.

In the same light we have joined a number of local organizations to increase our visibility, including the Canon Food Coop, Business Owners meet & Greet (local networking group), the woman's new neighbors group, and the Chamber of Commerce. The Coop has been manning a booth at the farmers market all summer and we have volunteered at least half of the days, selling alpaca product and educating the public about alpacas. The Meet & Greet group has us on the advisory board, and Mike is now on the committee to run a Business Expo in October here in town. The new Neighbors group doesn't meet during the summer, but has offshoot groups that we are involved in, Couples Card Night, and I belong to a "gad-about" group that goes places once a month together. So every week we are busy with activities for these groups and friends we have met through these groups.

Over the 4th of July we participated in Open Ranch Days at a ranch in Salida (an hour away and a market we have wanted to target.) It was very successful and we have a few nights booked at the ranch and felting workshops booked from the event.


Last week we got a bit of a vacation. We had the people we are boarding animals for come watch the animals and we headed out to Salt Lake for a week. Actually we started in Idaho visiting our alpaca friends from our Wyoming days. They had a potluck in our honor, and aside from Cheryl being off for quadruple bypass surgery, it was just like old times. Got to see Rich and Shannons new ranch, and Londa and Jody's new Inn in Lava Hot Springs (cool place! http://lavaalpacainn.com/default.aspx I'm ready for another family reunion there!). Then the next day we headed on down to Ogden for Mike's Dad's surprise 80th birthday party.. And surprise it was, as his birthday is not until September 17! We were singing happy birthday, and he was looking around for who we were singing to! Mike got to visit with his kids, who all made it except Josh (who was off shooting an Oryx at White Sands, NM... we forgive you, Josh). And Mike's sister Nancy, husband, and sister made it in from LA, so we had quite a crowd.

Betty & Rudy Moser

We stayed the rest of the week and went fishing with Jed (mike twice), visited with his family, and even got to take the grandkids out on an outing to the aquarium! That was a first and very special! AND we had a baby while we were gone... Rocky! (Named by a contest through the Meet & Greet group).

Jed

Strawberry River

Mike caught the biggest fish he ever caught on a dry fly 2- 25 inchers he estimates. I also caught my biggest fish. an 18 incher for me ;-)

Work has still been a little slim, I've gotten some contract work here and there, Mike has gotten some construction work, and we have been marketing alpacas like crazy. We also joined a service called Send Out Cards and are very excited about the prospects. If you haven't heard of it go watch the video at http://www.got13minutes.com/ then click on the link on the side of this blog page and send a free card on us. We are talking real physical greeting cards, through the mail, fabulous quality, in your own handwriting, with your own photos.. (or not) all for under a dollar a card! Unbelieveable...... Ok, this is how I get when I talk about this (too excited). I guess I've rambled on enough... Time to stop and add a few photos!

Tiger Lily

Our cat died this week. Normally I do not get too choked up over death of an animal... after all I have 107 of them! But this cat was special.


We have a bunch (who knows how many - 7? 10?) of cats. They are all wild, couldn't catch one if I wanted. This little girl was given to me because I wanted a friendly cat... and the woman who was a breeder, was downsizing her operations. The cat was a "Pixie Bob", a 20 year old breed started by breeding a bobcat and a domestic cat. She looked like a small bobcat and got lots of attention for that from visitors.. As far as friendly, be careful what you wish for! She was always underfoot whenever we were outside. I loved it.

It is hard to get someone to trust you with a cat when you will be keeping it outside. We have been warned against alpacas and Kittens, so those are not an option. I don't want to spend a lot of money (ie $90 at the pound -and again usually the pound won't let you take a cat if you will be keeping it in the barn) so she will be difficult to replace. She will be missed!

We are not sure how she died. Mike thinks she may have eaten a poisoned mouse... She started declining about a week ago. Getting more uncomfortable and less mobile daily. We hoped she would snap back - find another life. But no such luck. Her last day was Sunday, and she didn't move all day long.. not even a whisker, but she still purred when you pet her. I wished I could just put her out of her misery, then a friend suggested that sometimes animals die from dehydration. As she hadn't moved all day, I knew she was dehydrated. So I took a syringe and water and poured a little down her throat. Then she spasmed and died. (I am wondering if I drowned her).

Anyhow. Perhaps this is a little tribute to Tiger Lily. Now I'm hoping I find a photo to share with you. (OK, the picture I found is not her, but she looked just like that.. except she was missing an eye!)

****

Another death on the ranch this week was to our colony of bees, which we finally got! but they all died. Read about that on the bee blog. (http://aardwolfbees.blogspot.com/)

No bees yet

Our bees are not ready as we were promised. It will probably be at least a month unless we get them. We are sad, but we'll let you know when they come. Read our post at http://aardwolfbees.blogspot.com/ if you want more detail.

Busy Alpaca Month

May is always a busy time around the alpaca ranch! First weekend is always the Great Western Alpaca Show.. one of the biggest shows in the country and in Denver, so being local of course we would go. We should feel great about the results because we took six alpacas, and brought home 5 ribbons. In that big of show that is not a failure. But we had high hopes for two of the boys to do fabulously and they did not do as well as we would have liked.... Oh well, each judge has her preferences, next show will be a different judge, different day, different weather..... All those things effect your placing.

At the end of the month is the national convention, this year to be in Cleveland. I've been trying to talk Mike into going because it is an opportunity to meet and reacquaint ourselves with people that we have been networking with. But time and money are at a premium right now, so not sure if we will be doing that.

Between the two is shearing. We are doing our own shearing this year. With 90 alpacas to shear, this is going to be an adventure! We started last Friday. The people boarding with us are supposed to be here to help but had a family emergency, so Mike and I got started by ourselves. We were told the first few would take an hour each, and indeed, that is about what they are taking. We got through the first guy, Roadie, and although he looks pretty ragged, we got the fleece off!
We got half way through the second guy and the shears broke a gear. Poor Phoenix looked pretty funny! Oh the humility!

Phoenix before we goofed him up!

Last spring we sheared a couple babies that had been born over the summer, and before we could get the shears to work right, we had to replace some parts. When we ordered them, the girl through in a few "extra parts" she recommended having around. Well one of those parts was the broken gear, so Mike had us up and running again by the next morning.

Saturday we finished up Phoenix, things were working ok, sheared Ramon Jr. but the shears seemed to be not working very well and it was a struggle. Then a neighboring alpaca friend showed up to help for a couple hours. A third person really helps a lot. While Ron was there we sheared Escudero, and then stopped for lunch. Escudero was the toughest yet.. Hey isn't this supposed to be getting easier instead of harder? Mike is constantly having to adjust the shears to try to get them to cut well. When we stopped for lunch, he took the opportunity to sharpen a few blades.
Just as we were getting going after lunch a couple of other friends showed up who wanted to learn about alpaca shearing, so we started in on Scoundrel, but the cutters just would not cut. After an hour we were only about 1/2 done. Mike's frustration level was over the top. At this point the $1000+ we would have had to pay to hire a professional shearer is looking cheap! Oh well, we will get through, we will learn a lot!, and we will get better. In a couple years we will laugh at our naivity.

In the meantime we have decided to buy new shears, the ones we were using were ebay - used shears. Perhaps shears are one of those items you should not buy used! I'll follow up with the success story when we finish this chore. Only 84.5 alpacas left to go!

Other than alpacas, we have gotten fishing a couple times (it hasn't been real good yet this year), I traveled for work this week to Iowa, and tomorrow we get our bees. Watch the bee blog for news on that event.

Our Bee Adventures

Aardwolf is dabbling in beekeeping, we hope to have one to two colonies beginning next month. I've decided to set up a separate blog to just cover the bee topics, and I will not be sending out notices of new posts to that blog. But if you are interested you are welcome to come see what the buzz is all about anytime. You can find this at http://aardwolfbees.blogspot.com/.

Happy beekeeping!

And Nikita makes 106

Our herd has steadily grown in the 3.5 years since we bought our first alpaca, and truth be told our philosophy has been that the more alpacas we have, the more babies we will have, the more we will have to offer customers, the more revenue we will have, and the faster we will get return on our investment. So therefore we have grown faster than most alpaca ranches. Our two newest babies born this month make 41 in our herd, and a comfortable size to maintain. As such Aardwolf Alpacas has evolved into the next phase where we are focusing more on marketing, sales, and additional services.

March 2009 Aardwolf babies - Kilkerrin and Weston

Coincidentally we were contacted in January, by another ranch we have done business with, looking for a place to board their 45+ alpacas for a year or so until they can sell their house in Colorado Springs and buy another ranch that better suits their needs closer to town. They had been living on a ranch near Trinidad, 4 hours from the Springs, and the husband had been commuting weekly, leaving the wife home to take care of the alpacas, without a working well, and with two small children, one of whom needed an hour ride to the bus stop twice a day. Beautiful place, but too overwhelming.

We are blessed with lots of room, and with Mike contemplating looking for a part time job to supplement our income, this was just the ticket. We already board 1 other alpaca for someone who is trying to get back in the business. So we agreed, got the contracts together, and began to move animals. Since the first of their animals arrived February 1, they have had 3 new babies... more fun for us. The last of the alpacas arrived about 2 weeks ago. We are keeping them (at least for the time being) in our second barn, and have moved our boys from that barn to our big barn. This way there is no bio security issues. Part of our concern was being more tied down (I can convince a neighbor to watch 50 animals when I'm out of town, but how would they feel about twice as many), so as part of the negotiations we included that they will come take care of all the animals periodically to give us a break. A perfect solution to us.

They also breed guard dogs, and found homes for most of those, but really didn't want to give up their two best dogs, raised with alpacas, and didn't want to confine them to a yard in the city. So we agreed to take the two dogs as well, and keep them in with their alpacas. Our 4 dogs stay in with our alpacas. Our 6 (+-) barn cats do not go in the alpaca pens (by their own choice).


Two weeks ago a neighbor of ours bought a mini-horse as a companion for her riding horse that she had been boarding out for the winter. She had found this mini-horse after a previous deal fell through and for about 1/4 of the price of the first deal, and therefore jumped on it. BUT had to go pick it up before she had her fencing ready, or before she had hay, etc. So we are keeping the two horses here for a few weeks, until she can get that all going.


Then last week Mike's son, Dan, called to say his company had a new long term contract nearby our place, and when he was working in the area he'd like to spend weekends with us (yeah!). He has a dog, Nikita, that is by his side everywhere he goes. As such she is very well behaved. But the first week on the job he didn't feel comfortable taking the dog with him, until he got settled in a bit. SOOO, we volunteered to watch him this first week on the new contract.

Nikita

If you've been counting, including Mike and I, that makes 106 hearts beating on our ranch. I find that just a bit shocking! We have ordered bees that should come the beginning of May. there should be 60,000 of them, once the hive gets up to capacity. Do bees have hearts?

On the road...

Mike and his son Josh took a road trip to Ohio last week. They were going to deliver 7 alpacas at 4 various farms and pick up 6 others that needed to come home. Well, since we can never have a dull moment around our house, of course this story has an adventure!

They took Josh's truck (diesel) and our trailer. The first night out Mike called at 4am to tell me the truck and trailer (and 7 alpacas) were stolen. Josh had a feeling something bad was going to happen so he was hyper vigilant that night and heard the truck being stolen from their second floor room at the motel in Independence, MO (thus the significance of diesel). They grabbed their pants, shoes and the guns that they each travel with and ran out, Mike ran toward where the truck had been parked, Josh ran the other way and headed off the truck as it pulled out onto the street. The guy tried to run Josh down, so Josh shot out the tires.

The guy only drove about 2 miles before he ditched the truck due to lack of tires, and ran off through the snow. The police arrived with the swat team, helicopters, and everything. The police followed the tracks through the snow, but did not catch the guy. The good news is of course that they did get the truck and trailer damaged only by two tires needing replacing, a bullet hole in the side of the truck, broken door handle and ignition switch. 4 hours after the first call they have new tires and are back on the road again, heading for Ohio! Nothing stolen, all without injury, Alpacas just fine. So much to be grateful for!

The rest of their trip (the next 3000 miles or so, and another 4 days) was downright boring compared to the first day. But ya' know? They did not mind! The weather was very cold so they did not sleep in the truck as they has planned, and would have liked to see the mid-west in the springtime, but alas... not to be. This was Josh's first trip East ever, and Mike got to spend 5 uninterrupted days with Josh, something he hadn't done in years... so overall the trip was full of memories.

The first stop - LIBERTY ALPACAS

Inspecting Alpacas at the next stop - CROOKED CREEK ALPACAS

Connie & Willie of CROOKED CREEK ALPACAS

The fourth stop - THE CRIA BARN
(Oops didn't get pictures at THE ALPACAROSA - sorry Carolyn and Don)

Charlie and Theresa of THE CRIA BARN

Life in the country!

Well this story is getting older now, but it seems to be fairly well resolved. For awhile there it was changing too much to blog about. Sorry the result is such a LONG post.

Our well has a relief overflow, which when it overflows it runs out on the ground and makes mud in the Summer and ice in the Winter across a section of our drive. Last October Mike decided to bury a tank we had left from the previous owners so the water could run into there and dissipate slowly underground.

That's where it all started.. While burying the tank Mike bumped the tractor into a spigot directly above the well, which cracked a joint down low, and our water quit working. The well repair guy pulled the pump up and replaced the joint, which he said was corroded due to the wrong material anyway. Then he put the pump back down.

About a month later we were out of water in the house. Mike could turn off the pump and turn it on again and it would pump water for a few minutes and stop. The well guy came out (two days later) and said good news is our pump is not dead, bad news is our well is dry. We would have to drill a new well (~$12,000) with no guarantee that they would hit water. We were devastated. 2008 wasn't good to us financially and the bill for a new well was not going to fit in the budget! The well guy put a pump minder on so that the pump would shut off if there was no water rather than burn out.

Mike happened to be out when the well guy was there (taking advantage of the distraught woman at home, who knows nothing about rural life, and wells and such.) Mike felt there was something not right about the well guy's advise, after all we had had no trouble at all with water supply since moving in, and he could get water for a few minutes every little while. Mike wanted a second opinion. That didn't help with the sleepless night and lack of water in the house until the next guy could get there.

The next guy confirmed that we had water. He thought the well was vapor locking, and found that if he set the pump minder to about a minute before it turns back on (allowing dissipation of the gasses) it would fill our 300 gallon tank in about an hour, which we use up in about 3 days. So if this works then while we sleep each night it should top off the tank and we should be good.

That sort of worked. For some unknown reason occasionally it did not turn back on, and a couple days later we were out of water again. We did figure out that we could turn it off and back on and it would proceed to fill and be ok for a couple of days.

We left for Albuquerque and Christmas with a full tank. We were convinced that without us home using water, the 300 gallon tank would be plenty of water for the animals for 9 days. But the next day the girl (Jody) taking care of the animals called to say the tank was empty. She cycled the pump and had water again but every other day or so the tank was empty. The freezing weather, and hoses, and a spigot that freezes, etc, didn't help matters and she was carrying water from one barn to the other daily, rising to the challenges our water problems were presenting.

We were baffled where 300 gallons could be going every other day. Upon returning home we realized that it was all draining into the overflow tank! Aargh! Mike has shut that off, and still there is something wrong with the pump that cycling seems to fix about once a week, but at least we haven't been without water since Christmas. He thinks when the pump was pulled up it was never put back down far enough into the well. We'll get the SECOND guy back out to look in the Spring.

This story is not even going into the frustrations Mike has had over the first well service and letters back and forth and better business bureau and other ugliness.

Coincidentally about 3 days in with no water we realized our septic tank was full it had overflowed and backed up. So for three or so weeks we either didn't have water, or we didn't have septic tank! Either way we were getting up at 3am to pee (because due to our new eating regime we are drinking about a gallon of water a day!) and have to put on shoes so our feet don't freeze in the snow on the way to pee! That is just not right!

When we called the Septic Tank service they told us they would charge $50/hour to dig up our front yard to find our septic tank. Mike thought he could do that with the tractor, and would call them back when he found it. Of course there was about 6 inches of snow from the day before that was not too helpful.

We did dig up half of the front yard and we did find the tank and the lid. Called the guy back and he couldn't come out for a few days.. After some frustrations with that, we called the only other guy in town who came right out and pumped us out.

Whew, we thought our problems were solved and I went off for a much needed shower before my girlfriend took me out for a Birthday Tea. But alas, the shower wasn't draining. Seems the full septic tank had clogged back up into the pipes. Mike had to snake it out, making a heck of a mess in the crawlspace with back flowing sewage! But then HE could have a much needed shower also.

A couple days later we were relaying this story to some friends who said the first time they pumped their septic tank they hadn't realized there were two lids and that you had to pump both compartments. Two lids?? So out came the tractor again. A bit more digging and Voila.. another lid! And upon opening.. yup, this side if full too. So the Septic service came back out to pump that side (shouldn't he have mentioned that when he was here the first time?). He did however mention that he thought our drain field had probably been compromised and that we would probably have to dig a new one. That will be another task for the spring! And perhaps Mike and his Tractor can do that without employing incompetent service people! In the meantime we are conserving on toilet flushing, sharing the flush when we can, but it sure beats walking in the snow to pee!

I am a knitter!

For many years ~ around 40 actually (giving myself six years to find out what knitting was.) I have told people I am not a knitter. For the past 15 or so I have told people I know how to knit, the basic stitches, but I still was not a knitter. But today I must tell you, I am a knitter. I owe my thanks to my friend Elaine Million who drug me to our knitting group (seemed like a good idea as I didn't know anyone in town. And after all I sell yarn, might as well network with knitters... unlike myself of course). In fact in this group I had a woman who knitted for me. I didn't do much knitting at all. But one day I saw a scarf that caught my eye, and as usual my response was "I could make that!" So I did.. made 3 of them. Still not terribly enamoured with knitting. Then, in an Alpaca Magazine I saw a sweater with a pattern that I liked... "I could make that". And so I did. Because there was some pattern to it, everyone thought I was being too ambitious, but hey, if you know a knit stitch and a purl stitch, you know what you need to know. And with Karen's help (The REAL foundation knitter in the group) I was able to read the pattern and finish the sweater.

I'm now VERY excited to start the next one ;-) I guess I am a knitter.