2016 Outlook

Every year when things start to come to a close, all I can think about is starting everything up again the next year!  That's pretty much the place I'm in right now...planning mode!  Or should I say dreaming mode!

I have a lot of big plans for 2016.  Sure, not all of them will come true, but I can hope!

First and foremost, getting Lily some real exposure in the show ring!  She has huge footsteps to follow in (her full brother was Grand Champion Medium Wool Male at the ILR Gathering and her half sister has won numerous Grand Champions and Best of Shows in 2015), and I know she will succeed.  I'm really hoping to make it to a few of the big out of state shows (March Llama Madness, the Virginia Classic, the ILR Gathering/LFA), as well as some of the closer ones (the NY State Fair, the Big E, etc.).  Our main focus will be halter, but I may show her fleece as well.  We'll do performance at some of them, and I might even make her wear a costume!

Lily at the 2015 NY State Fair.

Second, starting plans for building a new barn!  This is the one that will probably not amount to much, other than the planning, but oh well.  In order for me to become a full-time llama farmer I need to build up my herd, and in order to do that I need a new barn!  We have a nice barn now, but there is very little pasture attached to it (less than an acre), so it is pretty useless.  I hope to build a new barn next to a 6-8 acre field on the other side of the property.

My dream barn!

Last but not least, I think I'm going to get a breeding male next year!  I'm going to need one by spring 2017 if I want to breed Kara and May again (I could even breed Lily at that point, but I will probably wait); outside breedings are just too expensive!  Going along with my overall vision for my ideal llama, I'm going to be looking for a male with awesome conformation, thick bone structure, dense fine fleece, and a nice personality.  It's going to be hard to find though...the thick bone and dense fiber and harder to come by than you might think.  I'm going to try to find a part Argentine, as it will help with those traits.  I'm pretty sure I've narrowed down a few farms to look at when the time comes...  If I can make it to the ILR Gathering/LFA Sale this summer, I would like to bring home a male from the show.  That way I can save a bit on transport and be able to show him at the local shows in the late summer/fall.  I've even figured out where to build a new pen!

I'd love to have a male that looked like this guy!  (Argentine Poltergeist)

It's Almost Farmer's Market Time!

It's hard to believe that summer is almost over...seems like the year is flying by!  Now that I'm out of school, the end of summer isn't such a letdown.  Now that I'm a "big girl", it means cooler weather, llama shows, and of course the beginning of *my* farmer's market season!  (I specify *my* farmer's market season, because the market has actually been running since May, but I only sign up for the second half, since I figure it would be hard to sell wool hats in 80* weather!)

I've really begun to enjoy going to the farmer's market.  I wake up nice and early every Saturday, drive to Hamilton (a college town about 30 minutes north of where I live), set up, and then spin and talk to people (and hopefully sell a few things!) for 5-6 hours!  What fiber enthusiast could wish for much more?  Of course on the days when the weather is iffy it is a bit less fun, but the gorgeous fall days make up for it.

All winter my mom and I have slowly been building up my inventory of knit items to sell at the market.  I take other things like handspun yarn and insoles, but the knit accessories really steal the show.  I think I've got a great selection this year, and hopefully my future customers agree!

The market starts for me in just under 2 weeks...August 8!  Hopefully I'll have my new llama by then.  (Long story short, the original transporter changed her route so she couldn't pick up May.  I'm still searching for a new one, but I do have a promising lead!)  Can't wait!

Garden 2015!

It is really disappointing how little "free" time I have at home now that I'm working full time.  So much less time for the fun outdoor stuff like gardening, and even less time to blog about it!  But I finally managed to take some pictures of my expanded garden, and thought I would share them.

The garden is at least twice as big as it was last year.  It was supposed to be bigger, but 2 broken rototillers later my husband gave up and I settled for what was done.  The plants are the same as last year though, just more of most of them!

These are the "hills" of squash and pumpkin.  I'm trying out a few different trellising methods, we'll see which one wins in the end.  Still battling the dreaded cucumber beetle, just like last year!

I finally got my permanent flower edges planted.  Hopefully I remember to mark them at the end of the growing season so that they don't get tilled under next year!

This is the second planting of spinach, onions, beets, carrots, radishes, and lettuce.  I have gotten a TON of radishes out of this wide row, and picked a good amount of lettuce and spinach today.  

This is the row of cucumbers.  I hid them under a floating row cover for several weeks after planting, but they started to bloom so I freed them.  Darn cucumber beetles still found them!

Can't forget the tomatoes!  I planted almost twice as many as last year (not by choice!), so I hope they do well.  I did get some fungicide to hopefully thwart the blight.

My first planting of onions, spinach, beets, carrots, radishes, and lettuce.  I've picked almost all of the spinach, lettuce, and radishes, and most of the beets.  I noticed today that something is eating the carrot tops, but hopefully they'll still live.

Good old broccoli, if only everything were this easy to grow!  I've already harvested 3 big heads so far this week.

And last but not least, the potatoes.  I definitely planted the rows too close together, and I'm worried they aren't hilled enough.  But the plants look gorgeous!

Busy Spring!

I'll warn you, the blog is going to be sparse for awhile.  I started a full-time job last fall, so my blogging time is greatly diminished.  While I'm still doing lots of things around the farm, I just can't seem to remember to take pictures and upload them!

Anyway, here's a bit of what's been going on the past month or so.  Some of this will get expanded on in the future, so stay tuned!

My first spring project was cleaning and organizing the "garden shed".  It has been a mess since I moved in, and I finally had enough!  This is what I started with...

This is as far as I got the first day...hanging all the tools and wire edging/trellises.  The rest is done now, just need to get pictures to prove it!

The biggest spring project was cleaning up outside the barn.  Usually over the winter I try my hardest to take the manure down to the garden compost pile every time I clean, but after we got 2' of snow overnight it became impossible!  And that 2' never melted until March, just grew and grew!  So I resorted to dumping the manure outside the barn, and had a huge mess to clean up!  I used the tractor for awhile, but once I realized it was making huge ruts in the pasture I resorted to a wheel barrow.

This is just a fraction of what I started with!  Once again, I need to get "after" pictures now that it is clean!

And last but not least, the garden.  My husband tilled it a couple weeks ago, and parts of it look great!

Other parts don't look so great (they didn't get tilled deep enough to kill the sod underneath).

There is lots of lovely llama poop mixed in for fertilizer though!

The part that was planted last year really looks nice.  A few more years of sorting out rocks and we'll have amazing soil!

I built a cool little tool for seeding the root vegetables...a dibble!

It has nails in the bottom at various intervals.

When pressed into the soil, the nails leave depressions in which to plant the seeds.

After spreading the seeds I covered the area with a sprinkling of soil and watered well.  The radishes are already coming up!

The end of my first day in the garden...3 rows of potatoes planted (4 varieties), a raised row ready for broccoli (a few plants are now planted), and another raised row half-planted with root vegetables (onions, carrots, radishes, beets) and leafy vegetables (spinach and lettuce).  The other half will be planted in a few weeks.

Snow, and Cold, and I Don't Want to Go Outside!!

I used to love winter, I really did...then I moved to upstate NY and moved my 5 llamas (ok, 4 llamas and 1 alpaca) there as well and my love of winter went down the drain.

Our first big snowfall of the year.

I thought I knew what winter in upstate NY was all about; after all, I spent 4 years here during college.  Note to self: walking from a dorm to class and back is much different than driving 1 hour every day plus doing chores and taking care of livestock!

The llamas don't mind the snow too much.  As long as I lure them outside with hay!

Now, as much as I hate to say it, I don't like winter nearly as much.  I don't have time to play in it like I used to (I've only gone XC skiing twice this winter, and haven't gone downhill skiing at all!), and I'm just sick of it!

XC skiing with Abby last winter.

I'm slowly but surely figuring out some ways to make winter more bearable though, at least where the lamas are concerned.  I no longer feel bad about locking them inside at night, because they stay warmer and I worry less.  The two oldies also wear coats (with wool sweaters underneath) 24-7.  I've added a "litter box" to the barn to make cleanup easier.  And I've installed a plastic strip door (think walk-in freezer) to the barn door to keep the cold and wind out.  I still hate dragging poop down to the garden through 12" of snow though!

April in her coat.

So, what are your thoughts on winter?  Have they changed since you were a kid? ;)

Finishing the Fence!!

Well it isn't completely done, but the fence is 99% finished!

Yesterday we finished the last remaining side of the perimeter fence.

Today I worked on the rest of the aisle fence.

We also hung the gate yesterday, but I still need to wire-tie some chicken wire to the gate.

I got half of the aisle fence attached to the posts, and will do the rest tomorrow.

We also worked on evicting our groundhog resident from the shed.

And we finished the shed pen and make-shift gate.

There is still another couple hours worth of work to do tomorrow morning, but the llamas are going to christen their new pasture by the afternoon!  Can't wait!

Hanging Fence!!

We're finally hanging fence!

I set up the wires for the braces a few days ago (well, all but one), so today we set out to start hanging the fence.

First we had to build our fence stretcher.  It is 2 pieces of 2x4, cut to 4.5'.  We drilled 2 holes and added 2 bolts.  The fence gets sandwiched between the pieces of wood, and the nuts on the bolts tightened as much as possible.

Next we had to strip the vertical wires from the end of the fence roll, and tie the end of the fence around the gate post.  Just stripping those wires took an hour!

Then we unrolled the fence along the fence row, and attached the stretcher.  We wrapped a chain around the top and bottom of the stretcher, and attached a come-along between the chain and the tractor.  We had a lot of extra slack in the fence, so we backed the tractor up before tightening with the come-along.

Once the fence was tight enough, we stapled it at the corner.  Tomorrow we'll stretch the next length of fence (and splice the next roll in between).

We didn't get much done in all reality, but hopefully it will go faster in the future!

Putting in Fence!

Well I guess it's the week for updates!

We've had a lot of rain recently, so the fence progress has been slow, but we're getting there!

I posted a few weeks ago about pounding the metal t-posts for the aisle from the shed to the pasture.

The aisle in the distance.

After that was done we started putting in the corner post brace assemblies.  Due to the aisle, our pasture has 4 true corners (3 posts with 2 braces each) and 2 half-braces (2 posts and 1 brace each).  All of these posts must be set in cement.

Supplies for setting corner posts.

I first marked where I wanted the corners to be (and measured each side so we wouldn't run out of fence!)

Flag where the corner post will be set.

What a beautiful pasture!

Then we started digging the holes with the auger on the PTO of the tractor.  Of course we had the same luck as last year...breaking a shear bolt on the first post!  Actually we broke 3 shear bolts in the first 4 posts, but (knock on wood!) haven't broken any since then!

First broken shear bolt!

Pulling the auger out of the hole after the shear bolt broke.

When we set the posts in concrete, we pour 40lbs of dry mix into the hole, followed by about 2-3 gallons of water.  Then it gets mixed with a t-post and allowed to settle.  The rest of the hole is filled in with dirt (and rocks).

Concrete and water in the hole.

First finished corner post!

We set the final corner post yesterday, and started on the wood line posts today.  Every 4th post will be wood, the rest are metal t-posts.  We have 5 of the 9 wood posts set, and hope the do the rest Saturday.  In the meantime I'll be busy pounding t-posts!

Drilling for the third line post (the one in the background is loose, not set!).

Drilling for the fourth line post.