Llama Biography #11: Autumn Hill's Tatoka

Things have been pretty quiet around the farm, and I keep forgetting to take pictures of things, so I'm going to be lazy and do another biography post.

Llama #11 on our farm was Autumn Hill's Tatoka.  In spring 2001, we took 2 of our breeding females (April and Sheba) to Yellow Wood Llamas in Martinsville, IN to be bred to 2 of their males.  April was to be bred to PPF Pablo Cruz, a beautiful white male with a red head.  She was bred and spit off several times before returning home with Sheba.  Later in the fall we determined that April didn't hold the pregnancy, so she went back to YWL to be bred again.  She was bred again, and during one of the spit tests she actually attacked Pablo!  We hoped she would hold the pregnancy and took her home again.  About a year later (in October 2002), Tatoka was born.

Autumn Hill's Tatoka at 1 month of age.  (Unfortunately this is the only digital picture I have of him!)

April was notorious for having her babies when no one was home.  On the day Tatoka was born, my mom came home to check on April during her lunch hour.  Barely an hour later, my sister and I came home on the school bus to find the baby already born and walking around!  Tatoka is a Native American word for "antelope" (I believe in the Lakota language).  Tatoka was running around the pasture almost as soon as he could stand on 4 legs, so we thought the name was appropriate.

Alder Crest April Showers, Tatoka's mom, at the 2002 Great Lakes Regionals.  Tatoka was only 2 weeks old at the time of this show, and he was a huge hit!

Tatoka was one of the very first llamas that I sold.  He was sold to a new llama breeder and fiber artist in February 2003 (though he didn't leave the farm until he was weaned).  His new owner has since become a great friend, and she gives Tatoka a great home.  Tatoka was purchased to be a breeding male, but he was ultimately gelded and is now a farm greeter and fiber producer.  Every time I go to visit (his owner also has a fiber store!), it amazes me how much he looks like his mom!

Off Topic...Flowers!

I'll apologize in advance...this post is quite off topic!  But I'm (hopefully) bringing a bunch of flowers back from home (Indiana) when I got back in two weeks, and I need to figure out what to do with them!  I promise to talk about fibery/llama things in the next post!  But feel free to share your opinion on what I should do with the gardens!

Garden #1: Back Tree

This is a newer garden.  It is under a big tree, but it mostly gets sun.  There were some day lilies, to which I added lavender, purple coneflower, a low purple plant, lambs' ear, and lots of sedum.  The lavender is slowly growing, the coneflower got eaten, but the rest are doing great.  I'm definitely moving the coneflower and would like to replace it with another tall plant (maybe a daisy).  There is also lots of room to add flowers to this garden.

Early spring.

Mid-summer, before the coneflower got eaten!

Poor dead coneflower, but the sedum went nuts!

Back side of the same garden.

Garden #2: Swing Set

This is a brand-new garden.  I needed a sunny place for a clematis (at least we HOPE it is a clematis!), so I dug out a spot under the swing set that is used as a bird feeder hanger in winter.  I'd love to get vines growing all over the swing set!  In addition to the clematis, there are three other plants I bought on sale at Lowe's this summer.  The rabbits were munching on one, but some well-placed dog fur was a great deterrent!  For now I think I'm leaving this garden alone; it doesn't need to get too big, and I'd like to see how the plants fill out.

Right after I planted.

Clematis finally started growing!

Garden #3: Aspen

This is my "oops" garden!  All winter as I was watching the sun exposure in the gardens, this spot was sunny!  But once the huge maple tree a few feet away leafed out in the spring, it was almost 100% shaded!  I planted a lot of sun plants here, and now they all need to be moved.  Currently there is sedum (which is doing okay), columbine (also okay), daisies, grape hyacinths, and two types of lilies.  I also replaced a couple of other plants with two hostas, which will definitely stay.  So I need to replace most of the plants in this one...

Early spring.

Mid-summer.

After adding the hostas.  The sedum looks great.

Garden #4: House

This was an existing garden, but it has still taken a lot of work.  And it is huge!  It is on the north side of the house, so I believe it gets morning light and afternoon shade.  The outside edges of the garden obviously get more sun than the inside.  There were a few hostas and lilies here, as well as some sort of shrub.  I have planted more hostas, a forget-me-not, chives, more of the low purple flower, lambs' ear, daisies, sedum, poppy, lily of the valley, and some other shade plant I can't remember the name of.  The poppy sort-of got eaten (though the dog hair remedy worked here as well!), but most of the rest are doing good.  Some of the hostas have been slow to grow, but hopefully they'll take off next year.  I don't think anything needs to move out of this garden, but there is room for some shade plants if I have them leftover.

Early spring.

Early spring (left side).

Mid-summer.

Late summer.  Really starting to fill out!

The bush thing is starting to take over, but apparently it dies off every winter.

The back part (close to the house), which could use more shade plants.

Garden #5: Pine

This is another new garden.  It may have been started last year...  Another partial sun/shade.  There is a nice big bunch of irises, some lilies, and lots of roses.  I added lots of sedum, some columbine, a lemon balm plant, lambs' ear, and a hosta.  All seem to be doing well, but there is lots of available room for new plants.

Early spring.

Late spring.  There is more room on the far left for plants.

And just for kicks, the established gardens.

Lone garden in the middle of the lawn.

The hedgerow garden really needed to be weeded!

The coneflowers didn't get eaten here!

So...thoughts?  Tips?  I'd love to hear what you think!

Pasture Management

Slowly but surely, I'm working on rehabilitating the pasture.  I should've done more of the work BEFORE the llamas got here, but hindsight is always 20-20.  And as it turns out, the llamas are pretty good at pasture management too!

The llamas enjoying the bottom part of the pasture.

As I've mentioned before, I did quite a bit of mowing (with the push mower I might add!) before the llamas got here.  Most of the pasture is too tight or hilly to mow with the bush-hog, and the riding lawn mower is worthless!  So I push mowed and raked about 75% of the pasture, hoping to get rid of some of the weeds and encourage the grass to grow.

For the most part, the mowing worked great.  The tall burdock plants are gone (although there are new ones growing in their place!), and the grass is growing back in.  I couldn't mow everywhere though, as there are two large spots in the pasture that are covered in small boulders/large rocks, and I didn't want to break the mower!  So the weeds in those spots were at least chest high, if not higher.  Luckily the llamas seem to LOVE these weeds, and they are slowly taking care of them!  T prefers to wade through the weeds to find the ones he likes, while Kara buries her head!  It is quite funny to watch.

The llamas are slowly working their way through the tall weeds.

Another big aspect of the pasture rehabilitation is filling in holes and gaps in the fence.  In the past two days we've moved about 4 loads of dirt, using it to fill in some ground hog holes and one big gap in the fence.  I could use another 10 or so loads, but we'll get there eventually...

One of the gaps in the fence we are trying to fill.  There is also probably some barb-wire fence buried underneath too.

I've also been planting a TON of grass seed!  Since the pasture was about 50% covered in burdock plants, there are now a lot of bare spots (where the burdock was shading out the grass).  I fenced off the biggest bare spot (in the bottom part of the pasture), and in the few short weeks since the weeds were cut there has been a lot of new grass growing.  It is already about 6" tall!  Unfortunately there is still a big bare spot right along the fenceline, so I roughed it up with a rake and spread grass seed.  Of course we then got about 2" of rain, so I re-planted about half of what I had done!  This time I covered the seed with a light layer of hay, to protect from driving rain and birds.  Hopefully we will get some rain in the next few weeks so the seeds can start to grow!

The big bare spot in the bottom part of the pasture, now seeded and covered with hay.

Another big area up by the barn was also covered in burdock, and now that those are gone I planted seed there as well.  That spot is close enough to the barn that I can water it on a regular basis, so I expect it to start growing sooner than the other spots.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough temporary fence posts to block this spot off as well, so I hope that the llamas don't trample the new seedlings or eat them too early!

Another bare spot in the pasture, also re-seeded.  This one is up at the top, by the silos and barn.

 And last but not least, I've been doing weed management.  As I mentioned above, even though the big burdock stems had been cut down, there were still new plants growing in.  And the tiny burdocks were producing seeds already!  (The llamas are COVERED in burrs, if you were wondering...)  I tried twice to spray the burdock plants with a safe herbicide mixture (vinegar, salt, and dish soap), with varying results.  I decided that it wasn't working well enough, so I spent two afternoons digging/pulling the larger burdock plants by hand.  Technically it worked (the plants are gone after all!), but there are still a lot of tiny burdock plants, so today I decided to mow about half of the pasture.  I'm planning to mow it every 2-3 weeks, and hopefully the grass can out-compete the weeds and take over!  There are also two low-growing weeds in the same area of the pasture, and hopefully the grass will out-compete those as well.

One side of the pasture which is covered in weeds.

Two of the weeds in that spot of the pasture.

I'll try to remember to report back in a few weeks and give an update on how the pasture is doing.  Unfortunately there isn't much time left in the growing season, so I expect (and hope!) that the real difference will be seen next spring.

Mr. T getting caught in the temporary fence.

Short Update and Opinions Needed

Well, I've calmed down...  The dog fiasco has become less of a worry, and the llamas are settling in nicely.  They've finally explored the entire pasture, and are working on picking up every burr out there!

Bluff also left for her new home today.  It was a bittersweet moment...I'll definitely miss her, but she's going to a FABULOUS home and I couldn't be happier!  I can't wait to see what she gets to do with her new family!

A much fuzzier Bluff...this picture is about 5 years old!

And now for the opinions I need!  I've finally started my first Rhinebeck project!  I'm making a felted bag, which gets flowers and leaves sewn onto the front (they aren't felted).  I bought yarn from Knit Picks, but ended up not getting enough of the main color for the bag, so I "borrowed" some from my mother-in-law.  I love how the bag looks now (it is a lot more colorful), but my original yarn for the flowers now doesn't work!  So I need something new.  I searched through the yarn stash again today, looking for options...  I need to knit flowers AND a vine with leaves, so the pictures show two colors (green and something else) that I would use.

#1 (blue).  Probably my favorite option.

#2 (white), and #3 (yellow).

#4 (dark pink).

#5 (light pink).

#6 (light blue/grey).

So...which color do you think I should use?  Technically I could use two colors, if you think more color on the bag would look better!  I appreciate the help!

The Llamas Are HERE!!

As I started thinking about writing this blog post last night and early this morning, it was with a feeling of pure excitement...now that feeling has turned to pure terror.  The llama/dog introductions did NOT go well this morning, and I learned that I have a lot of work to do on the fence and barn pen, but hopefully we can come up with a way to keep two of the dogs out of the enclosure.

Going back to the beginning...

After receiving a phone call about two weeks ago that the llamas could be coming SOON, I kicked into high gear for the remainder of the fence building and barn cleaning chores.

It took about 4 days to clean out the barn, which consisted of wetting down the hay in the bottom of the barn, shoveling it out, and then hosing down the remaining organic matter.  I also went through and "disinfected" with a strong solution of PineSol and water.  It is such an improvement!  I only cleaned about 60% of the barn, as the other 40% is still going to be filthy as my in-laws kill chickens this fall, but I plan to clean out the rest after they're done harvesting the last batch.

A dark, but clean barn!

We also finished attaching the fence and hung the gate and cattle panels.  Unfortunately, one of the dogs found a way to get under the fence, so I have more work to do reinforcing the bottom of the fence (with dirt or rocks), and possibly running a strand of electric wire along the bottom.

Finished fence!

I also set up a temporary fence to block off a muddy area that I need to dump dirt on and reseed.

Temporary plastic posts and flag tape.

The other big step was building the pens in the barn.  It took another few days, but we got the cattle panels stapled in place, the new support beam installed, and the wood trim screwed in.  It looks pretty good if I say so myself, but apparently the dogs can get through the manure troughs (which they couldn't before the llamas got here!), so we have more work to do...

Building the pens and gates.

Finished (and filled) pens!

And finally, the llamas got in about 11:30 last night!  Unloading was a little rough, since we had to work our way through the maze of a barn, but they managed to get through unscathed.  They settled in nicely though.

This morning was another story...I went out with Abby first thing in the morning.  The llamas were happily grazing in the pasture.  Abby went wild barking for about a minute, but then quieted down.  We then (a bit hastily I will admit) let the other two dogs out an hour or so later.  The Pyr managed to crawl through the manure trough and get into the barn pen, where I luckily caught him and hauled him out.  The Bull Terrior got under the fence somehow, but for some reason didn't go after the animals.  A few minutes later they were both trying to get through the fence into the pasture, and in all the excitement got into a huge fight.  Everyone is okay, but the fence definitely needs some adjustments!

Enjoying the grass.

Comical Ralph!

Beautiful Kara.  She is huge!

My tack "room".

Hay!  Hopefully the llamas like it...its a bit stemmy but should do the trick.

Fiber, fiber, and more fiber!

With all the nice weather we've been having in upstate NY, we've actually managed to get quite a bit done on the fence, but somehow I managed not to take any pictures!  We're almost done though, so I'll wait and take pictures once it is all done.

In the meantime, I have lots of new fibery pictures to share!

Back in late June/early July, I was spinning like crazy to stock my booth for the Hamilton 4th of July Farmer's Market, but I just got around to taking pictures and listing all the yarns on Etsy this week.  There are some really cool ones available, if I do say so myself!  Get them while they're hot, they won't be in the Etsy store long once I start the farmer's market again in August!

Our very own tan llama roving plied with dyed wool/alpaca.  Subtle but gorgeous!

This is definitely NOT subtle!  A gorgeous thick & thin spiral ply art yarn in beautiful neon colors.

My very first tailspun yarn!  The base yarn is the same dyed wool/alpaca as above, with grey Gotland/Wensleydale locks spun in.

This one might be my favorite...gorgeous jewel-toned alpaca/silk blend.

Another big surprise when I got back from Colorado...I had roving ready at the mill!  They had already processed my natural grey llama/BFL roving while I was gone, and when I went back to work I got to process my own corespun yarn!  I heard that the second batch of roving was going to be processed last Friday, so hopefully I can bring it home on Wednesday, along with a kid mohair fleece I had them wash.

The natural grey BFL/llama roving.  It is gorgeous, really need to spin some myself!

Six pounds of corespun yarn!  It will be made into bags to sell.

I've got a few more fibery things planned for the remaining warm weather this summer/fall.  First and foremost, I need to skirt the few remaining fleeces that I have, so they can get made into roving at the mill.  I have a cool merino/romney fleece that I'm going to have blended with a bit of firestar, and a couple of yearling mohair fleeces that I want to have dyed and blended with a finn/romney fleece (already skirted!).  I also have two fawn alpaca fleeces at home in Indiana that I'm going to have made into roving.

I also have a few suri llama and alpaca fleeces, as well as some gorgeous Gotland/Wensleydale locks, that need to be washed in preparation for lockspinning this winter.  And I have a ton of white scrap wool that I want to solar dye with Kool-Aid to stuff into bird nesting balls.

Solar dying with Kool-Aid last summer.

The results...and yes it smelled like fruit, even after rinsing!