This, That, and The Other Thing – 2020 Summer Crazy Edition
Hello friends! Sorry not to have posted anything here in a while but some times things take on a life of their own on a farm of our size. I’ll also freely admit, that though in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic writing about life on the farm does at times feel like a nice escape, there have been at least as many moments over the past several months, where doing so would have felt like the equivalent of discussing one’s window treatments while the proverbial house burned down. The truth is I can only compartmentalize so much. That said, I thought it would be nice to at least do a quick bullet point catch-up on some of what’s been going down and what’s (maybe, hopefully) ahead in the coming months…
- Birthing season got off to a rather inauspicious beginning when our female, Mayfair, whom we had purchased last year from our good friends at Arrow Acres Farm and Emelise Alpacas in NJ, presented with a baby that was breech. Fortunately, mom and cria both made it thru the tricky delivery with flying colors, and the little girl in question has the distinction of being the first cria born here ever sired by CCNF Sovereign-Legacy. Spoiler alert: she will not be the last, this year or next.
- Fun side note: Mayfair’s nick name given to her by the Sherman’s when she was a young lass, was “Wrong-Way May,” because of her tendency to zig when the rest of her buddies were zagging. Here’s hoping she’s gotten most of that wrong-way stuff out of her system: two feet and a nose next time around…please? Hey, we can dream.
- When it rains, it pours: that we would then face a 2nd breech presentation, 2 C-sections, and a uterine prolapse within a couple of weeks after May had her little girl, really just typified how late Spring birthing was around here: a grind, to be charitable. The bags under all of the humans’ eyes grew a little darker and a little saggier. Jen’s and Kim’s alpaca nursing abilities certainly got called upon and tested repeatedly and even if that is a part of what we have all signed up for, when you get hit with repeated rough patches, it is undeniably both physically and emotionally fatiguing. We repeatedly joked — as that is how we cope around these parts when things take a turn for the dire — that had this been year 1 instead of year 23, it was the sort of streak of bad luck that could have been a farm-killer. We’re not going anywhere though.
- In addition to the first cria from Sovereign-Legacy, we’ve also now in the past month had the first crias born here sired by CCNF Priam, CCNF Spittfire, and new kid on the block, Irish Meadow’s Elite Max. Stay tuned.
- Of course as she and Kimmy were juggling chaos at the Arena, Jennifer also spent virtually the entire time between birthing emergencies and cria care in the month of June skirting 50+ fleeces for the 2020 AOA National Fleece Show. In a normal year and under the very best of circumstances, that would be a serious undertaking. With a drought in Pennsylvania last year though having produced an especially chaffy and seed head-filled crop of straw which we bedded on over the past winter, our subsequent 2020 fleeces — and particularly those of the super-fine juveniles — were a bit of a train wreck. Unfortunately for those seed heads (but fortunately for me), they ran into my wife. Heh. More on our results from Nationals in the days to come…
- Amidst all of that, the breeding season commenced as well, with all of our mature maiden females and those proven females that had been held open from last year, moving down together as one block to spend the summer at what is normally the Stud Barn throughout the rest of the year. Entering that barn during the first days of breeding season with a male, particularly when the Herdsire on the end of my lead line is an inexperienced, rookie male, has always given me bad flashbacks to high school. The hormones are roiling: love, acceptance, desire, rejection, hatred: it’s all there in one form or another. Though there were heaping helpings of rejection going around too, the opening 24 hours on June 15 & 16 also led to 18 total breedings, which shattered the single day farm record. I was consequently especially gratified, when the first round of ultrasounds (we are able to check starting at 13 days post-breeding) showed more resulting pregnancies than not from those first couple of weeks.
- Speaking of which: the 2020 rookie Herdsires have been off to a great start, at least mechanically speaking. CCNF Impregnable Freedom (TGF Let Freedom Reign x CCNF Elixir) showed better breeding mechanics on his 1st day working, than several proven boys on this farm whose names shall remain anonymous in order to protect their reputations. CCNF Perceus (Priam’s kid brother, CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Elite Legend) and CCNF Eternal Revel (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Dreadnought) weren’t far behind. Like Steppenwolf famously sang, “get your motor running…” Give me a first time male and if we can get him to orgle…that’s usually 75% of the battle. Of course, Impregnable Freedom doesn’t have a confirmed pregnancy yet to his name, so for now literal talk is as cheap as ever. CCNF Dark Storm (CCNF Love Dove x Snowmass Matrix Majesty, that’s him as a yearling at the top of this post), though not as mechanically gifted as I.F. and almost a full year older, did in fact finally get his first confirmed pregnancy last week. This after he spent the entirety of 2019 behaving like Ferdinand the Bull (5 open, receptive females and he was interested in only the grain/hay/any effing thing but the females) and thus adding to my growing collection of grey hairs. The older full-sibling of CCNF Man of Peace, who is now headed to Germany and our friends at Sunstar Alpacas, Dark Storm definitely presents us with some interesting options in our breeding program and will be competing for the same pool of females in-house as his first cousin, CCNF Dreadnought. As ever, it’s a lovely dilemma to have.
- The end of May and the vast majority of June were dry enough for our county (Windsor) to officially be considered in a state of mild drought. Though we have spent the past two decades augmenting our pastures with the farm’s considerable production of annual compost, Mt. Ascutney remains a dormant volcano and we still have the poor overall soil depth to prove it. Consequently, the pastures did brown out and grass growth went dormant for several weeks before recovering somewhat with the arrival of several days of rain. Those feed groups on our outer paddocks, away from the barns, have consequently been given supplemental hay several weeks earlier than they might have normally.
- When the rain did finally arrive, the combination of the dry ground and the deluge of water of course washed out our road because, you know…farming.
- Even though it’s felt a little crazy at times with four college-aged kids in our house for the majority of the past 3 months, I must say I find myself feeling wistful as the spring and summer of Covid-19 (hopefully) winds itself down and our boys and their girlfriends prepare to take on whatever is coming next. “The Littles,” as the 19 year olds are collectively known, are both headed back to their respective schools in Massachusetts for some kind of modified sophomore year. “The Bigs,” are meanwhile apartment hunting nearby (my wise sister some 27 years ago famously articulated this to me as the desire to “buy your own f*#@%$! milk!”), with our 1st-born having decided to finish his final year of schooling online up here — rather than in-person in Florida — and hoping to meanwhile log enough hours as a flight instructor, so that when the aviation industry does eventually and inevitably recover, he will have sufficient hours under his belt to make himself an attractive potential hire. Out into the world you go again little chicks: love you all so much.
- At this writing, we are now approaching the half-way mark — both on the calendar and in the number of crias born — of our rather compact birthing season. As happened in June when things went sideways in multiple scenarios, we all got collectively knocked back on our heels a bit – but the upside of running this 3 to 4 month gauntlet is that by mid-September it’s done.
- Our online sales listings are again finally starting to fill out. At this time it is primarily a mix of juvenile and yearling females that all are either offered with a future breeding to one of our Herdsires or are sold already bred and with a live birth guarantee. There are plans afoot to add both some younger males (including one I mentioned earlier) and even possibly a couple of proven females with new crias at side. Regardless, you can find those evolving listings here on our OpenHerd farm pages.
- Are we going to have fall shows? We will be training up our team as if The Showtacular in Syracuse is on for late October, though I’m having a hard time seeing the pieces falling into place given the state of the world. It feels like the safety questions are legitimate, particularly for an event (Mapaca has signed on to partake in Syracuse as well) that is hoping to attract breeders from at least up and down the eastern seaboard. As an aside, I stopped for the night in Syracuse recently: turns out that being one of 20 +/- guests in a hotel designed for 300+ is kind of spooky. Have microwavable lasagna, travel cooler, face mask, gloves, and Lysol wipes…can party. Oh, 2020. Talk again soon, be well everybody…
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