Welcome to December!

Last Saturday it snowed here (see Max’s miniature ode to the coming season at left), really just enough to make the roads treacherous and remind us all that we had been lax in getting our winter tires put on. That it came in squall form over the course of just an hour or two and that we had just come out of the new Harry Potter movie just made it seem more ominous (it definitely felt like Voldemort was ascendant!). It certainly put the kibosh on all breeding activity at the Arena for a couple of days seeing as how our small trailer doesn’t mix well with slippery roads and hills. For those that haven’t ever been here, there is approximately a 500′ foot difference in elevation between the bottom of the farm where the Herdsires hang at the Stud Barn and the Arena where our female herd abides (almost like going to heaven boys?). Saying that CCNF is a “hill farm” doesn’t really do it proper justice. In any case it’s not the going up the mountainside that’s exciting with the trailer, as 4 wheel drive and a heavy foot on the gas pedal can usually deal with that.  It’s the going down that get’s more interesting when there is only a tenuous grip on the road. The trailer can often play a bigger part in the physics of that downhill run than one would like and our old GMC Yukon had some interesting dents in it’s side that could testify to that reality.

Being December, today it is of course raining, 45 degrees, and generally brown outside. Why couldn’t we just skip from late October, when the colors of fall foliage still hold sway, to the end of December and actual winter? Oh well. Though the boys and I have our ski gear more or less ready to go I think it may be several weeks yet before we make our first pilgrimage to the local mountain. In the mean time perhaps the diminishing hours of daylight mean we see less of the brownness around here? That works.

Regardless, all of the various critters on the farm are now tucked into the homes which they will occupy at least through the end of the month and there won’t be any significant shifts in the alpaca herd until the crias born last June start getting weaned in the new year. For now winter prep rules the day from the simple things of getting plows and snowblowers in working order, to getting several truckloads of bedding (semis don’t like our hill either) delivered and stowed away while everything is still passable. A photo or two to follow later…stay warm!