On Monday (tomorrow) we have 40 point of lay hens being delivered. To accomodate them we have to move the llamas.

We managed to shuffle Fabian accross the gangway into the new stall. We have put them in a small stall for now so that we can handle them more easily.

The goal is that we will be able to lead them about in a few days. Watch this space!

Also the man at the feed store has promissed to come by next week to do their feet.

If he doesnt come then I really will have a go myself.

I have been brushing Fabian a little over the winter but never managed to catch Tasha to do it.

With them both in the small stall however I managed to catch her easily and spent some time grooming her. She was surprisingly good.

The llamas looking lovely after their grooming session.

The meet birds have been moved to bigger lodgings as they are growing soooo fast.

They are two weeks old now and twice as big as the laying hen chicks.

This is Cosmo helping out as I muck out the stables.

she is the only chicken that has a name as she is the only one that looks different. She has white feathers down her back.

Now that the snow is finaly on its way out, there are a hundred and one things to do.

Lots of fencing as we need to get the horses out of their winter paddocks and into new ones to take advantage of the new grass that is begining to emerge.

We have 150 new chickens, bought as one day olds. 50 of them are meat birds this time

This will be are first foray into raising anything to eat. We will see how we manage when it comes to the time to take them to the abatoir. Killing and preparing them ourselves is simply not an option. We are much too squeemish.

These are the meat birds. (above)

And these are the new laying hens.

I have had a little success with the llamas.

They have been out from their enforced captivity for a few weeks now and are enjoying being outside much of the time.

The are however completely at home in the barn now and come and go as they please.

I have been catching Fabian up and handeling him a little over the winter so he is less stressed now when being touched.

Tasha as anyone who has read previous entries will know has been a nightmare. I have tried on occassion over the winter but to little effect.

Anyway today I decided that I have to start working with them everyday. I started with her today.

I enticed her into the barn and shut the door, then followed her around with my hand on her back. she was not very happy and kept trying to get to the door. eventually I managed to get an arm round each side of her neck and slip a lead rope onto her headcoller.

I thought she was going to kick off (she definateky thought about it), but then she calmed down and was actually ok.

I feel really pleased. Of course this could just be a one off and tomorrow she may trample me into the ground, but hopefully we will make gradual progress.

Their toe nails are hideously overgrown and need urgently trimming.

A chap from the feed store has been prommissing to drop by and show mw how to do it and also worm them, but one thing you have to get used to in NB and possibly Albert county especially is the laid back lifestyle.

He has been prommisising to do this for at least two months now and still nothing.

Anyway I have scoured the internet and also have a good book on  llamas and think I may well have to have a go myself.

I will let you know how it turns out, when I eventually get up the nerve to give it a go.

On a different subject, we have finally managed to get a family Doctor.

Shane had to go the walk in surgery for a repeat prescription and while talking with the Doc she realised we didn't have one and offered to take us on.

I just went to see her yesterday for the first time and she is really nice so we are very happy. We were on some sort of list to get a doc, but I don't think we would have got one that way.

She gave me a Tetanus shot yesterday as now we have a farm, its kind of sensible. Havn't had one for over 20 years so I was well due.

Today my arms is painful and a bit stiff though. I don't think the llama wrestling helped.

I have also started playing with the ponies again.

This is Smartie wearing a saddle and bridle properly, for the first time. she was really good and laid back with the whole thing.

I won't tell you how long it took me to learn how to tie a synch knott. Thats the girth that keeps the saddle in place. Again the internet is a wonderful tool. There aint nothing you can't find when you need to.

My synch tying is obviously working as  I have tried it out riding the little pony I got to give lessons on this year. I didn't end up under her tummy so its all good.

I havn't ridden regularly for over 10 years so at the moment I am rubish to say the least.

I have my paint mare to get going too, but I have discovered that she doesn't lunge, so I will have to go right back to basics with her.

I think I have bitten off more than I can chew for this summer. There are just so many animals that need time and training and I am not sure that will be able to keep up with it all.

It will be fun trying though.

Well yesterday was the first day of spring!!!

Yeah right. Ice pellets followed by several hours of freezing rain. Followed up today by snow and high winds.

Yesterday I got the three big horses in at 7:30am as the ice pellets had already started and there they stayed until 8:00am this morning. It still wasn't a great day to put them out. Strong winds and snow, but they would be climbimng the walls if I kept them in much more. 24 hours straight is enough. I think they will be in again tonight anyway so they need some time to have somne fresh air and freedom.

The paddock is a little slippery thanks the freezing rain, but the snow actually helps that so they should be ok.

The ponies have a big shed to get out of the weather,but surprise me by still choodsing to be out despite horrible weather.

The ponies bad hair day. Freezing rain wreeks havock with ones hairdoo.

With our land being on a slope it makes it very slippery when trying to get to and from the barn.

It really is an ice rink. Salt doesn't really seam to touch it.

I am not sure how much detail you can see, but I took some pics of the effects of the freezing rain.

A tree bends over under the weight of the ice. They make amazing creaking and cracking noises as the ice envelopes them and they move around in the wind.

This fence was competely dry the day before. Now the freezing rain has just encased the bars and dripped down to form icicles.

You can see how the ice just moulds itslef around everything.

The ice shows up well in the lights from the house.

These are just a few views of the pretty but evil freezing rain.

I hope they are the last I will be posting this winter. Oh no that should be spring!

Our New Life In Canada

So we are well into March now and we still have a white outlook all around.

However I think today may begin to change that. The much promissed March storm seems to be with us.

We started the morning with ice pellets and I brought the horses in around 7am.

Now it is around 11:30am and it has settled into the evil freezing rain!

At some stage it is set to change to rain.

The last two days have been georgeous. Sunny and clear.

That in itself should have alerted me to the impending storm. It seems to have been the patern through the winter. Bright still conditions, followed by major storms.

We have been doing some contract cleaning for a friend lateley.

This week we have been cleaning in Dorchester prison.

Our job has been to clean walls, floors, outside of cells, common seating areas and prison guard offices.

We were working in the psyke wards.

The top floor was ok. They are the long term low risk catagory.

But the other floor we worked on held the acute catagory.

We had escorts wherever we went and the guards on this floor were really careful that no accidental meetings would take place.

We cleaned the outside of the cells and the inmates were all inside. That was kind of weird.

Most were asleep (thanks to meds I should think), but some would come up to the window and watch us.

It is a very depressing place and I am glad to be finished there.

On a more cheerful note, the llamas were realeased from their winter captivity yesterday and went out into the sunshine for the first time in about 3 months.

Because we had so much trouble getting them to come inside out fo the severe weather we decided to shut them in for a couple of weeks to start with, but with the frequent storms the doorway got snowed over and we couldn't get them out anyway.

It was different for the horses who we could lead in and out, but as my llamas are pretty unhandleable (that might be a real word) we just had to leave them in.

Well yesterday we dug out the doorway, (about three feet deep) and opened the door.

They were cautious at first, but eventually went out onto the frozen snow and had a nice afternoon in the sun.

I was glad to see this morning that tey were back inside and so we will now leave them to come and go as they please.

The llamas enjoying the sun.

Kijiji is a terrible and adictive place.

We look on it daily for such things as farm equiptment and the like. But of course the animals for sale is a big draw.

Last week there was a pair of 3 yr old goats. Brothers for $50.

They had been saved from slaughter the year before by a lady who now has too many animals for her two acres and was anxious to get the boys a nice new home where they wouldn't be eaten.

We went to see them last Sunday and were smitten on the spot. they are both so friendly and funny. The owners have already got 7 children and have another on the way, so their animals are all child friendly.

the goats were called Toffee and Dozer but that didn't seem to go for us so we have changed Dozer's name to Treacle.

Trouble is you have to explain what treacle is as the canadians don't know.

Toffee (left) & Treacle

We brought them home loose in the back of our Dodge Caravan. They were as good as gold and didn't even poop.

the next day I introduced them to the large horses, but kept them on lead ropes just to make sure they weren't about to join the horses in the field and get trampled.

But they seem much too sensible for that, so after a while I left them loose and they followed me around the barn all morning while I got on with my chores.

The dog is fascinated but cautious with him and they are well able to keep him at arms length, which is where they want him to be.

Meanwhile Chinook has become best friends with Tigger the boss barn cat.

The snow has begun to melt at last.

We had a long rainy day last week, which helped a lot. We can at last drive down to our barn and a lot of the ice has gone.

There is always I am told a March storm, so I know we are not on the home straight yet, but spring really is on its way.

We have been waiting for another delivery of hay for the past few weeks and we were down to around 10 bales. Baring in mind that we use 6 a day the situation was getting desperate.

We managed to tie the farmer down to Thursday as a delivery date, but our long driveway to the barn would have to be clear for the truck and wagon to get down to the barn.

The snow blower has yet again broken down and we had no way of moving the snow.

Our friend who is a heavy duty mechanic called in after work on Tuesday to fix the snow blower and for once couldn't fix it.

He said not to worry he would return the next day and revive it.

When he returned the next day, he brought in the big guns, one of the big toys from work. A skid steer.

Anyway after several hours and a few times getting it stuck on the ice they cleared the drive and we got our hay delivered on Thursday just in time to beat the next storm, which came in on Friday night.

It started to snow about 8:30pm, just as I was getting the horses in for the night.

It was forecast to turn to several hours of freezing rain during the night.

And sure enough when we got up on Saturday the whole of the driveway was covered in 3 to 4 inches of pure ice.

This is a close up of a piece of  a gate.Y

ou can see why an ice storm is so dangerous. The ice just moulds itself around everything it touches.

If it goes on for long enough it brings down power lines.

Fortunately we didn't have it that bad - this time.

We spent the afternoon breaking up ice in the top of the friveway so we could get the car out and were completely exhausted by the end of the day.

I keep telling myself that winter is nearly over. Just a few weeks more and spring will be here.

I hope.

We have had several more bouts of snow over the last few weeks.

It has been hard going as we have a big circular drive which extends down to the barn and a work shy snowblower.

It all looks very pretty on a bright sunny day, but has its challenges too.

We live on a gentle hill but it means that when we get any thaw it melts accross the drive and then freezes solid leaving us a downhill skating rink.

The horses seem to adapt very well to most weather conditions.

We have had a pretty varied range of weather over the past few days.

On Friday we went from a bright sunny morning  to blowing snow mixed in with freezing rain by lunchtime.

Then it changed to rain and +4 centrigrade, whereupon snow melted and then froze solid overnight.

The chickens continue to provide us with eggs.

We actually got 23 eggs from 23 chickens the other day!!! A full house.

Smartie and Puzzle enjoying the sun and snow.

The ponies enjoy the snow on the bright sunny days and resemble wooly mamoths right now.

When they loose their winter coat I may well be able to stuff a mattress!!

Inside we are keeping cosy by the wood stove. Putting it in has been by bar the best improvement we have made on the house this winter.

Tonight it is going to be down to minus 25 or some such figure.  Thats cold!!!

For the last two weeks the chickens have started laying.

We have 23 hens and we are getting 19 to 21 eggs a day most days. Some are huge and a lot of them double yokers.

I don't know if the sizes will regulate once they settle into a patern.

They all seem to be ridiculously proud of themselves and make quite a racket when they've just laid an egg.

They are free range, but at this time of year that means loose in a large stall and a run around the whole of the barn on mucking out day. If you open the hatch to the field they look at you like you are completely barking.

At one day old

As young chickens

Our first half dozen

Its been a while since I updated the blog. We have just been so busy trying to get jobs done before the winter weather started to kick in.

Anyway we failed misrabley as we are already on our second winter storm of the season and we still have loads of jobs to do.

We now have two extra horses to care for. My new paint mare (Jill) and the new lesson pony (Princess).

They did not come without their problems. Jill arrived and because we have one gelding here she immediately came into season and pestered him until he was mounting her.So I had to move her in with my two ponies, who are both girls.

Then the new lease pony arrived. She started by being scared of every one especially Jill who was a bit of a bully with her as she was the only horse newer than she was.

So Jill had to move back in with the big horses, but by this time she had settled down a lot and was not pestering the gelding with her tarty attentions.

Now two weeks later Princess has gone from being scared of everyone to being boss of the pony field.

Meanwhile we have had two goodly sized storms for which we were very ill prepared.

We have a snow blower that we bought second hand but come the first snow storm it wouldn't work.

we had to dig out our driveway. It took us 5 hours to get it clear enough to get the car out to go and get some snow blower supplies. After changing the plugs putting in stabelizer and new gas it still wouldn't go.

We have since taken it to the menders and it is now working. Yay!!!

I have also done a lot of mucking out sas we have had the horses in a few night due to the storms.

We are working on clearing out a large shed in the pony field to give them a shelter. Just one of the jobs we had hoped to complete before the winter storms.

If we can get it done it will mean less nights where the ponies have to come into the barn.

Apparantly we are in for a winter like the good old days - yippee

I have decided that I am going to teach english riding next year. I used to teach in the UK (although not for some time) and there seems to be a need localy for english (as opposed to western, not the instructor actually being english) instruction.

I don't have an all weather riding arena so I will be teaching in a field, although I will get the school letters put up.

I will only do it in a small way next year as I havn't got the facilities or equipment (no jumps or anything), to take on more advanced riders. If it goes well I will look into getting an all weather school built.

So I am looking for a few horses.

I went to see a lovely 14.1hh 5 yr old mare last Saturday who is unimaginitively named Jill. She is western trained, but everything in my price range seems to be. English trained seem to go for more.

She arrives on Saturday.

So I will be doing a bit of reschooling. I thought that if I don't get the interest in lessons then I will reschool anything I buy to english and sell it on.

Took the dog to be fixed 2 weeks ago. You would never know he had even had an anesthetic, never mind had his bits removed, the way he dragged the veternary nurse out from the back. "restrict his exerscise and keep him on a leash for 2 weeks" they said.

Fat chance - three days of being on a lead around the barn and shut in the house a lot lead to him shredding lots of things he shouldn't, including another toilet brush and holder. I only buy them at the dollar store so that I am not too out of pocket by these episodes.

Anyway on the 4th day he was let loose and he didn't come to any harm.

Llamas are still confined to barracks. We are feeding them by hand from a bucket and trying to win their confidence a bit. We need to make a permenant shute into the barn before we let them out so that we can get them in when the weather is bad.

My gateway into the field with the shelter is very deep and muddy almost unusable. Its not been too bad as it has been frozen for a few days, but we are forecast 2 days of rain which will mush it all up again.

I have other fields but only the one has a shelter.

I am off to saint John on Friday to see a lead rein pony that is up for permenant lease. She is 11.3hh so a little bigger then my Shetlands, but is 8 yrs old and well trained. Hopefully she will make a good lesson pony.

Still got loads of outside jobs to try and get done and we are trying to get on with the new duplex and get at least the upstairs apartment let by January. We lost 2 days on it. First the pump to the well at the barn broke and we had to get a new one fitted and then we chose to get a wood stove fitted in our lounge and squandered a day doing that. Its made the house so cozy though that I think that it was time and money well spent.

Both our boys are gone now. James started his new job in Toronto yesterday and is quite keen. He has an apartment in Litle Portugal to move into on Dec 1.

Luke is in Mexico getting brown and snorkeling and body boarding and loving every minute.

It feels strange without them, but we talk on msn and James calls, so its not too bad yet. On the other hand they have only been gone just over a week so its hard to tell.

Got up today to 10cm of snow and a sharp wind.

My wayward llama Tasha was laid down in a corner taking as much shelter as she could get from the snow.

She had icicles and clumps of snow hanging from her headcollar and body.

She was shivering well too.

Strange as it seems I was encouraged by the shivering as it meant she hadn't yet got to the stage of hypothermia.

We again had to make a makeshift shute with a few 4 x 8 boards.

Then I enticed her into the entrance with a bucket of feed. Shane closed in behind her and we shuffled her into the barn.

She is now locked inside with Fabian and they will remain there for a week or so while we try to acustom them to their new surrounding.

By 3pm she had stopped shivering and is looking a lot more jolly.

I may actually get some sleep tonight.

We now have the rogue llama in the new paddock alongside her brother.

We had to make a shute of 4' X 8' chip board. It was about 100' long.

It then took another day to get her into the holding pen so that we could get her into the shute.

I had to sneak out early on Tuesday morning and creep up on her in the holding pen and shut the gate quick.

Having done that it was very easy to get her down the shute and into the new paddock.

That was the easy part.

We have built the paddock directly off the barn and made a door way into a double stable as a run in shelter.

Problem is that the llamas won't go into the barn.

I have been feeding them by hand from a bucket, coaxing them closer to the door, but they just wont come in.

Then today it started to snow.

We went out to fgriends for supper and got back around 9:30pm.

We went to check the animals as the snow had been falling all evening.

It is the kind of wet snow that we get in the UK.

Slippery cold, damp and horrible.

The big horses have their nice field shelter so they should be fine, but as yet the ponies have nowhere actually inside to go.

So we got the ponies in and put them in a box for the night and then went to see what we could do with the llamas.

I took a bucket of food and a lead rope and after a while managed to get hold of Fabian.

He wasn't happy but we got him into the barn and put him in a stable.

Again though we couldn't get anywhere near Tasha.

So she is laying down in the field getting covered in snow and I am up at 1:30am worrying about her and writing my blog.

Tommorow we will be making another shute in an attempt to get her into the barn.

If we can get her in then we will keep them both in for at least a week and try to get them used to us and the barn.

This week the dog visited the vets to be fixed.

He is supposed to be kept on restricted exerscise for two weeks!

We kept him quiet for a day or two, but he was going stir crazy and stealing shampoo bottles and toilet brushes from the bathroom and generaly driving us nuts.

So now he is coming out off lead for a while each day.

I must go to bed now and try and get some sleep ready to do battle with Tasha tomorrow.

Well the kittens are gone.

We contacted a feral cat charity who came and collected them.

It was sad to see them go but we have no experience of hand rearing kittens so it was for the best.

The charity will also come and trap whatever feral cats are around our barn in the spring and neuter them.

We got our round pen completed at last.

We are racing the winter to get the outside jobs done in time.

We want all the animals to be right by the barn to make the winter care easier.

We have made the chickens a new house inside the barn with a little hatch to a new run.

The llamas are having a double stall with a door to an outside so they can go in and out as they please.

We were halfway through the llama accommodation when the big storm hit yesterday.

We decided to try and catch and move them to the barn, but that is easier said than done with wild and untrained llamas.

Fabien the smaller meeker one was easily fooled into entering the holding pen, and then gave up as soon as we held him.

He isn't used to being led anywhere and so we had to lead him from the front and scoop him along from behind. He was scared but we got him to the barn and settled him in a box stall.

However we couldn't get hold of Tasha who is more suspicious and wary.

In the end we had to leave her all night.

we put food in the holding pen (which is also a light shelter) and caught her in the morning.

She is much stronger than Fabian though and went absolutley psycho when  we tried to walk her towards the gate.

In the end we had to leave her.

We felt really dissapointed and dpressed.

We bought the llamas without really finding out how well handled they were and its been very hard to look after animalsthat you can't get near.

They both need their toe nails trimmed and also to be wormed, but if you can't get near them what can you do?

Anyway we will be building a 50 foot shute tomorow in an attempt to drive her along it and into the barn.

More work, that we hadn't planned for.

We have also bought a new duplex. The sale closes on Tuesday.

Hopefully we can convert it into a triplex.

That will be our job for the winter.

Thank you Dave and Jules for the links for the weasels I will definately have a look at them  as soon as I get 5 mins. I am hoping now that the chickens are in the main barn with other big animals around that they will be safer.

We lost our first chicken on Monday.

We had 24 which we raised from day old chicks and had managed not to loose any of them.

Then on Monday we came home about 3pm and went down to the barn to do some work, and noticed that the chickens were acting a little strange, just not settled.

We had a count up and were 4 down! then we noticed one in the corner of the run, clearly dead.

It had its throat ripped out.

we then found the other missing chickens which had managed to get over the fence and into the long grass by the barn.

We couldn't think what had killed the chicken. The gate was still shut.

then a weasel popped its head out from under the hen house. It was as bold as anything.

kept popping out and just looking at us and terryfying the chickens.

We caught up all the chickens and put them in a box stall until we could decide what to do.

We asked at the farmers supplies the next day about what we couild do to get rid of it and they were not encouraging.

The response was "you have a weasel? Oh you have a problem!"

In the end we decided on a rat trap and we have baited it whith som raw heart.

didn't catch him last night hopefully he might come by today.

Today we spent making a round pen to work the horses in.

every time we went into the barn to get fence posts we could hear some kittens mewing.

We know there are feral cats around but we don't often see them and we had no idea that ther were kittens.

By tea time they were climbing down from the hay and crawling around the barn floor heading for the door and getting increasingly stressed. The mummy cat hadn't been around all day.

We left them in peace to see if mum would come back, but when she hadn,t by the time it got dark we brought them in the house.

so now we have three kittens who are no more than two weeks old  (judging by what I have read on ther net).

We cuddled them to warm them up and tried to feed them using a syringe and cat milk.

I hope they survive the night.

we will feed them last thing tonight and then have to get up in the early hours to feed them again.

The dog is facinated by them and helps lick them.

So we didn't get the round pen finished.

Our boys are in toronto this week. James had three interviews today and seems confident of all of them som we will see what he gets offered.

Well I am off to feed the kittens again.

Its been a while since I updated my blog. Life is quite busy at the moment.

It has been a mild and sunny Autumn here so far, but it is now begining to change.

Today is windy rainy and colder and there are weather warnings in place for much rain.

The field shelter is partially built ,ie the frame is up. But no walls or roof as yet.

I looked out at the horses at tea time and they were looking pretty miserable so we decided that we should bring them into the barn for the night.

Trouble is I am having trouble locating straw which is my prefered bedding and so we had to use hay.

I am a little worried as my Shetlands are quite plump as it is and don't usually get more than a couple of sections between them overnight.

They must think they are in heaven to be completely surrounded and up to their knees in hay.

The only trouble is that they could develop laminitis (a very painful condition) from too much food.

But it is a risk I will have to take tonight and get bedding in as a priority next week.

Both our boys have decided that Moncton and NB is not for them.

Much too quiet, very few good bands stop here.

They were so surprised that when the white stripes played here that it wasn't close to being sold out.

However a country singer probably would be.

Also the work situation here has little to offer them.

Customer service at call centres are about all that is around for them.

James has worked at call centres in the UK while at uni but always selling and there are few sales oportunities here.

He has sent off his resume to some companies in Toronto and has a few interviews lined up for the end of the month.

They know a few guys from England that are now based in toronto so they will have some friends to help smooth the way.

But we are unsure about how we feel. We don't really want to be so far away from them.

A 16 hour trip in a car although only a couple of hours on a plane.

We will just have to get used to it. It was always going to happen one day, but not sure how ready I am for just such a distance. In the UK they couldn't afford to move out of home, let alone to another part of the country.

Luke however has a two month trip to Mexico planned before he will go to Ontario.

We have also sold our duplex. We have put in an offer on a half completed duplex, which with a little tweeking could be converted into a triplex.

Little bit worried about it as it is a big job.

We also have our eye on a nice safe house up the road that does not hold out the same prospects of profit but is much less risky. 

We would have kept our duplex and mortgaged it for this venture but we have no credit rating here and so cannot borrow  penny.

The mortgage guy called us asset rich but totaly uncreditworhty.

We will have to put some money down and get a credit card so that we can start building up a credit rating here. It seems to be the only thing that seems to count.

Well I will be up early tomorow as I have some mucking out to do.

It is quite a while since I wrote in my blog, an indication of how busy we have been.

The ice cream kiosk wasn't a great success, but it did give the chance to meet a lot of the neighbours.

We closed it last weekend, just before the kids went back to school.

At least now I can devote more time to training our animals.

I have started taking smartie (our 3 yr old Shetland) for walks, to teach her to leave the others and to learn the commands for walk, halt and trot etc. I am very pleased with her so far.

We have spent a lot of time de-cobwebbing the barn. I left that to Shane and Luke and I got to clean out the goat pens. A job that was extremely smelly as they hadn't been cleaned for the six months that the goats occupied them.

However Chinook (our puppy) loved all that amonia and dampness. Just the thing to roll in.

I don't know how anyone can keep animals in such dirty surroundings.

We have our first horse boarder (livery). She is a 2 year old Quarter horse Appaloosa cross.

We have another one arriving on the 17 September.

We have also started converting our basement into a self catering holiday apartment.

We need to get it finished soon as we will need to advertise in the tourist brochures if are to get bookings for next year.

We are spending out so much to do all this work and buy equipment for the farm and nothing coming in so we have taken a job cleaning the club house at one of the local golf courses.

It pays quite well for NB but we have to go in late at night and have been doing it 7 days a week.

Next week it will go down to 3 days a week, which will be more manageble.

We still have to build a good field shelter for the horses for the winter and insulate the chicken house.

There just isn't enough hours in the day. Still we are enjoying making improvements to the farm, an unlimited budget would help though. I wish.