Llamas and alpacas do not get along.

What a ruckus! We passed the Fall Equinox and someone turned on the wind. Welcome to Fall. And, the animals are being crazy. Llamas jumping fences...

We had our three gelded male llamas separated from the two females, who are in with the goats. We added the male alpaca to the females and the goats. All was good...until Taylor jumped the fence into the male llama yard. She spent the night there just fine, while we tried to figure out what to do, or how we were going to get her back in with the goats without letting them all out. The goats are a little crazy too. They try to shove their way past when you open the gate.

So, we were milking the goats this morning when a real ruckus broke out in the llama barn. Alfonso had jumped the fence, apparently to defend the honor of Taylor, the female llama, and was now fighting the black llama Vader. Luckily, all of them have their fighting teeth removed, but still, the llama probably outweighs the alpaca by a hundred pounds, or more.

Vader and Alfonso

We rushed to break them up, but as I was yelling, clapping and creating my own ruckus, while debating running for a hose to spray them, Richard managed to frighten them enough to get them apart. None of them want to be touched by human hands, and they avoid us to no end (unless they are haltered and tied). He caught Alfonso and tied him up. Thankfully he still had his halter on, which I have been meaning to take off.

We finished milking the goats. Alfonso got loose on the outside of the yard, where he was tied, and he kept running back and forth, humming, mad, because Vader had jumped the fence and was now in the goat yard with Patty, the other female. Richard tied Alfonso to the car.

Meanwhile we let all the goats into the llama barn, got the other two male llamas back out to pasture, and herded the female llama, Taylor, back into the goat yard. Richard fortified the short chain link fence they have been jumping, added two lines of electric tape on top, just a visual, but it should deter them because of the height.

I chased llamas for a while, trying to get Vader corralled. No luck. I enticed him into the chicken yard with a bowl of grain, and we got him back out to the pasture with the other llama boys.

The goats were herded back into their yard and we put Alfonso back in with the girls. Everyone was back to normal, with  the males all talking snotty to each other over the fences.

What a morning. And this afternoon, the wind still blows...

Herd of goats

Growing the farm.

The weather is decidedly cooler since our last rainy spell. Now there is a cool wind blowing and the temps max out at 75 F or so. I can feel Fall in the air. We are trading our window fans for electric heaters. We have been collecting heaters all summer at various yard sales. This little farmhouse has no heat, except for the wood stove, which has not been cleaned, chimney included for what, ten years or more? I'm going to try and avoid using it, if possible.

Thankfully there is a lot of solar gain here, and except for the windows losing the heat at night, the house does get pretty warm during the day. We have put up some foam insulation over about half the windows in the hope of cutting down on the heat loss.

Foam insulation on sunroom (our bedroom) windows

This week, we dug potatoes out of one of our potato beds. We got 10 pounds, maybe. Not great, but not bad, considering we used our organic grocery store potatoes that started to sprout. We have two more potato beds to dig.

Pretty potatoes.

This is a big week. Yesterday we went to pick up an intact, male alpaca that our neighbor hay farm is getting rid of. His name is Alfonso, and he is pure white, which means, I can dye some wool.

Alfonso the alpaca.

We also met with a nice family who is re-homing their milk goats to us. We gave them a tour of the farm and tomorrow we are going over to their place to pick up some goats. I think there are five females. Three mamas and two doelings. Some polled. I think the goat herd is adequate now.

We have goat milk and cheese available here at the farm, if anyone wants to stop by to try some.