A Second Round of Green Beans...and a few more crias

These bush beans that I grew this year are amazing!  6 little plants gave me 4 meals of green beans on the first round, then they completely reset and are producing like crazy again!  What a year for gardening-- with alpaca poop, of course.  😊

My hat is off to friend and colleague, Penny Wynn!  This beautiful little black suri girl was born early  at Penny's place 4 days ago.  When she went out to do one last check on the yard at 7 pm, there was this 12 lb baby with a subnormal temperature and no strength at all.  Penny gave her a bottle and kept her warm through the night (ssssshhhhhh...don't tell anyone she took her in the bedroom with her!), and continued working with her for the last 4 days.  We came up with a plan for feeding and treatments, which she followed as well as coming up with ideas of her own that worked very well.

This morning I got an excited text from Penny:  

"Her weight is 13 lbs!"

And that was even after spending the night outside with her mom and nothing but nursing!

Congratulations on a great success, Penny!!  

Thank you for all you have done!

When the corn is as high as the Sequoia tree in the hen yard....

August has been a busy month here at Windy Hill.  Zurich says she is just watching the show.  LOL!

These lucky girls, Polly and Mary, got to take 3 of their favorite boyfriends and hop a plane to Maui this month.  Polly is particularly interested in learning the Hula and some Hawaiian songs.  She is such a well-rehearsed singer.  Ever since she was a cria she has sung to me every time I put a halter on her.  I understand she is loving Maui. 

The Travel Brochure is what convinced them to go.  This is the view from their accomodations on the slopes of Haleakala.  Trade winds and an ocean view made it particularly appealing to them, as well as the endless supply of green grass.

The boys were very excited about having their own little house in the middle of the pasture.  Mo is dying to learn to surf, but he has had to do some breedings before he can go.  Work before fun.  😎

Just as Dr. Jana was retiring and moving to New Mexico, Dr. Katie Nenneker arrived on the scene!  We are so thrilled to have her available to treat our alpacas.  I've already learned some new tricks from her.  What a sweetie. And she tells me that in the next month or so, they will have a small animal  mobile vet in their practice as well.  That is music to my ears with LGD's and other pets here at the ranch.

Dr. Nenn's truck was designed by her firefighter husband.  It has all the bells and whistles, like it's own generator and water supply, so she can even go to remote locations with no services available.  It's pretty cool.

This last week we needed to x-ray an alpaca's jaw.  It was very exciting to watch as Dr. Nenn and her assistant Kim did an x-ray in the chute, and then seconds later, we were able to see it appear on the screen in clear detail.  What an amazing picture! You can see sinuses and tooth sockets and all kinds of stuff!

Because the picture was so clear, we were able to determine that the tooth root abscess had not cleared up completely and needs an additional round of antibiotics.  I'm still amazed-- it was so simple!

This week I want to highlight Scarlett-- the oldest alpaca on the ranch.  Scarlett is officially 24 years old!  She wins all the awards for Oldest Alpaca at Windy Hill.  She has her own pasture--not because she needs it, but because she wanted it.  I put her in with her usual buddies and she crawled through the fence to have her very own space.  She gets baths and extra feed in the morning, because as she says, she deserves it.  Good Girl, Scarlett!

Here are some red, white and blue flowers for the Labor Day Holiday.  💗