Autumn is definitely on its way

The mornings are getting darker and the air is certainly cooler , and we have rain - autumn is here.

The alpaca have started cuing up at the gate in the morning to get their hard food ration , so the grass is obviously not as good as it was . In the summer they really couldn't care about hard feed and sometimes didn't bother to eat it , but now they are beginning to pow-wow around the hay feeders and wait for their morning rations! The cria are looking very good and growing well , Cressida's fleece is amazing and Calpurnia is also showing a great deal of promise , I cant wait for shearing next year - cos it will hopefully be hot again - how quickly the memories of summer fade .

Riva shows no more signs of delivering a cria , so I think we can conclude that she is not pregnant , another week and she will be sold I hope - unless she comes up with another spanner in the works - maybe she just doesn't want to leave us?

Last weekend was spent trimming trees and trying to get some of the garden hedges back under control .Some of them have not been touched for years , maybe even decades , but the time has come to get some light into parts of the garden that have become dark and a bit dank . DH has broken his chainsaw , so proceedings were slow and much sorer the next morning! but we do have a bit of light and firewood .

The tiny chicks are growing well , the adults have nearly finished moulting and I am waiting avidly for my cream legbars to start laying .