I opened the curtains and there were black clouds to my right, sun in front and it was raining. Pretty much summed up the day really…
I walked Skye and could have done with my sunglasses. I stopped off to grab my prescription on the way and had to put my sunglasses on for the journey to Garth Hall. The sun was bright and bouncing off all the puddles. There was an ominous, very dark cloud hovering further up the valley. I got out of the truck and had to put my waterproofs on at speed. The rain was horrendous and there was a lovely rainbow just in front of me. Once I’d let the ducks out and got the food for the Peckys, I had to go in their run to retrieve yesterday’s eggs. I considered crawling but that mud was wet. I decided to bend over. And before there’s comments, it was a bend over, I didn’t just duck my head down a bit. I’m not that short 😁 Four muddy eggs were retrieved which will need to be for my consumption.
After feeding Rascal, I checked the pond. The cracks remained but so did the couple of inches of water. I opened the door to the ducks’ run so they could come out and then drove down to the alpacas on a mission to pick poo in between the showers. I had my sunglasses on most of the way but after feeding in the podfield and the boys, I had to wait out in the jeep by the girls field until another dreadful shower passed. I swapped out of my sunglasses, back into my normal glasses. When the shower was over, I picked another bucket of poo in the sunshine. I got the now full bag to the jeep and drove to pick another bucketful from the podfield. It bloody tipped down again so I hunkered down in the jeep once more. I rang the vets while I waited to chase up the ADE. That didn’t take long and the shower continued so I did some research on an alpaca handling system called a chute. The place that made them stopped and, as it turns out, its really difficult to find anything else. I went onto alpaca chat and there was advice to buy a yearling cattle crush as they are the right size. That may be our next big purchase. I sent the info to Neil and picked another bucket of poo.
Back at the paddock, the ducks were still in their run 🤷♀️ I nipped to Aldi very quickly and my usual parking preference was underwater. There was some work done in that area of the carpark earlier in the year. It looks like they seriously messed up. I managed to get in the least submerged space. I prefer these as they’re on a curve and wide enough to fit the truck in. After a quick shop, I went to the garage for fuel and then home for dinner. Once dinner was cooking, I updated yesterday’s sale on the EID system and after food, I updated the paper movement book. I also wrote a quick letter and posted that when I walked Skye. The sun was out for the walk and luckily it didn’t rain. I updated the movement book. It’s not enough that it’s done online, it has to be bloody repeated on paper too 🤬 I had a callback to say the ADE was in so I’ll need to remember to collect that.
Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson greeted me when I went to close. I had to shut myself in Cai to shelter from another downpour. It’s a shipping container so it doesn’t shut properly from inside. I was still getting rained on! When I stopped, I dashed through all my jobs before another shower. As I was leaving, the sun peeked out between 2 large clouds just before it dipped belong the horizon so I took a picture.
The showers have been heavy but on reflection they are better than constant rain!
Helen x
