Had the day off today and just thought I would randomly take some pics as I wandered around the farm.
My friend, Niki, of JNK Llamas, who has worked SO hard to find me a llama that would be a good guard as well as be easy to handle and preferably friendly (I've already mentioned how much of a sucker I am for friendly animals). My current llama, Lady Rena, is an awesome guard, chases anything that doesn't belong and even things that do if they mess with "her sheep" much to my Border Collie, Finns dismay.
Rena isn't really fond of being handled though (most llamas as Niki says are like cats....like being touched when they WANT to be touched). I do need to handle her to trim her toenails, worm, give shots, brush and shear so things have got to change. So today Niki came over with some knowledgeable llama friends and they worked with Rena a bit. Gave me lots of pointers and I'm going to work with her over the next couple of weeks to see if it gets better.
After they left, I went to feed the Call ducks and see how they were doing. I added three BEI (Black East Indies) Call ducks to my 3 Snowys. The BEIs are obviously not quite as good of quality as they are quite a bit larger and are just babies. At first the Snowy Calls wanted nothing to do with the BEIs but they seem to be getting along fine now. My Snowys, from Shannon of Kenleigh Acres, are actually magic ducks. One minute you will see them sitting by the pond and the next you can't find them anywhere. Then literally a couple minutes later there they are sitting under a Japanese Maple. Shannon said if she had known they were magical she would have charged me extra. :)
When Fall arrives I go around to different places like Coast-to-Coast that has a little area of lily pads and buy what they have left at usually 45% to 50% off and toss them in my pond. Figuring it won't be too painful financially if they don't make it. This year two of them are blooming, here are some pics:
Down over the hill to see how the sheep and poultry were doing. The grass is dying off, been awhile since we had rain. I'll probably pull everyone off the pasture this week and start feeding hay again until the rains start.
Then I just wandered around my yard looking for plants in bloom. I am a very random and eclectic kind of gardener.....if I see something I like I'll buy one of them and just plant it "somewhere" in the yard. This makes for an enjoyable tour around the yard for me as there is always some "surprise" that I have forgotten about. I may not win any awards with my yard but it definitely gives me pleasure. Although I DO have a doggy landscaper crew that has been going around re-landscaping which doesn't make me very happy....more on that on a later post.
2 comments:
I see a bit of Bella there.... I have a dickens of a time getting good photos of my lavender, but don't have the contrasting colors which might help a bit. My daylilies you admired? I got two of the three varieties from Wal-Mart when they were 50% off -- yeehaw!
Oh wow, your flowers are gorgeous!
I like you're style of gardening, too. I'm not much into formal gardens but like surprises.
I'm not fond of ducks, but I do enjoy watching them and seeing the beauty in their variety. Yours are lovely.
Boy it really is a very small blog world! You know Nikki.
I met Nikki about a year ago on a yahoo llama group called Llama Talk. We did not hit it off.
She's a little too overbearing for me and I don't mesh too well with people who seem to think they know everything and that you cannot possibly know more than her or have good ideas yourself.
Granted she has a lot of experience, but all animals are different and different situations require new approaches sometimes.
I also don't like her boastful attitude about her llama Eagle, either.
I was raised to be a little more humble.
But all that said, it sounds like she is trying to help you take better care of your llamas and do more training with them. Did she share with you the TTellington Touch techniques?
I bought my llamas last Summer and started with that immediately and it has made a world of difference with my llamas. They will allow me to catch them and halter them, touch them all over (working on my gelding's feet, still). I even trained my female to pack with the same techniques.
My female llama has really come out of her shell and I think she may make a good PR llama one day. She loves hugs, cheek scratches and going for walks.
I'm planning on entering her into a parade soon, too.
My male llama prefers to be a guard llama and is quite a homebody. haha
Good luck! :)
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