A Good Sunday

Keith worked on a project yesterday and today that has needed doing for a while.  Normally, the llamas are sheared in April.  We have not had them done yet, and our friend Joani and a helper are coming next weekend.  Keith built a special llama chute yesterday and today to hold them steady while Joani shears and trims their toes.

Here it is:

From the front

From the back

The side bars raise and lower, so that we can shear safely and also trim feet.

I did not take pictures after all the hooks were in... they will hold a cinch to go under the llama, to help hold it in place.  There is a front that will be set in, too, it was made at McNeely Steel for Keith on Friday.

Here is what the headpiece looks like, it is adjustable, and will go up and down to fit the height of the llama.  The sides and head piece will be padded. 

There will be a fence on either side, so that we can walk run them around the side of the barn and into the chute, halter them, and then someone will stand at their heads and hold them steady until they are set.  Easier said than done!

Anyway, next weekend is the target date.

A companionable pair in the henhouse this afternoon, two of the older birds, Three and Nanny.

And in the little henhouse:

Bitty needed to be comforted, I had just taken two eggs out from under her, and boy, was she mad!

I now have six trying to set.  Uh-HUH!

And then this guy snuck up behind me, since I had left the gate open, waiting for Rambo, who you can JUST see over by Butch's pen, to come in and go to bed, with the rest of the big flock.

He was sneaking a little treat of chicken feed.  His mama and daddy snuck in, too.

About an hour later, we went out to shut up the little flock for the the night... and a large deer leapt through the high grass on the south end of the pasture, and into the corner.  This is the first deer I have seen in the pasture in about four years.  We do have numerous mulberry trees bearing right now, and it may have been eating them, I noticed that the one by the llama tree has been eaten up a ways. 

It worries me to have a deer in the pasture.. I did not know they were coming in.  I worry about the llamas getting deer worm.  Don't get me wrong, I love watching the deer... but don't want the llamas to catch anything from them.