We need some balance here!

With all the sad and bad news of the past few days, it's time for a little restful, happy, and even humourous interlude. I'm a firm believer that sanity and survival depend on keeping one's life in balance.

And so....while my friends in the Fraser Valley dig themselves out from many inches of snow.....here are some photos from my island paradise today:

Osborne Bay, with mill in background

No snow, just a bit of frost and some beautiful red seaweed!

Steady Eddie is getting over his fear of the camera!:



Hai!  It's a beautiful morning!


This afternoon we headed back to Stocking Creek Park to search and put up more posters for London, and enjoyed a few minutes drinking in the beauty of the sun streaming down on this waterfall:

Waterfall in sunlight

Back at home, Allie enjoyed the sunshine too:

Allie

I was going through my email, and realized I'd never posted a photo I received a couple of months ago.  Martin, the alpaca I found abandoned on my farm in the Fraser Valley, is clearly enjoying his life with his forever family. His pure joy made me laugh.



Martin and friends get the zoomies


But what made me laugh most of all was a shot I took of foster dog Petey - supposedly to show him enjoying the sunshine. I had pulled a sweater over his tee-shirt as the house was quite cold this morning, but it wasn't until I saw the photo on the computer that I realized he looked like a little old homeless man.

Oh....wait....he IS a little old homeless man.

Who stole mah shopping cart?

What're YOU lookin' at?  Never seen a dog down on his luck?

Balance restored.

A dirty secret and an update on Martin

There is an unwritten code of ethics among responsible rescuers, and part of this code says that having rescued an animal, you have lifelong responsibility for that animal. If you place the animal, it must be a home which you are certain will give it a forever commitment. If it doesn't work out, you must take the animal back.

And so, for the past six months, I have had a dirty secret. Martin, the alpaca, is no longer where I placed him. And when I heard he was about to be moved again, I did not take him back.

Sh*t happens. Lives fall apart. Situations change. And so it was with Martin.

For those unfamiliar with Martin's story, I'll provide a brief summary:

In 2006, I rented some acreage in Mission, BC where Martin had been abandoned in the back field. He had been there for 6 – 8 years, all by himself. From neighbours, I learned he had been purchased as a newly-weaned cria by a former tenant, who then left him behind when they moved out a year later. Subsequently, some renters had fed him, most had not. He had no shelter except for a tree, under which he had dug a dirt hole. He lived with coyotes and bears roaming through the field, as well as the occasional pack of dogs. It was cold and snowy in winter, very wet in fall and spring, and hot in summer, yet he survived it all.

I named him Martin after Saint Martin de Porres, a Peruvian saint who was said to be able to communicate with the animals. It was a fitting name as alpacas are a Peruvian animal, and Saint Martin de Porres, from what I have read of him, embodied many of the qualities that I admire, and shared Martin the alpaca's gentle temperment.

I built Martin a good shelter, made sure he had fresh water, grains and hay all year, had him shorn (he had never been done!) and his toes and teeth done, had him gelded, and taught him to come when called and to eat from my hand. He shared the pasture with the potbellied pigs I fostered, socialized with llamas in an adjacent field, and became comfortable around me and my dogs.






I knew I would not be on that property for more than a few years – retirement was looming, and the rent was too high for me to afford on my pension. Nor would I have the finances to buy acreage of my own. But I could not, in good conscience, walk away from him at the end of my lease. I persuaded the landlord to sign him over to me so that I could find Martin a home.

When I was about to retire, in 2009, I put the word out via rescue forums and alpaca organizations to find him a new home. A kind woman on Vancouver Island, who has an assortment of rescue animals, and also a herd of alpacas from which she collects the fibre for weaving, offered to take him in - a bonus for me as the community to which I was retiring was coincidentally about twenty minutes away from her farm, allowing me to continue to see Martin. Another rescue person and I did a homecheck, talked with her about our expectations, and met her other animals. The woman came to Mission to pick up Martin, and he rode home in comfort in the back of her van. Martin had a home.




I visited him there several times. Martin had settled in well, becoming "Uncle Martin" to the crias, and learning how to truly be an alpaca. I thought my work was done.

And then, last spring, I received an email from Martin’s new mama to say that ill health was forcing her dear friend and business partner to reconsider her participation in the care of the herd, and in the final shakedown, some of the animals would have to be rehomed. While I was not happy to hear this, I did understand – and I have a huge respect for animal caregivers who recognize their own physical and financial limitations. I see and hear of so many rescues/rescuers who lack the ability to recognize when they are overextended, and ultimately it is the animals who suffer.

As the person responsible for Martin’s initial rescue, many would say I should have taken him back and found him another home. The email came right at the time that my two shelties died just a week apart, and my mom had a medical crisis, and it was simply not possible for me to house him on my small village lot. And I was confident that Martin’s new mama shared the same values as I for selecting where he should go, and had a similar access to animal-loving networks. And so I stood back.

Sure enough, a person who does horse rescue offered to take on a small herd of alpacas, including Martin, and care for them while new homes were found. I was kept in the loop. The alpacas would only be placed in homes in pairs or more - no more lonely alpacas. I sponsored Martin to ensure his needs would be met, and just before Christmas received word that Martin and his best buddy Belvedere, a chocolate coloured senior alpaca, had been adopted by one of the horse rescue's foster homes.

So Martin is back on the mainland, this time in Northern BC, where he is being spoiled rotten by Serena and her family. Within days he was eating treats from her hand, coming up to the front fence to see what was going on, hanging out with the horses and ducks, and living the easy life.

He and Belvedere have a fenced pasture on which they can roam, a barn which they can go in and out of at will (their stall heated with infrared lamps in winter), and lots of attention. They each have their own feed bucket into which yummy grains are put each day – and then they both chow down from one bucket before both moving on to the second one. Silly alpacas!

Serena, his new mama, recently sent me these photos, and gave me permission to post them here.

I chose not to tell this story as it unfolded last summer because it was my dirty secret – I had failed to home Martin in a way that would ensure he would never lose a home again. But over the past few weeks, I decided that I will share his story, because I believe it is worth the telling. I still have no patience for people who adopt animals and then decide for frivolous reasons not to keep them, who view them as property, as commodities, an inconvenience, who think that having a baby is reason enough to dump a dog. But I also recognize that sometimes in life, sh*t happens, and life turns upside down and inside out, and the four legged family members have their lives turned upside down too. Ideally, a stable life where the whole family, human and animal, remain together is usually in each member's best interest, but sometimes it cannot be.

What is important, I think, is to ensure that the animal - whether dog or pig or alpaca or bird or pet rat - is provided with a secure environment, with good food, with fresh water, with companionship .... and with love. And that is something Martin has. He is a content, happy alpaca who has finally found his home. Thank you, Serena, for welcoming Martin and Belvedere.

For more stories on Martin's life with me and his transition to the alpaca herd on Vancouver island, check out some of these earlier posts:

Mischievous Martin, Pesky Pigs and Three Dawdling Dogs

Hey, Who Stole Martin?

The Grass is always Greener

An Alpaca gets the Zoomies

Martin

The Odd Couple

A Herd of His Own

Martin's Big Snip - Part One

Martin's Big Snip - Part Two

Martin's Big Snip - Part Three

And then there were none

Nekid 'Pacas!

Fun at the Farm

When you can't sleep.....

....you may as well learn something new. Regular readers of this blog will notice a slight change to the sidebar - the addition of a collage of some of the critters who have shared my home over the past few years, and a bit more information in the "about me" section and related "profile".

Just about bedtime last night I thought perhaps Lucy was going into labour - she was panting heavily and I could see ripples across her belly as the babies moved about. I was puzzled as she wasn't showing any other signs, such as restlessness or nesting, so I decided to check her temperature. It read 36.9 C (98.4 F) and I went into "OMG it's almost time!" mode. Later, when she was snoring deeply and the panting and rippling had stopped, I realized that my lack of familiarity with digital anything, including digital thermometers, meant that I hadn't cleared the numbers from the last reading which was for a potbellied pig. Ooops. A recheck this morning shows she is at 37.3 celsius (99.1 F). Assuming my thermometer is calibrated the same as the vet's, this suggests her temp IS dropping and she will go into labour in the next 24-48 hours but isn't there yet. Okay, Lucy, I'll leave you alone now. You are SUCH a good girl!

Anyway, believing she might be starting labour despite no sign of nesting behaviour or restlessness, I stayed up late. And when I did try to go to sleep I woke up frequently to check on her. Lucy, however, was no doubt chuckling at me under her breath - she had the best night's sleep she has had since she arrived! Each time I checked, she was sawing logs in her very large bed inside her x-pen. She did whine to be let out at 4:00 AM for a pee, but was quite happy to go right back to bed, and to sleep, once that was accomplished.

Since ONE of us was unable to sleep, that one spent a few hours trying to overcome her very inept computer skills in order to create a collage. Having downloaded Picassa 3 onto my computer, I think I have now duplicated all my hundreds of picture files a zillion times - not that I told the computer to do this, it just did! And I have a dozen collages I didn't like that I can't figure out how to delete, and one I like that took me an hour to upload onto the blog because it was never where I expected it to be. Sigh......one of these days I need to take a course in digital photography storage and organization. Meanwhile, I think I better phone my computer guru to come clean up my harddrive.

I made the changes because there are many new readers to my blog who won't have a clue who I'm talking about when I mention Charley or Sadie or the piggies or any of the other critters who have been featured in this blog over the two and a half years I have been writing it. And here is a larger version of my creation, which took me most of the night to do. (You can make it larger still by clicking on it, then using your back browser to return to the blog.)



In the centre of the photo Charley and Sadie, my two senior collie crosses. I've had Charley (13) since she was a pup, and Sadie (11) since March 2008 when I adopted her from Okanagon Collie Rescue.

Starting at the top and going clockwise, you'll see the following:

• Allie, my tortie cat, who is about eight. I adopted her from Abbotsford SPCA when she was a few months old. She is the boss of the house now that Belle has passed away.
• Martin, the alpaca who I found in June 2006 abandoned on the farm I rented in Mission and looked after until I found him a suitable home before I retired in 2009.
• Emma, nearly six, who lives with my ex but who stole my heart when I stayed home caring for her and training her during her first year of life.
• Belle, aka The Princess, adopted in December 2007 and passed away June 2010. She was 14.
• Fizzy, one of a large herd of potbellied pigs I fostered for nearly two years. The parents (Scotch and Soda) were part of an SPCA seizure and the family of 10 piglets made their arrival in my barn a couple of weeks later.
• Caleb, my brindle boy, adopted from the Cowichan and District SPCA in May 2007 at about age 5, he died of cancer in February 2008.
• Oliver, the funniest dancing boy I've ever been blessed to meet. I adopted Oliver in October 2008 and he passed away June 2010 at age 16. Right to the last day, he lived life to the fullest despite being deaf, visually impaired, and having Canine Cognitive Disorder.

And now it is after 9:00 AM, I'm tired, I'm still not dressed, and the dogs have still not been fed. They are all sleeping. No doubt they'll wake up as soon as I try to nap.

Fun at the Farm

I was out at Judy's the other day - the farm where Martin now lives. (For new readers, Martin is an alpaca who was abandoned on some property I rented before moving to the island.)

The last couple of times I went over there, the weather didn't cooperate and so the camera stayed tucked away. This Thursday started out no differently - we awoke to a blanket of large wet snowflakes with more coming down. But by midmorning the snow had stopped and the sun was coming out, and so I pulled out the camera for some pictures of the very interesting and funny assortment of critters who call Judy's place "home".

The first to greet me was Clarissa:

Clarissa is a goat who was constantly being beaten up by another goat on another farm, and has just recently been offered a safe haven at Judy's. She is a lovely, social girl who made no objections to having her toes trimmed as long as I kept holding a bucket of grain in front of her face. She didn't even object when I held her by the horns to prevent her from twisting around to see what was going on with her back feet. Such a good girl!


Then there is this beautiful sheep:





I showed the above photo to shelties Belle and Oliver and told them "This is who your ancestors were bred to herd!" - she is a Shetland Sheep. Unfortunately, I have forgotten her name.

And with Clarissa and the Shetland sheep is Lamby, an Icelandic sheep. Just look at that wool! The sheep will be sheared as soon as the weather is a little warmer.

Lamby

Judy enjoys unusual varieties of ducks and chickens, who run around freely on the farm during the day. As soon as we open the nighttime pens which keep them safe from midnight marauders like racoons, one little chicken runs immediately to the manger in the llama's pen, where she likes to lay her eggs. The llama doesn't seem to mind in the least.

I love his cute little alien ears!:




The chickens and ducks are a colourful lot. I don't recall the names of the chicken breeds, nor the names Judy has given them, but I do love their colours:

There's the pretty brindle-coloured one:




And this beautiful blue-black one......



who looks even cuter from behind:




And then these new little chickies who have just arrived - they look like miniature emus!:




And the Muscovey ducks who swim on the pond are a rainbow of delight:





My favourite is this drake, who has just recently arrived here - just look at that fascinating head!



Speaking of fascinating heads, have you ever met a turkey up close? What an interesting face:




This guy obviously knew I was admiring him and primped and preened for my benefit, puffing up his feathers and strutting back and forth like a king in full regalia:



And then, of course, there are the alpacas. Martin has become the uncle to the younger boys - when the boys start fighting, Martin moseys over and quietly stands nearby watching them until they calm down and break it up. He never engages in fighting with them, just uses his older male presence to let them know it is time to quit the crap. They listen,and order is restored. He has such a lovely temperment, our Martin does, and is so diplomatic, too.

So....for those of you who remember Martin.... let's play a game! Which of the following alpacas is Martin? Post your guess in the comments below!

Is it alpaca number one:




or two:



or three:




or four:



or five?




I will tell you it is not this guy:




Or this cutie:



Or even any of these, who (unlike Martin, whose toes we wanted to trim) came running for grain when we called them. Martin received a reprieve until another day - when we will make sure he hasn't just filled his tummy with hay before I arrive to help with the pedicure!




It was a fun day, and felt great to be back with the smells and sounds and sights of a farm of well-loved happy animals living life to the fullest.

Thanks, Judy, for welcoming me once again and letting me get my much needed "farm fix".

The birthday report, a visit to Martin, and a new computer

This may be the last you hear from me for a few days. I am getting - gulp...terror....panic..... A NEW COMPUTER. It arrives this morning, and who knows how long it will take me to learn. I hope to be able to keep this one up and running as I will go into computer withdrawal without it, but I am certainly not known for my intuitive sense of technology, so who knows how long it will be before I manage to screw up both machines trying to transfer programs and files.

So, before I go, here are a couple of animal-related updates:

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day at the farm where Martin now lives. He is doing sooooo well, integrated right into the herd, acting and looking like A Real Alpaca. When I arrived he and his alpaca family were in the pasture over the hill, in the soft green grass and shady trees. But as Judy and I headed for the barn to give a somewhat wooly llama a nice new haircut, the alpacas came running up to keep a close eye on us. Some stuck their head over the gate or fence, others just milled around to make sure they weren't missing out on anything important.

The llama to be sheared didn't feel like cooperating in the barn, so we led him back towards the house where there is a special stand called a "squeeze box" (not half as scary as it sounds - simply a hitching post with timbers extending outward to keep restless llamas from doing the fox trot while you clip). All the alpacas followed, their heads swivelling this way and that, monitoring our every move. They are so very funny - like curious little aliens checking out a strange planet.

Between the heat (it was 39 degrees celsius, or about 102F for my American friends)and the work we were doing, I didn't take my camera to the fields so have no pics. Next time, it will hopefully be cooler and I will get photos of the many critters at Martin's new home.

And despite the incredible heat, it felt so very good to this country-lovin' gal to be back out in the fields, surrounded by animals, breathing in the scent of hay and dust and manure and critters. It is a good, wholesome smell, an "I was meant to be here" smell, a comfort smell, like homebaked cookies in Grandma's kitchen.

When I returned home, there was an email from Janice at Hearts on Noses , reporting on the piggies' birthday. Here, in her own words, is what happened when she went to give them their birthday treat:

"Dreading going out into the heat I started to line up all the trays on my front porch using the peanuts, marshmallows, liquorice nibs, apples and strawberries. I started to walk them all over, putting them out nicely, planning to close the gate and call them all back home [from their outing in the pastures] once the trays were lined up. FOILED!! When I looked up, I FREAKED as I saw her ROYAL self [Mama Soda]coming out of the shed. YIKESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS WHERE'S THE KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With no choice I had to open the gates and let who ever was there in before Soda ate everything!!!

And who is missing?????????????????????? I called and called and then I had to go out looking. Sweat pouring down my face into my eyes, I ran up the street, over to Mario's, around the acreage, asking the deer eating apples at the school if they had seen a little black pig. Forty-five minutes, and back to the paddock, and there is ROB ROY doing the "Scotch dilly dally" and heading for a swim. Back to the house for more nibs and strawberries to lure him back in.

Next Birthday celebration CANCELLED. LOL"

Oh piggies......you cause the Piggy Lady such grief! But I'm sure there will be a birthday celebration next year too - don't you believe her when she says it is cancelled!

Here's some pictures of them enjoying their feast. Note that they are all BALDY PIGGIES now - they have shed their thick black bristles in favour of going NEKID in the heat. It will grow back next winter though, and hair or not, they are still handsome piggies! Thanks, Janice, for loving them.

Setting out the trays - one per piggy

Num, num, num, num, num....T R E A T S!

Nekid 'Pacas!

Yesterday, I went over to Martin's new home to assist with the shearing of the herd. The team had assembled (professional shearers and friends - including the sister of one of the main volunteers at Hearts on Noses, the piggy sanctuary!), and everything was organized. My job was to write the animal's name on a large garbage bag, and N (for neck) and O (for other) on two smaller bags, and then clip them onto a frame. Once the animal was shorn and the fibre deposited into the appropriate bag, I put the two small bags into the big one (which contains the fibre from the "blanket" or main body of the alpaca), haul it to the studio, and set up the next one. It was a quick, efficient process.

While the shearing was going on, I was also able to learn a wee bit about fibre - I could feel and see different textures, different qualities of alpaca fibre. It was an interesting process, and although I'm not a knitter I can see how people could really get hooked on the spinning and weaving or knitting of alpaca fibre.

While the animals were confined for the shearing, nails were trimmed, teeth were checked and fighting teeth trimmed if necessary, overall condition observed such as weight and any skin problems.

But the process was not what held my interest the most - it was, of course, the alpacas! They were such curious little guys (and some not so little) - hanging over the fence to see what we were doing to their herdmate, coming back to see if their best buddy had received his haircut yet, looking with surprise at the other shorn members of the herd ("Who are you???? You're NEKID!!!!") and sniffing each other to figure out who was who.

A curious boy awaits his haircut

Martin had been shorn once at my place, but overall it is a new experience to him. It was a warm, sunny day and his coat was overdue for sheering; once shorn, he investigated every inch of his own body and revelled in the feel of the air on his skin. Rolling in the dirt, wiggling his torso, checking out his legs and tail, it was like watching a two year old child who has stripped off her clothes on a hot summer's day and is happily splashing in the backyard pool.

After each shearing, the alpaca was released into a cross-fenced area where there was lots of room for grazing but where they could mingle with the others as they became reacquainted (or, in Martin's case, acquainted)as they don't recognize each other sans hair. Martin tolerated inspection well, allowing others to sniff him, but not initiating sniffing himself. He stood in the middle of the field for a long time, just observing. Then he mingled a bit, rolled in the dirt several times, mingled some more, observed some more, nibbled the grass, checked out the two llamas across the fence, and checked out his body some more.

Hanging with a friend...

or two.....

or more.

When the last of the herd was finished, they were all released to the rolling acres of the larger area. Martin hung back, watching them leave.

Hey, where ya'll goin'?

When I left after a scrumptious dinner of the Best Ever Seafood Lasagna (oh my doG I need that recipe!), he had moved to an intermediate area where he was hanging out beside another fenced area containing some sheep and goats and a llama. He kept checking them out, going nose-to-nose with the sheep - I think he thought they were funny-looking potbellied pigs!

And every now and then he would climb to the highest spot of land and look over the beckoning pastures, thinking, thinking, thinking, about wandering through that final open gate to join the rest of the herd grazing on the green grass.









He appears to have settled in well, I feel very confident that I have made a right choice - Judy's compassion for the animals, her gentle manner with them, her warm personality, the temperaments of the animals in her care, all reassure me that Martin will have a great life.

Great weather, great people, great food......and great, great animals. What more could a person want? I suspect I will be a frequent visitor there.

Can you pick out Martin in the herd?

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