We have a hen sitting on a clutch of 14 or so eggs that could start to hatch any day now.   Cowgirl is very pregnant and looking like she might go any minute.  Her milk has even come in!  Tonight when I went down to check her, I gave her a neck rub and she relaxed right into me.  It has been raining and her fur from winter is wet and full of the  wood shavings used for her bedding.  She looks as though she might have been doing some rolling around.  When I first got down there she was breathing a little heavy, maybe just from being on alert as I approached in the dark with a car and then a headlight on my forehead.  As I massaged her neck and rocked her head she relaxed and so did her breathing.  Across the stall wall were the alpacas humming softly.  It was a memorable moment.

Today part of our focus was on Cowgirl and getting ready for her babe.  We did a check of our birthing supply kit to make sure we had all the necessary items.  And we wormed Cowgirl.  She is loosing fur in spots, so we put some healing ointment on the spots she would let us get to.  She is now getting a dinner of  beet pulp, grain and a general herb supplement.  Since we have no idea about a due date we are just being prepared.

It was sunny, windy and still a little cool.  But the feel of spring is definately in the air!

Casper is getting so big!  He is just a few inches shy of being as big as Magic.  I can’t believe he has grown up so fast!  I know that the harsh winter made it go by faster too.  When he first came, I would tie hay twine around my waist outside my coat and stick him in the front of my coat, so I could carry him and work.  He was only 7#’s!!  He is part of what got me through the winter.  Every time we came in from the cold we were showered with puppy love and kisses.  Now he is just as sweet (when he is not being a wild puppy), following me around and laying at my feet as I work on the computer or cook in the kitchen. His fur is so soft and he still inspires me to stop whatever I am doing to shower him with love.  The dogs are also not immune to his puppy powers, as he gets everyone of them to play with him… even old man Botox our beagle.  From the Knox all the way down to Chi Chi, he wrestles, rolls and plays.

Will and I are headed out of town to Florida on Friday for Spring Break.  There is still a lot to do to get the farm ready for us to be gone. The list is getting shorter by the day and  I am so excited and ready to spend a week in warm weather.  We will be gone a little over a week and I think this may be the longest we have been away from the farm, ever!

Will and I were on for the afternoon shift and managed to get the last two barns cleaned and the horses in and fed without getting too wet.  I had a breakthrough moment with Luna.  She was pretty keyed up and nervous when I went to get her out of the field.   The wind had been whipping and it was raining just before I got to the gate.  Her head was up and down and even putting the halter on was a challenge.  So I put my hand on her cheek and spoke clearly and directly.  ”Luna it is ok.  It is just some wind and rain.  I will be your alpha mare for the walk in.”  Then I proceeded to sing to her.  She immediately calmed down, lowered her head for the halter and let me lead her calmly in to the barn.  Back in her stall we had another sweet moment as I thanked her for listening and letting me be the alpha mare.

The last time I brought her in, in windy weather, she was wild and nervous.  By the time we got to the barn, I was shaking all over.  It is so difficult for me not to get nervous when she gets like that.  And of course the minute she feels me getting nervous, she gets even more wound up.  So having an evening where all the elements where there for her to be wild, and me staying relatively calm and her keeping her head, were huge.  It was a monumental moment for the two of us.  And… my legs were shaking when I got back to the barn!

I relaxed for most of the day… and really feel like I had the day off.  Ahhh….

Back to the office in the morning to get the accounting for the store up and running on the new computer.  And it is payroll day!  A chance to use my new payroll check printing skills.  I am so excited about this new system and getting everything running financially at the next level.  The amount of time and energy it will save is exciting.  Most of the accounting and tax work that I do, is doing by hand what this program will do automatically.

I spent the day, again, in the office.  I set up payroll and printed pay checks from the computer!  Another big accomplishment in the same week. I even went back and put in all of 2010 transactions for the farm in QuickBooks Pro on the new computer!  A little bit of a learning curve: new computer, new to me program and a new way of thinking about the business by printing checks.  Feels quite evolutionary!

The focus today was on cleaning and getting ready for what is to come next.  We are getting calls to book things for summer and the next couple of months.  I worked on the house this morning and then rolled up my sleeves to dive into setting up the new accounting system on our new “used” laptop.  We have Quickbooks Pro installed along with enhanced payroll and the printer software is on the computer.  I am on a roll.  

Tomorrow my goal…. payroll up and running and printing checks.  

We put a panel that Athena can see through in her stall so that she can see the other horses.  The stall door is so high, or she is so short,  that when her door is closed you can only see the tips of her ears and she cannot see out.  It is another of those items from the long list of little to dos during winter that never got done.  Manly because the panel was 3 ft deep in snow standing against the chicken coop.  Tonight she honked and honked to say thank you!

This afternoon I chained myself back in the office and FINISHED TAXES!!!!!!!  Woo hoo!!!!!!  I sent the info off to the accountants and feel pounds lighter.

A gorgeous sunny day.  Crocuses coming up all over now.  Hyacinths in the southern sun pushing up their colors.  The grass is getting greener by the moment. It feels great!  And even though we know the weather will go back and forth for a while, the winter is over.  

I am still slugging away at the taxes.  Finding more that is undone and completing it.  I will finish soon!  I sent a large hunk off to the accountant and he was pleased with the format.  I scanned anything paper and put it into a pdf file.  Then I saved all the accounting reports as pdf’s and sent together.  Pretty advanced!

All day long our discussions returned to Athena and how that possibly could be that her stall door was closed and locked with her outside.  I was the one that brought her in, fed her a carrot at bedtime and turned out the light before leaving the barn.  She was in her stall and her door was closed and latched.  No one has come up with a possible solution except to suggest that I am sleep walking over to the barn at night to let animals out!  

We had a visit from Sam the grass man, to discuss what to do next with our fields.  Lime seems to be the most needed item.  We have had little hills of dirt, not like moles, more like grubs coming up all over the orchard.  And I was worried that we had a bad case of grubs.  After some study, discussion and lots of observation Sam concluded that we have a very healthy population of night crawlers, worms.   And worms are a good thing!  They aerate the soil and make it grow great grass.  What a relief!  

On a sadder note, it appears that all 3 hives of bees did not make it through the winter.  We took advantage of the cloudy weather to to carefully peak inside and see what was going on.  The hives are empty of bees (many bee body parts on the floor of the hive) and honey.  It appears that they used all their honey early in the season and then didn’t have anything to get them through the hardest part of the winter.  We have leased the hives, so we technically have not lost any bees, but I still feel bad that they are gone.  I love our bees and having them around adds a lot to this farm.  So we will need to more colonies of bees in the next month or so. 

And on a more positive note, Hannah still seems better.  No really heavy breathing, tonight.  And when I left the barn, Athena was in her stall with the latch closed!

I had a burst of tax energy today and worked on that most day.  I am determined to get this monkey off my back.  Am so close to being finished I can touch and feel the finish line.  

Hannah seemed better today.  By morning she had eaten most of her dinner and she also ate most of her hay.  The bottom fell out of the weather this afternoon and it began to rain. First slow and steady and then in windy sheets.  By the time I brought the horses in, it was a blustery driving rain and I got soaked.  My raincoat was nearly useless.  The horses had been in their shed for a good part of the afternoon and hadn’t had hay since morning.  So Hannah came in hungry.  Again I carrot to her dinner and she acted like her normal self eating her dinner without stopping.  Progress!  I think part of it is she feels better too!  

I left her again with her diffuser outside of her stall door.  And when I left her breathing was no longer heavy.  We have also been rinsing her hay in water to remove any dust or allergens before putting it in the stall.  She was a happy camper!  A freshly rinsed rack of hay and a special carrot dinner.  And I headed home trying to stay dry!