Neighbors

Leo and mama

We had a llama escape this week, when little Leonardo climbed through the electric fence and his mama followed him. After running around where he wasn't supposed to, mama llama herded him back through the fence, with Richard following close behind. It turned out the fence was not electrified due to a broken insulator. Richard fixed that and added another wire for good measure.

As he was fixing the fence, Richard met one of our neighbors, who turned out to be really nice. They got to talking and Richard asked him about the pigeons that hang out on one of his outbuildings. Not his, he said. Wild pigeons. He explained how he and his young daughter tried to raise chickens once. They came out one morning to find headless chickens all over the yard. Coyotes, or neighbor dogs, he didn't know which. My guess? Dogs. Coyotes don't leave the kill behind. Dogs kill for sport.

Yet another reason to fence your dogs and not let them run. Unfortunately our other neighbor believes his dogs should run free, regardless of their resulting behaviors on anyone else. It is the country, after all, he tried to explain to me. And a free range state too, he said happily. Are you from the city? He asked several times. Maybe that means I can read and actually know my rights, even if my family and our eight llamas just recently relocated from the suburbs(?). If only he was educated enough to know the actual laws. In Colorado, free range livestock never, never includes dogs. In most Colorado counties, dogs are required to be on a leash when not contained behind a fence. Certainly in this county, I know. Dog owners are entirely responsible for the trespass of their dogs and the damage done by them. And property owners are legally entitled to shoot said trespassing dogs, no questions asked.

Too bad I don't own a gun. Oh, no it isn't, or I'd be one of the "armed" and dangerous, ready to shoot an innocent dog because his owner is an idiot. I'd be more inclined to shoot the owner, but that is simply not allowed. Good thing I don't believe in gun ownership, or killing.

But, I do believe in my right to enjoy my home and land. And, even if we are renting (that moron tried to explain that as a landowner, he has rights...implying, what, I don't? Oh, wait, I do, and I'm a landowner too, in fact we own too much land right now, but he is the ass in assume.), we have as much right to the land use as the owners do. Therefore, dogs harassing me, my kids, and my livestock are a problem and I will involve the law (too bad it comes to that) if need be.

Maybe the country bumpkin neighbor finally looked up the regulations and instead of spouting more crap out of his butt, has realized the error of his stupidity, because the dogs have not been on our side of the fence since my yelling match with him when I caught his dog chasing back and forth along the llama fence, on our property.

Needless to say, the landlords of this wonderful rental sided with tenant rights, as they should, and are standing behind us in the event more idiocracy arises from this.

And, down the road a ways...neighbor Larry and his sweet wife were out when we headed over to the land to drop off boxes in our storage shed/tiny home. (Tiny homes are NOT allowed in this county.) They had been away, spending time with the grand kids. They were worried something had happened to us since we and all of our animals had vanished from our place. We were in turn concerned about them, and wondered if they had headed south for the winter. But no, everyone is fine, except the dog, who had one major, never-ending seizure and died. Up until then, he had not had a seizure at all -- the Magic C oil was working. It turned out he had a brain tumor, and the medicine was too little too late. Too bad. He was the only dog I didn't mind coming onto our property.

I miss being out there, in the quiet and solitude. I miss the coyotes and the big, open sky. I miss my labyrinth and not having to worry about what the neighbors are doing. I think ultimately, I do better without neighbors.

But I do love this warm house. The passive solar is still working well and we are at 70 F inside when the morning temp outside is 13 F. And with no additional heat...just the house itself.

Settling in to Alamosa

So we are about a month into the new rental now. The llamas are all here with us as is Chloe, the pot belly pig. We sold one turkey and the rest went into the freezer. The same for the chickens who haven't laid for months.

Chloe

Then we had to buy store eggs. I didn't mind paying the cost for the  organic eggs, it's what we charge when we sell eggs. But one day no one in town had any, and this last time, I just decided that the "organic" eggs are not living up to my expectations. So I began the search for laying hens. Found some too. I hope they are only one year old as the woman we got them from believed them to be. I traded a box of children's board and picture books for a bunch of chickens. We got three roosters in the mix. Mostly they are Houdans, which is not a breed I am familiar with, so we will see if and how they lay eggs through the winter. So far, they aren't laying at all.

Houdans

We cleaned out the shed on the rental property. Then Richard fixed it up a little and now we have a working chicken coop for the new birds.

shed turned coop

Patty still has not dropped her cria. Leo the haurizo, Taylor's cria is doing great, testing the boundaries of his freedom in the big field that is now his home, along with all of the female llamas. Leo runs circles around his mom, jumping and kicking and having a grand time, I think I even saw him trying to spit, posturing to mom, trying again and again. It sure seems like she was encouraging him...a lesson in llama spitting perhaps.

Llama girls

We have been considering re-homing some of the llamas. And downsizing many things. Richard's new salary is starting to catch up to us and we are not fairing so well financially. I have listed the camper, and both parcels of land for sale. I don't want to give up the dream, but I'm not sure how else we can pay the bills off that we can no longer afford. I'm trying to find like-minded people to perhaps buy into either piece of land and help us form sustainable communities, but interest and funding seems to be lacking.

Llama boys

We did get our first recycle customer this past week, but at $2 a month for his pickup, that will not go far. I hope more people sign up and we can get this thing going. It seems like a good idea for us, for others and for the planet.

We are still trying to sort and clean up our lives in boxes. Some of our stuff we have not seen for years. It's been packed up and stored away. As a result we are purging everything we don't really need or have outgrown. It's a process. It seems I just finish emptying boxes, sorting and cleaning up and a new batch of boxes shows up. On the positive, our storage rental in town is almost empty and we will be done with that at the end of the month.

We have managed to raise a few dollars by selling off some of these bigger items, which has helped a lot.

I passed my first level shaman course and Richard just got his Permaculture Certification. We are always continuing to educate ourselves as the funding allows. It may be a while before we can start anything new.

I have acquired two clients in my healing business, and I expect that will grow over time.

The new rental

We moved into this great rental on five acres.

Rental house outside of Alamosa

It has this lovely passive solar design that heats the entire house. We have not used the heat yet, nor the wood stove. I think we will be just fine in this house over the winter.

We still have to set up fencing for the llamas and get them moved. It's depressing having so much to do and not enough time to get it done.

We are also struggling now with trying to find a new balance with Richard's new income level, which is quite a drop from what it was before. We have both applied for pizza delivery jobs to no avail. Sad, with all of our pizza experience.

I am trying to sell art, trying to get my healing practice up and going, and writing when I can. The kids' online school is taking up most of my life now. And they told me it would be easier. We have been struggling and have decided to move our daughter back into 1st grade with our son. Her ASD (autism spectrum disorder) is wreaking havoc on our schedule, on her attitude and on my patience. Hopefully we can get it sorted out and this adjustment will be better for all of us.

We are trying to decide what to do next. We may have to sell our Taos land, if not our Alamosa land too. It has been a trying time and I suspect we have a ways to go before we figure out our new life situation.

Leonardo the baby llama

We just had a baby llama/alpaca...huarizo cria. A mix between an alpaca and a llama is a haurizo.

New cria

Taylor our black female llama had her baby this morning, or about noon. He just showed up in the field. No problems, no stress. Llamas give birth so easily. It took him about an hour or so to get to his feet.

Baby llama/alpaca born in the sand

He's so cute!

Nursing

We relocated Taylor and baby to a separate pen and put Patty in there with them, expecting her to give birth any day now. I think they are early though. 350 day gestation. I think we got Alonso last October, but I suppose we are within a couple of weeks of due date.

Staying close to Mom.

In any case, here he is...Leonardo, the newest addition to the farmstead. 26 pounds of legs and fluff.

Leonardo

One loft done, but winter is coming fast

One loft is done in the shed/tiny house. The sub floor is down, and now we need some kind of cheap but clean flooring. We may be looking at making our own hardwood flooring our of 1 x 6" boards. While pallet flooring seems like a cool idea, it would be a lot of work, and yet that may be the only real option.

lumber for the loft and wall

building the bath/kitchen wall

loft

Richard putting down subfloor.

loft with bath/kitchen underneath

Richard and the kids have been painting the shed. It turns out our leftover paint is a Mauve sort of sand color. Was the Earthship we rented really that color? We bought it to paint our tin barn roofs as the covenants in that community would not allow reflective material of any kind. It was Oops paint with some added color, so it is interesting.

Kids painting the shed/tiny house

Richard painting the shed/tiny house

So, I have been on the hunt for cheap, re-usable building materials. We may have a new source for some things.

We are seriously considering a rental farm/house with acreage for the winter. Things are just not moving as fast as I would have hoped. Richard has had a job change with a 20K pay cut. Yes, really. I have to get out there and find a job. Unless by some miracle people start buying my art. Check it out at these links.(http://kerryabennettart.blogspot.com/, http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/kerry-bennett.html)

So, we are looking at the rental property on Tuesday and will make our decision on that. Otherwise, we keep plugging away on the tiny house, hoping to find some money to get insulation in. That's a big one. $1500+ for the spray foam for the roof and walls. Good stuff, but expensive.

We are most likely going to process our remaining 6 chickens and turn them into soup stock. They are molting now, two plus years old and not laying. It is too expensive to keep feeding them high price organic feed with no return. Plus trying to keep them warm through winter. Not worth it. The same may be true of our 4 turkeys. If we get the rental, we can turn our freezer back into a freezer, instead of the fridge it is now, and freeze the turkeys. We will even have a working oven for a turkey on our Day of Gratitude.

The rental is sounding pretty good right now. And, I'd really like a nice long soak in a bath. We could eliminate our storage, I could find my art stuff and maybe begin painting again...or whatever.

The kids have started the online school this past week. It has been a nightmare, trying to figure out schedules and share our one laptop, which will not download any apps. We are supposed to be getting two laptops, one for each, but they have not arrived yet. In any case, the volume of stuff they have to do, and even worse, the volume of stuff I have to do... is intense. I'm beginning to wonder if this was the better choice. I thought it would make things easier with a schedule and actual assignments. Poor kids these days. The crazy stuff they have to learn to be indoctrinated into a society that is failing. But, I'll give it some time before I bail on it. I am pleased the kids seem to be about where they are supposed to be as far as grade level.

And, in my spare time, I'm still sorting hemp seed, trying to clean it out of the other plant matter.

The neighbor dog has been to visit a few times. He's a sweet thing, but I worry about him chasing chickens. My dogs don't like him coming around and neither do the llamas. It turns out he's been having seizures and just wanders off in confusion. So, I gave neighbor Larry some Cannabis oil to give him about two weeks ago. I also did an energy healing on the dog and walked him through the labyrinth when he was here one day. The dog has not had any more seizures, but still comes to visit. I worry, as Larry said if he has another big seizure, he will have him put down. Sad. Please let the natural medicine work for him. I believe in the power and healing properties of the Cannabis oil. So far so good, as long as they keep giving him the oil.

We also picked up the stove that was in Larry's barn. It needs some work.

the stove