Envisioning the Future While Soil Burps up the Past
Journal Entry, Week-3. 2021-11-16
Envisioning the Future
Cindy is one of those people who is constantly open to and imagining new ways to expand teaching others about Alpaca ranch life, products, improving the land and applying related skills to all.
Windy Hill Alpaca Club
One of the first things Cindy shared is she's thinking about starting the Windy Hill Alpaca Club. Club members will meet monthly to learn about alpaca wool, how to process it into yarn, felt, & materials, what's involved in alpaca care, and maybe eventually ranch management. I thought it was a great idea.
A Permaculture Enthusiast Starts Volunteering
A new volunteer showed up mid-day who wants to focus on regenerative land management and eventually help transition the entire ranch to this practice. Cindy, being remarkably open, has set aside a smaller section east of the pastures to help him master the art of regenerative best practices.
Fiber Symposium Resources to Support
Last Saturday I attended a 1-day 2021 Fibershed Wool & Fine Fiber Symposium: Weaving Voices. Fibershed.org is a non-profit educational and research organization that develops regenerative textile systems that are based on carbon farming, regional manufacturing, and public education. The symposium featured a range of the northern and central California’s soil-to-soil textile suppliers and highlighted regional farmers, artisans, weavers, felters, knitters, mills and natural dyers. Some of the speakers were agricultural researchers covering water systems, agroforestry, & more. I mentioned to Cindy it looks like there are grants & other funding that could support some of what she envisions. I want to help her do just that!
Young Boyz Escape
As we were envisioning the future, Cindy noticed herds in all the fields were actively gathering by the road that cuts through the north & south fields. Walking over to see what was causing the commotion, we discovered male alpaca yearlings held in the southwest most field had escaped & were excitedly running up & down the south (on ranch) perimeter road. Again, I marvel at the design of the gating system Cindy's put in place. The gates allowed us to easily round up the escapees and herd them back to their home field.
Baby Gets a Splint
Cindy noticed one of the few-months-old Alpaca babies had a front left leg that curved in more than standard conformation so decided to put a splint on it for a day or two to see if it would straighten out. Though not a common condition, it's common enough to have a splint handy! Once again, gate-herding magic was needed to corral and isolate the baby girl. We used a picnic table to lay her on her side. It took the two of us to hold her steady enough to successfully apply the splint. Once done, we released her back into the field with her momma & the rest of the North-1 herd. (FYI - baby alpacas are generically called crias, though the males are also called ‘machos,’ and the females ‘hembra.’)
Dishing Out Alpaca Snacks
Cindy has figured out she can create much healthier & significantly cheaper nutrition for her herd by hand mixing a combo of oats & molasses, commercial pellets, and a sprinkle of flax or chia and key minerals. We mixed and loaded this treat into gutters that had been repurposed into snack trays and hung on the wire fences in each field. The alpacas loved it, some spitting at others who got in their way.
Soil Burps History
Throughout the day, we kept noticing chards of pottery, glass & even an oddly contorted fork. The odd bits are pieces of the history of the land the soil constantly "burps" to the surface. Since World War 2, the land has housed agriculture workers, been a weigh station for Japanese interment detainees, a hog farm, and more I don't recall. By midday, we started picking it up and pocketing it because, yes, Cindy had another idea - she can use the findings to outline a labyrinth path she plans to create in her yard. At day's end, we dropped our collection in a can she had in the barn.
I'm so curious how many chards we'll collect and what the ranch will be in a year's time.