We had a fellow from Idaho come to shear the sheep and the alpacas. He had already done 55 that day at another ranch and then finished up at our place. It has been snowing all day today so the alpaca looks pretty silly running around without his fleece.

The babies have started arriving. We have 3 baby goats and a new calf. The rest of the calves will come in April. The bull got out early this spring so this was a surpise and we are hoping this is the only one for now.

The ice is gone and we ended up with a lot of wind latley. We are now awaiting the arrival of baby goats and sheep. They will be followed by pigs and cows. The next few months will be busy but a lot fun watching all the young ones grow.

The new arrivals are doing well. The pigs like their new shelters that Jose built for them and the puppies are being introduced to the goats and sheep. All are doing great. Now if we could just get rid of all the ice.

New arrivals!! We took delivery on six pregnant gilts (female pigs) for breeding purposes last week. This will give us somewhere in the 85 to 90 pigs per year. The boar (male breeding pig) will arrive sometime this summer.

Predators can be a problem on any ranch including ours. We shot a coyote the middle of this month which was very close to our birthing shed where we are keeping the goats. Coyotes are extremely intelligent animals which I like having around for the diversity they offer to the ecology food chain; we just can't have them so close to our animals. This episode along with previous encounters has prompted us to get an Anatolian guard dog as a puppy which will be on the Ranch in the next couple weeks. It will be raised with the sheep and goats and will protect them. The alpacas have done a very credible job of watching out for the sheep and goats when any intruder, including our house dog Friday, but the Anatolian will offer some added protection.

Next arrivals will be in February when the birthing process starts.

Thanksgiving is upon us, snow is in the air and we are in the maintenance and repair phase of the year. There is a frenetic pace during the summer in getting the fields cut and the hay in before the days get too short. Most of the valley including us did not fair well in dogging the summer and fall rains. That being behind us we are getting hog, lamb and goat structures constructed for new arrivals. Pregnant Gilts (young female pigs) arrive the middle of December which will start our own on Ranch birth through harvest pig operation. Bore goats arrived today and we added to the sheep population a few days ago. All in all a slower time but not stagnant; still a lot going on and exceedingly fun.

Much of the Ellensburg Valley got hosed with an unseasonably heavy dose of rain on September 6th. We got 1.5" which is 17% of our ANUAL rainfall in this 24 hour period. Needless to say our Orchardgrass hay is not going to have the color which we would like but the nutritional value will still be there. We will hopefully have it up and baled before we get hit again but are currently contending with a broken Harobed.

All of our 2010 meats are SOLD OUT with the exception of some of our meat chickens. It is not too early to get your 2011 orders in.