Tree dodging

Some parts of each year are just like this. We of course try to be as proactive as possible about things both in our family life as well as with stuff pertaining to the animals in the herd (as if that were really separate) but ultimately there come moments — and suspiciously they seem to come with greater regularity in April/May/June and again in October/November — where you just have to give in to the insanity, grin and bear it. Yes, Ian, you will drive a cumulative 3 hours today between school runs and lacrosse practice so that Jen can stay on the farm and try to make sense of the newborn cria that is neither standing at 48 hours of age nor seemingly gaining any weight in spite of being tubed. That we ended up having to put that cria down in the end  (and, yes, of course it was female) after Jen and Kim nursed it along for the better part of 3 days is really just part of the deal. You take the bad with the good.

Since shearing our herd almost a month ago, we have been seemingly dodging the trees as they come at us. Whether it’s been chaperoning a couple of overnight field trips for the boys, skirting fleeces for Nationals, or just balancing the reality of our kids academics at the end of the school year and their extracurricular activities against the steady threat of birthing females up at the Arena, we have just had to roll with it. Who is that other person drooling on the other end of the couch at 10PM? Oh, yeah: it’s you, nice to see you again! For the record, our kids only have 4 days of school left and I have to admit to being just as excited about that prospect as Sam and Max. The end of the school year will mean at least two more cumulative hours that Jen and/or I will have to do other stuff here on the farm, even if that just means time with our kids reading aloud or playing catch outside. I am excruciatingly conscious of the fact that no matter how stretched we may feel at times, that at 11 and 14 years of age these years with our guys are to be savored even when the stress and sleep deprivation seem to be piling on. Mid June just brings with it a little more room to breathe as a family.

Jen, Kim, and I finished herd health today for the month (no toe nail trimming this time around as that was done during shearing) and all of the sexually mature open females that had been out to pasture for the past couple of weeks were brought back into the Arena again for the foreseeable future. They’ll still have access to a small paddock off of the barn itself but be in a situation where they can also be temporarily locked in if need be. This is in anticipation of our in-house breeding season getting under way in earnest over the next few days. My better half and I spent an hour or two on Tuesday going over the possible breeding matches available to us right now and the possibilities are not without some intrigue. Having watched both him and his kids mature beautifully ove the past several years, Cameron for one, is probably going to see more action than he ever has in years past. Time will tell of course but on the heels of his daughter, Tanzania, going on the run she did last fall and this spring (4 color championships), it’s time to air it out a bit as they say. That series of initial breedings — there are roughly 15 open females in that group — are the motivational stick for me in the near term. For her part, Jen is hoping to get all of the crias born so far this year shorn in the next couple of days and make sure all paperwork for the farm (a never ending thing as all small business owners are aware) is as buttoned up as it can be over the next week. How much success we will achieve in the pursuit of those goals remains to be seen, much being dependent upon the girls in our maternity ward and how the next several births play out. Here’s hoping for some routine action. In any case our very real collective carrot is an extended Lutz-family trip to Italy next week to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The running joke here for the past 10 days has been that we’ll sleep on the flight to Florence. I think we could live with that. I totally get it that all suffering is relative, BTW. Plus, all things being equal, there will still be 50+ due females waiting for us when we get back: we wouldn’t want Kimmy to have all of the fun!

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