Busy Doing Nothing

It was difficult to get started this morning; I just didn’t want to do anything at all. I then realised that time off is very thin on the ground here as there is always the never-ending list the ‘things that must be done’. Additionally, I don’t have a weekend, it’s the same on any smallholding with livestock. They don’t have weekends off so neither do you. So today I decided to treat myself. Today, I decided was going to be a day of doing only the things I wanted to do rather than had to do.

The animals didn’t need to worry though, they are like breathing, you have to do it but you do it without thinking about it so once they were fed, watered, let out etc. the day was mine.

It’s been really strange and very relaxing just to potter about. Strangely I got quite a bit done despite feeling that I wasn’t doing anything. I draught-proofed the door that doubles as the window in my bedroom. As I wasn’t racing around from one job to another I had time to see the net curtain blowing around when the wind blew outside, and it has been windy today. I had time to notice the light shining round the edges of the back door so that has had extra draught-proofing put round it to. Soup has been made for next week’s lunches and magazines that have been hanging around have been read.

One of the magazines, Permaculture, turned out to have a wealth of information in this edition that is relevant to what I want to do here so I’m really pleased to have sat down and finally read it.

Going down to feed the alpacas I noted that the tarpaulins over the hay were blowing about badly. They hadn’t blown loose but the wind had got between the join where the two overlapped. I certainly didn’t want to have to undo them to get at the hay as I would probably never see them again. Thankfully there is a large bale in the barn that was put there in case of bad weather. I was thinking that the bad weather would be snow or ice mind you. So alpacas were fed and have hunkered down, bums to the wind with their noses in the hayrack. No, they still haven’t dained to use the shelter. I thought about moving the hayrack in there but there wouldn’t be enough room for the alpacas to stand both sides. This is necessary because Silver thinks that everyone else has the best bits to eat so she pushes them away and takes up the whole of the 2 meters of the side she’s on. Also, some days they finish the hay before I would normally go down to feed them. Where the feeder is at the moment I can see it from the front of the house and if it’s getting low I can top it up.

To finish off my relaxing day I’m going to watch a film, one of my favourites, Waking Ned. It’s a lovely understated British comedy about wining the lottery. It’s been a favourite of mine for a long while and when I was a film extra I was luck enough to go to the Isle of Man, where Waking Ned was filmed, and find all the locations.

I hope everyone else has had a wonderful day too.