A tornado hits our farm
A couple of weeks ago a tornado zigzagged its way through our property taking down about a dozen large trees and snapping several more off half way up. It has created a real mess in the pastures and damaged our fences in several places.
We were very fortunate that only the fences were damaged. Although several large limbs landed just a few feet away from the alpaca stalls no animals were hurt and the barn was unscathed. We try to remind ourselves of this good news as we are chainsawing tree trunks and hauling loads of tree branches out of the pastures.
The animals were huddled in the barn that night, cushing very close to one another for protection. But by the next day - they were unperturbed, even though there was still lots of standing water in their pastures.
The little ones thought it was quite fun to run at full speed through the ankle high water and splash each other - or try to jump on one another while wading through puddles.
Mother Nature is one of the big unpredictable factors of any kind of farm life. I try to be thankful of her many moods instead of resentful. Right now I’m thankful that we are still experiencing unseasonably cool weather for a Floridian late March. It is still in the low 40’s every morning, and has not made it out of the low 70’s during the day yet. The alpacas are very comfortable, even though they are in full fleece. I will really appreciate the memory of these cool and comfortable mornings in June and July when the temperature soars to the 90’s during the day and the humidity is 80%. Such is the life of a Florida farmer.