Ecuador Day 2 Otavalo

We had breakfast at the hotel where we had spent the night. 

I managed to remember to take a picture of Emily and Keiran today. 

After breakfast we got an Uber and had a wild ride to Otavalo. Since Kerian is the only one that can speak Spanish, he sat up front to talk to the driver.

Once in Otavalo we dropped all of our bags at a hotel Emily and Kerian had stayed at before. After the luggage was secured we went shopping.

There was lots to see and it was very difficult to pick out things because I liked everything.  I think that I bought too much and now will have to check a bag on the way home. Either that or we will be leaving other stuff behind.

I did make a few selections and the shop keepers all let me take their pictures where I bought things. Kerian did most of the negotiating but a few spoke English so I delt with them myself. 

It was a very hectic time because Emily had us on a schedule to try to get to the reserve before dark. 

We had a nice lunch which included some delicious fresh passion fruit juice. 

 There were a few final purchases,

then we picked up our bags, 

and got in a taxi for the 3 hour ride to Mindo.

Town was very crowded and loud because there was some sort of important soccer game being played and the national team won. There was lots of excitement and celebration. 
.  

Meanwhile, there were groceries to buy and another taxi to take to the reserve. 

It was dark by the time we got there. Emily was not able to keep me on schedule. 

Then came the quarter mile hike to the lodge that included this swinging bridge crossing with only our headlamps.  I will let you see just what we were crossing later.  There had been a lot of rain and Emily was afraid that their water would be out. And guess what, it was. So no water for showers and only a little for drinking at least until the next morning when we would be able to hike to the water source and fix it.

We snacked for dinner. 

I modeled one of my purchases before bed.

I’ll

And this was bed, taken the next day because it was dark and there were no lights upstairs.  There are also no walls upstairs.  But we were tired so we figured out how to crawl in under the mosquito net and went to sleep. At least until Joe woke me up saying this had crawled across his neck. 

It was a giant millipede. I’m not to sure either of us got much sleep after that. 

Ecuador Day 1

 I have a little down time so I thought I would start posting about our trip.  We got up early Friday morning to start our adventure. Joe went to feed the two beeves and one stood up and had diarrhea.  Not a good start and not good to have to leave for Mike to take care of but what do you do.  We loaded up the car and headed down the driveway.  There was a beautiful sunrise but that is not why we stopped. 

Joe had noticed that something he had knocked the pipe out of the water trough.  Nothing was currently in that field but Mike was going to have to move the cows there in a few days.  Joe couldn’t find the pipe to fix it so another job left for Mike.  I think if there had been one more thing Joe might have called it quits.  But we soldiered on and headed to Greensboro.  Ann had volunteered to take us to the airport so we went to her house first. Then she drove us to the airport so we didn’t have to leave the car there.  

That is at the airport, happy.

We made it with plenty of time.  When it was time to board I had not paid extra to pick a seat and we ended up on the last row.  There was a little scare that we would have to check out bags through to our final destination but they found room.  With the roar of the plane engines right next to us I was thankful for the short flight to Atlanta.  

That’s us on the plane not so happy.  We made our connection and ended up with much better seats and we were even served dinner on the flight. We picked the cheese plate which was like a  charcuterie board.  Emily still doesn’t believe we were supposed to get that and asked if it was just going out of date and they needed to get rid of it.  The answer is no, it was very nice.  The plane ride was uneventful and we made it to Quito a little early.  Emily and Keiran were there to greet.  What a wonderful sight to see.  Keiran got us a taxi and we went to the hotel - Hotel Alpachaca. 

 Nothing special but it was clean and cheap.  There was no heat but it did have hot water which is always a plus.  Not sure how I didn’t get a picture of Emily and Keiran, I guess I was just too excited about seeing them in real life.  After some catching up we went to bed to be ready for the next day…

Happy Halloween

 Bunny wishes everyone a Happy Halloween.

But where in the world is he?

Fall Fun

Thought I would share some pictures of Sadie and Allie having some fall fun last weekend.

Sadie rolled around in the leaves.

Allie looked cute

Until I tried to get their picture together.

She was still scared of Kit Kat.

But look, she finally petted him.

 We had a fun time.

Camera Comparisons

Virginia told me that she is seeing a big improvement in my blog picture quality.  I thought I would do a little comparison to see if there really was much difference.

iPhone

Emily’s Canon Powershot

My Canon Powershot pocket camera.                                                                                                                         

 IPhone

Emily’s Canon Powershot

My Canon Powershot pocket camera.

I think the iPhone is the winner.  Emily’s camera is very nice and will probably do zoom better (forgot to compare that) but it is much bulkier to carry around.  My canon is very convenient to carry, fits in my pocket, but the pictures are really lacking in quality.  Maybe the iPhone will be the best of both worlds, fits in my pocket and high quality pictures.

 

Fall Cow/Calf Day

Today Mike came to help work the fall calving cows and calves.

It was a frosty morning. 

There was no drama.  Good help made everything work smoothly.

I did some practicing with the portrait feature on my phone. 

I could practice because Mike and Joe did most of the work.

As the morning wore on layers started coming off.  The cows all got their breed back vaccine and pour on, and the calves all got their 7 way, ear tag and the bulls were castrated.  Lunch at the Dutch Pantry was well deserved.
 

Goat Day

Goat sale day started yesterday with a round up.

Unfortunately, the goats were spread out everywhere.

But we didn’t know that to start with. We thought they were all in the hay field. 

Joe spied this buck while we were getting the goats all together.  He said it was huge.

Anyway, goats kept coming out from everywhere, the woods, over the hill, past the red barn, in the hollow.

We did a lot of walking.  We got back to the house at dark.  But I wasn’t convinced that we had gotten them all. (I love the red maple in the yard)

Since I am still practicing with my phone I thought I would check the fitness app to see if it registered our walk. It did,  3.69 miles and 28 flights of stairs.  Joe walked even further.  Now that is some serious farmercising.

The next morning we had Mike help.  I knew we were missing Tribble.  She is normally with Trouble but was nowhere to be seen. 

Sure enough, she showed up but with some random wild nanny.  Power Puff Girl was back from her visit to the clinic.  I spayed her a Monday and let her stay there a few days to heal.  It hasn’t slowed her down  at all.  At 7 1/2 months old, she is already 63 pounds.
 

There was lots of sorting, picking out the culls, selecting the replacements and cutting out a few small ones to sell later.  We ended up taking 4 nannies and 85 kids to the sale.  That will leave 71 to breed for next year.