We had an ice spike today! What’s an ice spike? It …

is an ice formation, often in the shape of an inverted icicle, that projects upwards from the surface of a body of frozen water

Well – we’d never heard of ice spikes either, and it had us completely baffled for a bit. I was going down the line of aliens and pixies (naturally), but Caerthan found this article on Wikipedia, if you’re interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_spike
It’s a bit technical in places, but at least it makes a game attempt to keep things in the realm of science, even though they admit to not really knowing.
Putting aside aliens, pixies, and science, I just thought it was very beautiful and feel privileged to have an ice spike at Pistyll Gwyn.

Lavender has died. She had been ‘elderly’ for some time now, but on a fairly rapid decline for the last few weeks.
That said, I would never have thought this morning that today would be the day when she would finally lay down near the barn, and not want to get up again. At 9 o’ clock she led the alpacas down to the Secret Garden and ate a hearty breakfast – business as usual. She hung about there during the day, seemingly content, but at some point decided she had had enough. I found her lying on  her side with just a little life at 4.30pm. The vet came over and speeded her on her way, (which I hope someone will do for me when I get to that stage).

So – end of an era here at Pistyll Gwyn. For the first few years Lavender was most definitely Queen Lavender with more than a little touch of the Lou Beale about her (early Eastenders matriarch – no nonsense, sharp tongue, sensible shoes, family-comes-first etc). It was a common sight to see her scolding one of the other alpacas, particularly the lads, (though never her blessed cria who could do no wrong). The last couple of years she has sat back and chewed the cud while Diamond and Olive battle it out for the crown, and has seemed happier for it. She could still give a good cussing if someone encroached on her feeding, but I can’t remember seeing her spit.
Lavender started life as a Jolimont cria in Australia, and after travelling all the way to the UK we know she had at least one cria at Bozedown Alpacas before she arrived here, via Alpacas of Wales. To my mind that is far too many miles for an alpaca and I am pleased that we could give her somewhere pleasant in which to settle. In return, she gave us the awesome Dylan, Molly-with-the-wonky-neck, Iolo the quiet one, and the gorgeous Rhiannon.
Thank you, Lavender, for your work here, and your splendid company. You will be missed.
A final note to thank the vet (Market Hall Vets at St. Clears). He came quickly and did the business efficiently and compassionately. We have always felt very lucky with Market Hall – some of our friends and colleagues struggle with poor veterinary experiences, but we have had nothing but excellent service from this practice.

So many berries this year – the hawthorne trees are dripping with them and giving a huge splash of bright colour to the autumn landscape. It has been a glorious September …

Well it had to be done … there were no hot cross buns so cheese straws it was. Artfully shaped into ancient Roman implements of torture these tasted just as good as they looked!

I chickened out of doing them all as crosses – it’s not a baking efficient shape, but Caerthan and I had two crosses each, and Gwen and Herbert had one. Actually Herbert only wanted a little so we scoffed his too. Heavenly!

Dead simple to make and definitely enhanced by using a seedy bread flour / white four mix.

It’s almost a year since the blog had any attention. I’m not sure why it’s been so long – probably me just proving to myself that I don’t have to do it.
One advantage of leaving it for a year is that there is a lot to say. One disadvantage is that that can be somewhat overwhelming. So … I’m not going to attempt to cover the missing months (most of 2013, and the start of 2014) – I’m just going to let it come off the top of my head.

The big change here is that Caerthan seems to have found his calling with dying yarn. Actually, I think his calling is colour, but at the moment that is enshrined in the luxury yarn business, which is helping our finances a bit. I’m still bringing in the lion’s share, and I’m still doing the lion’s share, so the sense of imbalance that has disturbed me for so long and hangs over our relationship is still there, but not as strongly. Sadly, I no longer have any expectation that Caerthan will help with the wood, or the field, or any of the other practical jobs that need doing but at least something is happening, so I am much happier. The dyed yarns he produces are beautiful and people from all over the world are buying them. You can see more on his website at Triskelion-Yarn.com.

There has been a change in me too – I’ve stopped struggling so much with trying to get everything done, and some things have been allowed to slide. I’ve done virtually no spinning or weaving. I don’t want to lose those skills, but I’ve realised that deep down I cannot ignore my creativity. I feel like I need to be doing music or writing or something. So armed with Dad’s video camera I made another short film – October – and I am currently working on another piece of music, which will no doubt find its way here quite soon.

The major event of the past year has been Dad going into hospital at New Year for a month. It was touch and go for a time, but has probably brought us closer. Time is precious. For me it meant tons of driving in January, going up every weekend to spend time with him in hospital as he was bored witless. Hospital is definitely not a place to be ill! Anyway, a couple of months further on he is fit and well again and getting ready for expeditions here.

In February we had trees coming down and torrential rain. We got off lightly of course – no floods up here. Our phone line was taken out and roads were blocked – it meant lots of swinging into action with the chainsaw.