by Alan Parks
“Filtro, filtro, filtro,” he kept saying to me as I drove him back to town. I thanked him profusely and asked how much we owed him.
“€15, solo para producto,” he said, he didn’t want to charge us for his time.
So after over a week, and hundreds of euros in fuel and payments to people, our nightmare was coming to an end.
In fact, the pool cleared enough by the penultimate day of the family’s holiday that the children were able to use the pool for the afternoon and at least make the most of the last of their holiday.
If Simon and Sarah ever read this, please be assured that we did do everything we possibly could to try and sort out the pool problems during your holiday, and we only wish it could have been different for you.
Chapter 2 6
Equine Pandemonium
Ramon came to see us one day as he had something he needed to discuss with us. He sat outside the gates, tooting his horn for all he was worth until he saw us open the door and walk out to the gate. Only then did he cut the engine and get out of the car.
“¿Hola, que pasa?” I asked.
As usual, Ramon only had eyes for Lorna, adjusting his flat cap, smoothing down his sweaty shirt and kissing the back of her hand.
“¿Hola guapa, que tal?” he said to Lorna. Hello pretty. How are you? This kind of display always made Lorna feel uncomfortable; Ramon was well in to his sixties, although he obviously felt he still had ‘it’.
Once he had lingered over saying hello to Lorna, he turned to me to discuss the pressing matter. In our experience, it seems that the local farmers are quite happy to flirt and make chit chat with Lorna, but if it comes to business or house matters, these must be discussed with me. By this time, of course, we had passed the extent of our understanding of what was being said and had progressed to sign language, punctuated by a few, well-chosen words.
We were able to pick up the words caballo, transporte and, as far as we could make out, Ramon was going to be moving his horses and wanted to use our fenced-off entrance way to corral them, in order to load them onto the transport lorry. This would take place on a Saturday morning.
When Saturday came around, I was up early to move the alpacas out of the way, plus any plant pots or breakables liable to get knocked over by the horses. Then, just as I was sitting down to wait for Ramon, in the distance I could hear the rumble of a lorry coming down the track. Slowly and steadily the noise grew louder, the lorry finally chugging into view as it climbed the last little hill before our house.
What a sight. The lorry was a rust bucket, and that is being polite. The bumper at the front was hanging off and there were rusty holes all over the sides of it. There was the obligatory animales vivos sign securely fastened to the back of the lorry. I wasn’t sure this vehicle would hold one horse, let alone however many Ramon had planned to squeeze inside.
The lorry parked up outside the fence to wait for the arrival of Ramon and the horses. After a few minutes we could hear shouting in the distance, a loud “Yah! Yah!” followed by the sound of thundering hooves. Soon, through the olive trees, eight horses of varying sizes and shapes emerged, followed by a rather ragged looking Ramon. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, sweat poured from his forehead and his breathing was laboured. He was carrying an olive branch that he had obviously been using to whip the horses every now and then. He produced a bucket of oats from somewhere, although I can’t be sure where they were hidden, and led the horses in through our gate. They calmed down, nibbling on the oats we had split into different buckets.
Ramon had a word with the driver of the lorry, who turned his vehicle around and backed it towards our gates. When the back of the lorry was level with the gate, he turned off the engine, got out and started to lower the ramp at the back end of the lorry. Lorna had retreated inside, so I went to see if she was OK.
“I can’t watch them hitting and shouting at the horses, trying to get them in that lorry,” she said.
I understood and we chatted for a couple of minutes. When I went back out to check on progress, even though I had been gone less than five minutes there were people milling about all over the place. They were smoking, chatting and watching the alpacas while the driver and Ramon were trying to attach our gates to the side of the lorry to create a barrier the horses wouldn’t be able to penetrate. Once this was done, the men lined up creating a human barrier towards the back of the lorry and I saw Ramon behind the horses with his olive whip back in hand.
So, this is the scenario: old Spanish man, with whip made from olive branch, whips horse from behind; horse, seeing nowhere to go because of the human barrier, runs straight ahead, up the ramp and into the back of the lorry, where it is tied to the side while the next one is loaded. Sounds easy doesn’t it?
I could see Ramon was jumpy and nervous as he stood behind the horse. Then, all of a sudden, he shouted at the top of his voice “YAH!” and whipped the backside of the horse with all his might, before running away in the opposite direction. The men all started to wave and shout at the horse, who reared up, turned around and ran off through the barrier of scattered men that were now spread out all over the yard.
One of the men had a bright idea. He removed some green material from our fencing, that we used to create some privacy around the pool, and some of the men held this as a new barrier, the thinking being that the horse wouldn’t be able to see through it. One of the men picked up a pitchfork we use for digging over the land and collecting stray hay. He prodded the horse on the backside with the fork, while another man pulled his lead rope from the front and the rest of the men screamed and shouted at the horse.
I didn’t like to see the way they were stressing the animals and every man seemed to have a different opinion as to how this situation should have been handled, so I went inside and left them to it.
I watched through a window in our kitchen as, time and again, the men were outwitted and outmuscled by the more intelligent animals. Eventually, with a mixture of brute strength and luck they managed to load four of the horses onto the lorry and close up the back. It was then that I went back out. As I walked through the door, the lorry pulled away and most of the crowd dispersed into the countryside, vanishing just as mysteriously as they had appeared. This left Ramon, an older man and two younger men with the four remaining horses. There seemed to be a little bit of wheeler-dealing going on and then Ramon waved at me, got into his car and off he went. The man left behind started a conversation with us as he spoke a little broken English.
“I am from the farm over there,” he pointed up the hill into the distance. “My sons are going to take the horses to my farm.”
This they did, but far from the crazy, stressful scenario that had just played out before my eyes, the two younger men were gentle and kind to the horses, giving them some treats, making sure their harnesses were OK, and that they were uninjured.
They led the four horses quietly up the road, while the dad followed slowly behind in the car. I was pleased that they seemed to be taking care of the horses now, but what I didn’t understand was how that same man had been one of the shouting, goading pack when surrounded by the rest of the men. Surely he could have taught them a thing or two about compassion for animals?
Until people start to educate each other, the maltreatment we see day-to-day in Spain will continue.
Chapter 27
Helicopter Display
The dogs went mad in unison. Either side of us there was barking and frenzied howling going on, but we couldn’t work out why. We looked around outside and couldn’t see anything, but still they were in a heightened state of excitement. A couple of minutes later we found out why.
A large blue and yellow helicopter flew low over our house, carrying a bucket and heading towards the reservoir. In five years at The Olive Mill we had yet to be threatened by any kind of fire and I always hoped it would stay that way.
Living in the Spanish campo, one of my biggest fears is the wild fires that happen frequently in the sum
mer. They seem to be more prevalent in the windier areas, like Murcia and down towards the coast, as well as the more populated areas. I guess there is more threat there from a discarded cigarette, or more scarily, someone starting one of these fires deliberately.
Every year in late spring and early summer, the olive farmers around us spray the land with weed killer and either drag the land with an old tyre to get rid of the dried up residue or plough it into the ground. I have always felt that this practice helped keep our area clear of fire; after all, these olive trees are their livelihood, handed down from generation to generation and the farmers have a vested interest in keeping them safe from fire.
As the helicopter flew over our house, causing the dogs to bark and the alpacas to stare, Lorna and I went outside to have a look. We could see the chopper flying low over the trees, past Ramon’s house and over the reservoir before dipping out of sight. We could see two more helicopters circling, coming into the reservoir, lifting off and appearing above the hill and flying away again. Within a couple of minutes they were returning. We couldn’t see any smoke yet, but we felt sure that this wasn’t a drill.
In all our time here we had only ever seen one helicopter come in close to the reservoir and then disappear over the horizon. We decided to drive up to the reservoir to take a closer look.
When we got there, the noise was loud. Three helicopters were taking it in turns to come in, dip their buckets into the water and off they went again. They were headed away from us, over the pine forest.
Then we saw it.
A large plume of black smoke was rising into the air. Although still many kilometres from The Olive Mill, it still felt too close for comfort. The skilled helicopter pilots were working fast, probably collecting two buckets of water each, every ten minutes. They would come in fast, then hover low over the water and let the bucket sink. They would have to keep it steady for a few seconds and allow the bucket to fill as much as possible and then they would be off again. The buckets trailed behind the helicopters, losing some of their water on the journey.
As we sat and watched the flying display we were thankful that the fire was not closer to us. We had seen photos of horrific fires near to the coast at Mijas, where people had been evacuated from their homes and animals had been killed. One of our fellow alpaca owners on the coast lost some horses a few years back when they got trapped in a barn that burned to the ground.
As well as the helicopters, the fire department also have planes on standby, but I think they may be used closer to the coast where they can collect water from the sea. There are also on-ground fire crews. In Montoro, they have what looks like a very old-fashioned fire engine, plus a large red Land Rover. Apart from the wild fires, we do not actually see the fire engines called out very often.
When we lived in the UK, hardly a day went by when we wouldn’t see one or two fire engines tearing down the street with their blue lights flashing. Considering that many of the old people here still use hot coals to warm themselves up under the blankets that they drape across the table in winter, I would expect house fires to occur with much more regularity.
Chapter 28
Our Little Miracle
On my return from the UK in early June, Lily had started to look very round to me. Her udders had started to swell and she was looking uncomfortable. How does an alpaca look uncomfortable? Well, she would lie down in the cush position (sitting upright, with her legs folded beneath her), but then she would visibly lean to the side, as though there was not enough room for her stomach underneath. On top of that, when she came running for her daily cool shower, she had developed a clear waddle.
If our dates were correct, she should not have been giving birth until at least mid-August, maybe even the start of September, given the two escapes at the end of last summer. Nevertheless, because her last two cria had arrived prematurely, we started a Lily vigil. We got up at between 7.00 and 7.30 to check whether anything was occurring. Sometimes we returned to bed for an extra hour, but more often than not we stayed up, filling the early morning hours with jobs that it was too warm to do later on. Every hour we would go and check on Lily, looking for signs of impending labour.
We stopped going out in the mornings, or staying out any longer than an hour or two, just in case we missed anything and we needed to be there to assist. Friends were unable to understand our refusal to go anywhere, and Lorna and I were going a bit stir crazy. However, every day, week, month that passed by was good news, and it gave us hope that this time Lily might carry her cria to full term.
By the start of August we had been watching Lily for two months solid and our hopes were high. She had grown considerably and we had seen the cria kicking in her belly, so we knew it was alive. One night we were feeding the alpacas when Lorna noticed something.
“Look at Lily’s bottom,” she said.
“Why? What’s happening?” I started to panic.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Just look.”
I looked, but at first I didn’t see anything. Then Lily’s tail jumped as if she was shaking a fly off, but it was involuntary.
“Did you see that?”
I carried on watching. The tail kept jumping. Then Lily lifted her tail as if to give us a look at what was happening. Her whole back end, bottom and bits were moving, like something out of a science fiction film and some kind of space creature was trying to escape.
Ever since we started on this alpaca journey, every day we gain new alpaca friends from all over the world on the Internet, and we had heard people referring to “Alien Butt Activity”, but we didn’t remember seeing it when the other cria had been born. Maybe we just weren’t watching for it.
As the female gets close to the birthing date, her more delicate areas start to relax and loosen up ready for the impending birth. If the cria is active, you can see the head or the feet moving about as if they were trapped inside a balloon. It is a very bizarre thing to witness and you feel as though the cria is going to arrive at any moment, but then Lily would go and sit down, the movement would subside, and we would be left waiting again.
Given that the temperature in August hovers around 40 degrees, we wanted to keep Lily as comfortable as possible, so Lorna and I took turns going out and giving her a cool shower with the hose. She would always come running out of the stable, waddling her way over and standing under the fine spray until she was dripping from head to toe. Then she would promptly go and roll in the dust, so she looked as though she had been living wild in a swamp for weeks.
One day I was out with the hose, calling Lily to come. Bermuda and Cassandra were outside, but Lily wouldn’t come out of the stable.
I wandered down to have a look in, and she hummed at me, loudly. I went in to see what was up and there was a baby, writhing around on the floor, obviously only just having hit the ground. It must have been a quick birth, as there had been so sign of any action only a half hour before. I ran in to grab a towel and the iodine with which to dip the umbilical cord.
“The baby is here!” I shouted to Lorna as I ran in.
She followed me out to the stable nervously asking questions like, “Is it alright?”
We picked the baby up and placed it on the clean towel. I looked underneath and squirted iodine from the bottle onto what was left of his umbilical cord.
“It’s a boy!”
He was already covered in dust from the floor of the stable. I dried him off and picked off the pieces of membrane from the birthing sack that still stuck to his fleece. He looked quite big and he had a mass of white curls.
“I’m pleased it’s a boy,” Lorna said. “Maybe she’ll have better luck with a boy.”
We retreated to the far end of the stable to watch the cria learn to stand, and hopefully find his way to where Lily’s milk was waiting for him. We really did not want to interfere any more than was necessary. We knew that 99% of alpaca births are uneventful and everything goes smoothly and that we’d just been unlucky before.
Initial
ly, we were confident. The new cria was strong, up on his feet quickly and looking for milk underneath his mum. Every so often we gave him a nudge to guide him to the correct end, as he kept ending up underneath her front legs. We knew from all our research over the years, and our limited experience, that this bit can be the most frustrating part and it can take hours before the new cria latches on and starts to drink.
After an hour or so of watching and waiting, Lily passed the placenta. It was complete and I removed it to bury it where another animal wouldn’t be able to find it. Sometimes, once the mother has passed the placenta, she feels more comfortable and then will allow her cria to feed, but still we waited.
“Why don’t we get hold of Lily and make sure her milk is coming out, then we can wait some more?” I suggested to Lorna.
So Lorna held Lily while I gently tried to milk her and make sure her milk was coming out. Sometimes there is a waxy plug in the teat which needs to be eased out using a warm water compress and then the milk flows better, but sometimes the cria just gets right to work and the plug comes out on its own. I managed to get two of the teats to produce milk and half an hour later all four were producing milk. As time was ticking on, we decided to try to milk some colostrum from Lily and feed it to the cria, using a syringe. The most I managed to milk at one time was 4ml, a tiny amount.
“I think we should give him some of the powdered colostrum,” I said to Lorna.
“I agree; we don’t want him getting weak or dehydrated in this heat,” she said.
We had them in a stable, out of the sun, but it was still August and the temperature was high.
We made up a bottle of 150ml of powdered colostrum and offered it to the new cria in an old Coca-Cola bottle with a teat screwed onto the end. He guzzled it down. There was no problem with his suckling reflex either; once he figured out how to drink from the bottle the mixture was quickly gone. Knowing he’d taken a meal, and therefore had some energy, we decided to retreat and give them a chance to bond, and hopefully Little Fella would find the milk.