Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The joys of being a smallholder is that you really do get to know all your animals: you get to know what they like/don't like; what scares them: what excites them. You get to know which ones are pushy, shy, confident or nervous; which ones cope with change and which ones don't. And you get to know their faces and the many variations of these faces. And you get to know what these faces mean. We are still learning with the alpacas but can confidently say that Jupiter (top left) does act as 'haughtily' as his face suggests with perhaps a touch of nervousness there as well.
A contrast to Curds (bottom right) who definitely looks somewhat daft but we know she is actually having a jolly good smell here. What she is doing is something called the Flehmen response which is where an animal curls back its upper lips exposing its front teeth, inhales with the nostrils and then is still for several seconds. Horses, cattle, goats, sheep and even cats all do this and it is usually done when the smell is especially strong, such as with urine (lovely!). Quite what had got Curds' senses going we are not sure but she obviously thought it worth investigating!! The bottom left mug shot of her is very typical: this is a picture of a happy, trusting, friendly goat with just a slight look of mischief!
Sage (middle top) looks cross, a very normal expression for her: she does rather play the grump at times, bless!! Thyme under her (middle bottom) looks her usual calm and contended self: she is very rarely anything else! And as for Neptune (top right)... a little startled perhaps, slightly wary but still with those big friendly eyes!!!
It has been another quiet day on the smallholding: so we snatched a few seconds to simply watch!!