Starting a Petition to Enlarge the Pool!

MAN! IT'S HOT!

Honeymoon and Shearing!

Last Thursday Silhouette went to visit Poseidon. Rhonda reported yesterday that they "got married" on Monday and seemed to have a very enthusiastic honeymoon. They will behavior test on Saturday to see if she is pregnant.

We are still breeding S'mores, will behavior test tomorrow to see if we have been successful.

On Saturday night, we got a call from the rancher in Del Valle (Jan and John Pierce) saying that the shearer was going to finish early on Sunday at Rhonda's, and they could come over to her place and shear her animals and ours! We were thinking that it would be in May, but turns out that this was more convenient for the shearer. They are a bunch of guys from Australia and New Zeeland and all they do is travel around and shear alpacas. They were really awesome to watch. So, we borrowed the trailer from the Pierces, and tried to get out as many of the burrs as we could and we got them over to Jan and John's about 1:00 on Sunday. They finished about 3:30 and we were all bushed! John recommended that we keep our animals separate from theirs, and it's a good thing, because some of them were really quite unrecognizable when they were sheared. (Cambridge had 7 pounds of fiber!) It was pretty successful, considering that we haltered the little girls for the first time...that was fine, but they didn't lead very well....good thing they are small enough to pick up! And we had our first experience of loading animals into the trailer (boys were a piece of cake, but the girls were a little difficult).

Angel at 3 months

It's fun to see how fast the babies are growing. Angel is three months old today, and she is growing very fast! I have to weigh her and see how much she weighs now, but I'll bet that she is more than fifty pounds. Her fiber is very fine and silky, while Carmella's is longer and more dense. They have a lot of fun playing together, but Angel is clearly the "boss". Here's a photo of her with her mother, S'mores, who has been a wonderful mother. We'll find out soon if she is pregnant with Rigoletto's cria. It will be interesting to see what color they make!

And there was Rain!

Finally! After months and months of no rain, we finally had a gully-washer last night! The pond had been going down steadily and is now full again! Every one of the animals seems to have a new attitude today!

Rain: Part Two

Cagney and Lacey are so happy to have water to play in again! They chased, ran, wrestled and rolled in the stream until they almost dropped!

Rain: Part Three

And most of all, the alpacas were grateful for the rain that will bring some great grass to eat!

In this photo the girls are watching Cagney and Lacey play in the water.