Rainy Day Event

Yesterday morning I woke up the to sound of rain on my window; it was also very cold in our bedroom so I decided to cuddle down in the covers for a while longer. At 7:30 I decided that there would be no more sleep for me and it was time to quit being lazy and get up. After rolling out of bed I peered through the slats in the mini-blinds like I do every morning and the first thing I saw was Cierra (our black female who's due to deliver any day) standing obediently over her very wet and shivering cria! Now, Cierra is known to pop babies out when we aren't looking, but the rule is that alpacas deliver their crias between about 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. This is the second cria for us that didn't follow this rule.

I quickly got dressed, gathered up towels, rubber gloves, iodine, and bags and headed out to check out the new baby. I'm assuming that she was just born so I was a little surprised that when I stood her on her feet she stayed. In fact, she immediately started looking for her milk supply. Usually it takes a half hour or more before they can really stand. I gave her a quick rub down with the towels and then proceeded to strip the plugs off Cierra's teats; they were already stripped! No wonder this little girl (yes, I said, "girl") already seems to know what she's doing. I wonder how long she's been doing it. I look around and there is the placenta, all there just as it should be. This was way too easy. All I needed to do was dip the navel, put a coat on her, and lock them in the barn out of the rain.

The poor little thing shivered so much yesterday that I ended up putting a second coat on her. When I went out to check on her at 5:00 pm she was still shivering so I gave her another good rub down and left a towel draped over her and her coats. At 8:00 pm I checked on her again, this time I took a hot pad made out of a two gallon zip lock bag with a couple of dish towels soaked in hot water. Sure enough she was still shivering so I stuck the hot pad under her coats for a few minutes then I wrapped it around her head, ears, and neck for as long as I could hold her still. I repeated this just before I went to bed at 11:00 and she finally quit shivering. When I went to check on her first thing this morning she was not shivering and the rain had stopped so I let her and Cierra back out in their pasture.

After the pasture started getting direct sunlight I was able to take her jacket off and this is what she looks like:

I think she is what we call a dark rose grey, which is something between brown and grey; kind of a dusty brown. The surface of her fleece looks like a Berber carpet. I can't wait to shear her in the spring!

Cria photo

This is our youngest cria, he is about two weeks old here. Now, we're waiting for the 6th and final baby of the year to arrive. So far we've only had boys so we're really hoping for a girl.

Space Shuttle

I received an email today with the following link:

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA%20pix.htm

It has photos from the space shuttle that are pretty neat.

Photo

Finally. Here is a photo from Aliya's (Rocky's daughter) wedding last month:

It was a beautiful wedding held outside at the church just down the street from us. There were lots of trees with christmas lights and gazebos with curly willow branches and tulle to decorate them.

The news of the day involves my goats. We have a friend named Ricky who is a handy man and will come out for various projects. When he was here on Friday we were lucky enough to see where the goats were escaping. Turns out that it wasn't the place the Rocky repaired at all. So Ricky was kind enough to repair the spot where they got out as we were watching and all was well until this morning. As I was getting ready for the day I happened to walk out on the patio and here come the triplets while poor Otto (the angora) was still in their pen. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to see them escape tomorrow; if not I'll start toting hay and water to the other ditch line before my original plan.

Goat Roping

In addition to our alpacas we have four goats; three pygoras and one angora. We have two ditches that run through the middle of our property; we fenced them in and the the goats keep them mowed which is a huge help to Rocky since he always runs the risk of getting the tractor stuck or flipped when mowing close to steep ditches.

Right now the goats are in the ditch closest to our house, even though the other ditch is getting over grown I am trying to wait until the rainy season starts before moving them back there. I can stretch a hose across the driveway to fill their water bucket right now, but the other ditch is quite a little hike from the barn so it is easier to have them down there when mother nature can help keep the buckets full. Well, I should say that the goats are supposed to be in the ditch by our house.

For the past week or so they've figured out an escape route. Rocky fixed it a few days ago, but that has only managed to keep the angora from getting out, the pygoras (which are triplets) are smaller and have horns that grow backward rather than outward were still able to escape. Fortunately, when they get out there is so much green grass, blackberry vines, and wind fallen apples for them to eat that they haven't gone anywhere. Getting them back in their pen has proven pretty easy so far. I cut up some apples or squash, open the gate, and throw the pieces far enough inside that they clear the gate, but not so far that they can't see where it falls. This technique works like a charm, but now I'm afraid I just taught them that escape means treats. So last night after work Rocky did a better repair to the fence and this morning when we got up they were still in the fence. That lasted just until Rocky pulled out of the driveway to go to work. The triplets are still escaping. I guess it is time to move them to the other ditch and I am just going to get more exercise packing water out to them.

New Blog

Well, here is my first attempt at blogging. I've been reading and enjoying other blogs for the past few months so I decided to try my own. My time is a bit limited so I won't be a daily poster, but I'll try for weekly and see how it goes.

Yesterday our hay arrived. All the guys were here promptly at 8:00 am, but the truck was a little delayed. The trucker always stops at the store parking lot just down the road from us to leave one trailer while he delivers the other trailer to us. It just so happened that the church had it's men's breakfast yesterday and somebody was parked on the side of the road where the truck turns into the store. The driver thought he could make the corner anyway, but was wrong. The truck and first trailer made the turn, but the second trailer with our hay on it ended up with the wheels centered over the ditch. This meant that he couldn't continue forward or back up without one set of the tires going in and our hay getting dumped.

A very nice man came out from the breakfast, said he lived just up the road and offered to go get his own truck that he uses for hauling dumpsters to back the trailer out. For some reason, only understandable to truckers, his truck was able to do this while our trucker's wasn't. Anyway, he came back with his truck and hooked onto the trailer hitch with a chain. I stood across the street in the church parking lot praying, holding my breath, and stopping traffic as I watched him expertly guide the trailer to the safety of the road asphalt. Just as all sets of trailer tires rolled back onto the street, I let out my breath, and started to cheer I heard a zing at the trailer and then a ping a few feet behind me in the church parking lot. A link in the chain they were using broke with such force that it flew across the street over my head to land about 15 yards behind me. I held my cheer.

They hooked the truck back up to the trailer with two chains this time. It took a little jockeying back and forth before the guy could finally make the turn into the store parking lot with the trailer so our driver could hook up to it with his truck. I finally cheered. I left to come back to the barn and let the guys know that the hay was finally on its way, and it arrived just after 9:00 am. I asked our driver if he got the neighbor's name that was so kind to help and he said he didn't. He offered the man money for his troubles, gas, and chain; but the man refused and said, "Someday you'll help somebody else out."

It took the guys just about two hours to get the hay stacked in the barn. We had an Oregon Duck football party to attend at noon so I got showered and was just headed out the door when Rocky noticed the goats were out. No time to check the fences so I cut up a couple of apples and threw them in their pen to get them back inside, shut the gate and hoped they'd still be in when we got home.

We had a nice afternoon visiting with friends, the Ducks beat Michigan, and the goats were still in when we got back home. All in all, a pretty nice day.

Today was too hot to do any real work so dyed some fiber, got in some knitting, and watched the Seahawk beat Tampa Bay.