A Gift of Love and Memories

My down the road friend, Cary, gave me these beautiful handspun, handknit socks last night. Cary, I'm sorry, but I will probably never wear them. They are just too precious and full of memories and love to put on my feet. They hang here in my office.
The white stripes and knit "NorthStar" are from Pollux, my fiber boy. Cary said she added my alpaca around my ankle because it is so soft.
Cary handspun and 3 plied the gray from my roving of alpaca and SouthDown Sheep that I had Zeilingers blend last summer. These sheep were Smitty's joy in the barn. Cary doesn't realize it, but they were sold and left the farm about 3 hours before he died.
These socks are probably my most precious symbol of love from my friends and my years with Smitty that I have and I want to keep them forever. So, nope, I'm not going to wear them, not even as bed socks.
♥ Thank you, Cary ♥

Barn Help - EEEEHAW!

I am the luckiest woman in the world! I found someone who can come 3 days a week and help with the barn.
♫♪♫ Zippedy Do Dah ♪♫♪
Josh (above dumping on to the manure pile) is a 27 year old young man with a wife and baby, plus another baby on the way. What a worker! He's young, strong, and does an incredible, tidy job. He takes pride in what he does. Although he hasn't been around animals before, he likes them (talks to them) and wants to learn. Of course, I will pay him.
I feel like I have a new lease on life and my world looks as sunny
as this day.

And here are two more helpers in the barn today. Black Chinella and fawn Astra (Snickers) were assisting me with the feeding of Libra (Jr.) They are always too funny and usually manage to pull my hat off and get stuff out of my pockets.

Thanks, Beth, for taking this picture.

Christmas

So many blogs that I am reading talked about Christmas, so here I am doing the same. Little Max up above enjoyed our celebration day the Monday after Christmas. The grandgirls and my 3 adult kids were here. We missed Bob, my son-in-law, who had to work.
On Christmas Eve daughter Terre came and spent the night. We were going to Owosso to watch the grandgirls open their gifts on "the day" but stayed home because of some nasty, icy roads. T went home and I spent the day watching movies and eating junk food. Suprisingly enough, it wasn't horribly depressing, nor lonely.

Rob came home from Scranton, PA, the day after Christmas and stayed for a week. Lucky, lucky me. I love having my son around!!!! He did work his little hiney off though. This is a picture that Meg took of Rob plowing for me. He also repaired doors in the barn, moved many bales of hay, removed shelves in the basement, patched the holes, shoveled mountains of snow, hauled the snow blower to the repair shop, helped with chores every morning and night, even replaced my toilet seat (which I admit was getting dangerous)

On New Years Day we went to daughter Nikki, son in law Bob, and granddaughters, Elizabeth and Meredith's home in Owosso. Had a most lovely meal and got to play Christmas games. This pict is of Rob and Meredith taken by Meg. Again, I'll remind you to just click on the pictures for enlargements.

Many folks mentioned that the holidays would be really hard without Smitty. Probably because of all the forewarning, the days weren't so bad after all. I stayed pretty busy which is my way, I guess, of dealing with "stuff". We all missed him, of course, and I had many moments of that little lurch in my gut thinking of him and what he was missing.

Libra, the Cria

Libra's barn name has become Junior. He just won't grow like a normal cria. His birth weight was 13.6 pounds on September 19th, the day this picture was taken. Even though he was full term, that is very small, at least for our farm. I would guess that our babies average 20 pounds. He was eager to nurse, but his mom, Sonata just wasn't making much milk. I'll spare you lots of details, but we (Beth & I) ended up taking both of them to Michigan State. They couldn't tell us much.
I tried desperately to get Jr. to nurse from a bottle but he was getting just enough from Sonata that he would just fight me. He started eating grass and hay almost immediately after birth.
Two weeks ago we had our good vet, Russ, draw blood from him but all the info that we could use was that his immune system is practically nill. Iron, thyroid, everything else is ok.


Russ did his research and got this recipe from a fellow vet who works for Alpaca Jacks, a really big Suri farm.
Grind up:
1 cup alfalfa pellets
1 cup alpaca pellets (Paca Nutrition)
jar baby carrots
2 cups yogurt
1 cup Glucerna (a diabetic form of Ensure)

Doesn't it look yummy?
At the beginning I had to force it down, but now he's slurping and sucking away. The syringe that I'm using is an old, washed out Vitamin container that holds 3 ounces. I use another syringe to load it up and then warm the whole thing in hot water, and feed him 4 times a day.






Here's a picture from this morning of Jr. chewing. He had just finished having a milk snack from his mom so you can see his little foamy milk mouth. He's 3 1/2 months and now weighs 24.3 pounds. He was gaining 1/2 pound a week, but last week gained 1 1/2 pounds. EEEHAW!

My Near Death Experience 0R Avalanche in Flatlands of midMichigan

I am obsessing about this experience so maybe blogging about it will free it from my mind. Christmas Eve Day turned warm and rainy here and I was out in front of the barn digging trenches to try and drain water away from the barn. I heard a little rumble and took off running (well, as fast as I run). The snow that you see in this picture came off the metal roof up above. It would have smooshed, broken, and buried me completely 'cause I was standing right in the middle. (Remember you can click on this pict to see how massive it really was)
☼
My first question is "What are the odds of this happening while I was standing there?"
The second is "How did my body know to move out of the way?"
☼
Of course, now I'm a little giddy thinking of newspaper headlines-
Alpaca Breeder Dies under Tons of Snow
Snow Breaks Every Bone in Senior Citizen's Body
First Known Avalanche in Michigan's Farmland
Widow Joins Husband in Untimely Death
Animals Survive but Caretaker Meets Death After Storm
☼
Do you have any headlines to add to my collection?
♥
How about this from my online friend Zuleika originally from Bermuda, now living in Edinburgh, Scotland:
'Freak Alpaca Farm Accident Makes for an Icy Grave'
♥
My friend Sharon Winsauer suggests:
"Death from Barn Chores"
♥
I was waiting for Beth to get home from the U.P. because I knew she would have some great headlines:
"Snow Slides....Granny Dives"
"Loud Cursing Sets Off Near Death Avalanche"
"Santa Makes Emergency Landing on Barn Top: Grandma Gets Runover by Cascading Roof Snow"
or how about:
"Metal Roofing Sends Barn Owner Hoofing"
♥
Just in from daughter Terre:
"Snow Avalanche Makes Alpaca Granny Move Her Fanny"
"Alpaca Granny Finds Get-up-and-go Because of TwoTons of Cascading Snow"
♥
From Friend Kathy down in Jackson at Luka's Alpaca Ranch
" Spinning Lady Spins Out, Saving Herself by a Thread"

Another Storm Blowing In

Another storm is blowing in today but I didn't have to shovel to get in to the animals in the barn. They are all cozy with food, water, clean bedding, and listening to Christmas carols. A lovely surprise while out there - about 8 o'clock Dean, my across the street neighbor, popped in to offer any help. He shoveled a path to the outdoor poop pile and dumped my wheel barrows for me.
The picture above is Max, my Sheltie, and Cassie, my Golden Retriever. They are just on their way back inside this morning. Max is a little short so I have had to keep a path shoveled off the deck for him.

More Damned Snow and Cute Alpacas

Folks told me not to be surprised if I got mad at Smitty for dying on me but I thought, aw, not me, how could I be mad? it's not like he did it on purpose. Well, this morning I was really p....d having to deal with all this snow by myself. How could you do that to me, Smitty, a 66 year old woman shouldn't have to take care of this mess by herself. Was probably a good thing that I was mad because although it was only 9 degrees, I didn't get cold.
This picture is the front of the barn. I had to snowblow a path out there and managed to blow out an area behind the drift so that I could open the big door.

..... and here's another shot of the front. You can see my tracks where I had to climb over the drift to get in to the service door.

Enough moaning and feeling sorry for myself. The rest of the shots are of the alpacas when I let them out this morning.

Sniffing at the curious white stuff that arrived overnight.

Celeste's cria, Lyra, stayed pretty close to her until she was sure the white stuff wouldn't hurt her.

The wild ones! Snickers (Astra), on the right, is only 3 months old and definitely the boldest, most curious of the herd. He was the first one out and went pronking through the drifts.

Snickers again with his mom, Goldie, needing a little snack.