It May Be a Poopy World but...

.... neighbors like Dean and Billy make it beautiful!

We are a little clump of three houses set in the middle of our mile, sort of isolated, but not really. Neighbor Dean comes over every Thursday and spreads my manure for me. I still can't drive that tractor and, frankly, it scares me to try right now. I know that I will get my courage up soon. Remember, the riding lawn mower was a huge challenge.

Neighbor Billie has been watching out for me for the last 2 months. She has done some amazing things like pick Smitty's little tomatoes and take them up to the funeral lunch. She's cleaned my garage and kept people informed for us when Smitty was so sick. The list of kind deeds could go on forever. Yesterday I called her when the cria was about to be born. We didn't have to do much to help, but she was there for moral support.

♥ ♥ ♥

Before Smitty died he asked me what we could ever do to repay and thank these neighbors/friends. It's an impossible task! I just hope that I can somehow pass love and kindness on to others.

Name the Cria Contest

An event in my pasture this a.m. A light fawn boy weighing 17 pounds was born at 9:30. That's his mom, Golden Shadow, standing behind him. He is still wet in this picture that was taken about 11 o'clock.
Names are always a big deal to me because it seems like there must be a perfect one. Why not have a contest? Whoever submits the name that I pick can choose $25 worth of stuff in my Etsy store.
Of course we need some rules:
1. Must be star/heavenly bodies related because our farm name is NorthStarAlpacas
2. Cannot be a name that we have already used. Residents born on the farm are: Celeste, Orion, Polaris, Mira, Lyra, Galactico, and Pollux.
3. Contest will end in 2 weeks - October 1st, and I will announce the winner here on my blog.

Goldie is telling everyone one to stay away from her baby while he's learning to stand.

Yummy Alpaca and Merino

I bought this colorful merino from Jennifer who lives in Columbus, Ohio. Visit her shop at The Laughing Rat Studio http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7231 I also bought some of the loveliest sachets that I have ever seen/smelled.
If I remember correctly, Jennifer and I first got acquainted through our blogs. I was fascinated that she actually had pet rats. Visit her blog here http://laughingratstudio.blogspot.com/

I thought Jennifer's roving would work perfectly with Polaris's dark fawn fiber. Sorry, Chris, you can't really have it all to yourself.

Can you see in this picture that I held them next to each other as I spun? Polaris sort of overpowers the colors, but they do show through very subtly. I will spin another single the same way and then ply them together. The yarn is amazingly soft.

My life is starting to resemble my old routine of spinning for a couple of hours in the morning, and then again at night while I'm watching t.v.

Sick Alpaca Getting Better

Aw, there he is, friends, our Lars is grazing again. You can probably click on the picture to get a better look. This is my view from the kitchen and deck. It warms the cockles of my heart.....

Behind him is a pasture for the fiber boys and way out there are the girls and their cria. Behind them is our corn field which is supposed to have a great yield this year - that means $s to me.

The farmer (Dave Eckelbarger) who plants our fields has been a great care taker of our land, and he's very careful what he puts near the critters. He has always been right there to help if we have tractor or manure spreader repairs. I feel very confident that he will continue to take care of me. Well, actually he made a special trip over to tell me just that.

Life is good!

Sick Alpaca

I'm so worried about Lars (Polaris) that I woke up at 4 this morning and had to go out to the barn to check on him. In three months he has lost 40 pounds and is constantly drooling and foaming from his mouth. I think that he has just about stopped eating. Two and a half weeks ago I had Vet Russ out to examine him. He drew blood, removed a little loose tooth, snipped off his fighting teeth, and got a stool specimen. The specimen indicated that he had some stomach worms so I dosed him for 3 days and have been giving him GastroGuard twice a day. He's just not getting better and he's annoyed that I'm shoving medicine into his mouth so it's getting harder for me to handle him by myself.

I'm going to call the vets' office as soon as they open. I'm thinking that I may have to hook up the trailer and haul him to Michigan State.

Sick Alpaca update: Vet Russ stopped by about noon to look at our boy again and suggested that we take him to Michigan State. Beth ran home and got her van and dear Lars jumped right in. He stood up all the way there and back home, humming the whole way, so he must be pretty tired tonight. Sparing you a long story, they x-rayed his head and found 3 teeth on the lower right abscessed with bone degeneration under them. Poor guy must have been uncomfortable. No wonder he lost so much weight. Must have really hurt to try to eat.

Treatment is rather simple - 9 cc of an antibiotic every 4 days for a month. The only trouble is I have to give the injection SQ, which is just under the skin. I think this is rather hard with all the fleece. The first time I gave an SQ, I slid it under the skin and out, like sewing. It's much easier to just pop it into a muscle.

Of course, being the tidy alpaca that he is, he didn't poop or pee the whole 4 hours that we were gone. After he relieved himself, Beth and I gave him a dose of GastroGuard for his tummy and an injection of Banimine to relax him and hopefully, ease his pain.

Life is good again!

EEEHAW! I Have Mowed

A couple of weeks ago my son-in-law gave me a quick lesson on driving the lawn mower. We have had rain the last few days so that the lawn ALMOST needs to be cut. I need to tell you that big noisy machines like tractors, snow blowers, and roto tillers really, really scare me.

I waited for today's company to leave (Heather, Beth and her son, John, daughter Nikki with grandgirls Meredith and Elizabeth). No way was anyone going to see me make a fool of myself.

OK, says I. I can do this. I read the manual in the house (see, it's on the tractor in the picture) and wrote some directions on a big sticky note. With the manual and my notes on my lap I started it and actually backed it out of the garage. Back to the manual for going forward. EEEHAW! I'm cruising, sitting on the manual, and having a great time when I realize that I'm not cutting grass. Manual reading again. I'm moving AND cutting and then I figure out that everytime that I go backwards, the blades stop cutting. I'll figure that out tomorrow 'cause I'm feeling pretty powerful and special right now.

Barn Boots

I can finally walk past these boots without welling up, getting snotty nosed, and feeling that heavy thud in my chest. They wait in the garage next to my Muck Boots. Family and neighbors would silently chuckle when we saw Smitty in his cut offs and these boots making his way to the barn, making repairs, or hauling manure.
I sort of understand the symbolism here and am reminded of Kennedy's funeral. We old timers remember the feisty black horse in the procession - the empty saddle with the boots hung backwards. It's sort of like that.......
I hope that this doesn't sound too maudlin but writing is so theraputic for me that I can now probably put them in the trash.