It was the first time we've been "up close & personal" with alpacas. It was great! They are beautiful animals.
We asked a lot of questions & learned a lot about them. I think it is a definite "yes" to owning a pair. I have to share something funny ...someone asked how you can tell if they are pregnant.
Mark takes the male & female into a pasture by themselves. If the female lays down, she isn't pregnant & the male will mount her. If the female spits on the male, she is pregnant. Bet you that happens with humans, too :-), the spitting part I mean. Seems like alpacas will be a good fit for our farm. We would raise them for the wool. There were a couple of people showing how to spin the wool. One was Kathyrn, the owner of Ewetopia Fiber Shop in Viroqua. Something else I have wanted to learn. Maybe Steve could make me a spinning wheel...hint, hint.
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Mark answering questions about the alpacas. Other things we did this weekend... mowed (hopefully for the last time), picked more strawberries (who knew we would still be getting strawberries?), a couple squash, one tomato :-(, and chocolate mint. Steve worked on the platform for the wood stove. We took it kind of easy this weekend. It was a stressful week last week & we needed to relax a little. On Saturday, I went up to get eggs from Lizzie. She wasn't there but Levina (the oldest child) was & we visited a bit. They have ordered the lumber for the barn & almost have the plans finished. Their porch is back together & looks great. There are still a lot of trees down in the pasture but it will take a while for that to be cleaned up. It is going to be another long, stressful week here in Illinois until we get back to the farm to hopefully start putting up the river rock for the wood stove. Installation is set for the last week in October. We are hoping the garage doors will be in next week. It is also time to plant the garlic which will take a while with thirty different kinds to plant. Have a great week! |
