21 Dec Mon 2009
Still Cold
Well, all alpaca owners experience it; I already have several times. It’s been happening at least a couple times a week to me. Dan, on the other hand, has not experienced it. But on Sunday night, he did experience it for the first time.....What am I talking about? Dan was showered in the face and hair with alpaca spit.
On Sunday we also had another snowstorm. We are far enough north that we were lucky to only get another 2 inches of powdery snow that makes the pasture look like we just spread white frosting all across it. Everything looks fresh and clean. The alpacas like to cush near the openings of the stalls. The winds blow in snow and cover the edges of the straw in little drifts, and decorate the backs and necks of the alpacas. They have no idea that they’re covered in snow; their fleece has gotten so thick and long. Guinness easily won the “Most Snowy Alpaca” award. The sparkly white snow on his dark brown fleece looked like vanilla icing on chocolate cake. Of course I left the snow on him.
Julio is still imposing his ‘no leaving the barn while it’s cold and windy’ rule and the boys are getting quite cranky and stir crazy. Bo and Coty wrestle with each other right there in the barn, sometimes over the poop pile. Arlo keeps trying to join in but he’s still too little. But it’s Julio and Guinness who get the others all riled up at feeding time. They get jumpy and spit at each other, and then start chasing the others around the barn when we bring out the feed bowls. Last night was quite a circus trying to get them to settle down to eat! No one was in their usual place but after a couple minutes every nose had its own bowl and the steady munching started. When they’d finished they all started eating hay and another spit fest started. Dan was right there watching them and whoa!!! All of a sudden he was showered in spit and I laughed for about 5 minutes straight. I was still in the pen with Arlo and instead of spit, I got an alpaca kiss.
Today it is the first official day of winter and it is sunny and frigid cold again. The fierce winds are blowing the snow around sometimes making little ‘tornadoes’ dance across the pasture. Surprisingly though it is above zero even with the winds. The alpacas still won’t leave the barn. I love the winter solstice. The days start to get longer again!
The water in the bucket was frozen again when I went out to the barn this morning. And once again they weren’t concerned, just I was. The past several days I put about 2 gallons of hot tap water in the bucket and carry it down along with the gallon jugs of hot water. I am putting all hot tap water in the bucket and it’s still freezing up, hopefully not as fast. Julio likes to drink the hot water and Guinness also seems to, but the others will put their noses in and look up quickly at me “What! What happened!” After a few minutes, once it has cooled a bit, then they come back and drink. I guess the alpacas don’t like tea as much as I do. Hmmmm, perhaps I should be putting a tea bag in the water bucket ....