An Alpaca Day Out

Sam has been in charge today - and a very good job he made of things - even a bit of nettle trimming thrown in!  Granny popped up and got roped into feeding him and then escaped to make more sketches of the alpacas.
So where were we?
Firstly, we made a whistle stop trip over to Ashton Lane Alpacas were we revelled in beautiful suris and talked wool (even Carl is becoming quite knowledgeable on knitting now - despite the fact that he cannot knit!).  We then did battle with the Sat Nav as we made our way to Easterwood Alpaca Stud.  We had been promising ourselves a trip over there for ages but there hadn't been an opportunity up until now.  I can honestly say we were completely blown away by what they have there.  We were so impressed with their crop of cria.  Sadly, young Navigator was sold - someone is a very lucky new owner of that one.  Now, I have forgotten the name of the next cria we saw but I have never seen one that colour - glorious!  A sort of peachy fawn and stunning crimp literally everywhere.  That is not to even begin to mention their up and coming stud.  We were so bowled over time was whizzing by!  Jeff and Sheila are always so welcoming and their log cabin was a real palace (lovely bit of tiling Jeff!).  We talked and talked alpacas and then Sheila brought out the knitting - really impressive and not surprising it is selling so well.  The online shop should be good when it is up and running.  It was a real effort to tear ourselves away but we really had to in the end and, after a debate over M3 or M4 (it was M3 in the end) we wended our way home - a very satisfying day!
I think the photos recording  the visit  are crying out for captions - -

Particularly this one where Jeff appears to have had quite enough of us for one day,  "GET OFF MY LAND!!"

Ashton Lane and Reddingvale - all in one day!

I spent most of the morning running round with hurdles.  Last night we got all prepared for a visit from Ashton Lane Alpacas with their suri stud, Legacy.  We had set up a nice secure mating pen by the field gate which looked perfect in the torrential rain and gloom last night but when I checked it out this morning it just looked too small so Sam and I set about making another one and found it difficult to agree where to put it.  Sam did a lot of bossing me about and I did a lot of getting cross with him but we got there in the end!

Peter and Carol arrived with a very ready Legacy, he was practically leaping out of the trailer.  Lily took very little encouragement and a very satisfactory mating took place.

Luckily the mating was completed before the rain started again and the mist began to engulf everything.  Legacy was quite keen to repeat his performance with Lily's mum, Sherbert, but that will have to wait for a while!

Quick bit of tea and then another visitor.  Andy from Reddingvale Alpacas came along to collect the show schedules for the Great Western Region Fleece Show which Carol from Ashton Lane had produced.  They look very good and will soon be winging their way to all the entrants - once Viv has put them all in envelopes!  We gave Andy a quick look at the alpacas but as the mist had really descended by then he couldn't really see much except the brake lights of the tractor!  Somehow Carl managed to entice him into his shed, despite the poor man being desperate to get back to cook tea, but I managed to rescue him before Carl dragged him to his greenhouse to show off his tomatoes which is his usual next step with visitors!

Greeves is doing well today and has put on some weight and is moving around quite a lot!