You see they have a whole section devoted to 'farm & garden' where you can find a wide variety of animals for sale at very reasonable prices! My morning routine consists of a bucket of coffee, facebook check to see what folks in England were up to while I was sleeping and then craigslist searching for animals I NEED! So there I was one morning sipping away and I saw, for sale, Alpacas for $100. Now, don't tell scott, but I wasn't 100% sure what an alpaca was but $100 for 1 sounded like a good deal so I knew I needed one. I'd even dare to call it an educational investment since, if we did purchase one, I'd finally know what an alpaca was. There you go-has to be done.
Once I opened the ad and realized they were little llamas I was sold! How cool! Bit of research on good ol' google told me they were very easy to care for and you could sell their fleece for $$$. Excellent-when trying to convince Scott I need another animal I find it helpful to be able to say ''We can make money off of it!' Obviously he knows I don't mean we can sell it for meat, no way! Believe it or not I get a little bit attached to the critters around here. I spend a lot of time looking after them and they are so much fun! When they die no one is eaten. Normally we bury them, have a little service and then back inside for a luncheon. Note-if the funeral was for a chicken we try to avoid eating chicken at the luncheon but sometimes chicken is on sale and that happens to be what we were having for lunch that day anyway. Regardless-we do not eat our PET chickens.
Anyway! After pulling a few strings and a small but dignified amout of begging, we went alpaca shopping! YAY! The thing about Scott is, he pretends he doesn't want all these critters around but when I go to get one for myself he always ends up getting one for himself too! So it was no surprise when he chose an alpaca for himself.
So we ended up with 2 alpacas. Our first dilemma was how to get them home. Unlike the goats these fellas wouldn't fit in a laundry basket. The owner of the alpaca farm said just put them in the back of the truck. No kidding! He told us that one guy purchased a few alpacas and took them home in his mini-van. NO JOKE! I didn't dare ask if they fought over who would ride shot gun or what radio station would be appropriate to play in the car when you have alpaca passengers.
Apologies for anyone who had THIS view on that particular day:
So we were the proud owners of 2 Alpacas. Mine, the chocolate coloured one, was already named ChaChi and seemed to know his name. Scott's(the blonde one) was named Tempo but either didn't know his name or didn't care for it because he never really responded to it. Now Scott tried to convince me at this point that 'Alpaca' sounded like 'El Packers' as in Green Bay. He said we should change their names to Rogers and Raji. Um...no. ChaChi was going to stay ChaChi but I told Scott he was free to call his 'El Packer' whatever he liked. And he did. Tempo's name was promptly changed to Raji(Since Raji is the biggest Packer and Tempo was the biggest Alpaca).
So just a recap. At this point our outside animals were 'Billy, Benny, ChaChi and Raji.' A trend had started. ((If you don't see it-read the names out loud and then feel free to say 'ah-ha' to yourself after.))
Scott had Raji and I had the lovely ChaChi
Though Raji had a secret crush on me!
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| Note! I do not advise kissing barn yard animals. To give the illusion of kissing hold the animals' favourite treat beside your cheek on the opposite side of the camera to give the illusion of kissing without spreading mysterious & most likely unpleasant germs. |
Now the boys soon made themselves at home. They became good friends with the goats eventually. Alpacas, like goats, are herd animals and like to be in groups. We knew this but we had no idea just HOW attached they could get to their herd! One night this past summer we had gotten wind of another bad storm headed our way. We huddled all of the animals up and put them in the 'Ark' also known as the little barn. Alpacas and goats were all eventually stowed away safe and then, of course, no storm manifested. SO we went back to get the critters and release them from the ark out into the freedom of the front yard. Starting with the biggest, we walked the Alpacas down. Or I should say we walked them PART of the way down. The 'ark' is about 500 feet up the road from the house. The alpacas walked about half that distance and then would go no further. We wondered if perhaps they knew something we didn't and the storm was going to occur after all. We tried all of the tricks we know to get them home. ((Two. We know two tricks-1. offer treats and 2. beg )) Neither trick worked. Eventually I had a hunch-they missed the goats! So, after 30 or so minutes of trying to convince the alpacas to go home I was left standing in the road holding both of their lead ropes while Scott went back to the ark to get the goats. OMG! It was like the alpacas had been reuinited with their long lost friends! The goats ran up to the alpacas and then we led the goats into the front yard pen & the alpacas followed the goats in-easy as pie! Then, once secured in the pens, ChaChi sort of grunted at me in a 'It took you long enough to figure that out!' sort of way & then walked off to have a bite to eat.
Now we know-don't separate the goats and alpacas. They are odd, but a herd none the less.
The alpacas even came aroundto tolerating the chickens eventually.
I'm sad to say we lost Raji Alpaca. He was traded to the Minnesota Vikings. No, not really. He died. It was a water skiing accident gone wrong. Also joking. It's my coping mechanism, get over it! He's gone but not forgotten. One day I'll take the truck and go buy another one and put it in the front yard and just hope that Scott doesn't even notice! =D
Still ChaChi is as loving as ever! He's like a big teddy bear who loves neck cuddles and will happily use you as a scratching post if you let him. Though I have to warn you-if you come over for a visit and you are wearing open toed shoes with painted toe nails ChaChi often mistakes red painted toes for berries! He'll nibble! But he only has bottom teeth, so you don't have to worry too much. =D
Having a cuddle. =)
Checking for red painted toes to nibble! hee hee.
And just so you know-he doesn't spit, not at people anyway. He and Raji spat at each other a couple times but they don't spit at people. Even when we first got them and they were scared to death of us they never spat. They look big but in the above photo for example ChaChi's fleece is about 4-5 inches long so if you imagine all of that cut off you'd see how tiny he really is. But man, all that fleece sure makes for good teddy bear cuddles! =D
Sorry folks, gotta cut this one a little short. The kitten has been playing with her toy mouse for a while now which would be cute had I not just realized it's not a toy mouse and is in fact an actual mouse! eek!
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