The Rest of the Story....

Today the wind is howling, as it is known to do out here on the prairie.  We are kind of blessed in Geraldine.  The wind doesn't blow here as much as it does just over the mountains in Great Falls. It blows quite a bit more in the spring and I like to think it's trying to blow in some better weather.

Last Saturday I planned to take my big boy on a trip to go pick up five more alpacas.  Then I got the weather report on Friday morning and it said some big ol' wind was headed our way by 6:00 am Saturday.  Not wanting to be caught pulling a good sized horse trailer in a wind storm, I decided to head out on Friday afternoon.  We beat the wind and drove as far as Sheridan, Wyoming before finding a hotel.  With a pool....had to have a pool for the rugrat.  It's probably the only reason he agreed to go along with his momma on a crazy, long trip to get alpacas.  We were up early and talked the hotel clerk into letting my boy swim a whole 3 hours before the pool was supposed to open.  After swimming we scarfed a continental breakfast and hit the road. 

The alpacas we were after had been on Craigslist for an unbelievably low price.  The gal said she had to sell them because they were moving and couldn't take them with them.  She had four girls and one boy.  Two of the girls are expecting with and early June due date.  I saw pictures and they all looked pretty good.

Well, the pictures must've been taken a while ago.  When we got there we found some very skinny alpacas.  The gal also had a bunch of very skinny horses.  Youngsters with every rib showing.  Grrrrr!!  A couple of the alpacas look "ok" but even with all their fuzz you can tell they need to gain.  One of them in particular looks awfully skinny and sad.  You can see her poor little spine and hip bones.  You aren't supposed to see those on an alpaca!!!  I looked around and didn't see any hay or feed in sight.  Just a big ol' patch of dirt.  I'm thinking that poor gal must've ran out of money to feed her critters.  But when that happens it's our responsibility to find new homes for the critters before anybody goes hungry! Ok I'll get off my soap box now....

This skinny girl is named Kate.

As soon as we got the poor things loaded, we hustled back up to Casper.  I know where the feed store is there and we HAD to get them some grub! I was worried about them making the long trip without any feed.  We found some awesome Timothy hay and put the whole bale in the trailer with them.  They dove in and started eating frantically, before I could even cut the strings.

We drove like crazy so we could get them home as quickly as possible.  The original plan was to overnight again in Sheridan.  But instead we pushed through.  We rolled in at 3:30 am on Sunday.  You should have see the joy in those little alpacas when we unloaded them into a nice, green paddock with all the hay they could eat!  They jumped out of the trailer and immediately rolled in the grass and took nice long drinks.  It was as if they were saying, "We don't know where in the heck we are, but man this is nice!"

From the left we have Zoe, Topper, Kate, Sadie and Lina. 

 

One of the best parts of this little alpaca adventure is how much my boy likes them.  I also love that my little rugrats can be out there in the pens with me and I don't have to worry.  They really are very gentle creatures and that is so nice!  I love my horses, but my little ones can't just hang out in the corrals while I'm feeding my horses. Alpacas and kids go together!

Bye for now,
B