s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

If you watch them enough, you really do get to understand them. At least, at the most basic obvious, level. Some things are cross-species. For example, yesterday:

Little Grey Cria: Runsandrunsandrunsandruns around the hills, around the other alpacas, around the people, around the hills. Prances a bit. Pauses, Does it all again.

Little Fawn Cria (the Blond Boy): Tries to remember which one is his mommy. It’s either Concetta or Cariboo. Settles on Concetta.

Jim: Stands on top of a hillock. The thought balloon over his head says, “Here is the Majestic Alpha Male, proudly guarding his herd from his hilltop lookout. The females are suckling, so he must be alert for all threats, especially the wily Mini-pumas…” Strikes a pose.

LGC: runsandrunsandrunsandruns around the hills, around the other alpacas, around the people, around the hills. Comes to check out the people. Experimentally chases Blond Boy.

BB: campers a few strides, then picks his way bemusedly back to Mom.

Jim: Tears hell-bent for leather from the top of the hillock, to the top of another hillock. Strikes a pose.

LGC: runsandrunsandrunsandruns around the hills, around the other alpacas, around the people, runs up onto Jim’s hill. Oops.

Jim: Backs his ears at LGC.

LGC: runsandrunsandrunsandruns….well, you get the idea.

Jim: Tears back and forth between one hill and the other and the riding arena, scattering the wethers for good measure as he goes, pausing to pose on each hilltop.

Pointer: Gets uppity. *Gargle!*

Jim: “Oh yeah?!” Chases Pointer right into the mob of grazing females and nips at his ears. Returns to his hilltop.

Victoria: If she had the appropriate physiognomy, she’d be pursing her lips, narrowing her eyes, and rolling up her sleeves. As it is, she jogs purposefully up to the top of Jim’s hill and proceeds to drive him right the heck down off of it. “It’s fine if you want to go stomping on the wethers,” she spits, “but you do not come crashing into me you square-assed banana-eared upstart!”

Jim: Slinks off the hill, cowed. “Crap. I must reassert my dominance!” Chases Pointer until he flips his tail up in submission, then chases him a bit more for good measure.

LGC: Finds Mom. “Mmmmm, supper!”

I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but I recently became the owner of, not one, but *two* used spinning wheels:

I got them at the auction house (I only wanted one, but there were two in the lot, so I ended up with two) with the idea that I’d learn a bit about how fibre gets used, so that it’ll mean more when I’m feeling it on the animals. I mentioned this on the local SCA list, and before you could say Jim’s Your Llama Uncle, there was a Spin-In scheduled at our place.

My two, as you can see, are little upright jobbies, but Dayna has herself a lovely Sleeping Beauty-style one with the wheel on the side. She’s been spinning wth a drop spindle for yonks, but had been struggling to teach herself how to use her spiffy new wheel from a book & wasn’t having a lot of luck. Maggie, I believe I’ve mentioned before, is the crazy-mad chick who spins her own thread to sew with her hand-made needles. She spent the day using a satay skewer with a knob on the end (actually a very fine little drop-spindle) to turn a pile of white angora rabbit fur into soft, snow-white thread — but she also brought a very spiffy upright wheel to play with.
Jennifer, it turns out, is (or at least was, at one point, and may yet be again) the spinning wheel equivalent of a Boy Racer. She cut back to only one spinning wheel when she moved up from Christchurch, but it’s a big double-pedaled castle wheel (another like Sleeping Beauty) with a wacky screw-clutch mechanism to let you change gears & she told us all the ways you can “hot them up” with special oils and polymer drivebands and yadda yadda. Wow.

Anyway, so we sort of taught me to spin. The hard part is getting the pulling and pinching and feeding right. Jennifer very very generously let me mess up a wodge of her slivered (meaning, carded into a long strip) wool, and left me still more of it to practice on.

And then we ate chili. Which Stephen made for us, even though he wasn’t feeling well. Yay !