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

Last week did not get off to a good start. I usually start my Monday mornings recharged and ready to attack the week. Last monday I grabbed the brushcutter and headed to the back hill. Within an hour I had managed to pull a muscle in my back- probably when I slipped on the wet grass on the steep slope. Over the next few hours my poor back muscles commenced to spasm, and then completely locked-up. The next few days were very boring and unproductive, as I was very mobility limited.

By Thursday I was feeling better. Light activity is the key to recovery for pulled back muscles. So I decided to burn some gorse piles, as that does not involve any heavy lifting or dragging- and then things went completely pear-shaped. The fire behaved in a manner very different from any previous fire. This is because I was finally getting around to burning some old piles, stuff a year old now. The grass had grown up around it. The fire burned down into the roots of the grass, and then moved underground! Fires were flaring up everywhere. In all I spent 13 hours on the back hill, the first 2 lighting fires, the last 11 fighting the those fires. I had to push myself way too hard. But in the end we got the fires out. Tam helped the last 2 hours of fire fighting upon return from work, though the last few hours were not so much fire fighting as very systematically knocking down all the hot spots.

And then Friday I spent 7 hours in a car driving up to Hamilton. My back did not like that. No sir, not one bit!

Saturday at the Alpaca05 expo was good. I was on my feet, and that helped to work the kinks out. I was having fun talking to people, and having them “take the test”. I had made up a 6-chamber box with fiber samples within. I was asking people to take the test and rate the fineness of the samples by feel alone. Of course to make it more complex some of the samples were the same- just with extra grit added to determine the effect of dust and dirt on perceptions of fineness (as these are animals that dust bathe!). I had about 75 people take the test. Now I need to process the results.

The drive back Sunday was not nice on my back either. But I survived.

Monday evening we had visitors. Two South Island-based alpaca breeders stopped off at our place on the way to the ferry. Andy stayed till about 11, when re reloaded his 7 ‘paca and went down to catch the 1 AM ferry. Kit slept for a few hours, then got up at 1:45 to load his 3 ‘paca and catch the 3 AM ferry. I had meant to get up with Kit to help him load-and-go, but I totally slept through him getting up!

It was really good sitting around and hearing the talk and gossip of two of the larger players in the alpaca industry in NZ. We learned LOTS. Andy also gave little Hyouki a look-over, and he is looking okay. He showed us stuff the judge would look for, and made general comments on his form and fiber. Now we wait and year to see what he looks like as an adult… fingers crossed!