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

The last 5 weeks have been very un-Wellington-like. Every day has been consistently warm, fine, and sunny. Many days there is narry a cloud in the sky. While Welllington is famous for taunting people with short, erratic spurts of lovely weather, it is really rare to have it go on, and on, and on, like it has.

Now, one downside is that all this fine sunny weather means there has been no rain. We, as professional grass-growers, were starting to get worried. It was a dry Winter and Spring, so the soil moisture is way below where we would want it. Yesterday we caught a break- and the weather turned terrible. A cold southerly wind started blowing, the temperature dropped from the mid 20′s to the mid teens- and it started raining! 20mm fell yesterday, much of it in a rather large burst. Today the rain has been more gentle, and another 10mm has fallen so far.

The combination of wind and rain was a bit much for some of the girls, man of whom were shivering quite a lot, so I moved them down to the shed where they could get out of the wind and rain and fill their bellies with nice warming hay. One nice thing about alpaca is that they give birth on fine sunny days, so no need to worry when the weather turns nasty, right?

Wrong. Cindy dropped a cria this afternoon. When I checked her at 12:15 she was standing around in the shed eating hay like everyone else. When I checked her again at 2:10 she was in the back corner of the dog-yard, a cria was kushed next to her, and she was just passing the placenta. And no need to ask, as you know the answer already- another boy. A cute little fawn boy with white tips on his ears. He looks very similar to his deceased brother, who died during birth two days previous (the 17th of December) last year.

I gave him a quick toweling off, and put a raincoat on him. He is up and about, and seems very coordinated and vigorous. I left him with mum in the yards (with all the other very-curious girls and cria behind a fence) so they culd get the milk-bar sorted.