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

Back in Boston, the standard “winter mix” — in the context of weather, that is — is a meteorological salad of rain, snow and sleet. Yum. Except in Boston, it doesn’t usually come screaming in sideways at gale force.

The first Monday in June is celebrated as “Queen’s Birthday” here, and you get the day off (unless you work in certain retail establishments of course) — a nice mini-holiday. Well, except for the weather. We spent our weekend making sure the alpacas were situated for the exceptionally crummy weather Sunday and Monday (especially Sunday). Basically, that meant making sure everyone was in a paddock with a suitably sheltered gully to keep out of the wind, and making sure they all had plenty of hay to eat to keep warm (digesting hay warms them up). We didn’t stuff everyone in the shed this year, because the shed is full of hay.

There was enough room in there, however, for the two new mothers that we’re looking after for our suri breeder friend while she’s in the US.

Becky dropped a little brown girl on Tuesday — we’d had pretty much two weeks straight of horrible weather, and Tuesday was ever-so-slightly-less-sucky, so she decided it would have to do. Both the little girl’s ears were folded back over her head when she was born (kind like Nabaztag’s, only both of them), and although they’ve straightened out a little bit, they still curl in like horns, so we’ve been referring to her as “Devil Girl” until she gets a proper name:

Pebbles, the giraffe-spotted suri female we looked after last year is back again. She held out until Saturday to drop a wee little 6.5 kilo boy, right before the nasty nasty storm, naturally.

Even in the shed, with two covers on and two-hourly warm bottles, he was having trouble with the cold, so we built an alpaca hovel in the back corner of the shed, so we could have a space small enough to heat with the oil column heater from the guest room. It looks like a homeless shelter, if the homeless had access to a pile of horse covers (thanks, Yvonne !).

It did the trick, though. We had all four of them in there all day Monday and overnight, and 24 hours not having to fight the cold with his limited resources really let little Pip (actual name pending) get his feet under him. Literally as well as figuratively. When we build the barn, we’re planning to have a special heatable pen/stall for just this sort of situation. Until then, they’re stuck with the shanty.