Saturday

I decided yesterday that Willie & I would take the afternoon off today. I have a friend in Alamosa who has started a knitting shop. She has been in at least two different stores (had a portion of them), but things were a challenge in the other stores. So she found her own area above a major store in Alamosa. Today was her grand opening of her very own store. I just decided I "had" to go & check things out. So we had lunch with a neighbor. Ran to see Mom (who was sleeping, so we saved that for later). Then headed to Alamosa. There were quite a few people checking out Kimberly's new stop. She has a lot of neat yarn & lots of knitting/spinning/crocheting/weaving books. Everything is always so tempting.

Anyway of course I "had" to buy some items. She also had two drawings & for every $5 spent your name was put in the drawing. I will not confess to what all I bought & how many times I was in the drawing. I WON the 4 pm drawing. I was absolutely thrilled. The above item was the "big" item for the win. Luckily Kimberly didn't buy the peacock color ----------- I got this knitting bag in "Hollywood Pink"!!! Plus there was a book, yarn, some brittany birch needles & some notions inside. I can really take my knitting stuff with me in style now.

I had also been having a sad day anyway. These days do not happen often, but do occur when Dennis is sorely missed more than normal. This helped brighten up my day.

Life Update

Time is flying by so fast with so much going on.

My mother is still in the nursing home. I do not feel she will probably be able to return to her home and am not sure she will recover enough to make it to assisted living. She's having a lot of problems with her legs moving correctly & having enough strength. Of course it doesn't help not being able to walk that much in the nursing home. She doesn't have the strength to get up on her own & walk with the walker on her own without almost falling. So she doesn't get that much time being up practicing. Plus she is having a lot of confusion. So I do a lot of visiting & running to town to check on her.

"They" talk about global warming..............................we had our first frost August 9th. Not good. I lost some squash and some of my beans. We had another frost this week. All of this seems to be a little early for this area. It has been so cold at night that my second cutting of hay isn't doing well at all ---------- not good.

I thought I was expecting another alpaca cria. But in looking at Cookie I've decided that she isn't pregnant. I've also found out about her pregnancy last year. She had Travis. Well, I thought I bred her to Azugar & put Azugar in as Travis' Dad. Azugar was rejected by the DNA testing. I had them do other testing, etc. & it must be Hershey (still awaiting on the certificate). But the most interesting thing is I found my notes & I did breed Cookie to Azugar, twice. I then checked her against Hershey to see if she was pregnant or not (the girls typically spit & spit at the males if they are). He must have tried to mount her but didn't succeed as I put her down as spitting him off. Somehow he is the Dad!!! Anyway for this year, she must not have liked him either as that's who I bred her to last year & she sure doesn't look pregnant.

Life is so interesting.

Dennis' Flowers

These are Asian Tiger Lilles. Dennis planted them a year or two ago, I cannot remember when exactly. But this is the first year they have blossomed at all. They are beautiful. I've had a number of neighbors mention how pretty they look. Summer is about over with and they are now starting to stop producing any blossoms.

Grace & Glory aka GG

GG went into labor this morning. By 10:30 she had not progressed like I felt she should. I called a friend and waited another hour looking for progress............none. By 11:50 I called the vet & spoke with them. No, I said, she wasn't straining, but she was in labor & not making any progress & she was due. Well, it was either they would come out around 1:30 or me to take her in after 1. Well, I haven't wanted to learn to hook the trailer up to the pickup at all, no desire. So I found a friend who would & would also go in with us.

so about 12:55 we had the trailer hooked up and it took us about 5 minutes to catch GG. She did follow my lead much better than she ever had before. We got there about 1:15. The cria was breech, presenting with a front foot & her butt. The vet (young female) worked quite a while before getting him out. He was alive when we got there, but died before she could get him out. Either stress, too long to get him out, or perhaps a cord problem.

GG is ok, but like me quite sad. The cria would have been solid black, a handsome boy. GG is silver or rose gray & Hershey (daddy) is medium brown. So he was a surprise being black.

One more delivery to go I believe.............well, one at the most IF she truly is pregnant.

Visitors

It has been a wild & crazy 2+ weeks. My mom fell & fractured her pelvis in one spot. She is working on rehab in a nursing home. My sisters have been over. My brother has been in Europe but is back in Houston now. Sandi (Dennis' daughter) & family were here for 3 days & 4 nights. We had a great time. The above picture is Tyler & Travis feeding two of the yearling alpaca boys. They were a great help with the animals including combing the rabbits!! Hopefully things will calm down for a while now.

Cria # 3

I knew Olympia would deliver today just by looking at her yesterday. She typically has easy & quick births. This one was just that way. We got another boy & he is a handsome guy for sure. He has white on all 4 legs, bur more on the right front leg. He has a crown like Olympia's but then at the very top of his head he has another white spot.

Cria #2

Well, I was highly suspicious of Ghost this morning............but Ghost always delivers on a Sunday, so decided to ignore her. Sure enough immediately upon leaving she produced a very cute male cria. A neighbor driving by called the house because he saw all the alpacas sniffing this baby on the ground that was acting "very strange". He thought a baby was dying. This one has to have a 4th of July name for sure!!