Alpacas!

We are enjoying our new boys so very much!!!!

R.I.P. Sargon

  Out of 28 chicks we only ended up with 1 rooster. I would have preferred zero but it could have been much worse. Our good friend Craig came out and "Put the rooster to good use" last weekend.
   I will say I do sort of miss the crowing in the morning. But I never want to see my kids get attacked by a rooster so he had to go.
   So... yes... his name was Sargon. We are studying Ancient Times in history this year. This study began soon after we got our chicks and so far we have Sargon, Buddha, Confucius, Hammurabi, Cheops, Huang Di, Lei Zu, Anansi, and my favorite to hear Kate say, Shamshi-Adad.  We have only made it to the middle kingdom of Egypt and still have many more chickens that need names!

Yard Photo Update

So much has changed this year I wanted to do a little update so we can remember later!

The girls watching me open the beehive from the safety of the (then unfinished) chicken coop.

The new(er) apple trees are growing nicely

The finished coop. The Hens moved in a couple weeks ago now. They seem to love it! Some of the new hens started laying for the first time just days after we moved them in . Whew!

I love the bridge. And I know Dave will tear it down some day to build a new one so I snapped a shot of it now.

The goat house is no more. These may be some of the last photos we have of it. The goats will be permanent residents now in their summer home.

Future alpaca grazing site.

The deck is finished!!!! I don't know how we got along for so long without it.

When Cam visits he spends 80% of his waking hours in the sandbox.

Alpaca Excitement

   David and I have been tossing around the idea of getting alpacas for a few years now. It was usually in a dreamy sort of state like, "Someday, when we blah blah blah, we will get some alpacas! It will be so fun!" Well, the blah blah blah part did not happen but we are getting  alpacas anyway!!!!! Maybe the blah blah will happen later, who knows?
   Recent yard renovations have left us with ample space for housing and grazing a small herd and we are going for it! Last Monday I took a trip up to Blue Moon Alpaca Ranches in Woodland UT. This was the 6th place I visited and by far the best! Linda(owner) really loves her animals and takes excellent care of them. She had two fiber male boys that were available for sale and I loved them right away. But after some deliberation, we decided that they would be happier if we took all four yearling males born on the farm last year. This meant I would be taking one of her favorites. After promising to love him well, she agreed. We now have FOUR boys coming to live with us in just THREE more days!!!! I estimate I am about 15x more excited than David, and he is excited! The kids tell everyone their alpacas will be here on Monday and are having a great time thinking up names for them. First they were going to be named after the planets, then great composers, now we are on to favorite characters in books. And it seems their current names will become their middle or last names? I will keep you posted. For now, some pictures of our boys!