OUR SMALL HERD

Our original four boys came from Ardo Alpacas in Aberdeenshire. We are not alpaca breeders and have our boys purely as pets. Our experience is that you don't need to be a breeder and that a 'batchelor herd' can give much pleasure to the owner. We have 5 acres including our big garden and grazing for the boys, 15 miles north of Inverness, Scotland. I spin, knit, felt and crochet with the fleece from the boys.

Clicking!!

Just a reminder that clicking on (most) of the photos will show them greatly enlarged.

Sunday 22 July 2012

A summer evening

There have been relatively few evenings this summer where it has been lovely and warm right until around 10.00pm when the sun is setting.  Thursday was a lovely day and the evening turned out to be pleasant and warm too with only a few flies to bother the boys!  Normally we put hay in their buckets during the evening and they like to help themselves.   Fyta (left, above) has a thing about lifting them and throwing them around and here he is with Wee Eck having lifted and dropped the bucket, startling Eck.  We didn't manage to get a good shot of the bucket mid-flight unfortunately regardless of how many times we tried.
As ever, Faro is watchful, checking on the activities of the photographer.  Gully is in the background.
Further up the paddock are Rufus (front), Fergus and Fidget in the background.  Fergus is nibbling at the grass as he lies in the sun and we find that lots of the boys do this - even eating out of their bowls whilst lying down.  They appeared very contended doing this.  At this time of year however with loads of flies around, the boys will often lie down to stop the flies getting underneath them and this seems to work well for all of them.
Gully has sensitive skin and hates flies!  When they are around he often goes into a shelter, eats his hay or lies down and watches the herd from there.  
Faro stops the annoying flies getting underneath him.
And finally..........at the end of a lovely day, a lovely sunset.  At this time of year the sun sets in the north west around 1000pm but in mid winter it sets in the south west about 3.30pm.  We are already beginning to see the daylight shortening - unfortunately.

5 comments:

  1. At last! even down here we've not had an evening to sit out, until last night that is.

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  2. Looks like the boys are having a great summer evening...isnt it a shame when the nice evenings are spoilt by the flies.....you just can't win! Have any of us had any summer yet this year ? Jayne

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  3. Its amazing isn't it how the nights are already starting to draw in and we'e not been able to enjoy the summer evenings sat out - not that wwe ever seem to have much time for sitting here, but we can still enjoy the summer evenings!

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  4. Yep, same weather over here but...now we're all complaining that it's just tooo hot to do anything! I agree, it's great to see them eating from their bowls whilst sitting down..."brakfast in bed"! It gives you the feeling that they are really chilled out and relaxed!

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