How annoying is it that some people have to just ruin other people's little hobbies by spewing spam all over the entire online Universe! Grow up you losers! OK, sorry for venting but I had to remove my comments from this blog because someone from Russia (but it could have been anywhere) posted a spammy link about a toothbrush. Of course I did not click on the URL myself, not quite that dim, but it clearly was NOT an actual comment on this blog. PLEASE be careful everyone. If you have a cached version stored in your computer somewhere, don't click on any comment! You can't imagine how much I would hate to be the vector of infection for someone else's computer virus.
PS> Still trying to figure out the horse leg thing. Went today but the boots seemed to have made Sweetie's legs sweaty so I went back to polo wraps but I will still use the boots when riding when she recovers (positive thinking!)
However, while, cruising the Internet for yet MORE opinions on how to support/wrap horse ligaments, I found a site called www.POLOWRAPS.com which had the following sad message on it:
"Because the weather here in CO has been absolutely relentless, we've been forced to close our online store for the time being. If you would like to be notified when we re-open, please e-mail and let us know.
I'm very sorry for any inconveniences this creates, but we have not be able to get into the office consistently for nearly a month, and there is no end in sight in terms of the weather. We feel it would be completely irresponsible to accept orders when we do not know if we'll be able to process them. Again, sorry!"
I feel very sad for these polowraps.com people. I think we should all send some WARM thoughts to Colorado.
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Alpaca Care DVD sales are going well but I am extra - especially excited to be mailing one to Finland tomorrow! I am feeling very international now because it had never really occurred to me that we might have International sales. So, of course I had to poke around on this person's web site which is:Unique Alpacas And I found, much to my intense jealousy, that this person not only breeds alpacas, but also Icelandic Horses. If you click on the little alpaca piece of the puzzle on her main page, you will have a choice to translate the page to English. The owner speaks very good English.
Prior to this twist of fate, the only thing I really knew about Finland was Nokia phones are made there, Matti (can't spell the last name) the amazing ski jumper is from there and my 14 year old daughter is desperately in love with a Finnish rock star named Ville. See photo below
But now I felt that those 3 things didn't really constitute a proper understanding of Finland so I did a little quick research and found this map:
and this photo by a Finnish photographer named Elina Brotherus:
Is that some scenery or what! Here is the site where I found this haunting photo and contact information for the photographer:
Virtual Finland Gallery
I may try to buy a copy of this photo if I can figure out how. The above site is in English by the way. It doesn't load quickly but it was worth the wait.
So now I feel a little less dumb about Finland and, if you are Finnish or Swedish, I hope you will visit Unique Alpacas and Icelandic Horses. If they were smart enough to buy our Alpaca Care DVD, they must be planning to take very good care of their alpacas.
Meanwhile, back on the farm.... Some of my friends have expressed the worry that I may be missing having animals to care for but, never fear! I have been doing horse veterinary care every day for 2 weeks now and I still have a few weeks to go. Sweetie (the devil horse) has a suspensory ligament injury so I have had a crash course in how to use DMSO (do NOT get this liquid on your hands when you are applying it because you will immediately taste it in your mouth - creepy!- but that's how quickly it is absorbed), also how to do polo wraps to help support the ligaments, why polo wraps never stay on in the mud and muck unless they are covered with vet wrap, why the vet wrap will probably make the polo wraps too tight, and why you should probably just bite the bullet and buy sports boots for your horse.
My vet wants Sweetie to have polo wraps on for 1 month. Since I didn't own a pair, she couldn't show me how to put them on and the advice I have had about polo wraps from all the other boarders at my neighbor's horse farm where Sweetie lives is:
1. Try to get them even and don't wrap too tightly but not too loose either.
2. Start wrapping in the middle of the leg and then go down and back up after you have wrapped under the hock.
3. Go clockwise on the right leg and counter-clockwise on the left leg.
4. You CAN'T wrap them too tight.
5. If you wrap them too tight, you will make things way worse and bow the tendon and the horse might never recover.
6. It's better not to wrap at all if you don't know how to do it.
After getting all this advice from 6 different people, I eventually got terrified and panicked and begged the most experienced horse person I know to tell me exactly how to do this thing. She said,
Start in the middle, pull tightly around the front of the leg but don't pull at all around the back of the leg.
If you wrapped around the hock at the correct angle, there will be a sideways V shape at the bottom front of the leg.
The fastening should end up on the outside side of the leg.
You should be crouched sideways to the leg when you wrap.
She also said that, if you have to cover it with vet wrap to keep it on, unroll the entire strip of vet wrap you are going to use and then roll it up more loosely before putting it on. This is to avoid making the vet wrap too tight because you are trying to unroll it and wrap it at the same time. Good advice for any veterinary use.
But, her final advice was, to just get sports boots for the horse because they are safer. They are impossible to wrap too tightly.
So now my horse has yet another high priced accessory item but I am less scared of making her lame forever. Another part of this daily treatment is "hand grazing" her every day. This basically means that she never has to get ridden, but I have to walk her around in a flat spot to let her graze for 45 minutes or so every day. My neighbor pointed out that, if there was any one of the 25 horses there that was smart enough to fake an injury so she could be hand grazed and never work, it would be Sweetie. That thought's occurred to me also but I haven't caught her limping on the wrong leg yet. Here she is grazing happily. Injured horse or big, lazy faker? You decide.
There's not much to do during this daily chore besides look at little plants, rocks and other things on the ground. Here is a strange feather that I noticed on one of these nature gazing opportunities.
Since the weather's been in the 50s and 60s for the last two weeks, a lot of my friends have been out riding every day and the horses that are not getting ridden are lining up to watch like they are hoping to get chosen. Or maybe they are just hoping to get a few treats and a nice grooming.
My favorite in this pasture is Star. Star reminds me of the horse you see in those famous Native American Prints but she is really a "Hungarian Sportlo" whatever that is.
After her hand grazing, Sweetie has to go back to the small pen by herself, which makes her cranky. She wants to be with her friends but the vet has other plans. 1 month in solitary so she can't canter, trot or fight with others. Check out the hurt, boo boo look on her face when I put her back in her pen.
She's not totally alone though. She can see her friends through the fences and she has a steady stream of barn cats that come to drink out of her water:
So, as usual, I am feeling lucky to have a life with such beautiful animals and scenery in it but my knees are a little sore from all the crouching to wrap, unwrap and re-wrap horse legs. Do they make sports boots for people?
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( 3 / 685 )Well Tom is not exactly Santa but he did feel a little like Jolly Old you-know-who when he packed up a huge load of alpaca equipment in his sleigh, I mean flat bed trailer, to deliver to Good Girls and Boys who happen to own alpacas.
Another person who was not on the dreaded BB&G (Bad Boys and Girls) list? Campion! Clearly, Santa felt that Campion had been a very good boy this year and brought him his dearest Christmas wish a couple of days early:
Look how happy he is! Thanks Tara ( Yellow Rose of Virginia Alpacas ) for sending me this photo and letting me know how happy my boy was to find that Santa had brought him something special. I hope that next year, not too far from Christmas, Santa will deliver a little gift to YOU in the shape of a very cute female alpaca cria!
To all of our friends and other alpaca lovers:
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I have been avoiding making this blog entry as though, somehow, if I don't write about it, I won't have to face up to it. We delivered our last 2 alpacas this past Sunday and are now, no longer alpaca breeders. Ouch. That hurt. Above are the last two boys, Pendragon and Beowulf on their last day at the Mount Airy Alpaca Company. My sister Krissy and I fed them and fussed over them for the last time. Krissy has always insisted on "fluffing" the alpacas' hay whenever she comes over because she feels that they don't enjoy it as much if it is not fluffy! Irrational behavior but, I fear, genetically inherited. My mom used to argue that, if one horse in a field has a blanket in winter, they really should all have blankets or they may feel upset. So the boys had one last batch of very fluffy hay with maybe a tear or two mixed in, mine and my sister's.
Even Blair the dog seemed sad to have his friends go. Ok, the truth is that the alpacas don't really like Blair that much but in Blair's weak, little doggy mind, they are his friends because they like to chase him and he loves to be chased. This is Blair's last attempt to sneak under the stock gate to hang out with his alpaca friends.
Cassandra was doing last minute homework so Tom, Nick and I loaded the boys into the livestock trailer.
Nick performed his usual job of going inside with the alpacas to unhook their lead ropes while Tom kept them from jumping back out.
Then he climbed up on the trailer for one last look at the boys.
All too soon, we arrived at Sara's pretty place in Ellicot City and now it was time for the boys to jump back out of the trailer.
Sara and one of her sons took the lead ropes of their new alpacas and led them over to their new barn.
Tom started right in giving advice about how to arrange the barn, store the hay etc. He'll run your whole life for you if you let him. What a cute barn though! It cheered me up to imaging the boys in this cozy little home.
So Pendragon and Beowulf venture out into their new pasture to check things out.
The pasture looked very good, not weedy or patchy at all. While the guys got used to their new surroundings, I tried to creep closer to a hawk that I had spotted on the far side of the pasture and see if I could get a good photo of it. We have many hawks at our place but I have never managed to get a good photo of one. This time wasn't any different. Hmmm.... maybe Santa should buy me a new digital camera with a telephoto lens.
Sara was so excited about her new guys that I had to feel happy for her. I know she'll take good care of them and that means a lot to us. She was at our place a few weeks ago to practice giving the worming shots and trimming toenails and to pick up some hay. In my opinion, this is a historic moment in any new farmers' life and should always be recorded for posterity. You are not a farmer until you've bought hay and transported it.
Here is one last look at our boys, Beowulf and Pendragon. Bye guys.
What a great adventure this has been! Our lives have been so much richer for it. Today, as I write this, I feel like the years have passed so quickly and I'm glad that I wrote a lot of this down so that I won't forget our thrilling lives as alpaca breeders. Here is an excerpt from my journal from 1999. It feels right somehow to end todays entry with a look back at the beginning.
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Sunday, June 06, 1999
Left the kids at my sister Krissy's house at 7:00 AM to drive to Lanark’s Llamas and Alpacas in Charlottesville, VA. We had met the owner, Antoinette Brewster, at the Eastern Alpaca Jubilee in New Jersey and really liked the look of her animals. So we made the plan to visit and headed down south.
As you approach Lanark’s, you can't help but notice that you’re traveling back in time to the Old Colonial Virginia of yesteryear. First we passed the Historic Michie Tavern where the former presidents went to hang with the other gentry and drink. Then we passed Monticello itself, home of Thomas Jefferson. Next comes Ashlawn Highlands, the former home of John Adams, then on past the Jefferson vineyards to the home of John Kluge, once the richest man in America. Just past the hand built stone fences of the Kluge estate lays Lanark Farm. This is the Old Dominion Virginia.
The long, gravel driveway cuts through fields for miles around. Some have grass, but many are red clay dirt, which blows about and hangs in the air. It is the summer of the worst drought on record in Maryland and Virginia and almost every farm is covered in dust of one color or another. On the right side of the driveway are several fields full of alpacas. There are about one hundred and fifty in all. Some are black, some gray or dark brown, but most look peach colored because the red clay dust coats their fur completely. It is just past 10 am but the temperature is already in the 80s. It will reach the mid 90s by lunchtime.
By the barn we meet Milt, the farm manager, and Amanda, the herd manager. He is the perfect Hollywood cowboy movie extra, not tall but all wiry muscles with a calm direct manner. He wears jeans and a white woven cowboy hat. He learned his animal skills on a cattle farm in Vermont back when he was a Yankee. He's had his arm inside many a cow's privates and isn't afraid to talk about it but doesn't brag either. The first time I hear him casually mention "her vagina" (the cow's) I have to freeze my face so I won't look shocked. I can't remember ever hearing any man say that word once much less over and over the way this guy does.
Milt washing the red-clay-colored alpaca babies
If Amanda were a character in a movie, she would be played by Debra Winger. She is a size 6 at most but with well-cut little arm muscles. She wears a tight white T-shirt and jeans. On the back of her neck, under her upswept, wavy black hair is a small blue tattoo of Sagittarius the archer. Her eyes are blue. She talks to the alpacas in a high breathy baby voice and calls the little ones "my peas" but she sure looks tough when she’s slinging a bale of hay around. She knows each one of the many, many alpacas by name! She sneaks a cigarette here and there as she does her farm chores. I like her instantly.
Antoinette shows up a fashionable 15 minutes late. All attention rivets on her immediately as she is larger than life. She is quite good looking, resembling an older Michelle Pfeiffer. Men must have followed her like pathetic little dogs when she was young but she is not all “Southern Girl” and coquettish. She stands close to me and her voice is a little loud so that I have to fight the urge to back up, but she also has some serious charisma. That can’t hurt if your job is to sell animals.
I’m shocked to realize that Amanda and Milt call her “Mrs. Brewster" instead of her given name! She has on a red and white checked shirt that is some fashion designer’s idea of a farm outfit but you can tell it’s not from Southern States or the tractor store. I appreciate her directness though. She is very professional and she doesn’t tell us any fairytales or offer any heartwarming stories. She assumes we are there to buy. She hands us a list of all of the bred females currently on sale along with their prices, dams, sires and birth dates and the tour begins.
A couple of hours later I am lost in a fog of half remembered animals, the teeth on this one, the color of that one. Which one had the good crimp? Which had the strange legs? I have taken notes furiously, but am not sure they are even correct. It is too much to look at so many animals and the added strain of trying to remember the sire and dam of each one makes the whole task impossible. I need a scorecard with photos, genealogical trees and pertinent footnotes on it, but no owner is going to remind you that the pretty one who’s fleece you love is also the one with the bad bite. I’m panicking!
We break for lunch beside the pool next to Antoinette's house. The pool has men's and women's bathrooms and a kitchen area with a sink and a patio with tables on it. There are statues of animals along the edge of the pool. For a second I forget why I'm there and wish desperately that I had a camera with me and that everyone else would momentarily disappear. I would kill if only my mother, who has never been rich, but is yet a faithful reader of "Town and County", could see this setup.
Antoinette leaves us discreetly alone to compare notes and not a moment too soon. I am dying to see what animals Tom has fixed on and turn to him eagerly demanding that we trade lists. That is when it hits me. He HAS NO LIST! We have been tramping around in dusty hot fields for hours staring at this animal and that and trying to decide which animal, if any, we will pay a small fortune for and Tom has NOT TAKEN NOTES! I briefly consider drowning him in the nearby pool but realize it cannot go unnoticed so I refrain. This explains why Antoinette all but ignored Tom while we tramped around and talked at me; SHE KNEW HE WOULD HAVE NO LIST! When I confront him Tom's defense consists of the lame comment, "I thought you were doing a really good job of deciding."
We head back out to the fields after a very good lunch at which Tom pigged out as usual. But Antoinette seems to find this behavior endearing and starts to like him. She smoothly asks which animals we want to look at again. I am sweating bullets but finally decide on Latte and Primrose. Latte is a lovely dark brown color, almost maroon, with a white face. Her sire is Pizarro. I disapprove of this name for its bad Karma but he is a beautiful guy. Latte radiates intelligence and self confidence and so, sticks out in a herd of merely pretty faces. Her mother, Marguerita, is one of the animals I initially liked but she is older than I wanted. Primrose, I pick because I love her face and her fleece. Antoinette has the fleeces of each animal bagged up for prospective buyers to look at. Primrose's famous sire, Drambuie is now in Australia. I have seen him in an ad in "Alpacas" magazine and he is gorgeous. Her mother, MA Krystal, is still at Lanark.
Finally, having picked, I feel I can relax but Antoinette surprises us. She offers to throw in 2 pet quality males and I must choose again. This is easier, because they are free, so I pick 2 boys just because I like them. Polo, because he is so friendly and has a crazy white afro and Lindt because he is cute and little and the color of a caramel candy.
For a big farm like Lanark these not-quite-herd-sire males might be just another mouth to feed. The big money is in selling breeding stock, not pets. But it is nice for Antoinette to offer them AFTER we have made the deal. For us, the boys will be invaluable. They are P.R. machines that can go to fairs shows and we don't have to worry that the stress will make them abort. And I am secretly thrilled because I am one of those nuts who can never have enough cute little animals to take care of. Four alpacas feels like a real start to our farm. It is almost 4:30 when we leave and I feel exhausted and anxious but incredibly excited too. We are now alpaca owners!
newly washed alpacas ( "little peas") at Lanark Farm - drying in the sun
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