A romp with a herd of alpacas and a power failure

Phew, what a time we had yesterday! First we almost ran out of water and had to buy a tank load of it. Luckily it was delivered within an hour. Usually, when the weather has been so hot and dry here, there is a wait of 4 days to a week for water to be delivered. We live in a rural area and rely on rain water collected from our roof to supply the house.

Then when I arrived home from work, all ready to sort through my alpaca photos and write my new blog post, mum told me that we had no electricity. The power failure had started at 3.00 pm. And because our water is stored in a huge water tank outside, it has to be pumped into the house using electricity. So, we had no water and no electricity!

We can't even flush the toilet without electricity...eeks.

Dinner time came and still no electricity. Luckily we had plenty of cold things to eat, so didn't go hungry. But, oh, I really did need a cup of tea. In the end I hopped into bed and read my book by torch light and snuggled up with my cats.

I was rudely awoken at 2.45 am when my light suddenly turned on...electricity...yaaaay. I went round the house turning taps off, as water was gushing out of some. Then back to bed, hoping that my cat Ginger wasn't going to bring me any more live mice to play with, causing me to get locked out of the house in the middle of the night in my pyjamas again!

And now, finally, after much sorting and oohing and aahing, here are some of the alpaca photos that I took on Monday. My brother-in-law took me to see his neighbour's herd of alpacas at feeding time so that I could walk with them and take photos.

We walked into the first field which contained 4 male alpacas. They were very shy and stayed at the top of the hill watching us. So my brother-in-law put food down for them and we went off to see the females.

The female alpacas were very curious and came running up to us. They were friendly, but I was warned not to get caught behind any, because if they get frightened they kick really hard.

There were 10 female alpacas with a mixture of different coloured coats. There were black, creamy white, cream, fawn and caramel coloured ones. They probably have special names for alpaca breed colours. They had just been shorn and their silky fleece bundled up to be sold.

It was really difficult for me to get close up photos of them beacause they wouldn't stay still for more than a second. I have lots of photos of bits of head and ears! I did manage to get 2 face pictures that I like. When I saw the first face photo enlarged on my computer screen I burst out laughing. As I took the photo she looked me straight in the eye and pricked her ears up. She looks so cute and comical with her big, shiny, black eyes.

Here they all are lined up waiting for food to be put in their bowls. Each alpaca has their own bowl to eat out of. Their food is carefully mixed with different types of feed and then precisely measured out.

They quickly settled down to eat.

Then we went back to check on the boys again to make sure that they were feeding.

The one-year old males decided that I wasn't so scary this time and came to say hello. I hope that I get to do this again as I had a great time. I went home with a big smile on my face.

Until next time. xxx