Shearing Day and Other Disasters...

Shearing day was Saturday. Before shearing, the alpacas looked like this:

         Fluffy Alapacas

 Afterwards.....not so much!

Alarmingly not-so-fluffy alpacas

Unflattering rear view

Yes, they make me giggle a bit, too.

Shearing day started out just fine.
The guy we bought the alpacas from generously offered to put our 3 in his trailer with his and drive them all to the shearers. He would arrive at noon on Saturday. My son, The Girl and myself would be going, the Darlin' Man is on a field exercise.
He arrived at noon, we loaded up our three with little problem (okay, Ana pitched a fit)  and then it was noticed the trailer had a flat tire. So, we unloaded ours and got water for his while he drove back to his house to get an air compressor.
Oh crap....the valve stem is busted....gotta go get another tire. Check all trailer tires...another tire has a busted valve stem.
So, he leaves to get new tires.
Returns, gets new tires on trailer, call shearers...they are okay with us being two HOURS late.
Reload my annoyed alpacas (Ana really pitched a conniption fit this time!).
He tells me to follow him over in my car. He has a friend and his son with him in his pick-up.
On TransMountain  Highway.
One third of the way up the mountain....my car blows up. Well, the radiator and every hose blows up.
With such force that it blew out part of the dash and scalding coolant sprays all over the interior of the car.
I get the car pulled over safely and put on the emergency brake and we all bail out.
I have no cell phone. Well, I have an old one, but it's broke, so, yeah.
It takes 30 minutes to flag someone down to get them to call me a tow truck.
An hour after that with no tow truck in sight, a policeman pulls over. HE calls the tow truck company who tells him they "got backed up". So he calls a different towing company and they show up in 15 minutes! (Thank you Officer Salazzar!)
The tow truck driver does a great job and gets us home about a half hour after that. (Thanks J.R.!)
I call the alpaca guy's cell phone and tell him the situation. He thought he lost us on the road!
And not only are the alpaca's sheared, he is almost all the way back to our place!
So....that was shearing day.

The ONLY bright spot in the day.....
Guess who was waiting for us when we got home?

NUGGET IS BACK!!!!

Little Things Eat Up SO Much Time!

Tabatha, still growing!

Mason, 1 day old!

Aurelius

Another shot of Mason

Fenrir

One of Betty's chicks!

Roxy Blue (I named the only girl!)

Kigran

Tabatha....trying to look as small and cute as possible!

Betty, in her private coop, protecting a chick from my camera!

New bunnies arrived...as they are liable to do when you have adult bunnies

Another one of Betty's chicks!

So, as you can see, Spring has busted out all over!
Betty hatched 3 chicks. Until we know the genders, we are just calling them "Huey, Dewey and Louie" for now.
Betty has taken up quarters in the old, small bunny hutch as a "private coop" as the the other chickens would try to eat her hatchlings if they were left in the general population.

Baby had 5 puppies. Four boys, 1 girl. I named the girl Roxy Blue. The other pups were named by The Girl.
I think the daddy is a little long haired chihuahua up the street.

Our bunny Skillet and her mate T-Bone, became the proud parents of a litter of baby bunnies. I have no clue as to the genders. There are 7 of them...but I have kept it "hands off" so Skillet won't reject them.

We had a severe wind/sand storm about a week ago and one of our peahens died. The others seemed fine, but she was almost dead when I found her, I tried nursing her back to health....but she finally gasped her last after a couple days. About an hour after she died, a strange peacock showed up in the yard!

There he is! On top of the alpaca pen!

Well, after a couple of days of chasing him around the yard, my son finally caught him!
He is now in a pen with one of our peahens, and is quite happy having a ladylove all to himself.
The Darlin' Man has named him ....ahem..."Strange Dick". The less I comment about his reasons for that name, the better.

We had a severe wind/sand storm a couple of days ago and ever since, we have not been able to find our pet chicken, Nugget. Even the neighbors have been looking for her. She has charmed all our neighbors with her demanding attitude. She knocks on doors demanding scraps. If it is cold, she usually comes up on our porch and snuggles up to a hot water pipe near the front door. I hope a coyote or hawk hasn't found her.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Sorry for the lack of posts here!
The flu ravaged thru the house for a couple weeks, bouncing back and forth among us like a berserk pinball.
Then we had wind, wind and , yes, more damn wind. And sand wind and dust wind and cold wind and....just damn wind.
My sons leg is healing slowly. Therefore, most of the farm chores are still  alllllll mine. The feeding, the milking, the cleaning of pens, etc., etc., and so on. I get up at 5 am and by 8 pm I am so exhausted I fall asleep in the armchair.
BUT!
Tabatha, our fast growing Belgian Malinois puppy makes darn sure I wake up every hour or two to pet her, pay attention to her, feed her, clean up her poop, etc...
So, yeah...exhaustion to the nth degree.

Ugly Betty, one of my favorite chickens went broody and hatched out three of the most adorable chicks ever. They are currently living in our smaller rabbit hutch, both rabbits being in the spacious bunny palace we constructed last month. Betty is a wonderful mama hen and it is delightful to watch her take care of her little ones.
I have eggs from the turkeys, peafowl, geese and ducks in the incubator....but nothing yet.
That's a quick update....will try to get some pictures in the next few days to post.