Tag: alpacas

Alpacas, Snow and Beer … Never A Dull Moment!

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Travel continued; my upcoming days uneventful, thankfully. I enjoyed a night at a Harvest Host location. Alpacas are the most calming animals, so I spent time chatting with them upon my arrival. Then had a good night sleep at this location.

Informative sign.

Weather reports were for snow where I would travel through a mountain pass in a few hours in New Mexico into Colorado. I hadn’t packed my ice scraper on this trip since I was leaving weeks later than past years. Off to an auto store and luckily they had one long-handled scraper and brush. Better to have one and not need it, then to think a credit card could scrape my huge van windshield! 

I drove through snow. Despite reports of low visibility, I got through the mountain pass fine. About 5 inches of snow had fallen as I drove through. The next morning I did have ice on my windshield. Fortunately I parked my van so solar energy could melt the ice by the time I ate breakfast, took a walk at the campground … observed killdeer and other birds, like a beautiful western meadowlark, at this site!

I love mountains. Seeing snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains was wonderful! So fitting also as I was listening to an audiobook: Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman, MD. It brought back my memories of travel in Tibet, China and trekking in Nepal to Everest Base Camp so many decades ago. (If you follow mountaineering expeditions, this is a good book to read.)

Snow… but it is melting, yeah!

I stopped at Fountain Creek Regional Park to take a driving break. I walked some of the trails; no snow here! This park and nearby nature center needs to be a future stop. There are plenty of trails and a nature center to visit. Another Harvest Host location for the night. Enjoyed dinner with a beer and talking with fellow travelers from Wisconsin. Great conversation! Now to enjoy 3 days and hopefully bicycle ride. If not, then to at least hike and take a break from driving!

Trail by playground and Ramadas.
Trail by creek and many trails from here. A beaver came up here from the creek?

Alpaca Farm Life in PA

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I’m visiting family, sister and brother-in-law in Pennsylvania, and they have 40 alpacas. When they both worked full-time they also had 40 alpacas. Retired life has left them with the same responsibilities caring for these alpacas, and quite honestly I am not sure how they accomplished all when they worked full-time!

The morning couple of hours involves putting out water basins, new hay and grain, and scooping the poop along with recording and meeting special needs for specific alpacas. It all takes time and there are some things to be done in the evening too! I help in the morning with scooping poop and that in itself takes me hours. If I had the total responsibility, I would still be out there working! So hiring individuals to complete the tasks when my family wishes help or to take time elsewhere, necessitates special people who can rise to the level of expertise and ability to complete the tasks in a timely manner. (Like I said, I would be completing morning tasks in time to start evening ones! I would never be hired.)

Old, dirty hay and poop get dumped in a pile where we saw yellow bugs flying around. With the iNaturalist app, we identified them as golden dung flies. Most appropriate name for it as you will see in the photo below:

Golden dung fly

I enjoyed seeing the birds flitting around the area. My sister noted a couple of nests of birds that return each year to lay eggs. One nest was with 5 dark-eyed junco eggs. Not the most focused photo because it was taken from above the nest, blindly and quickly so as not to disturb the birds.

Dark-eyed junco

And another nest was with 4 Eastern Phoebe eggs:

Eastern phoebe eggs
Eastern phoebe

“No job ever takes 15 minutes”, says my sister as she and her husband leave to accomplish some outdoor project. And that’s the truth! They have been transplanting a tree and a bush for the last couple of hours using two huge different pieces of equipment. Don’t ask me what equipment since I only know a tractor and it wasn’t that one! 

During their work time, I walked the area to observe and photograph birds. I saw or heard 17 different species of birds and was pleasantly surprised to see an American redstart.

American redstart

We all choose our work and hobbies. My sister and brother-in-law obviously love their life on the farm with these alpacas and all the responsibility that goes with it. Kudos to all people who work on farms and/or own farms with projects that undoubtedly take more than 15 minutes to complete!