Night Feedings

Bottle feeding a cria is a definite job but it's very rewarding. :)

Thankfully you don't have to get up in the middle of the night. We feed her 4 times a day. 8:00am, 12:00pm, 4:00pm, and 8:00pm. She LOVES her bottles. She loves those who are bringing her the bottles. As I said, it's very rewarding. :)


I mean, who wouldn't love this fuzzy creature with her adorable milk spattered face?


Sh has a NICE fleece. We're proud of it. I cannot wait to send it into some shows and see how it stacks up against some of the others. Her mother has taken a 3rd and a 5th place ribbon in the past. I think Destiny might do even better than that. Yeah!


SO adorable! It's SO hard to get shots of my hand at night that didn't make it appear ugly looking. Haha!


Who is that in the dark? Oh it's Rico Arcani!


He is super curious about this bottle thing. He wasn't in the same pasture as she was at the other farm. Here he has a front row seat and he is fascinated by it.


Because she is a bottle baby she likes to be loved.


She follows us around the pasture.


I jogged away and she came running after me. heehee

That's ONLY because she's a bottle baby. Alpacas are generally (overall) wary around humans.


Not Destiny. She borrows into you and sucks on your clothes.


Rico has decided that he wants personal attention as well. I'm feeding him a handful of grain from his feeder.


He is perfectly capable of eating by himself.


I've never seen a dog who likes to sit down to eat. Rowdy cracks me up!!


I love you "Mommy"!


The dogs are pretty cute at night too.

Alpaca Farm- Day 2

Yes, it's day #2 with the alpacas here at Sweetwater Farm. Yes, that is our real farm name. :) I like it. I had nothing to do with it. Michael picked it out. Good man.

Things are moving right along here.

I thought y'all might enjoy a few more pictures. :)
Here are a few that were left over from yesterday afternoon...


They seem to really like the front section by the road.


They stayed there pretty much all day. Ginger stayed there pretty much all day as well. (She is NOT as obsessed today.)


I wonder what it is with that particular spot... Before the alpacas came Rowdy and Cygwyn (the giant puppies) liked that spot too. Ginger has also napped there (before the fence) for over a year.

Whatever it is... apparently animals like it there. They're happy- we're happy. :)


Michael got to use his tractor today. Yeah!!


He is getting ready to move the hay he bought yesterday into the alpaca shelter. By the way, in case you didn't already know, hay smells SOOOOOO good!! I'm starting to feel like a real farmer!! Okay we're really ranchers but Sweetwater Ranch sounded stupid. Hence, the name- Sweetwater Farm. Eventually we'll probably have some chickens or something so we can call it a farm, right? :)


Hi Mommy! Daddy is out on the tractor!


I love to watch my Daddy!


You don't really want me to come in do you?


I want to watch my Daddy ALL day!! I'm Daddy's boy!


There it is. The new hay implement being put to work.
"Hi Mom!"


The dogs were interested in the tractor.


The alpacas, not so much.

Blessings!- Angela :)

p.s. Farms and boys go together like peanut butter and jelly!

Like Father, like son. :)

Happy Valentine's Day to ME!!!

I'm SO sorry that it has taken me so long to update. :)

We have been pretty busy!!!

UPDATE:
We hired a new driver 2 weeks ago and Michael is working INSANE hours while training him. It's been very hard on 3 little daddy's boys but we are doing OK. :) This time around it hasn't been as hard on me either. Usually I go CRAZY here all the time without help but the boys are older now and Judah is VERY helpful with Gideon. :)

Schooling is going OK. They are getting the pre-spring blahs. Okay, okay I am too. :) We did take advantage of the beautiful weather this week quite a few times. Our family went hiking last Sunday. We played outside a lot with the dogs and I took the boys on a hiking field trip on Friday. They loved it!! We've been there before and it's one of their favorite hikes. They were bummed that even though it was 70 degrees they still couldn't swim. They love to play under the waterfall at that particular location.

Last night our church hosted a dinner and a movie, for couples, with FREE babysitting and they fed the kids too!!! YEAH!!

We ate together and watched Fireproof. Great movie!
The kids had a great time!

TODAY a VERY exciting thing happened!!!!! TWO of our alpacas came HOME!!!!!!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY TO MEEEEE!!!!!

WELCOME HOME RICO ARCANI AND DESTINY!!!!!!

The "foggier" pictures were taken from my bedroom window.


The new alpaca shelter is in the back. The further fence is where we put the bigger dogs for now. We wanted them to be calm and not too excited since they are so HUGE! (the dogs not the alpacas)




They weren't terribly excited about the arrangement but they got over it. We got them because Huskies are NOT good guard dogs. Our family dog is a husky named Ginger. We were worried about how she would respond to the alpacas. She is the PURE ALPHA animal on this property. As it turned out...


She ADORES them; especially Destiny. She thinks her job is to guard them and watch their every move. She is fascinated by them. Who knew?



As you can see Rowdy is also wanting to work. Look at that sweet pitiful dog! "Let me IN! Puleeeze!!"


Rico and Destiny think their job is to graze.


They are very good at it. haha!


Very committed to eating.

They made themselves right at home and we were VERY pleased to see that they weren't stressed at all.

And they have not 2, but THREE dogs watching over them.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!