Welcome to the weekend

Wow, this week flew by. Work, work, work, nothing fun to report on that end, except that I am very thankful for having a good friend at work to keep me sane.

Last weekend felt like fall was here, and this week we had the autumnal equinox. However this weekend I think Indian Summer has arrived. The leaves are turning, and the hills are beautiful. Today I took a little ride and visited a couple of local Alpaca farms. The first was nice with some people spinning and weaving and a lot of cute alpaca – Suri and Huacaya. It’s a lovely spot and they also had items for sale – pottery, locally made soaps, items made from their alpaca, yarn and fleece. I took a few pictures:

I drove a bit more and went to the second farm. This one didn’t have the activities or products, but the owner introduced me to her herd manager, who stood and talked with me for quite some time – we talked about breeding for color (pretty difficult), personalities of alpaca and llama (great, and more dependent on genetics than I would have thought), driving in snow (not always made better by 4-wheel drive), and other things I can’t remember. It was an incredibly pleasant time.

The day started feeling rather frantic – even with a great yoga class, I couldn’t chase the panic funky feeling. After the time of easy conversation amid some incredibly calm animals I felt much better. They aren’t the most domesticated farm animal, but when you’re surrounded by creatures that look like this, it’s hard to feel rushed:

These two little guys were wonderful. They just plopped down and sat like this for some time. Occasionally they’d lean over and eat some grass, but they were so content to just be:

As you can see they were pretty relaxed:

The little black one – Bella – was just beautiful. Her fleece was thick and so soft. I haven’t really been tempted to knit a black sweater before, but after feeling her, I’m beginning to think of what I may want to knit with some black alpaca yarn.