Not even posed, I just happened to see him smooching his llama and caught it on film 🙂 I think I’ve found my ‘interaction’ picture for Camera Club!
Here are some other pictures I really liked…
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Category: llamas
Kids, Llamas, Alpacas, and Dogs
I had a fun day today, with a 4H meeting first thing in the morning. We had it at one of our 4H family’s farms, where they have alpacas. Because they recently got in a group of young alpacas they were trying to place in good 4H homes, we got to see kids working with a variety of young animals that were new to all this, which of course made for an interesting morning!
Some were resistant to this ‘jumping over stuff’ idea…
Some did not like the idea of walking on strange surfaces…
And some of them just plain didn’t want to cooperate – even though this llama in particular had years of experience!
Some kids were having much better luck with the obstacles.
Practice and persistence pays off! These kids have a show coming up, so hopefully this little refresher got their animals in the mood to cooperate next weekend!
I took my new camera to the 4H meeting, along with my longest zoom lens (200mm) because that gave me a lot of reach. I was wandering around the field where we were working, and if I saw anything interesting about to happen, I was always close enough to zoom in and get it. Another thing I like about this camera is it takes multiple pictures in quick succession without having to go into a special mode. That definitely helped me get the shot I was looking for more than once.
At home I put one of my shorter lenses (the 28-80) on for taking pictures in the yard with the dogs, because they were seldom more than an arms-length away.
I love this shot of Barclay, but because I was zoomed in, the depth of field is shallow – the result being his nose is in focus, but his eyes are soft! I’d rather have it the other way around! The best solution would have been less zoom, and move closer – but he moves around so much I had to snap it when I could – oh well! So close…
A little bone-chewing action – with the green grass and blue sky.
Then Navi took the bone. I love the way they chew on bones, they’re so concentrated like nothing else exists.
I was so glad I got this shot of Navi! She is such a goofball, but sometimes she’ll hear something and just STOP with this rediculously serious look on her face! She looks so concerned!
Jack
I tried to finish off with a nice portrait of Barclay and Navi sitting in the dandelions, but before I could hit the shutter Navi had to sproing away to go do something else! Well, actually, that pretty much captures their personality perfectly!
By the time I was done I’d shot about 150 pictures today. Thank God for digital cameras! This explains why I couldn’t get into photography as a kid when all we had was film!
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4H meeting at my house
Martha and our guest speaker worked with the kids to help them address showing/handling issues with their llamas.
We had a 4H Llama meeting at our house today. I really enjoy hosting the meetings, because it’s fun to see everybody, and I don’t even have to leave the house! The dogs usually get to play with some kids, and it’s always exciting to see what happens. Today we had some unexpected excitement!
To start with, last night a couple families dropped off their animals early, and one of the families discovered their llama had inflamed feet – turned out they had foot rot going on because of all the mud on their farm. So I hung out with them and helped them get the llama treated until it was nearly dark, then kept her in our dry paddock all night.
This morning the 4H group started showing up, and we had a couple visiting experts, so they had a look at the foot rot problem and gave her advice on what to do. They got busy treating their llama’s feet, and the other llamas they had brought, and we got the other kids busy working on learning to show for fair. Our visiting experts helped them out one-on-one, which was great for the kids.
At the same time, a couple families had said that on the drive in they saw a very shaggy llama running down the street about a mile from our house. I pretty much know who lives where, and I thought I knew where that animal belonged. By the second time someone mentioned it, one of the families jumped in their truck (with horse trailer) and headed off to look for it. After a short chase they cornered it and caught it, wrestled it into the trailer, and brought it back to my place. I gave them a halter for it and they walked it out (noticing along the way that it was an intact male) and as soon as Martha, the other leader saw it – she recognized it as an animal she had given away a year or two before!
Turns out this animal which should have been gelded, had instead been passed around intact, never sheared apparently, and was now a big mess, and running loose! So I hopped in my van, along with the mom who had caught the beast, and we drove to where I thought the critter belonged. I got it right on the first try! She went up to the farm house, and the people said ‘yeah, he got out again’ – and they weren’t even out looking for him! So they took the llama back to it’s home, and the 4H mom told the people if they ever wanted to get rid of it to let her know. Instead of saying yes right there, while the animal was haltered and in the trailer, they waited a couple hours and then called and told her to come get it! jerks! So now folks are networking to figure out how to rescue this animal, get it the old snip-snip, and find a home for it.
After the 4H meeting was over I went along with two of the other families to the family’s farm with the foot rot problem, and we all worked until it was getting dark, treating all their animals and rearranging their barn to make a safe dry area for the llamas to recover in. Since this is the family that ended up with my llamas, I got to visit with Scoops and Patrone again, and Scoops was as sweet as he ever was – proving to me that it’s not me, these alpacas I am fostering really are just jerks! Heck, even Patrone was nicer to me than the foster alpacas!
So it turned out to be a very long day. I barely sat down between 10am and 7pm, helping haul straw, lift, pull, drag, dig, lead, and do anything else helpful I could (without getting kicked by a llama). Glad I could help out our friends, and I hope their animals recover quickly. I know this snuck up on them and they felt terrible about it, and I could have easily seen that happening to myself.
I stopped and picked up a pizza on the way home, and now I’m crashing on the couch – what a LONG day! But you know, it made me feel good too, because my friends (like me) all have learned along the way, through trial and error sometimes, to take care of their animals, and help each other out, and if I decide to get a horse someday, I know they’ll be there to help me too.
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Around the yard – new visitors coming
First off, the latest on the neighbor’s farm. It was up for sale earlier this winter, and closed in early December for $158k, which was a lot less than they were asking (I think they started at $215). It has 11 acres, a destroyed mobile home (literally just a heap of rubbish), an old mobile home people were living in, and a big old completely un-charming, falling-apart barn. Also beautiful pastures (or will be if they are cared for), and tall trees.
I don’t envy the folks who took this project on. The barn was full of garbage when we walked through it when it first went up for sale, and is in sad shape inside. But the folks who bought it have been working on it, hauling away trailer loads of debris. You can see where there are piles of stuff outside the barn now. I don’t know if they are cleaning it up to try and save what’s still good, or just slowly taking it apart. The other day I saw a backhoe show up and thought that was the end of the barn but the backhoe went away and the barn is still there. I am hoping they are going to keep it as a horse property, but if it gets split up and developed that’s ok too. The minimum lot size out here is 5 acres (ours is 3, but they’ve changed the rules since then), so the worst we would have is two new neighbors on that side.
My garden looks like a mess, but I can see things actually getting more organized. I’m going to hoe the weeds under and clean the coop this weekend and put the chicken poo on the beds, so it has time to ‘cool off’ before planting time. Then I’ll lay straw on top of that, and I have all the old straw out of the shelter area where the sheep and pig was last year, which should be good compost too as it breaks down. I also have lots of shredded bark to re-do the paths. I see a lot of shoveling in my future!
The shelter has been reconfigured yet again to separate it from the garden, because a friend called me up and asked if I could take three alpacas. She organizes llama rescue, and got a call that three ‘packys had been abandoned when their house was foreclosed on. Since she’s full up, but I have two acres and no animals, I couldn’t say no. So one of the other 4H families came over and helped me remodel the shelter (moving around boards that were already there) and we have a shelter and paddock ready for livestock again. This morning I spread clean straw, and hung a hay feeder. Someone else brought hay, and another 4H family has a trailer and will go help pick them up. 4H people are the best – they hear about animals in need and they just say ‘how can I help’!
(It’s built on hill, which is why it has that ‘everything is askew’ look – it’s actually all quite plumb)
This should be a nice cozy retreat from the weather. They should be in their new home this afternoon.
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4H llama shearing party
Today we had the 4H llama club meeting at my house, and everyone brought their llamas. After a potluck and socializing, my neighbor Kelley came over and sheared the llamas. It was a good day, llamas got cleaned up for upcoming summer shows, and there were kids running all over our farm playing with dogs, harassing chickens (one ended up in the neighbor’s yard, apparently deciding that was a safer place to be until the kids were gone), and generally having a good time. Lots of fun!
My old buddy Scoops was there. A polite gentleman, as always.
Kohl brought my old llama Patrone. He’s grown since I gave him away! Both of them, actually 🙂
Here Jamie takes a quiet moment to comfort her llama after the tension of shearing.
Funny face!
I gave the camera to the kids to take pictures of whatever they wanted, and I got back a picture of Kohl snuggling a chicken!
Lots and lots of llamas!
Today we had a 4H meeting at my house (since some of the llamas were already here). So people brought nine more llamas and alpacas, and we had quite a crowd!
Once everyone was there and settled down, they did a little show practice. After that we all headed off on a little hike. We walked across the street and about a hundred yards up the road to a trail entrance to the state park across the street. One of the leaders drove behind our group with her hazard lights on to keep traffic from coming up fast behind us. Once all the kids were on the trail she drove back and parked the car and came and joined up. Then we walked along the horse trail to group camp where we all stopped fo a rest.
There’s the llamas that used to live with me, Scoops and Patrone 🙂
Cameron gives a thumbs up to hiking with his new buddy, Julio!
The alpacas are oh so cute!
Along the way we met a horse, but the horse was very well behaved and the rider was in control, and we were able to move off to the side and the rider calmly took her past all the scary llamas safely.
Then we all hiked back home and had cookies and milk. It was a beautiful day for a hike!
Jack and the Llamas
Jack is finding it hard to adjust to the invaders in the pasture. I’m hoping he’ll get used to them soon, as you can hear below!
Llama shearing
Last week our llama 4-H club had shearing day scheduled. To prepare for it Martha (the other club leader) and I got together on Mother’s day and built a chute to shear the llamas in.
The chute turned out really nice. She had a plan in mind, and I am pretty good at building things, so we just dove in and did it. It’s portable so they can move it around with the tractor. For shearing day, since it was raining, they put an easy-up over it. It worked really well!
Even the crankiest llamas pretty much gave up and let us do what needed to be done once they found themselves in the chute.
The kids took turns helping hold their llamas and keeping them calm, while the little kids picked up wool and bagged it. We ended up with a LOT of wool. Now we need to plan some activities and show the kids what to do with it. Sorry I don’t have any nudie pics of the finished llamas!
Steff Does Stuff! 