April 23, 2009: Let's see..it's been pretty quiet the last week. It's been raining almost every day at least for a little while which makes everything muddy and the alpacas a mess!! The weather is supposed to improve a bit this weekend! Oh, I just remembered..we had a little situation with the electric fence. I went to turn it off to go in to the pasture first thing in the morning and notice that the power lights were indicating very low power. We were going to a funeral that morning so I really couldn't stay and try to figure out what was going on with it, so I left them for the day reluctantly and when I came back, I called our fence man. He walked me through some possible scenarios...branch on the wires, wires touching..and after several times around the perimeter we figured out that it was the hot wire touching the mesh wire and it was about the size of a pin head, but it was just enough to overload the whole thing and short out. Well, we fixed it temporarily until he can come back and tighten it properly. Yesterday we had a little bit of a tussle between Ishtar and Dovis. After they finished eating and were just walking around, all of a sudden I saw them with their necks wrapped around each other and pushing. Then Ishtar body slammed Dovis, knocked her down, sat on her then quickly got up. Poor Dovis just looked at me. I swear she was embarrassed! Maybe it was the Heimlich maneuver alpaca style..Dovis had a little drool coming out of her mouth. Other than that, it's been just wonderful getting to know them. Our son's friends came over the other night and helped me herd them into the barn. They enjoyed getting to see the animals up close and being able to touch them. I think Hamilton likes the attention and surprisingly I think Dovis does too! I finally bought a scale because the time is coming when I'll have to give them their Dectomax again and I'll have a more accurate weight for them. I also got Dr. Evan's Field Manual, 3rd edition. What a great source for everything you need to know...and it's all in one place! Now our next thing will be to figure out how to get them shorn. Seems the shearers don't come for so few animals and we don't have a carrier because as I've said before, I didn't think I'd be taking them anywhere! I'm looking into U-haul for the day to take them to another farm! Stay tuned!