A Moment of Passion

10/08/2009 by Rosemary.

We went over to check everyone had settled back in after quarantine from Ellingham Show and Yoda and Frank were going mad.  They were charging round and round the field - pronking and waving their necks, great to see.  Spookily, Loner Prudence was eating right up close to Flamenco and they seemed really happy to be together - they must have bonded at Ellingham.  I spent some time searching the truck for an Ellingham show catalogue until I realised neither of us had remembered to get one and there was a page about us in there which I hadn’t looked at properly - maybe I’ll search for it on ebay tonight!

I have gone into a bit of a crusading for alpacas mood today and have a desperate urge to start a “Dorset alpaca buzz”.  It’s all the fault of the Australians!  It all came about because I decided to subscribe to the Australian Alpaca Association magazine and today it drizzled.  I thought I might as well combine reading the back issue magazines that arrived this morning and updating the website.  Updating the website is always frustrating as it takes me so long to get it to do what I want it to do, so bits of reading the magazines had to happen to keep me sane.  It was so interesting; uterine prolapse, summer checklist, poisonous plants, breeding for fleece improvement, SRS breeding programme, show results, shearing cria, I could go on and on!!  Then I read an article on the marketing power of a small group.  I know we have lots of very good regional groups, we are now in SWAG and that is a superb group to be part of, but this was about a smaller group of five breeders, all relatively local to one another, who started by renting a trade stand together at a show - taking animals (like we did at Ellingham) and then following it up with an Alpaca Trail, an opportunity for those interested to visit all 5 farms one after another over a day.  Each farm had a small group of animals penned for inspection and an information display, some with products for sale and fleece to look at.   I really, really want to do it!!  Is there anyone around here who would consider joining me?!!  After that they followed up a couple of months later with a further trail and then a hands on day for those really interested.  It was not aimed at immediate results but at encouraging new entrants.  I think it is brilliant.

On another theme I appear to have attracted a pigeon.  He is very tame and wanders around the garden, he is ringed but I haven’t managed to get quite close enough to see where he is from but he (or she) is obviously lost.

And talking of passion, Big Mummy (the cat) has developed an unhealthy foot fetish.

Hopefully, by now, the website will be all updated and new looking (last time I checked it was only partly updated)!  With updated photos!  And working smoothly!  Meanwhile I shall return to the next task which is ironing.  I don’t do more of it than I have to and this has never been a problem but last night Carl actually had the audacity to complain about the way his collar on his shirt stuck up and smacked him round the chin in the wind (I blame it on his bad knee - I blame everything on his bad knee at the moment!).

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