Today I have been familiarising myself with the poop of the mighty Patou herd.
I spent at least two hours with the big red pooper scooper sucking their doings from the frozen ground. It wasn't easy as a fair proportion of it was actually welded to the ground by the heavy frosts and low temperatures we have been having down here in the south. There was much kicking and bashing prior to the usual petrol fuelled sucking.
I have to admit, aching back aside, it was a somewhat satisfying way of spending the morning.
Let it be known that the mighty Patou herd has very healthy looking poop. It has changed colour ever so slightly due to the hard food regime we have here at the moment but those little pellets were satisfyingly round, plump, shiney and uniform in size, oh yes it is mighty fine looking poop, as far as poop goes.
Their main pooping area is up at the top of the field around the hay feeder. It has a clear area of about 5 metres all round and then the poop circles start and they had become quite substantial. They are now virtually clear, or should I say were virtually clear.
I was, in fact, still in situe with the scooper, unblocking the tube after several 'hand grenades' had become wedged at the top end, when the herd approached inquisitively.
They were very interested in the scooper and what was going on, ears forward, noses twitching with curiosity, creeping ever nearer. They surrounded me on three sides and stood motionless, watching me watching them watching me etc. I greeted each of them by name as I always do and we all paused, caught up in the wonder of being together outside in the cold. It was nice.
Then, almost as if a silent order had been surreptitiously passed around without my knowledge, the shuffling began. You know the sort of shuffling I am talking about, the sort of shuffling that precedes the raising of the tail and the despatching of the poop. They held my gaze, they continued to watch me and the scooper but did their dastardly deed almost as if they were saying 'You will never win human, we will never be defeated, we are too strong'.
Deed done they then wandered off leaving me standing there in stitches, it was one of those magical alpaca moments, pure alpaca brilliance.
Don't you just love it?
4 comments:
Why do they always do that, mine are the same. I get that ner-ner we win look from a couple in particular before the trot off having left me with another pile to suck up!
Now I feel bad - ours 1) never get that close 2) don't care a jot what we think and 3) we never scoop, frozen or not!!!
Ah well the mighty Coire herd traverse the vast open spaces of Scotland where as the 27 members of the mighty Patou herd only have 5 acres in which to frolick!
I wonder have you been buried under pile of alpaca poo...not heard anything from you for a while..I wonder if we need a 'patou' to search for you !!....getting worried about the silence on the blog...Jayne
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