Bums backsides and bottoms.

Mrs Steele was doing something called 'hoovering' this morning which meant there were two reasons why I had to leave the house. Firstly, I was in the way of this 'hoovering' and was therefore told to vacate and secondly, by crikey it makes a racket!

So off I trotted into the alpaca field (I didn't actually trot, more of a prolonged stumble) with my camera for some close up and personal stuff with my girls. Or so I thought. I went down to the main shed to get a camping chair and then positioned myself in the field so that they could all come over and say hello whilst I took wonderful head shots for todays blog. I had an idea you see about my ideal head type on an alpaca and I was going to post various pictures of alpaca heads and my thoughts on them. Mike Safley said that head type was very important in an alpaca and I agree with him (well why wouldn't you?) It is something we try to get right here in the magical kingdom of Patou. Get the head right and other good things tend to follow.

So there I was, sitting in my chair, the sun was shining and everything was just perfect. Well almost everything. I managed a couple of 'head shots' from various angles and then realised that I would have a far higher success rate if I were to be photographing alpaca bottoms as that is what I was mostly presented with.

Now that got me thinking about something a visitor to the farm said a few weeks ago. She was amazed at how I could recognise each individual animal by looking at it's face (she wasn't an animal owner) which I suspect we can all do. We only have 30 odd alpacas so it is very easy for us. Anyway looking at all these bottoms I realised that I can not only recognise them from the front end but I could also recognise them from the rear end. I suspect that I am not the only one. And as they are looking at their fluffy best at this time of the year I thought I would share some rear-end views of the Mighty Patou. Well why not? Head types will have to wait for the time being. I don't propose to name them all on here (I could!) but here are some of my favourite fluffy bottoms!



A heavily pregnant and therefore very wide Patou Poppy.





Ruby May, Roger Resilient, Edwina, Bobby and Runa.

Fluffy bottoms on the move, was it something I said?

Runa, a beautiful pair of black bloomers!

A collection of colourful bottoms.

Some youngsters on the move, Edwina, Runa, Rosa, Ruby and Minstrel.

With bums like that you just know the heads are going to be right!

Of course there was one alpaca in the herd who was on my wavelength from the start. One girl who was just too close to see her derriere. She just couldn't resist the urge to come over and say hello!

Who was it? Patou Lily, my favourite.