From brown to lime green!

It's all been go, go, go here in Patouland, the mighty herd has grown by ten and at the same time been reduced by ten.
At the end of last month I took a trailer of 8 home bred Patou warriors across the channel to Calais where I was to meet up with some lovely breeders from Belgium. It was an interesting experience as up until the point where we transferred the alpacas from my trailer to theirs I was very businesslike about the whole thing. Well OK maybe the shorts didn't look terribly businessman-like. Then, when they came out of my trailer and made the short trip to the other I suddenly became quite emotional, so much so that I couldn't speak for a few moments and my vision became a little blurry.
We said goodbye to six boys, Todd, Thor, Talisker, Wellington, Vincenzo and Wilbur and two girls Una and Verity. Too much in one go for a simpleton like me to cope with emotionally. Still, I am happy that they will all be going to good homes where they will be looked after properly. Not my favourite part of breeding alpacas.

We also said goodbye to Woody and Rafiki who went to a lovely home the other side of Salisbury, we will be seeing them again which is great.

So to my favourite part! We now have ten cria on the ground, six of them females. At the moment all are wonderfully healthy. Little Bijou is back to her lively self and we have been able to withdraw from all top up bottle feeds.

Here are a few pictures of some wonderful brownness!

Patou Bijou, back to full fitness. We think it was Coccidia that caused her listlessness, lack of appetite and thirst.

 Patou Drambuie, a very handsome young man with a great head shape. Branson in the background nibbling Sue's fleece, he is always nibbling something.

 From left to right, Finnegan (light, light brown), Pepper and Branson.

QT and Delilah, QT seems to try and shag anything that moves and moments after this picture was taken he was trying to get Bannock (aged 14yrs and very tall) down onto the ground. It was a very bold move, which was ultimately unsuccessful.

And so to the latest arrival, Patou Nutmeg. Last year we had four females pregnant to Popham Thunder, all four gave birth to males. They were all remated to Thunder and yesterday the first of them gave birth. Samantha produced a lovely dark brown female who we are delighted with.

And finally, I went to Leicestershire last weekend for a school reunion at Ratcliffe College. It was a superb weekend until the mighty Land Rover once again blew up, this time substitute the M25 for the M1. Anyway to cut a very long story short the AA managed to get me towed off the M1 but then took a further 4 hours to get a mechanic to me. I was urged by one of the many AA call centre operatives that I spoke to (I spoke to most of them I reckon) to make a complaint and as a result I was whisked away in a taxi on Monday to a car hire centre where I had a lime green Seat Leon FR thrust upon me, all at the expense of the AA. As you can see it is highly visible and as I have found, goes rather faster than my old Discovery! I have had comments and odd looks where ever I have been, especially at school pick up time. I'm sure I heard someone muttering something about a mid life crisis!

Have I reached mid life yet?