Fairhope Alpacas
The drive to Fairhope, AL, was waaay longer than we anticipated. ‘Are you sure it’s only 4 hours?’ I asked Pam as I set the GPS and it flashed almost 5 1/2 hours at me. ‘It’s not much longer than that’, she responded, frowning at the screen, and we assumed that perhaps it was calculating the speed limits wrong… but no, it did in fact take almost that to drive down there.
I thought I was well prepared. Katy’s fiber goodies, Pam’s angelina she needed for her phatfiber samples, camera, still sleeping child… I loaded everything into the van and set off. On the way there I stopped to collect Serious and Mazara from the vet, Serious was ready to come home. And then it occurred to me that I’d forgotten Jesse’s shoes… and a change of clothes for him… *sigh*
The drive seemed to take forever, as it always does when you’re still exhausted from a recent trip, but we made it down there well before dinner, and while the kids romped around the gardens, playhouse and swing set, Pam introduced me to my twitter acquaintance Katy Spears, known as @alpacafarmgirl. She’s fresh, energetic and comfortable amongst her own animals, it struck me how she blossomed while standing in her barn while talking about the people she’s fond of in her own alpaca circle. And it also struck me how much at times it was as if I was looking at myself, her reactions, her mannerisms, her way of talking.
And she presented me with two alpacas, Loretta and Judy, which completely floored me, and sure they have their issues and are meant as fiber animals only, but I was so very touched that she had thought of me while trying to decide where they should go. What amazed me even more is that their lineage is the same as Billie’s , the girls are out of PHAR Centaur, whereas Billie is from PHAR Online, both sires being That’s The Nuts sons.
Loretta is VERY tall, a large girl with a somewhat shy and nervous personality, Judy is very petite (like Dee was) with an amazingly soft, crimpy 18 micron fiber… impressive for a 5 year old girl that’s incubated three babies in her lifetime.
After a tour of the farm, a visit to the herdsires and the shoving of fiber into Katy’s hands, we took some pictures of us together, loaded the alpaca girls into the back of the van, rounded up our two human boys, and once again we were on the road.
Loretta had led us to believe she was a bit feisty, but to our disbelief she hung her head over the back of the seat to be close to the boys, and without even putting as much as one ear back, she tolerated their cuddles, ear pulling, cheek stroking and occassional elbow in the face. When they both fell asleep she lay her head on Jesse’s pillow and closed her own eyes… what a sweet alpaca!
We rolled in around 1am, got the girls into their quarantine pen, and as I drove off to head to Huntsville, Pam told me one of my headlights was out. A very nice police officer also felt the need to tell me same thing and pulled me over at around 2am, less than 5 minutes from home. Ah, what’s a road trip without a bit of adventure?
Photos of young Judy & Loretta (c) 2007 Piney Hills Alpaca Ranch
