alpacas

Alpacas in the Snow!

Posted by Ivy

I’ve been wanting to photograph alpacas in the snow since I first started my part-time job at the farm, and on Sunday, after we got 7 inches of snow here, I got my chance. I spent most of my shift shoveling the parking lot and making a pathway to the far barn, and…when I finally made it to the far barn, the herd of alpacas who live there decided that would be a great time to go explore their other pasture. And then they started frolicking around in the snow. Photo magic. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.

These were all shot with my 50mm.

Frolicking! Felix (the one in the middle) is such a little hambone.

Babies Today!

Posted by Ivy

I have a couple weeks’ worth of blogging to do in the next few days…I hope I can get around to it before I get hit by this week’s insanity.

But first!

I’ve been hoping a little alpaca would be born on one of the Junior Discovery class days (preferably when I was there, too…), and this morning I was out cleaning up the pasture with the two girls in the class when one of them pointed at a spot nearby and said “Is that a baby?” And sure enough, there was a tiny wet baby alpaca lying on the ground by its mom and being sniffed at by the OTHER summer babies. Awwwww.

Needless to say, we had to switch up the usual discovery class schedule to help out the baby, who was cold and wet and needed to be toweled off and dried with a hairdryer. She took her first steps within two hours of being born. Not too bad!

Not Your Standard Farm

Posted by Ivy

I took a second job a couple weeks ago working part-time at Island Alpaca as a store clerk and general alpaca-care person. Had I ever spent more than a couple hours working on a farm before? Nope…but fortunately, alpacas are about the most low-maintenance livestock animals you can imagine. They don’t have upper teeth, so they can’t bite you; they’re herd animals, so generally if you get one to go a certain way the others will all follow; and they just like to spend their days eating and being lazy (not too shabby).

I also work with the Junior Discovery weekend programs, when kids come to help out with the chores and meet the alpacas up close. These are some photos from last weekend’s Discovery (barn light is the best!).