welcome to the auction! shearing

Well first off, the price of gas today in Eaton Colorado. Dennis and I thought that it was a typo and should have read $2.64 per gallon, not $3.64. Seems we don't get out much.

Well, any who, Dennis and I had a laid back Saturday 2 weeks ago,and decided to go to the auction. I had to stand in line to get my ticket, in case I saw something that I just needed to have. I was there looking for a gate that would complete one of our catch pens. As we had excited the building, the auctioneers were already half way down the first row. There was a lot of testosterone there, and I guess that I just got caught up in the moment. And you guessed it, they were auctioning off gates. I won the bid. As they moved on, I asked the guy next to me, who also bought a gate, "How much did you pay for yours?". He said that he did not know, I did not know how much I paid for mine either, Dennis thought that it was $3. When I went to pay for the 3 gates that I had purchased, I found out that I had paid $20 each for them. A little high, but we will certainly use them. Needless to say, Dennis ushered me out of there. So my day at the auction, lasted about 1 hour. 45 minutes to check in and 15 to pay and get loaded. Here are my three gates in the back of the pick up.
What is that they say? One mans junk is another mans treasure?

40 days and 40 nights
May has been rather wet for us this year. Well, for Colorado standards that is. In the first 22 days of May we have received over 3 inches of rain. Of course the majority last week, just as we were getting ready to shear our alpacas. Saturday night the sky looked like this.
I know we need the rain, but I was hoping that it would not rain and be nice and dry for Sunday, our shearing day. There is nothing worse than wet alpaca fiber, drying all laid out in the basement, if it is not dried properly, you can get mold. I got my wish. Here are some pictures of our shearing day. I think that only one person there was not of grey hair. My neighbor Sue, trying her hand at clipping toenails.

No, we are not being invaded by aliens, just alpacas minus their years worth of fleece. They were so happy to be freed from all that fiber.


To heck with a dogs life, I want to be a goat in the goat yard on a beautiful 70 degree sunny day. Here are some of my this years crop of kids.
More later......................................................