End of an era

With much sadness, I sold all of my alpacas, after 13 years of raising and enjoying these wonderful animals. They were some of the more easy to handle livestock that we have owned. Very gentle. I feel lucky that I found good homes for them. But I am happy to report that I have about 10 years worth of hoarded fleece from them that is in roving so that I can get busy weaving and spinning when I have some free time. With the costs of hay and life in general, we had to cut down on our "pet" animals this year. We are still enjoying our goats, oh, and the sheep. They are paying for their keep anyway.

RATTLERS
I have taken to checking the window wells of the basement since finding one of these guys in them. Boy was he mad, and really wanted to bite into me. This is a Prairie Rattler. Not easy to distinguish until you see the rattle. That is one thing that was nice about Arizona, they had the coon tailed rattler, that the tail before the rattle was striped white and black


Here is a close up of his head. Dennis readily dispatched this fellow.


GARDEN DOINGS
Here is a beginning of our cottage garden in the front of the house. The border is only going to be 2 timbers high. The 4 stacked timbers are the posts for the bridge over my koi pond. When we get the area filled with compost we will transplant the perennial flowers and bushes from the vegetable garden out back. When coming down our upstairs, this area is framed by our large picture window. When the flowers are in bloom, it will be a sight to behold. Can't wait until next year.


PEEPING TOM
Speaking of our Bourbon Red Heritage Turkey. Tom is no longer roosting outside our bedroom window. He has taken to roosting in the chicken coop since the nights are colder, and his two sons are getting mature, and he wants to keep them away from his hens. I caught him watching me as I was working on the computer, I felt the familir hairs on the back of my neck again. Here is Peeping Tom at the deck window with some of his friends. He still keeps an eye on me whenever he can. To keep me on the straight and narrow so to speak.


QUILTING
Another baby is coming into our family, and here is the quilt that I made for the new arrival. The colors were brown, sage and pink. I really had a fun time putting this quilt together, the colors are so nice together.


More later..............................