Ode to Joy

Saturday was a Raising Alpacas 101 course at Spruce Ridge Farm in Chatham.  The drive there itself was worth the price of the course....it was a glory-ous perfect and perfectly Fall day, so beautiful and exquisite it literally brought tears to my eyes from the sheer joy and beauty.  The air was so clear it would have shattered if dropped.  Country roads were lined with golden leaves, and the colors, while perhaps dialed down a bit because of the stresses of the Summer, still glowed richly in the early morning sun.  Three+ inches of rain last week washed everything clean, and revived what is still growing.  I truly felt blessed, and wanted to skip the class, kidnap Linda from work and just ride through the day.  But off to the class I went...Steve McCarthy did a marvelous, honest, detailed class, not wasting a minute.  He shared his passion with our little class of three, but didn't sugarcoat anything, for which I'm deeply grateful.  We learned everything from the history of alpacas to parasites that infect them, to lessons in fiber, to how to trim alpaca toenails.  We learned that dogs and alpacas are a bad mix.  We toured the immaculate farm, and got lessons in the practicalities of creating shelter and fencing for alpacas.  We met Emma from a distance--and congratulations! Steve emailed us yesterday that Emma's newest cria--a girl--was born at 10am--as well as a few others up close.  I would have loved to come home and entitle my blog post I Hugged An Alpaca Today, but it turns out alpacas are shyer than I'd thought, and while they may look cuddly and huggable, many aren't even fond of being petted, let alone hugged.  And we were provided with a delicious lunch to accompany the heaping plates of food for thought (trust me, I brought home plates of the latter!)
I went wanting, among other things, the physical and financial realities, and the course generously and in detail gave us those. Very sadly, raising a herd of alpacas appears to not be in our future.Their lifespan is too long for us to want to start at our ages; the financial realities--the financial outcomes--are far less than we'd hoped....meaning we'd be adding more work to full schedules, not exchanging one type of work for another; Yeti wouldn't have 'a job'; she'd have one more 'no' in her life. We haven't ruled out raising a couple as fiber animals, and plan to keep considering it...and in fact, I think I hope we really do make that choice. But the idea of turning the property into pasture and raising alpacas in volume isn't going to happen. Our own decisions aside, if anyone is ever even thinking about such a thing, I can't sing Spruce Ridge's or Steve McCarthy's praises enough....
Today is Monday....and while the weekend blew by faster than October leaves in a stiff wind, I'm giddy.  I'll work today through Thursday, and then I'm off from work for 10 days!!!!!  Time off in October--can anything be sweeter?

"Time is Fleeting...

...madness takes its toll".  As well it might, given how weekends race by at the speed of light!  This one was as short as all its predecessors, but wasn't solely devoted to chores this time.  There was fragrant, bubbling apple butter; a brief, long-overdue but sweet birthday porch visit with a friend who is dearly missed; coffee on our porch this morning; a long ramble through Ramshorn-Livinston Sanctuary with Linda and Yeti; and a journey to Spruce Ridge Farm in Chatham to see alpacas (photos to follow). Ever see the Kohler commercial with the snooty, upper-crusty couple who plops a rather ugly faucet on the internationally famous architect's desk and orders "Design a house around this."?  Well, an alpaca 3' x 5' rug in cream, sand and chocolate has become the inspiration for our one-day upstairs bathroom: a year+ ago we brought home a clawfoot tub to someday put in that room; a minor disaster in the existing 1/2 bath up there last week (miraculously and most efficiently repaired totally by the Jill-of-all-trades I call 'beloved'), and today's rug--which instantly captivated Linda--are all coalescing into a vision for a wonderful bathing retreat.  Of course, we can't even start until we empty the storage room up there, which we can't empty until we clean out the garage so we have somewhere to store all that stuff, and so on and so on and so on. 
Our visit with the alpacas raised again that round-and-round-we-go question: do we want to raise alpacas?  SHOULD we raise alpacas?  My answer before was pretty much "if we aren't ready to even commit to a dog, should we be considering livestock?".  Well, um, there would now be a Yeti sprawled on her back in the office as I write, so we've jumped that hurdle.  Should we wait until an alpaca as unceremoniously and unexpectedly crosses our path?  Do we want one to hug and cuddle and give Yeti something to herd (the cats have made it clear with barely a glance that they are not now, nor will they ever be, open to herding  by Yeti or anyone else, thank you very much), and occasionally get some fleece from for spinning and knitting as a bonus? Or do we want a life of beekeeping and raising alpacas (and maybe some sheep and goats) and growing herbs and such because that's what the next curve in the path is leading us to? 
So let's recap....cooler temperatures, lovely scenery, some healthy exercise, engaging conversation, lots of adorable critters both foreign and domestic, good food, plans and mind-twisters, and a whole day spent savoring Linda's company while not attending to an excess of chores.  I'd call that a successful weekend....any wonder I can't bear to see it end?