This is a quick (14 second) video I took with my camera just so you could hear the sound an alpaca makes. People in the know call it humming, but I think they kinda sound like squeeky toys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV7gwExQH40

Yes, that’s right. I said Alapacapalooza: Three Days of Peace, Love, and Livestock. It was at a nearby fairgrounds a couple weeks ago, and I keep forgetting to post pictures. If you have never seen a real live alpaca, you are definitely missing out. They are the most adorable little things you have ever seen.

See what I mean! It’s like a furry little ewok and you just want to pinch their furry little cheeks! I didn’t try it but, I suspect that alpacas do not like to have their cheeks pinched. In fact, I suspect that they take themselves fairly seriously.

You might notice that the fiber on the alpacas in those two pictures seems different. It turns out that there are two very different kinds of alpacas–the Suri and the Huacaya. The Suri have much longer, straighter hair. I understand that their hair is more like silk, very fine and smooth and not much crimp to it. But I haven’t had a chance to feel any of the unfinished Suri fibers. I think they look kinda dorky, you know, in an adorable sort of way.

The Huacaya are the more ewok-looking ones like the first picture. Their hair is curly, but not kinky like a sheep’s, and they don’t have lanolin so it’s super soft right off the animal. It feels like holding warm clouds. Really.

Of course, they all look funny right after they get sheared.

And it turns out that they think each other looks funny after they get sheared too. I had heard this about sheep, but witnessed it with the alpacas also. It turns out that they have a pretty incredible visual memory. According to the shearer, they will remember a person’s face for about 2 years, so alpacas that she sheared last year will know who she is right away. They also recognize other alpacas visually, and they keep track of each other by sight. So when one of them gets taken out of the pen and sheared and then brought back, no one recognizes her at first. There is lots of squeeling and sniffing while the rest of the herd compiles enough secondary clues to be able to confirm her identity without all the hair.

And also, one mustn’t forget the third kind of alpaca–the punk-rock alpaca.

p.s. Someone in my knitting group gifted me a *whole alpaca fleece*! Pictures to come after I get it processed and ready for spinning. It’s a beautiful grey color from an alpaca named Rex.

OMG! IT’S A BABY SQUIRREL!!

He fell out of his nest, and I think maybe he was too heavy for momma squirrel to carry him back up to the nest. I heard a squirrel in a tree near the neighbor’s driveway making a sound that I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t an alarm, or any of the usual chatter that I hear squirrels make. It was a low grumbly, talky sort of a sound. I stopped to watch for a minute, and the squirrel was looking down at the ground, but I was in the middle of doing something and I didn’t walk over to see what it was. A few minutes later, I was in the back yard and I heard Preston yelling at Magoo to “drop it!” (Magoo is such a dog sometimes, cuz she totally dropped it.) Preston scooped Magoo up and I headed toward the little fuzzy grey form squeeling on the sidewalk.

Of course, I expected it to be bad. Magoo has a history of inappropriate behavior with small fuzzy baby wild animals. (the link is to an archived version of the page, with some wonky formatting, but it’s still worth reading). But I picked up this little guy, and I could see by his fur that Magoo had just been holding him by the scruff of his neck. He was small kitten sized, and his distress call was like a high-pitched kitten distress call, and I wonder if Magoo thought he was a kitten. In any case, I couldn’t see any puncture marks. Within a couple seconds after I picked him up, he relaxed and curled up. His little eyes weren’t open yet, but he seemed to fall asleep. Every minute or so, he would wake up again, give a little distress call, and then fall asleep. We brought him inside, put him in a little box with some towels and turned to our #1 emergency resource, Google. We learned that you should keep them warm, that baby squirrels have very high metabolisms, and that if you leave them under the tree where the nest is, momma squirrel will probably come pick him up within an hour or so.

I also knew, from an interview a year or so ago, that the local human society contracts with a wildlife rehabilitator, so we called them to get the rehabber’s number. Her name is Tammy, and she said that we could try putting him in his box with a jar of warm water at the base of the tree and see if momma would come get him, but it was really cold out that day, and she didn’t think we should just leave him out. I think the way this is supposed to work is that the baby is supposed to be concerned about his safety and making distress calls so momma hears where he is and comes to get him. But this little guy is pretty comfortable with the world, and as soon as he was warm, he just curled up and went to sleep with nary a peep. Momma never knew he was there, and we started to worry that he would get too cold even with the towels.

When Tammy got off work, she came by to pick him up. She has the resources and knowledge to raise him. But she and I got to talking, and it turns out that she needs a fair amount of help with web design, and marketing, and maybe even a certain amount of feeding baby animals. It came up that Preston surfs, and she said, “Oh darn, it’s too bad I didn’t know you all last year! I had a baby river otter and I really needed someone to teach him to swim.”

!!!

Can you even imagine how cool it would be to take a river otter surfing with you!? I guess they are not born knowing how to swim or how to catch fish. Tammy ended up using a rescued raccoon to teach him to fish.

Anyway, so I’ve been working on some web design for her, and some brochure stuff, and she works during the day at the local vet hospital so I’ve been stopping by in the mornings before work to say hello to the little baby squirrel, who she carries around in her pocket. So cute! His eyes are open now, and he tries to suck on my fingers when I hold him.