GDog Gets a Job

My son is only 14 years old, but when a co-worker mentioned that a local Alpaca Farm owner was looking for someone to uhhhh...clean up the uuuuuh poop, I raised my hand. I call him my little Alpaca Pooper Scooper now. hahahha Actually I think he's been liking it.











I've seen Alpaca's before, but had never spent a significant amount of time with them. Turns out they are very gentle, intelligent, curious creatures. And VERY soft.











This is Kalfa the guard dog. That is her job, it is what she was bred and trained to do. Guard the Alpaca's. She is of a some sort of turkish breed and Kalfa means "assistant" in turkish.











They stare a alot. They are very skiddish. They come to you on their own terms.















I love this little (?) girl. I mean, look at that "do". And the fluffs of fur coming from the ears. hahaha

















I was sitting on a stump near these gals, hoping they would come up to me. This one did and I was waiting for her to spit at me. Yes, they spit, but only when they are mad. Thankfully, Alpaca's don't get mad often. Thankfully, she was just being curious. lol










This is the new baby. She was only 5 weeks old at the time of this picture. She weighed 27 lbs at birth. Surprisingly the Alpaca's really don't weight as much as they look. It's mostly their fur or "fiber" as they call it. This baby's mom weighed about 120 lbs at the time of this baby's birth. Think of that in human terms. If you weighed 120 lbs and had a 27 lb baby. ummmm ouch?




Another pic of da baby. The owner grabbed her and let us touch her. Unbeeelievably soft! Turns out that Alpaca fiber products are becoming increasingly popular. Sweaters go for upwards of $400. Why? Because they are softer than cashmere. The fiber is hypoallergenic because it contains no lanolin like wool does. It is 10 times warmer than wool. A pair of socks will run you about $10. Also, because the Alpaca's are still fairly rare in the U.S. There are only about 100,000 of them.


So, while the GDog does the pooper scooping, I've been sitting in my car enjoying my surroundings doing Algebra homework. Turns out the setting is good for the Cube Monkey to study. I occassionally stop and take in the clean air (much cleaner than our city dwelling) and breath deep the smell of hay. I reeeally miss the country. I really miss having farm animals. We had sheep and a few other animals growing up. I miss 4H and FFA and going to the fair every year. Funny how smells bring back so many memories.