The Good News and the Bad News

We spent a wonderful three days at the farm in Roxboro and just got home last night.

We took another trailer full of our stuff up the house and unpacked and found homes for more stuff then we brought. It is really starting to feel like home with our belongings around us. Neil got the lawn mowed one last time for the season. I spent some time in the pasture behind the barn picking up the broken glass, bits of metal and other trash to make it livable for the livestock next spring. Basically we just relaxed and enjoyed our stay while we could.

The turkey Claribell was still doing great. She spent a lot of time this trip over at the neighbors yard but I did manage to snap a photo of her this time.


Before we left Neil winterized the house plumbing system as we won't be able to come up and stay agian until the weather turns warm in the spring. For once I am happy that the winters here in the South are not that long!

So we piled into the cars (yes we came up seperately) and started home. It was a pretty uneventful trip home. We stopped for dinner half way home at a Longhorn steakhouse. It was some time after this that I started getting phone calls from As You Like It Alpacas in CA where three of our alpacas are agisting. It was pouring rain, I had both kids and a dog in the car going 70mph on the interstate... I was not about to answer the phone. Three calls later I knew it must be something important so buzzed Neil and we pulled off for a gas stop. I called Claudia back and she told me the terible news.... our 6 month old male cria Ben Nevis had died suddenly that afternoon! He was scheduled to be shown in his first show in three days! What a shock for me... he was to be our future herdsire as he was out of superstud Killimanjaro. He will be necrospied today and hopefully we will have some answers.

Meanwhile I am very sad we have lost our first cria born to our farm. Here is a photo of him only a few weeks old.