First Post

Yes, this is my first post - glad you could join me on the occasion. I sat thinking about it for a while, but I'm sure that misses the point - in my profession I have to be accurate and considered in my opinion or decisions, so my instinct is to think carefully about what I'm going to write, to check it as I go, and then proof read it, print it and then read it again for typo's - hey ho, that won't apply to a blog or it'll become a full-time job!

If a blog is a running documentary, a diary, I just thought that the writer should set the scene in an audible way for his/her posting - assuming we're sitting at a laptop or p.c at home, and not sitting in silence, riding a horse or on a running machine - so I'm listening to an album by REM, Automatic For the People, flames flicker in the inglenook fireplace, warmth aginst the last night of a long frosty spell - oh, and there's a dog asleep infront of me.

I've had alpacas for just over four months - three females, two are pregnant to deliver in May and July, one is a bossy matriarch as companion. They are fawn, white and black, one and a half, three and a half and six and a half respectively - Minnie, Pelachuta, and Moira - the white and fawn being pregnant. The fawn, Pela' is very friendly - she'll eat from my hand, and is always stood first by the feed buckets while I get their breakfast. I started halter training her over the Christmas/New Year holiday - putting the halter on is straight-forward, now I need to train her on the lead...

The name of the 'herd' came (of course) from our location here - we sit in a little vale, south of the A39 between Bridgwater and Street, which was filled with apple orchards until a few years ago when market conditions reduced the demand for apples.

Today I went to a meeting of the South West Alpaca Group (SWAG) - my first chance to meet a few more breeders, and renew aquaintences with those who had been kind enough to spare me some time when I was considering entering the world of alpacas. They were a friendly bunch, and I felt welcome, picking up some useful tips along the way.

After the meeting I had an hour or so of daylight to fill outdoors, so I trimmed some branches off a tree we had pruned, so that I can use them to clad the side of the animal shelter. If you've been to Hestercombe House near Taunton, and you know the Witches Hut, I've built a shelter which is a mix of modern and ancient, with posts of small tree trunks and two walls clad in branches.