We walk the alpacas every day, so they get a little exercise and an outing. They are pretty lazy creatures so don’t need much exercise but do like to get out and about and meet people! At the moment Trevor (Astrid’s grandpa), our usual walking helper, is overseas walking across England (without slow and lazy alpacas) so Astrid and I are walking the alpacas on our own.
Normally I take the pram out so Astrid doesn’t have to walk too far but a large pram, 2 large camelids and being 8 months pregnant isn’t a good option. Previously she was happy to go in the ergo when I was walking them by myself, but that is also not a viable option at the moment. As a result, most days we are doing shorter walks and Astrid is happy to walk along holding my hand while I drag the lazy beasts behind me.
We do get a quite a few looks and cars slowing down at the best of times, but I think a heavily pregnant woman, a toddler and 2 alpacas walking through the suburbs looks particularly ridiculous!
Since the weather has been nice the last couple of weeks, several days we have just walked the boys down to the paddock at the end of our street and they have had a play and a munch and Astrid has had a picnic morning or afternoon tea while they ate. There are also currently cows in the next paddock over, helping to reduce the grass load prior to Summer so there has been extensive cow communing between the toddler and the cows and the alpacas and the cows. The other day I took the camera to see if I could get some good shots of the cows but of course they didn’t want to come over and play that day and stared at us from a respectable distance rather than the usual face licking and trying to get through the fence that goes on.
It is kind of cool having lots of cows directly across the road from our house and I don’t even mind the moo-ing that goes on at ridiculous hours of the day. They usually stay a couple of months so there might be more time to get some good photos later on.
I did get some cute photos of Inti and Chimu though. They are particularly fluffy at the moment, only being a couple of weeks away from their annual shearing.
Here is Inti……… did I mention he is lazy?
……and here is Chimu, those eyes are pretty impressive!
Not to be outdone in the eye or eyelash stakes, Miss Astrid can hold her own!
