As I mentioned in my last post, I’m putting together a few categories of  favourite pictures from 2014.  Today it’s our household pets.  Prior to the arrival of the mini-humans, our pets were very well photographed! These days, not so much. I do take a few pics of them here and there, but hardly the volume they used to demand.  I do still think they are pretty cute though, and try to get some nice shots every now and then.

We don’t have the typical household pets.  The two house cats, are hardly unusual as far as pets go, but some backyard alpacas and a resident (free range) pigeon are a little less standard.  We also have quite a number of fish – a 6 foot marine tank and our pond goldfish.  I didn’t find a single photo of our lovely marine fish and corals, so next time it gets a clean I’m going to try and get some good ones.

The Cats

Mulder and Scully are getting on in years, they are 14 years old now, and lazier than ever.  Days are best spent lazing in the sun and trying desperately to avoid the small children (who love them but aren’t all that gentle).

The Alpacas

Not everyone has resident alpacas in their yard.  Ours have been with us 7 years now and are a big part of the family. Astrid and Soren love their furry camelids, and walking them is a part of our daily routine.

It’s normal for us to have big fluffy alpacas peering in the door as we eat or watch TV, and to have mobile compost units, that love to help us garden. Look out the window on a hot Summers day and you might see them cooling off in their water sprayers. On a sunny morning they will be laying down on the ground ‘sunning’ (and looking dead, trust me it freaks people out)!  In Winter they wake up covered in frost, and the rest of the time they hang out guarding the door or the washing.

We love taking them out walking, and they are pretty well known around our area.  Inti is extremely friendly, and likes to give everyone cuddles. Chimu, gets a lot of attention for his big blue eyes!

The Pigeon

A year or two after we moved into our house, we inherited a pigeon. He just turned up and made himself at home.  After awhile we started feeding him, mostly because he was hanging around the door, tapping on it to be fed, and eating the alpacas food.  He is just a common pigeon, but quite a pretty colour.  We weren’t planning on him hanging around and named him the very boring ‘brown pigeon’ or BP as he is commonly referred to. BP loves to sit on the North side of our house, cooing and generally poo-ing everywhere.  About twice a day he does a figure 8 loop over our house just for some exercise.  The rest of the time he is poo-ing our garden and entertaining area and hanging around sitting in random places. I must try and get a photo of him sitting on the umbrella or the wall art. He also likes to ‘ski’ down the deck balustrade to get his seed.