Welcome Alpacas, Welcome Back Chickens

Austin looks unimpressed at meeting Iris.

It's been raining today, good for my garden, but unfortunate for the alpacas, who are too timid to enter the barn. They look very wet and very cold, having just been sheared, but I can't either entice them or chase them into the barn, where the scary scary goats are. Alpacas are incredibly timid. It's like having a herd of wild antelope out there. I hope they go into the barn at night, because it's going to be quite cold tonight. 

Linda from Lost River brought them over about 11 am. this morning. What an incredibly generous lady. She gave us Austin's recently sheared fleece, all seven or eight pounds of it. She didn't have to do that, I certainly wasn't expecting it, and it's quite valuable. Rowan was ecstatic. Of course, it hasn't been processed yet (Rowan will do that) and it hasn't been spun (we'll find somebody to do that), but it is as soft as a cloud and absolutely beautiful silvery white. I gave her some chevre and some cajeta to take home, as well as gas money for transporting them. 

While she was here, my neighbor's son came over in his truck and told me he'd caught a rooster and a hen and they were in a cage under the cherry tree at his mom's house, if I could kindly go and pick them up. Which I very promptly did. So now I have three of the four escaped chickens locked tightly in the small barn. I told Homero that the time had come to dispatch them as soon as possible. He tried to tell me "oh no, they're too skinny, we have to fatten them up first" but I know he's just trying to get out of killing them. So I told him either he kills them by this weekend or I take matters into my own hands. I just can't risk them escaping again. We have to live with these neighbors forever; I'm not going to let a few stupid chickens jeopardize our relationship.

What, me kill them? Heck no. I'd find a chicken processor.