... Mmmmmmyup.

Not sad about this.

This boy was expected, yet a little unexpected. His dam was actually "due" -- based on a 340 day gestation length -- RIGHT on 4/7/19, which is today. 

The alpaca gestation length is so variable, however, that females almost never give birth right on their "due date," and spring cria typically aren't born until day 355 or even 360+ of gestation. Hence, though I knew that his mama Honey Bun *could* be due any day, I wasn't really *expecting* it, and thus, I wasn't keeping as close an eye out as I do for dams that I think are really close. I would check her in the morning, which is when my dams typically go, and then kinda leave her be.

I wouldn't even have found him except that I happened to be outside in the evening, wondering exactly what I was doing outside, except that the sunset was too nice to ignore. Then, I saw this guy.

... Then I ran back to the house yelling happy exclamations to get my camera phone. Brought them inside for the night, just to make sure he was warm and nursing. He was, and is (nursing), like a champ.

... Thank goodness for that sunset.

Ahem. Sooo ...

It's April 1st ... And this is the first 'blog post of 2019. Oops.

I think I've mentioned this before, but it gets really, really challenging to juggle three different farm pages (this one, the farm Facebook page, and my Instagram). Each one serves a slightly different purpose, so it isn't just cross-posting between the three (for the most part), but it's easy to neglect one or another of them. My Instagram (@kittathowlinghill) gets the most use, because it's the simplest, but it's pretty much just for fun.

The Facebook page is the page that I primarily use for major alpaca-related announcements and alpaca promotion, such as new herdsires, new cria, pretty fiber shots, etc., etc.. It gets a TON of traffic, and, although I confess to a complete and total loathing of the medium, it's where a majority of people get their news nowadays and so it's the best way for me to keep in touch with the Alpaca World and keep up our presence there.

... That leaves this poor lil' ol' 'blog.

A BIG chunk of the reason I don't post here often is that the interface is slow, clunky, and REALLY really glitchy. I've lost many a long post to bugs in Weebly's system, and frankly, I hate that.

The other thing, though, is that it's a kind of a challenge sometimes for me to choose what to post here. The 'blog feels a lot more permanent than the Facebook pages or my Instagram feed (even though I'm not sure that it really is); it's also indexed in search engines, whereas I don't think those sites really are. So I tend to want to make the 'blog posts really count.

Plus, I get to write more, and I like that.

The last and final reason this 'blog got neglected, though, is that whole "life stuff" thing cropped up again this winter -- this time, hitting me. I'm better now, but suffice it to say, if I can avoid the inside of a hospital for awhile, I'll be a whole lot happier. (Luckily, humans only have one appendix, as far as I know.)

All of that is over now, though, and spring is here, and my camera broke last week so I got a shiny brand new one. So, what better way to christen it than with some super cute lamb pictures?

We had an awesome lambing season this year -- totally making up for our basically nonexistent lambing season last year. I was a little worried about lambing so early, but it worked out overall -- just bring 'em inside! We got more spots this year than ever before. I'm happy.

Enough blather. Cute lambs!