Here we are, the last day of 2008. A time to sit and reflect back on the year, which honestly was a year of challenges. Some we met head on a came out the stronger and wiser for. Some laid us down in defeat, but never for long. I never much thought of myself as much of an optimist, but I so strongly believe in what we have here and I see such a bright future, that how can I not be? Setbacks? We all have them from time to time, but the good so far outweighs the bad, that it’s easy to brush the negative off and keep on going.
I looked back through my old post and had to laugh at the reoccurring theme “I feel like I’ve been going non-stop”. Well, I haven’t had a single chance to say I’m board this year!
At this moment everyone is well, people and animals alike. Jacko has had ups and downs over the past month, but we keep working with him and he is responding by growing bigger every day. Only four more months (or so) of bottle feeding, then he gets to feed himself!
As a result of Daisy’s reoccurring back issues, she was put on a diet and is down to a svelte 12.3 pounds. We’re excited, she’s just hungry. Poor thing is wasting away to nothing. I hate to be the one to break it to her that she has another pound or so to lose to be back to “normal” for a miniature dachshund.
I started breeding some of the girls earlier this month, and discovered that some of my supposedly pregnant girls weren’t. Oh well, we’ll just try it again. The boys don’t mind.
So tonight, I’ll try my best to stay up to midnight (remember, I get my butt out of bed at 3:30 in the morning, 7:00 is late for me) to ring in the new year, but chances are, I’ll claim East Coast rights, and when the ball drops in Time Square, the New Year begins. That means I get to go to bed a 10:00…if I make it that long.
So here’s hoping the New Year finds everyone happy and healthy and may only good things come your way!

Year end rush

Whew! It feels like we’ve been going non-stop since October. Hmm, probably because we have.
Things started to get really crazy right after Jacko was born. Unfortunately, he got very ill and we nearly lost him. Our vet diagnosed septicemia, a very dangerous blood infection. The poor little guy must have felt like a pin cushion as we threw an army of medication at him.
He was diagnosed on a Wednesday and I had to leave Friday for Alpacafest west. I truly feared that he would not be here when I got home and wanted to cancel the trip and stay with him. My mother-in-law, Dot, really came through, she took over Jacko’s care and up-dated me every day on his progress while I was gone. He responded so well, that I actually got to relax and enjoy myself in L.A.
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A shawl that I entered in their fiber arts contest won first place, and Aries came home with a third place ribbon in his class

Not only did Jacko survive the weekend, he looked 1000 times improved on Monday.
Then Tuesday came. I found Jacko in the morning limp and unresponsive. We ran him back to the vets where he was transfused. He had developed acute diarrhea and it was taking its toll on him. Again Dot came through. While I went off to work, she was over every hour and a half making sure Jacko got fed and received additional fluids, meds, anything we could think of. Then I took over for early morning and late night feedings. It was touch and go for a good week, then he slowly began to make progress.
Now he’s a bouncing happy cria, a bit small for his age, but making up ground quickly. We still have to bottle feed him, and I think it may be a permanent situation (well for the next four and a half months or so, anyway), but we have no doubts that he will grow into a big stapping male.

Dot took over feeding every time I left town, which seemed to happen often these past two months. One trip was up to Singletree Alpacas for their annual Christmas Boutique. It’s always great to see all my friends up there
and I look forward to this trip every year as a “girls” weekend. We work our butts off, but its well worth the effort.


Then we had our second annual open house down at our place. It was huge success, with easily twice as many people coming out as last year. Some driving way cool rods (Lloyd, you show-off!)
Hopefully it will only keep growing. Many thanks to all me “peeps” that came out to help make it the success it was.
Now maybe I can take a deep breath, relax and get back to my loom!