Alpaca Lunch and You Bring the Dessert

 The other day while out for a drive I made John turn the car around to see these creatures up close at a local farm. So I braved the cold and the soggy ground and the freezing wind coming off the snowy mountains to take way too many photographs of these mysterious animals as they stared back at me, the crazy woman with a little black mirror snapping away. Had I known just how long I’d be photographing them, I would have packed a lunch. But of course my husband had other ideas, like going into the nearest town to pick up necessary supplies we needed.

In his esteemed opinion, I fluff around, loll around and take too long to accomplish too little. He, the esteemed and overly logical mate, would have taken one or two or maybe three photos that would be perfect and then we’d be off on our original mission. Of course though in my defense, my images will be more spontaneous and perhaps I might capture the feeling of these critters with more sensitivity rather than taking a photograph worthy of a scientific paper. But who cares anyway?

He actually didn’t say much to me but it was his mood I could read like a book. But then groups of alpacas don’t normally appear en masse in my normal daytime adventures, so I didn’t care if he was irritated or not. And so dear readers here are the darling wooly specimens up close and personal. In previous years the farmer that raises these beauties had multicolored alpacas but for the past several years they’ve all been this rich black color. I don’t know why. But they’re a real contrast to the white sheep and black and white cows that abound. I actually don’t even know the difference between a llama and an alpaca, except that alpacas have a more shmooshed (spelling?) face, and are smaller and their ears are more pointed. So again I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed capturing the essence of these South American wonders.