Traveling Hedgehogs

Claire and Chester Hedge reporting in from the beautiful Michigan countryside! I've been back visiting my parents in southern MI since Tuesday, with my sister driving up from North Carolina to join us. While I didn't do any knitting on the plane, I launched right into it once I got home, comparing projects with my mom and sister, who are also knitters. On Wednesday we went to the LYS in the next town over to join their afternoon knitters. Sadly the store is in the process of closing, but that means lots of yarn on sale! I got some yarn for the Peaks Island Hood later in the book, plus some gifties for my fellow WLKALers!

After we had our knitting fill, we had an outing to an alpaca farm! My mom has a booth at the local farmer's market on the weekend, and right next to her is the Casa del Suri alpaca farm booth. Mary, the owner, has beautiful fiber and yarn for sale, though she says she isn't much of a knitter! When we got there, the alpaca and their guard llama were hanging out in the barn in front of the fans. Mary said when the weather is this hot they also get hosed down twice a day and really seem to love it!



Of course, they were also excited because it was dinner time! The babies (called crias) are fed first since the adults tend to be a little pushy! The crias and female alpacas are kept separate from the males, since alpacas can breed at any time, plus the guys tend to be a little rough. Mary put rocks in the food bowls to slow the little guys down so they don't choke.



Spirit, the guard llama, was very protective of his charges and kept a close eye on us.

The alpaca were also very alert - but I think they were keeping an eye out to see if we had any more food! They'd all been shorn fairly recently and were looking quite slender.

Sensing a great photo for my Rav project page, I had my mom hold Chester up to take a picture with the ladies, since he's also made of alpaca! Sophia, the friendliest of the lot, still had a bit of an appetite and decided to see if my needles would be tasty! Luckily Chester got out of the way with only a little bit of slobber :)