My gift to you is, no not hand knit alpaca sweaters or socks. Starting tomorrow and going through Christmas it is...

I can almost hear you now- cheap gift not even any wrapping paper. Keep your hats on, as much as I would like to give you all a really big expensive alpaca gift, well alpacas haven't been selling like hotcakes. Besides it is the thought that counts and believe me I will have lots of thinking to do. I can not believe that I am saying in public, world wide even, (hello people in Russia and Australia) I will be blogging every day for the next twenty-four days! (It is pretty darn cool that I have 24 alpacas huh?)

So see you tomorrow!

We pulled the boat out of the water today for the winter. Having docked it at our friends the Nutts of Warm Valley Orchard, the boat was used heavily...by sea otters! Man they must have thought they won the lottery. You can see just where the otters decided to spend the afternoon sunning themselves and eating crabs...you know...on my boat! It was kinda too bad we never ran into them I bet they were CUTE.

On the way home from West Sound Marina where the boat will get winterized before it spends the season on the farm we stopped by the West Sound Dock for the seasonal stop of the Alaskan fishing boat. What a smooth operation run by a really nice family. We bought a bunch of super fresh fish and prawns to last us quite a while. You WILL want to check out their web site! TrollerPoint.com You can think of us enjoying all that halibut!

Last week we piled in the boat and went off in search of the male Steller Sealions that come up our way this time of year. Stellers are the largest of all sea lions. These giant pinnipeds hunt fish, squid, octopus and, rarely, smaller seals. They are found off northern Pacific coasts from Japan to California. We were lucky to catch a sighting of a few not as impressive as last year but still a great afternoon on the water.

I think they look kinda like pugs!

Yesterday was a picture perfect fall day. We warmed up to about 68 degrees and the sun was shining. Sounds like a great day for a run, most days do to me anyway.

As I was running around Mountain Lake in Moran State Park I got to thinking about the donkey girls. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• Why don't they smile more? They look like their heads are really weighing them down.
• Why are they always hungry? They seem to have a little extra around the middle they could live off of.
• They don't hurry...ever...one speed and one speed only.

• How can they poop so much? Two donkeys can make as much poop as all of the alpaca combined in a day. Who knew?
• What do they do all day? When the alpaca are standing around they chew their cud. Donkeys don't have a cud. Maybe gum is in order.
• Why don't they he-haw more? It is one of the best sounds in the world.
  

I had this vision (don't worry it was only a vision no voices or anything) of making a really cool cria and mom matching game. No such luck. By the time I was able to find the pictures and sort them all out, re-size them etc. I knew you were never going to play a matching game on my blog. Enjoy the pictures if you want to play a game well find one somewhere else.

We were so lucky to have four beautiful cria this year. We had two girls and two boys.

Our new dishwasher came today! Did you know that you need to hire someone to put it in? I am not doing THAT. Okay so I am counting my lucky stars that I have myself a new dishwasher...what I really wanted was a Stihl weed-wacker but...Anyway a girl can dream.

I actually thought I could just sweet talk the delivery guy to install it. NOT. Apparently they don't do that. Who knew? Something about having to hard wire or something.

Well you have seen me take the spurs off a rooster, what should be scary about a little electricity and plumbing? Thank you YouTube!

The dishwasher is in- thank you very much. It does have a little leak on the hot water line that I will fix tomorrow with a plumbers tape. I just don't seem to have any around.

I would come put yours in but well you can't afford me! The hourly rate would break you.

Did I mention they were Donkeys?

Scared you didn't I?
Welcome Pink Lady and Marika!!!
Thank you Lum Family!