This really was a scorcher, absolutely boiling hot and 24 degrees when we were going home at half past six. We had a good show as Paris was Show Champion Huacaya. He is an adult now but also won it in 2008 when he was a junior. As usual Paris behaved badly. I was quite surprised as he was pretty good at the SWAG Spring Show and only started to get really arsey when he was stood around in the line-up for Supreme. Perhaps the heat got to him this time as the show ring was outside.
We also won four other championships and two reserve championships with our fawns, whites and the brown male Prometheus. This time we were moved up to the top of he hill with two massive marquees and our own parking area. This made things a million times easier. Plenty of public were around and we spent quite a lot of time talking to people interested in alpacas.
While we were at the show a new cria was born and as usual, as we weren’t around, there was a minor crisis. I watched the cria suckling and its tail stayed up. It was late but we had to persuade mother and baby to come into the barn and found the adult’s teats were engorged and the cria almost certainly had not had any colostrum. We gave the cria plasma, stripped the teats and retired exhausted to bed. I find the heat very tiring and it sends my blood sugar all over the place. No doubt it is old age too.
On Sunday we sheared the girls who had birthed, did some breedings, spit offs and scans, put new bait in the fox traps, mowed a couple of fields and then went to the house looking forward to a barbecue. As I put the newspaper and kindling in to get a fire going, the bottom of the barbecue collapsed, rusted away. This was a bit of an ‘oh my god’ moment and we stood around racking our tiny brains as to how to retrieve the situation. Not possible so it was back indoors to cook on the aga.