The Ups Out-weight The Downs
No matter who you are you will face ups and downs; but its how you deal with them that is most important. Do you have someone or something that you can lean on in times of real need – times when everything seems to be against you.
We all have faced it, when we thought about throwing in the towel and giving up on the job we had started just because the Gods seemed to have left us to our own poor and seemingly inadequate devices. There were times in the last 12 months on Hilltop Farm that we felt that despair. First we experienced our first alpaca death on the farm, a day old cria swallowed his mother’s waters during birth and as a result the little man –Caesar – died because of a lack of oxygen. It was so heart-breaking to see a lovely little animal die so soon. Our Vet, HGVM were fabulous but there was nothing that could have been done, but that was through our own lack of knowledge in the first instance. But this despair soon disappeared like smoke in the wind on the birth of a healthy boy we named Clyro.
Last October we took in two older alpacas from a woman who was unable to find a home for them. She had decided to get out of alpaca farming. But little did we know at the time that both of them were ill. They arrived to us with mites and then in March of this year, the older of the two alpacas died the first night of the heavy snow. We hadn’t realised she had been ill until then. That then began a large treatment programme whereby we dealt with each of alpacas individually with preventative medicine and we managed to ensure all but one of our animals remained clear of this illness.
The heavy snowfall also produced its own difficulties with regard to grass and water for the alpacas. But then last Monday he had another birth on the farm. Our little cutie – Destiny – born to the mother who lost her baby last year, is full of life. Destiny is just fabulous and reminds you why we do this. This is one of the Ups that far outweigh any of the Downs that we have experienced in the last number of months.
We are lucky that we have each other on Hilltop Farm, but we are even better off having these fabulous animals around us that can improve every situation without them even trying. Where would we be without our woolly animals who provide us with the required amount of entertainment needed to ensure that we will continue with our project for as long as we can.
If any of us need a pick-up we just go outside and talk to our alpacas that seem to listen attentively to every word and do so without casting any aspersions on our character.
Little Destiny is six days old as I write this and she is already has her own personality. You could sit and watch her endlessly as she shows-off to the on-lookers. It’s just magical and worthwhile. Up, up, and away