I Wanted an Alpaca, but my dad said, “No!”

 Last week, while we were on vacation, we took the girls to Island Alpaca, an alpaca farm on Martha’s Vineyard.  For $5 a person, you could take a self-guided tour through the farm, then head into the barn to see some alpacas.  You finish up your tour by visiting the alpaca gift shop where they had all things alpaca and all things made from alpaca parts — well, from their fur.  Or is it wool? I forget. Whatever it is, it’s super plush and uber warm.  You can make all kinds of things out of it, from mittens and scarves to neck warmers and hats — as the girls were kind enough to model.

I had heard of alpacas before, probably as in, “I’m going to need a Sherpa and an alpaca to get all this crap from here to there”.  Or maybe I made that up the first time I hauled our daily dose of crap from the house to the car.  But I digress.

We lucked out the day we went because one of the alpacas had given birth just hours before we arrived.

 I swear, I thought that thing was dead.  The owner of the farm was on the phone when we came through the gift shop.   She stopped chatting long enough to tell us about the newborn and said she’d be out in a sec.  Well, she took her sweet time, and as Mo and Co wait for no man, so we moseyed outside.  Thankfully, I went out first because when I saw that limp noodle, I thought, “Oh, how in the world am I going to explain this?”  I mean, well, look at it!  It was just laying there!
I didn’t expect the mother alpaca to be cuddling it or  reading “Good Night, Moon” in a gliding rocker, but I expected a little bit of levity or something.  My relief came quickly, however, because the lil’ baby sat up a few minutes after we arrived.


Awwww, so cute.  And surprisingly, un-smelly.  At least, not as smelly as the one’s in the barn.

This one was particularly fragrant and Morgan wasted no time telling us just how stinky he was.

 I think her face actually says it all. . .

Alpacas look a lot like llamas and spit like llamas, too.  Two of them actually got into it while we were there.  They had their necks twisted ’round each other, they were braying or whatever sound an alpaca makes, they were doing it.  And the spit was flying.  I opted not to get any shots of that.  Gotta protect the camera and all.  One of the signs on the tour said that they were “cousins” and from the camelid family, so I guess the camel is up in their family tree, too.  Yeah, I learned quite a bit in our brief little encounter, but the best part was yet to come.

Morgan was really taken with the experience and she talked about it for the rest of the day.  She talked about it for the rest of the week, as a matter of fact.  She even made up a song about alpacas and how she wanted one for a pet.  The song has had many revisions since the first version (see below)

“I went to the farm to get me an alpaca as a pet. 
The farm was closed, so I stole it anyway 
and I brought it to my house. 
But then the police came 
and said, ‘Hey do you have an alpaca as a pet?’
And I said ‘Yes, I do.’
So they took me to jail, but I got out
and I brought the alpaca back to the farm.
And the lady gave it to me anyway.
So now I have an alpaca as a pet.”

There wasn’t any discernible tune, but she made it work.  By the time we got back to VA, she came up with another version.

I’m sure there will be a remix featuring Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj by the end of the week.  Look for it on iTunes.

IN: ON: June 30, 2010 BY: Hilary 2 COMMENTS
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