Confessions of an Internet Junkie

We had our shearing today. It rained all morning, and true to form the sun didn't come out until we were just about finished. It went well, all things considered. Some of the alpacas were extremely uncooperative about walking from the barn to the garage where we had set up shop. It's a distance of about 250 feet, and a couple of them took over 20 minutes to travel from A to B. But it's done. I didn't get a lot of pics, but I've got a few representative ones here, mostly of little Suki. Whose fleece is like silk! None of us could get over how extraordinary it is.

( Anyway . . . )

Shearing at our friends' mill took place on Saturday as planned, but there were 32 alpacas instead of the 27 we'd been anticipating. We were set up in Deb's big ass barn. Really, some of these barns are just huge. Ours is the equivalent of a big dog house in comparison. And it was dusty. But there was plenty of room to put up three holding pens, Dar's medical station, the livestock scale, two shearing tables, and four skirting and sorting tables to be use once the fleece was off the alpacas.

The first two weeks I worked with the animals on the tables, keeping them calm, holding them still, helping to move from side to side. Last week they had loads of help on the tables already, so I ended up skirting the fleece which means standing over tables made of 1-inch square mesh and picking through the fleece for short pieces, guard hair, and cleaning it of things like timothy heads (weed with seeds), big pieces of hay and straw, and the occasional piece of clinging poo. This last time I was relegated to skirting again, but I got a break every once in a while to help bring in recalcitrant alpacas who most definitely did not want any of our nonsense, thank you very much. There was one young girl alpaca named Juvy Hall (don't ask) who was quite the escape artist. She figured out how to break open the metal gate by sheer force of her body (150 lbs of pissed off alpaca), and she bolted. She really just wanted to get back to her usual paddock so it was fairly easy to get her and bring her back. Then I got to be her special guard, which in this case meant holding onto the gate and the latch as she tried her mightiest to get past me. Girl is strong My personal nemesis for the day (a guy named Ian) came strolling by with some twine to hold the gate closed. Uh, no, I don't think so. But he insisted in that condescending tone men like him use, so I figured we caught her once, we could do it again. And that's what happened: a lunge or two by Juvy, the twine broke (surprise!) and off she ran. They finally gave her a sedative and put one of her friends in with her, and she calmed down a bit.

There were serence alpacas and sedated alpacas and screeching alpacas and very scared alpacas, but eventually they all got done. A few of them were cut by the shearers - four this time, iirc - but the worst was the cut that was given to the Wonder Stud two of our friends went in on halves each for. His name is Accolade, he has a bunch of breedings already scheduled and his injury? The shearer sliced into one of his testicles. I'm female and I got all owwwy when I heard. That poor boy! There was no swearing or finger pointing or blame assigning, but it was all quiet and tense while Dar checked him out. She didn't have to suture the cut, but she did have to crazy glue the flap back and then bandage it up. darlong has the story and pictures on her LJ post if you want to check them out.

We only had about five alpacas left to do when the storm hit. The wind had been picking up in intensity for at least an hour before, and suddenly it just slammed into us. We closed the big barn doors which buckled and flapped in the wind. Peter grabbed a removable door and hauled up the ladder on the side of the interior and manhandled that in place over the big opening that had been left in place for a grain elevator that never got installed. Of everything going on, that made me the most nervous, and I was very relieved when he finally got the door secured and climbed back down. The barn has a metal roof and what with the high winds rattling the doors and walls, the pounding rain, and the booming thunder you couldn't hear yourself think. One of the women who was there to help out in the kitchen in the house got caught in the barn with us because the storm hit so suddenly and fiercely; she was really freaked out. Our biggest worry is that the hydro (electricity) would get knocked out by the storm, but we made it through OK. It only lasted about 30 minutes and then the sun came out again. (We found out later that it had split one of the two trees that we have in the main paddock. We're going to see if we can save it somehow.)

All in all the shearing took 11 hours. It really took a toll on me. I'd had a busy week prior to that Saturday and I was already dealing with a lot of pain and fatigue, but these were our friends. They always came when we called for help, and there was no way that I was not going to be there for them. By the time it was over I was barely hanging in there. I had shooting pain from my lower back down my right leg that got much worse whenever I walked. And thanks to the killer fatigue walking was an effort anyway. My hands were on fire and very painful, and the dust had set off my asthma. Plus the minor stuff like headache and sinus pain. I was very glad to get home and take a shower and get to bed. My legs were very painful by then, along with all the other pain and fatigue, so I decided to just medicate myself like crazy. I took two Baclofen and an oxycontin and just prepared to be out of commission for 24 hours. And I was. I slept well through the night, then I got up at my usual 6:30-7:00AM wake-up time. I fed the cats, took my daily morning meds, had some breakfast (to help stop the nausea they cause), did a little cleanup, and then I went back to bed. And slept almost straight through to 4:15PM, getting up only to go to the bathroom or when Mark slammed his bedroom door which is right next to mine. I wobbled around for a bit, did some more chores slowly, painfully and grudgingly and managed to stay awake for another 7 hours or so, then I fell asleep again.

Today has been better. I managed to stay awake all day, so that's a victory \0/ I probably did more than I should have since I'm still recovering, but that's life at Casa Serenity/Longshadow Farm. It's always going to be that way. It's not helping that I'm tapering off prednisone again. I only took 2mg today, and that may be part of the problem. The pain is more intense; the fatigue is more intense. I desperately want to get off this steroid, but I may need to up the dosage again to help me get over the effects of last week. Magical thinking on my part, you know? If I wish it hard enough, I can stop taking the pred and I'll have no ill effects. I'm nothing if not devoted to that particular happy ending. I'm not giving up yet.

And as you might be able to tell from my being so yakky here: I have my new laptap power adapter. Yay! It came in this afternoon, so I hot-footed it out to the Apple Store in Kitchener to rescue my poor self from internet withdrawal. It was terrible ::shudder::

And now I have to go to sleep. Yet again. I hope that tomorrow is a better day, but I'm prepared for it not to be. Someday it will be, right?