Saturday, September 29, 2012

Alpaca Farm Trip: Fun. Fluffy. Fabulous.

As it has already been said on this blog, I'm an animal lover. And what can I say? Barnyard animals are the best. I was born and raised in the suburbs, so spending time with animals other than cats and dogs is a novelty to me. I never miss an opportunity to pet a furry friend. After visiting the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in April (blog coverage here), I fell in love with alpacas. There really isn't a more profound way for me to describe them: THEY'RE SO FLUFFY!

When my friend Andrea proposed a group trip to Galpaca Farms, I immediately said yes. Today, a group of 11 knitters from Stitch 'N Bitch Madison went on a trip to Mt. Horeb and visited Mindy Huitt and Linda Kosovac's gorgeous farm home. They have 25 alpacas at their farm, and each is named to honor a deceased relative (names include Harriet, Aileen, and Aunt Helen). They spin yarn from their alpacas and each skein has the name and photo of the source alpaca.

As an extroverted animal lover, it didn't take me long to make a few friends, and Andrea took a quick video of me bonding with my new gal pal:


Alpacas are incredibly photogenic, so I took quite a few photos. It was tough to narrow it down, but here are my favorites (as always, I recommend clicking the photos for larger views, as these animals are ridiculously cute):

Posing with my 3 new friends.
Mother and son. He's 1 day old!


Alpacas love sunbathing!
An alpaca says hi to a crowd of knitters.
Meet Betty, the Great Pyrenees. She's a skilled herder!
Anne pets a 1-day-old alpaca.
Snack time! Kristen feeds an alpaca a carrot.
Snacks!
More snacks!
Multi-tasking.

Group shot of the knitters at Galpaca Farms.
Top row: Caitlin, Larissa, Kat, Elysha, Polly, Cherie, Anne
Bottom row: Andrea, Yours Truly, Bronwen, Kristen
We certainly experienced a large dose of cuteness today. Thank you so much to Mindy and Linda for letting us visit the farm!

For more information about Galpaca Farms, please visit: www.galpacafarm.com or email Mindy and Linda at galpacafarm@tds.net

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Wisconsin cities: hard to pronounce.

While I was lucky enough to end up in a city simply named Madison, the majority of Wisconsin city names are quite difficult to pronounce. For example, Potawatomi = paw-ta-wah-ta-me.

As a girl who was born in Boston, MA and raised in Charlotte, NC, I can certainly relate to this video of Texans trying to pronounce Wisconsin city names.