Alpaca Sur Mer

We are in the midst of our second vacation week. Ideally, we'd have spaced them out a bit more, but we had some scheduling conflicts, so there you go. Yesterday I took a little detour, and went to visit the Bay Springs Alpaca Farm in Cape May.

You might not necessarily expect to find an alpaca farm only ten minutes from the beach, but there it is.....past a bunch of new construction, and the road turns more rural. A quick left onto a rutted lane and you are there.  It's a small farm and very informal, which adds to its charm. There are big fenced-in yards for the alpaca, with boys on the right and girls on the left.

We saw alpaca in just about every color imaginable, including some multicolors. It was pretty hot for them, and they tended to stay near the sheds (one of the owners told us there were fans inside for them).

We stopped by the shop in the back of the owners' house, and I brought home this lovely skein of alpaca made with fiber from the flock. ("Mommy, why is the weird lady in the house next door taking a picture of yarn on her front porch?")

It's super soft and I love the natural alpaca color.

We even got to see a bunny nibbling on some of the plants in the yard.

On our way out, we stopped back at the alpaca field to say good-bye when all hell broke loose. The boy alpacas were fighting, and making this chirrupping noise at each other. Then they started chasing each other around the field, trying to nip each other.

There was spitting and galloping and all sorts of alpaca mayhem.

The owners said that the male alpacas had their really sharp biting teeth removed so they couldn't hurt each other, but if they kept it up, he would turn the hose on them. Which might have been their ultimate goal, since it was so hot out.

Thus endeth our visit to the sweet little alpaca farm. It's free and a quick stop, and well worth it for lovers of our fibery camelid friends.  In just a few minutes we were back and packing up for the beach, where we had a lovely afternoon building sand castles --

and in Boy Twin's case, building himself a sand Barcalounger, customized to fit his own self. (He added a hole with a sandmold and water in it for a drink holder/cooler, too.)

I'm back....

After our rocky departure day, we had an absolutely gorgeous time at the beach.


The weather largely cooperated; although there were one or two days when it was cloudy or we had a thunderstorm, our first day (which was devoted to travel anyway) was the only rainy day -- we were able to get to the beach and in the water every other day, which is pretty amazing.



We did the traditional flying-of-the-kite


and sand-castle-building


and bodysurfing in the waves, and we ate ice cream


and even the crabbier members of the family (they know who they are) were laughing and having fun.


We even played a round or two of mini-golf, although it was dreadfully hot that day.

We met a cute little toad


and had some delicious seafood.


You'll be pleased to know that the Beach Bun had a great time, too. Look how relaxed he is.


With fall right around the corner (!), there's lots going on in the knitting world, so I'll try to catch up soon. I've got fall yarn previews and book reviews and all kinds of good stuff coming up....

Back to reality

but the vacation week sure was nice. Some last photos before I get back to work:

Isn't he getting tall? Middle school in a few weeks.

This guy's also getting really tall...

Cape May Lighthouse

From Here to Eternity?

Could be this year's holiday card photo

From the marshes

We were so lucky with the weather

Dragonfly, from a nature walk we took near the lighthouse

Another shot from the nature walk

Lunch, beachside



Late afternoon, my favorite time at the beach

West and wewaxation

Smiles, everyone!

the dunes

on the beach

after lunch

big sky

Home again

We are back home, buried in piles of laundry and messiness, but it does feel good to sleep in my own bed again. The kids caught some kind of sore throat thing toward the end of the week, and I think even they were ready to be home once more.

I've got a zillion things to catch up on, but one thing I did actually make some progress on was a sweater that's been accepted for KnitScene. I'm very excited about it, because this is a design I've been playing around with for a while and I think it's going to be a fun, fairly quick knit -- and one that newbie knitters will enjoy because it produces a professional-looking result yet is easy to knit.

I've got lots and lots of dyeing to do, too, and I've got some roving soaking so I can do a spinner's update later this week.

So for now, I will leave you with the last batch of vacation photos:

Goat (for Mindy) from the Cape May Zoo.


Some kind of cavy (relative of the guinea pig), maybe a mara?


Cleome from the zoo.


Little Miss poses.


The Slowskys.




Alpaca cushing.



N. waits for lunch.



The now-traditional kite-flying.




Father -n- son.



Ravelry on the beach.

More beach photo ops

Terror on the beach!!!

Twins say "cheese."


Note the dolphin fin -- there were a whole bunch of them just off the beach, frolicking about:

Elvis:


N.

Sailboat from the other day:


Monday's cumulus:



Dessert: