In the Company of Alpacas

While my wife Elizabeth and seventeen month old son Chaim Yosef were recently visiting Washington State, we had a fantastic opportunity to visit a farm and to see some interesting animals including a miniature pony and a pack of alpacas. It was the alpacas that we had come to see and that I had long been interested in seeing ever since I had the idea for a humor website based on Lolcats that would be called Lolalpacaz. I never made the site but my fascination with the animal continued even though they are a fairly goofy looking animal.

While we were there I had the chance to take a few photos and I have shared a couple of them with you here. You are rather fortunate that you did not have to witness what I, by happenstance, happened to find myself seeing which was one alpaca in the act of relieving itself. It was quite possibly one of the most disgusting things that I have ever seen, bar none.

I had been curious for a number of months how young Chaim Yosef would react when he would see the alpacas. He has been exposed to a number of dogs in his life and had recently ridden on a pony when he was at a birthday party — don’t worry, he was being held the whole time by an animal trainer. I thought that Chaim Yosef would surely be at least intrigued by the alpacas as I had been. Instead, he stared at them with large eyes and soon wrapped his arms around one of his grandfather’s legs and squeezed.

It would be nice if I could say that my wife had a good time as well but she has never been much of a fan of alpacas and was really bringing me out to this farm as a big favor to me and so for that I must write that I am quite grateful. Perhaps when Chaim Yosef is older and I have read some books to him about the wonderful world of alpacas, he may even appreciate them just a little bit more. Until then, I have the photos to remember the alpacas.