Animal stories

Yesterday, Cheryl went to the annual Southeast Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) at the WNC fairgrounds to enjoy mingling among the fiber-addicts.  While there, she looked for the Lost Penny Farms alpacas, the ones she visited last year in September - follow the link to see the see the face of the same brown and white youngster as in the right foreground in this photo.  In that first year, a baby alpaca is called a "cria." 

 

Lost Penny Farms gave part of their booth space to the local Alpaca rescue organization, so these three were getting out and about as ambassadors of the species.  The white one is an 8-year old gelded male and has a lot of experience with crowds. He was humming when I took the photo.

Closer to home, Cheryl was in the studio with Lilly when her peripheral vision caught a large black creature moving under the deck. Norris swiftly grabbed the camera and ran to the front door just in time to get a photo.  The bear was making a path beneath the deck and the eaves of the house to get out of the rain, but then walked casually down the sidewalk past our Welcome Bear -

 

And then to the end of our driveway.  Norris had to run back upstairs to get this next photo through the screened window.  

The bear nosed around a bit then turned and walked away across our future neighbor's property.

Norris might have gotten better photos but Moki was out on the deck by herself when the bear walked beneath her.  With the door closed because of new fall temperatures, she had no escape back into the house. Norris had to let her back in before racing around to take the photos.  This time she was scared and remained on edge for quite some time afterwards.

This was a rare bear sighting for us:  no bird feeder was involved. We have not even tried to feed birds for weeks now, as this has been a terrible year for the bears to find other sources of food.