Our weather has been rainy and foggy, cold and warm again.  We even had a dusting of snow a couple of weekends ago.  The jet stream is to blame, moving north and then south again.  A fickle thing the weather is.

Steve and I tried to take Stewie, our beige alpaca, to the vet for a scheduled check up yesterday.  I had to call at the last minute and cancel.  We could not get the stubborn animal in my SUV.  We would lead him up to the tail gate and each of us would pick up one of his front feet to lift him into the car and he would cush!  Just lay down and refuse to budge.  It was impossible for Steve to lift him as he weighs over 100 pounds and he was resisting with all of his might.  I guess it was bad planning on my part.  We really needed three people to lift him.  But, we had managed to put two other alpacas in the SUV by ourselves before and I did not really think it would be a problem. I figure the other two were too sick to offer much resistance.  Stewie seems perfectly healthy and when he saw the small interior of the vehicle he just decided,"Hey!  You people are crazy!  I am not going in there!"  I still have a scheduled appointment for Prince on Dec. 6.  I will try to get another helper to load him.  Then we will have the vet show us how to collect blood from the alpacas.  That way we can just take the blood sample in and have it tested for Valley Fever instead of taking each alpaca in.  I really don't know what good it will do to find out if they have Valley Fever or not.  There doesn't seem to be any way to prevent it or cure it.

The coyotes have been out in full force since the nights have gotten colder.  They were howling very close to the house last night and seemed to be all around.  Buddy, of course, stays on full alert all night.  I bring my favorite cat, Loki, inside .  He seems to prefer to be in the nice warm house at night.  Mikie comes into the barn and sleeps under the heat lamp that I have up to keep the chickens warm.  Steve wrapped all the exposed pipes so, hopefully, we won't have any frozen ones this year.  It hasn't really been that cold yet but I'm sure it will be in a couple more months.

I am thawing out our huge Royal Palm turkey in the frig in preparation for Turkey day.  He takes up a whole shelf all by himself.  Next week I will be making pies and planning our dinner down to the last details.  Tomorrow I am off to Tombstone.  I saw an item there that I think will be a great Christmas gift for Steve.  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!