We know we are crazy cat people. As soon as you pass 2n cats, that is your fate. It is not even (entirely) our fault, we only had two of our own (Slow Top and Azami), the others were either given to us (Rasputin), rescued off the road (Amaya), or moved in and adopted us (Jake).

But there are always more cats, poking around the periphery, hoping to find a free space.

Last year around this time it was “Mittens”, a black cat with white paws and brisket who would sneak in to steal food. Then she (?) was replaced by the singing cat, a tabby with white paws that would always announce its presence in the house with a series of long meows.

Now we have “Not Kitten.” This is a tabby that, at a distance, looks nearly identical to “Kitten” (Amaya- who I rescued as a kitten from down the road, and who was known as “Roadkill” for her first few weeks). On numerous occasions over the last 2 months we would emerge from the lounge only to see “Not Kitten” scurry across the dining room and down the stairs.

Last night I came in, to find him/her in the dining room, crouched but not running. I approached slowly, and made “hello friend?” chripy noises. And Not Kitten came over and marked my hand. By the time Tam got home s/he was walking around at my feet in the kitchen, demanding attention. Very friendly!

But then Kitten arrived and sent the doppleganger packing.

You are nice and friendly Not Kitten (and also in great shape, no starving feral there!), but the Inn is Full! No more cats allowed!

Five and a half years ago we bought our first three alpaca; Oak, Chris and Pointer. Chris died of liver failure only 8 months later, a sad and somewhat traumatic introduction to owning camelids! But we had lots of fun with Oak and Pointer, taking them on walks all over the place (up and down the valley, beach walks, forest walks, into town).

But for the last few years we have not done much with them. As numbers grew we found that all our time was taken up taking other alpaca (and now llamas) out for walks. Oak and pointer were consigned to living on the back hill with the main boy-mob, and while I saw/checked them daily, interaction was minimal. We were actually thinking of selling them along with the next batch of pet boys. It would be wonderful to see them go to people who would have a small herd, and have the time to put into them- taking them out for walks again.

Then Oak started to have joint problems. We first noticed in January, but thought it was just a sprain. Then it started getting worse. I noticed he was spending more time kushed than any other ember of his mob. When we brought them in a month ago it was heartbreaking. He could barely walk (jumping the stream coming off the back hill made him collapse). He had lost 10 kg in just a month, probably due to the pain and the inability to stand and graze enough. We kept him and Pointer in the paddock next to the house. He got his AD&E jab along with everyone else. I started talking to the vet, as in that state we would probably have to have him put down soon.

But the vet is always flat-out busy, so she did not get a chance to come out and see him immediately (as this was a progressive disorder, it was not an emergency). And over those weeks, he stopped getting worse, and maybe, just maybe, he was a bit better.

Talking about this on various forums, a vet & alpaca breeder in Australia suggested it might be Rickets (hypophosphatemia). We wondered how this could be, as he first started showing symptoms in summer after he had been shorn- the time when he should be getting the most VitD from the UV of our powerful southern sun. Her thought was that his massive obesity might be playing a role- all the fat-soluble VitD is partitioning into his adipose tissue, leaving the serum level too low. So we started treating him- more VitD (being careful not to overdose, we are giving low-dose weekly injections), plus some phosphate supplement injections.

He is still not right, but he is not as bad as he was. I don’t know if he will make a full recovery or not, but it is nice to see him up and grazing more (and hopefully not is so much pain anymore, with camelids being so damn stoic, it is really hard to tell). We will weigh him again this weekend.

But having Oak and Pointer down by the house, and interacting with them every day, has been a joy. Pointer is an amazingly groovy dude. Sure, he is really pugnacious to other alpaca (as neighbors who hear his frequent “fight! Fight! FIGHT!” screaming can attest), but he will let me walk right up to him in the paddock, rub his neck, and give him a hug. He doesn’t step away if you rub his neck from across the fence. That is really quite rare/unusual in a camelid. I am hoping Oak’s legs improve to the point where we can take them on fun walks again. They both enjoy the adventures, and it is fun to rediscover old friends that have been neglected too long.

Back in Boston, the standard “winter mix” — in the context of weather, that is — is a meteorological salad of rain, snow and sleet. Yum. Except in Boston, it doesn’t usually come screaming in sideways at gale force.

The first Monday in June is celebrated as “Queen’s Birthday” here, and you get the day off (unless you work in certain retail establishments of course) — a nice mini-holiday. Well, except for the weather. We spent our weekend making sure the alpacas were situated for the exceptionally crummy weather Sunday and Monday (especially Sunday). Basically, that meant making sure everyone was in a paddock with a suitably sheltered gully to keep out of the wind, and making sure they all had plenty of hay to eat to keep warm (digesting hay warms them up). We didn’t stuff everyone in the shed this year, because the shed is full of hay.

There was enough room in there, however, for the two new mothers that we’re looking after for our suri breeder friend while she’s in the US.

Becky dropped a little brown girl on Tuesday — we’d had pretty much two weeks straight of horrible weather, and Tuesday was ever-so-slightly-less-sucky, so she decided it would have to do. Both the little girl’s ears were folded back over her head when she was born (kind like Nabaztag’s, only both of them), and although they’ve straightened out a little bit, they still curl in like horns, so we’ve been referring to her as “Devil Girl” until she gets a proper name:

Pebbles, the giraffe-spotted suri female we looked after last year is back again. She held out until Saturday to drop a wee little 6.5 kilo boy, right before the nasty nasty storm, naturally.

Even in the shed, with two covers on and two-hourly warm bottles, he was having trouble with the cold, so we built an alpaca hovel in the back corner of the shed, so we could have a space small enough to heat with the oil column heater from the guest room. It looks like a homeless shelter, if the homeless had access to a pile of horse covers (thanks, Yvonne !).

It did the trick, though. We had all four of them in there all day Monday and overnight, and 24 hours not having to fight the cold with his limited resources really let little Pip (actual name pending) get his feet under him. Literally as well as figuratively. When we build the barn, we’re planning to have a special heatable pen/stall for just this sort of situation. Until then, they’re stuck with the shanty.

Well, the saga appears to be continuing. Guess what story made the front page of the local rag ? (The Wellingtonian is sort of a City Paper equivalent.)

So, I know you all have been aching with curiosity for what is happening on the Civil Defense front.

Well, maybe not aching, but I will tell you anyway.

We lost. We had a public meeting last saturday. It was well attended (65 people). About 40% of the people spoke against the council and their plan, another 40% were neutral or spoke about unrelated topics (public meeting brings people out with their own agendas), and 20% spoke in favour of the council. The managers from council were caught out in lies a few times (to the derisive laughter of the audience), and after the fact we found evidence of more lies. But the structure of the meeting, which gave them nearly a half hour to put forward their uncontested case, let them dominate the whole discussion. We will have another meeting in 2 weeks.

But that is irrelevant. A new structure is coming into place. The Marketing-manager will be hired by then. The opportunity to affect the process is over. They will fulfill their statutory requirements under the CD/EM act of 2002 to have a system and staff. The act does not require good management, or that the new system be as good or better than the old. It just requires a system.

On the up side I have gotten to meet a number of local MPs face to face, one of whom may come and visit the farm after she heard we raised alpacas! :)

So now we just hope that there is no disaster in the next 5 to 10 years. Well, I really hope there is no disaster no matter what, but in 5 to 10 years we should have a management turnover that allows a new, hopefully competent, review of the CD system.

We are in the midst of a bit of a scandal right now.

As of last Friday, Wellington had no more trained, full-time staff at WEMO (the Wellington Emergency Management Office). If the “big one” hit today, we would be in a world of hurt.

Why has this happened? Gross mis-management, of course. (Why are so many managers self-important idiots incapable of listening to advice? I think it is because people don’t like to feel stupid, so they only listen to people dumber/less knowledgeable than themselves. Thus management is a perpetual downhill slide as everyone within the hierarchy will be dumber than the leader- and if they accidentally hire a smart person he/she will be ignored and marginalized).

I belong to the TEMG, the Tawa Emergency Management Group, which is a bunch of CD/EM volunteers and professions with a lots of experience and knowledge. We are appalled by all this. We have, over the last few months, been filing OIA (official information act) requests for documents pertaining to the “review” of WEMO that has led to all but one person quitting over the last 6 months (and that last person had his job dis-established on Friday). About 3 weeks ago I sent out a very blunt email to the incompetent-WCC managers involved in the fiasco, as well as relevant government ministers and city elected officials (the Mayor). But with the final collapse last week, we had to go public with what information we had.

So Friday I spent 6 frantic hours working with Grahme putting together a media release, and then we called lots of media outlets. As the designated spokesman I have been interviewed, and had the dubious pleasure to listen to myself in radio reports.

On Saturday morning we met with Peter Dunne (local MP). He has an interest in CD issues, having worked/volunteered in it in the past, and he is going to rattle some cages for us.

I think that I am now a *very* unpopular person among certain WCC managers and elected councillors.

Update- MP Dunne was on National Radio Tuesday morning, and gace WCC a hiding (I thought so, at least). I met with the labour MP for CD at Parliament yesterday. She seems keen to bring the issue up. WCC sent out a press statement which is full of… creative versions of the facts. I look forward to sending a line by line fully-referenced deconstruction of that press release to the MPs for Wellington today.

The first weekend in May ended up being double booked. So while Tam went off to the SCA Crown Tourney (where the best warriors in the land to see who will be the next King of Australia and New Zealand), I was off to Christchurch for the Llama Association AGM (annual general meeting).

I know Tam had fun at Crown Tourney. I know Martin came within a whisker of winning (which makes me feel better that I have a hard time beating him at fight practice since he is one of the best in Australasia). But I will leave it to Tam to tell any details.

I was down at Llama Lookout (http://www.llama.co.nz/), a place with million dollar views, about 45 very-friendly llamas, and some very friendly hosts. I gave a talk titled “science worms, and poo”. There was a great demonstration from Keith about packing/treking with your llamas, where he talked about what physiology was best suited for pack llamas, and how to fit a pack safely and comfortably. Good stuff. There was also some llama fiber-fashion on display that could rival any alpaca-based product I have seen (while there are not as many fiber llamas as alpacas, very good llama fiber is equivalent to very good alpaca fiber).

I was nice to meet lots of llama enthusiasts. I also expanded our network of friends around the country- I don’t expect we will need to book hotels that often any more- as we get to know more and more friendly breeders the offers for accommodation keep stacking up. Very cool!

Had my first professional encounter with the NZ police last month. You see, someone broke into “my” civil defence center (CDC) some time in late March or early April. They did a good job cleaning the place out. Generator, radios, cooking equipment, emergency lighting, batteries- all that and more gone. And they left some “tags” and a drawer full of human urine as calling cards.

Damien, the investigating officer, was going to take photos of the tags to Peter, the community constable, to see if he recognized any. I did a mailbox drop in the local neighbourhood, as it was likely done by a local. The CDC is located by a small suburb with really mixed housing. There are only 101 (my count) houses. Some are nice a tidy, some are near bomb sites. Other obviously have *lots* of people living in them (man immigrant families from the pacific islands).

The real mystery is that the thief had the special key to the center. I have a copy. WEMO (Wellington Emergency Management Office) has a copy… and Parks and Gardens have an unknown number of copies (it is their building the CDC is in). We have changed the lock. I hope that the investigation finds the perp, but I am not that sanguine about it. At least most of the equipment has now been replaced. But all the police officers I deal with were friendly and professional, which is nice.

Other civil defence gossip will wait for a later post.

Our new black (actually very dark brown) stud male from Australia:

We’re assuming the previous owners spelled the name, er, differently to make it stand out in the database. Like naming your kid Wylliam or Sherrin.

Last week I took the first big road trip in the new Ute, up to Auckland along with Zane. Of course, this could not be a simple, direct trip. Oh, no, that would be far too easy! Many side trips were added, and while much got done, it was all quite exhausting.

Wednesday we left bright and early. Went over the Rimutaka hill and up to Carterton where we picked up a pony-drawn cart a friend in Auckland. Then it was up to Paihiatua to get the radio on my newly purchased ute replaced by the dealer. Then it was up to Dannevirke to pick up a checkbook for a later purchase. Only then could we zoom our way up to Auckland.

Passing through the TVZ (Taupo Volcanic Zone) with a excited geologist leads to constant commentary about every hill, dome, road-cut, lake, etc. I leanred quite a bit of NZ geology… and I learned that I don’t want to lie anywhere inside the TVZ. The ability of really biog volcanos to go up with so little warning is a bit daunting. You can engineer a building to have a reasonable chance at surviving and earthquake, but there is really not much you can do when you get buried in 20 meters of 700C ash. (…or get smashed by a lahar, or smahed by house-size flying boulders,  or get eradicated by a super-sonic pyroclastic flow…)

In Auckland we had some successful looting. OUr friend works in a big lab complex, and they are disposing of old and unwanted gear. We happily scrounged glassware, microscopes, a few cabinets, and a centrifuge of unknown safety/effectiveness (always good when it is labled “do not use”)

On the way back we fossicked for obsidian around lake Taupo, and picked up 30 years of back-issues of American Rifleman magazine (for the gunsmiths in Zanes family). Then it was a rush down to the Waiuru army museum before they closed. They were selling a bunch of old 19th-century style uniforms that had been made in ~1903 for a royal visit or some such. Very spiffy stuff! Including 3 busby’s made from actual black bear fur.  With the large stack on uniforms loaded on board it was back to Danniverke to spit the uniformes with Dave (from whom we had grabbed a check the day before). Then it was back to Wellington.

A long drive. A long trip. But very full of accomplishments. And I must say the new(er) ute is a much mroe comfortable ride, and having a stero that works is good, too!