Pasture Sledding

We have this neat hill in our backyard, that is enclosed in the alpaca pasture. The kids used to sled there quite a bit before the alpacas came back here by us. This year they haven't done much sledding. We've had some nice snowfalls, but most of the winter we've had hard crusty snow that isn't useful for sledding.

It just so happened this past week when I was hauling out hay on the kids' sled, that it was snowing ever so softly. After I had the hay put away in the hay bins, I suggested to Zack that we sled down the hill. We both jumped into the sled, and headed down the hill.

I knew it might freak out the alpacas. They are scared of the sled as it is. Anything that moves in the pasture is suspect to them (I remember a day when a bag was blowing down the fence line and it freaked them all out). Certainly Zack and I on a sled going at any speed would put them on edge. But, we did it anyway. It was too tempting.

What I didn't expect was Spot's response. Spot apparently wanted to be in the sled with us. He ran along the side of the sled down the hill, and near the bottom of the hill, he jumped on my back and joined us in the sled! I've never had such a dramatic slide down a hill. Here's this big white dog running right next to me, and he lands on top of me!

That was enough going down the hill for me. But Zack was willing to go down a few more times. I held onto Spot's collar so he couldn't run after Zack in the sled.



I was glad to see that the alpacas were not traumatized by this (I think I was more traumatized by Spot landing on me! He's a big dog). The alpacas did keep a close eye on the sled, but did not panic:




This reminds me of another sled story. A few weeks ago when we were watching weanlings for Ashton Stones Alpacas, I had an incident with d'Artagnan and the sled. I had the sled full of hay, and was standing in the doorway of the barn filling hay bins. D'Artagnan was inside the barn, but he was the only alpaca in there. This freaked him out, so he started to run out of the barn. I tried to get out of his way, I didn't want to cause him undo panic. Well, as he left the barn he did a leap right in front of the sled, and his legs became tangled in the led rope of the sled! This freaked him out even more, so he ran, fast. The sled, attached to his legs now, followed him, making him freak out even more. He thought the sled was chasing him. He ran fast all throughout the pasture, with hay flying all over. I thought for sure he'd end up breaking a leg. Thankfully, the rope eventually fell off his legs, and all was fine. *phew*