hay in every orifice

well, ok, I don't have hay in EVERY orifice, but there is hay in my nose and throat and ears and in my pants and down my top.

the pasture was cut and cured last week, and baled yesterday. 142 bales this year. I was up at the house yesterday and Michael and I got quite a workout. I drove the truck with a borrowed flatbed trailer attached, and he walked behind and chucked hay bales onto the flatbed. Once we got the flatbed and the truck bed loaded, we drove around to the hay barn and then unloaded hay off the trailer and into the barn. This means each bale was handled 3 times. I started out carrying bales into the barn as he tossed them down. After a while, we traded places and I tossed them off the trailer and he stacked them. After we got the load off, we started all over in the pasture and got a second load of 65-70 bales. We were really wiped out, and it was getting dark, so we only emptied the truck bed.

I went back up to the house after work and we finished unloading and stacking the hay. I was surprisingly not sore today, though my biceps are feeling it now.

I'm going back up there tomorrow morning to be on baby watch. Angel is close, and the baby is clearly in position. She's changed shape, she's laying around a lot, and the baby sometimes pushes against her perineal area making it bulge. At least I know the baby is alive right now. This is the first year I haven't dreamed about any alpaca babies. Every year since we've owned them, I've dreamed about the babies before they were born. My dreams weren't always accurate about color, but they were always right about gender. No alpaca dreams this year. I think this is a bad sign. I have a feeling about tomorrow...maybe it will be the birth day. I feel called to be there tomorrow. There is no real reason, no logic to explain it, but I feel I need to go.