Journeys›Photograph

Birthday Weekend with the Temecula Alpacas

·Temecula, California, United States·#california#summer#birthday#alpacas#temecula
Multiple alpacas of various colors are gathered in a sunny outdoor pen with a wooden shelter and fences.

Drove out to Temecula for a birthday weekend at an alpaca ranch. The whole herd had just been shorn, so most of them looked like poodles — skinny bodies, enormous fluffy heads, tufts left on the tail. The brown ones especially, with their necks suddenly half the width of their heads.

They crowded the fence the second anyone came near with feed. One white one kept throwing its head back over the rail to get at a hand first, and a cria squeezed under the bottom board like it did this every day. A few of the shyer ones stayed back under the trees, and one black alpaca stood alone at the top of the hill with the whole valley behind it, ignoring everyone.

The cake was the best part of the table — two cookie alpacas with fondant blankets standing between green fondant cacti, little strings of pearls made to look like succulents spilling down the side. We ate it right there next to the pen while the actual alpacas watched through the fence, which felt about right. Still finding hay on my clothes.

A child's hand feeds a dark brown alpaca over a white fence, with other alpacas and trees in the background.A close-up side profile of a brown alpaca with a shaggy head, its face near a person's hand.A brown alpaca with a fluffy head looks toward the camera, standing by a tree with a white fence and trees in the background.Close-up of a light brown alpaca's head and neck with a darker patch, a white fence and trees in the background.Several alpacas, some recently shorn, stand by a white fence in a dirt enclosure, with a person's hand feeding one.A dark alpaca stands on dirt ground beside a white fence, overlooking a valley and mountains under a blue sky.A two-tier cake featuring alpacas and cacti sits on a striped blanket, with real alpacas visible behind a fence.A yellow cake with two llama figures and cacti sits on a blue stand, on a colorful blanket, with alpacas in the background.

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