Wow, almost the end of October already! The leaves are turning colors and fall is here!  I want my summer weather back already.  We had such a late spring that it really seems like summer was cut so short this year. 
On August 12th, my beautiful 10 week old grandson passed away in his sleep.  My families world came to a crashing halt.  Never would I have thought that something like this would happen to my family.  He was my first and only grandchild.  
When he passed away, I decided to sell out all of my guinea pigs. I wanted to spend more time with my son and his girlfriend.  They lived over an hour away and I wanted to be able to spend the weekends with them and not worry about having someone else take care of my animals.  The passing of their baby was just too much and not long after he passed, they broke up. My son came home to live with me again.  
After a couple of weeks, I decided to keep the baldwins and sell out of the skinnies.  I spend a lot of time cleaning and caring for them, but I just love them too much to get rid of all of them.   Time is helping and I am slowing finding joy in things again.  It is funny how when something so traumatic and unexpected happens, how you can just feel so numb and not find joy or happiness in anything for weeks afterwards. 
Luckily, I have a wonderful husband who spent many evenings after work filling water bottles and filling feed dishes on the days that I just didn't feel up to it.  After two and a half months, things are much better.  The pain is still there, but the shock has warn off and life is as normal as it is going to get.
I went with a friend to my first cavy show a couple weeks ago. I brought back three teddy guinea pigs.  Not for me though! LOL  They will be going to their new home in Canada soon along with some of my skinny pigs.  One is a satin teddy. I am so in love with her, but I know my limits!  LOL 
A few weeks ago, I decided to give raising and breeding texels a go.  I found a pair in Sacramento and a friend gave me another.  Can't wait to see their babies. Eventually, I would like to show them.  The baldwins will still be my main focus though.  I just love those little guys!  I know if I would have sold out of them, I would really be missing them. 
I am really looking forward to start showing some cavies.  I really don't care if they win or lose.  I just want to have fun doing it!

I picked up several skinnies and a trio of Baldwin carriers last night at the airport in Portland Oregon.  It was a 4.5 hr drive.  My husband and I drove around Porland for a while, went to dinner and then stopped in Gresham to visit with my aunt and uncle.  We got to the airport cargo area and waited about 30 minutes for the pigs.  They brought them in and I checked them over to make sure everyone was okay.  They seemed frightened, of course!  They started out in Virgina, got on a plane in Washington DC, back in the air again after a stop in Houston and then to Portland.  I'm sure they were quite worn out!  It was pouring rain, (it is Portland! lol) so we put them in the car and left for home.  About 10 minutes later, we were on I205.  There was a traffic jam!  We were almost to interstate 5, which takes us straight home, but traffic was at a stand-still.  We slowly got around a corner and then could see an accident on the left side of the interstate.  There were three lanes and we were in the middle going about 10-15 mph.  All of the sudden, smash! We heard metal hitting metal and felt a nice jolt to our car.  The guy in the lane to the left was in a lifted 4x4 truck and went to get over into our lane and didn't even see us!  We pulled over, in the pouring rain, and heavy jammed traffic and got his information.  We got back onto the interstate after a few minutes of waiting for someone to let us back into traffic.  Once we got passed the accident and down the road a few miles, we spotted a rest area and pulled over to inspect the damage.  The entire back panel from right behind the driver door to the end of the car was smashed in.  Main thing though, was the piggies were fine!  I was so worried about them on the airplane, but it was the car that really could have been a problem for them!  I'm just glad we were not going 60 mph like traffic normally does right there when that happened or it could have been much worse.  I was so glad to get home at 2:30am and put them all away into their new home.  The car will get fixed, but if I would have lost any of them, I really would have been upset! 
I must say though, that I have the most wonderful and supportive husband.  Two weeks ago, he drove over 1000 miles for me to get my first Baldwin and this weekend to Portland for me.  And his poor car, that he so loves, got a nice big dent in it.  He told me as long as I was fine and my piggies were fine, that is all that matters!  I'm just glad we are all fine and home safe and sound!

We will be in California over the weekend picking up a baldwin and many baldwin carriers! I can't wait to get them home and settled in.  Very excited about these new additions to our little caviary! 

So excited to get my skinny pig website up and running!  Sahari should be having babies any time.   I'm not sure at this time if I will be keeping the babies or not.  I am still working on getting a nice foundation herd going.