Newspaper Article

Oh, my, our farm made the front page of the Morning Sun, the local paper that serves the Ithaca, Alma, and Mt. Pleasant area. Great publicity. Link here: www.themorningsun.com/stories/051707/loc_wool001.shtml if you want to read most of the article. Darn, I can't get this link to work. It will take you to a page that says to link to the Morning Sun and then when you get there, you have to click on Local news, and then "Woman raises alpacas to get wool for business" Really not worth it, friends, unless you happen to be my sister, brother, Mary, Pam, or Marianne. The article isn't complete and doesn't show this picture of me or of me screening fleece, or spinning. I tried to scan it into my computer but this picture is the best that I could get. In the article I managed to get a plug in for our local knitting shop, Sip N Knit, and for the Etsy site.

Granddaughter Overnight

We had the granddaughters for an overnight! Is always such fun and we feel very priviledged that their parents let them stay frequently. The taller one, Meredith, is eight and has always enjoyed my fiber pursuits and being in the barn with me. After we finished walking alpacas, she and I cleaned up her mom's old mare, Abbey. We scrubbed and curried and brushed until Abbey was shining. Of course, Meredith had to braid up her mane. Then we washed all the horses brushes, combs, and currys plus their carry totes and left them on the picnic table to dry. Meredith is learning how to lunge Ivan. For you nonhorsey folks, lunging a horse is standing in the center of a circle with a long line attached to the horse. The horse moves around while obeying walk, trot, canter commands. Meredith is amazed that she can ask this HUGE animal to do something - and he does it.
Five year old Elizabeth who wants to be a vet thinks that the barn is a little smelly. She is quite the comedian and has us smiling and laughing constantly. She did have a mishap yesterday. She wanted to lead Orion (above alpaca). We had told her to hold him tight in case he started acting silly. Well, he did! and pulled her down. Elizabeth held tight and got dragged about ten feet before she let go. Bad Grandma should have realized a 44 pound little girl is no match for a 90 pound little alpaca.

TAGGED

Just remembered that I have been tagged by Hobbyzu. I need to tell 7 random things about myself and tag 7 more blogfriends. Hmmmmm.

l. I don't like to travel.
2. Appreciate and enjoy my women friends.
3. Shovel manure every day (keeps me humble)
4. Would never buy synthetic yarn (Does that make me a fiber snob?)
5. I keep a dictionary next to my computer 'cause I don't trust spellcheck.
6. Wish I would get the gumption to get on my horse.
7. Have to spin and read every day to be complete.

Now, I think I need to pass this on which I really don't feel right doing......

Huacaya and Suri

I want to try to show the difference between Huacaya alpaca fiber and Suri alpaca fiber. The large picture shows the Huacaya on top and Suri below. Can you see that the Huacaya is fluffy and wavy and the Suri has longer, straight fibers? These straighter fibers are silk like and add luster when blended or spun in with the Huacaya. By the way, we raise the Teddy Bear like Huacaya. The yarn on the right is some that I just finished and put in my shop. It's a blend of my black fiber boy, Berringer, and some black Suri that I bought from a friend.

Husband and I drove to Hastings today to deliver my fleeces to Suzanne PufPaff's mill to magically turn them into the beautiful roving that she produces for us. Suzanne and I had a long conversation, (thank you, patient Husband), about what to put with what. I took some beautiful white, raw Merino wool and hand dyed silk. Then we had to decide what colors go together, what fiber needs a little wool to enhance it, should we put this white with the black to make a gray, where should the silk go, how about adding a little of her Shetland for bounce.... on and on..... I will end up with about 10 different combinations (I think - I didn't write it all down). Now I just smile and dream about all the lovely roving I will have in a couple of months.

Now I'm off to spin up a custom order of 300 yards of really nice gray Huacaya and white Suri.

For all you friends who shared our concern for the two little boys, Pollux and Orion, they seem to be doing quite well. Both the vet and I think they might have picked up a virus at the show we went to a week or so ago.
This picture is of Polaris, our junior herd sire. He will be going to the fall show in Birch Run. His fiber is awesome so I'm sending it off to be made into roving for spinning.
All 20 bags of fiber have been screened. Yea! I usually do it outside but it has been very windy so used my kitchen table. Three bags (two whites and a brown) were mailed off to Stonehedge in East Jordan, MI today, to be made into yarn. The rest will be roving. I dyed some silk today to add to the roving fleeces, and as soon as it dries, will take it to Suzanne Pufpaff's mill for processing. I'm hanging on to the 2 baby fleeces for myself and my Etsy store.

Sick Little Alpacas

Folks seemed to enjoy these pictures of my Q-Tips so I thought I should add another. Actually, I'm worried about these two little guys today because they both have diarrhea and are just laying around. Their temperatures are a little high - 102.5 - which is high normal range. We gave them a dose of Pepto-Bismo (I don't know how to spell that) and put jackets on them. I don't know if they might have picked up something from the show last week or if they are stressing from shearing - or a combination of both. Will dose them again at noon and keep our eyes on them. Nobody else in the herd seems to have any symptoms but these two are separated from everyone else.

Shear Day

Yesterday was "shear day" I get so excited for this annual event that I can hardly sleep the night before. I so look forward to getting my hands into those bags of fleece, yet I worry about the alpacas stressing while they are being sheared. We lay them on mats on the ground on their side and stretch their legs out. Their legs are tethered to hobbles which are attached to a pole running beside the prone alpaca. A pulley system allows the legs to be stretched out or quickly released. After our shearers clip one side, a team of 3 or 4 gently flip the 'paca to do the other side. While the shearing is going on a team of friends collect the fiber into firsts (prime), seconds, and thirds (which I trash). While they are down, a good friend like Beth will trim their topnotches to keep the hair out of their eyes. Husband Smitty will trim their toe nails, and Dave, the shearer, will check their teeth. Dave uses a rotorary type dremel tool to even up their bottom teeth if they need it and he will nip off any sharp "fighting teeth" with trimmers if they are dangerously sharp. Alpacas do not have top teeth but rather a hard plate for chewing.

I guess that I'm getting carried away telling about this process but it's a big event on the farm. We did ten alpacas at friend Nancy's and twelve here in the afternoon. We are very fortunate to have about ten friends show up to help us.

Now about the picture on top. Doesn't he look like a walking Q-Tip? We gave Orion a fancy show cut because he will be going to a show in September, but Pollux got the standard. We haven't told Pollux yet but he will become a "fiber boy" when he is closer to two years old. He's not quite breeding material.

I have cleaned Orion's fleece shown in the picture and need to get at least one more done today. I like to pick through them out on the deck so that the trash can just fall through. More on fleece cleaning later.