The top guy here is medium brown, Orion (Slammer). Remember shear day back in May, we gave him this funky hair cut? We called it a show cut. Well, here he is a week before his show.

Dark fawn Polaris (Lars) will also be going to the show. His cut isn't quite so extreme. Today is Lar's 2nd birthday.

♪♫ ♪ Happy Birthday to Lars ♪ ♫ ♪

These two boys are full brothers, same mom and dad. Mom is white Ariana, our very best fleeced girl and dad is Macusani's Chin Chin, a handsome black guy who lives at Luka's Alpaca Ranch down in Jackson, MI. Because they are related like this, they will go into a class together called Get of Dam, where actually their mom is judged even though she isn't there.

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Within a month before an alpaca show, the national alpaca organization, AOBA, requires a health exam from a vet for alpacas to be allowed onto the show grounds. Next week is our show at Birch Run, so today Dr. Kristin did the exam on these two guys. Both she and I laugh because basically all she does is take their temperature and fill out a health form - to the tune of a $40 farm call.

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Actually, I'm glad that this cursory exam is required because at least runny noses and loose poop is noticed and we sure don't want to be exposed to anything. At the show, another vet will look the 'pacas over and check that their microchips and papers match.

Sharon shawl pattern update. It's available now, all you lace knitters. Pegasus has arrived - only he is called Flight of Fantasy or something like that. Got take a look for yourself at Sharon's Etsy shop.

*****Road Trip Ahead *****

On Wednesday friend Sharon Winsauer and I are traveling to Howell to visit Beth at her store The Spinning Loft. We call Sharon the Queen of Lace Knitting. She has created, published, and is selling many of her patterns. Her latest Dragon pattern is selling all over the world and the very newest, Pegasus, is nearly finished.
I WILL resist all temptations to buy stuff. I WILL leave my credit card home. No, not really. I was just spoofing.

Remember way back in June when I talked about Karen Harbaugh, a spinner and writer?

http://northstaralpacas.blogspot.com/2007/06/karen-harbaugh.html

She sent me this picture of the yarn that she made from Rouge's fiber and some Tussah silk. I love Karen's spinning because it is consistent and well balanced as you can see from the photo. Karen said that she adds the silk while spinning. "I spread out the wool fiber and the silk fiber and place one over the other as I spin"

This is a picture of my super horse Ivan. He hangs over his stall door begging for treats whenever we go into the barn. From this stall he can go outside and right now out onto pasture. Ivan looks a little shabby and neglected here. I have never let his mane get so long. He doesn't seem to mind but hasn't been ridden in a year.

EtsyFAST is a group that I belong to that works together to promote Etsy. The FAST stands for Fiber Arts Street Team. We do a themed monthly challenge just for fun, no prizes or anything. The challenge for September was Apples. My thoughts when dying this alpaca roving was Golden Delicious Apples. I striped yellow, red, & just a touch of green and set the colors in my oven.

This yarn turned out really nice. I think that I will not put it into my Etsy shop, but rather enter it into the skein competition at the Michigan International Alpaca Fest in Birch Run at the end of this month. Entries are due by Saturday so need to get it washed and ready to submit.