Meet the Alpaca Day

Yesterday our local alpaca 4-H club (the Alpaca Amigos) sponsored a Meet the Alpaca Day at the fairgrounds in Alma, Michigan. Amelia took Snickers (Astra), the white boy above, and John took Chinella, the black girl below. About ten farms showed up to display our critters. I think we had a pretty good turn out of visitors. I will be glad to hear exactly how many. Each farm brought a door prize to be mailed out and the 4-H club had a kids' table for little ones to make things about alpacas.

I'm super pleased that both Snickers and Chinny were so nice to our guests. They allowed everyone to pet and feel their delightful fiber. You know, alpacas aren't normally the cuddly critters that we portray. They are curious but usually aloof and just as soon not be touched.
I took along my spinning wheel to show folks what we do with our fiber. Was an easy day for me because moms, Beth and Gwen, did all the hard work like setting up the pens, tearing down, and transporting the alpacas. Kinda liking this.

Alpaca Poodle

Last week Pamela Hughes from Raleigh, North Carolina bought some white alpaca roving (Andy ► & Polaris) to use for needle felting. This morning she sent me this picture ▲of the poodle that she created. Isn't it amazing? She says that she is just getting in to needle felting but she certainly looks like a pro to me.
When someone makes a purchase, I like to visit their shop. Hers, The Cosmic Pepperini (← just click here to visit her shop) had delightful soaps for feet with loofah imbedded in them. I couldn't resist and bought two bars. I thought it was neat that I was her first customer.

Well, look what came in the mail....all for happy feet. Can you see what all is here? Starting on the left is a foot shaped brush, behind that is a pumice stone on a rope, at the center top is one of the soaps that I bought, a peace sign with a loofah, then top right is the other foot shaped soap with loofah that I bought. You can see the darling rubber duckies in front and a container with "Pure Almond Butter Foot Softener" in the center. WOW! Thanks so much, Pam.

The other day when Ben hauled my manure, he also destoned my yard. This is his cute little tractor with the brush on the front. The balls in my driveway are walnut shells from my messy black walnut tree.

Bye Bye Poop

I just went out on the deck to take pictures of Hedda and the hat that I just finished ↓ and look who's here with their tractor. That's Ben and his dad, Dave, here to haul off my winter's worth of alpaca and horse manure. ♪♫♪ EEE HAW ♫♪♫ I'll bet they just went home to get their skid loader. See, I'm telling all of you that life is good and those worrisome things will get taken care of. Aren't I so fortunate to have friends to help me out? I'm reasonably sure that he won't ever see this post, but Thank You, Ben - again and again - for all the things that you quietly do to make my life so complete.

And here's Hedda on a post of my deck posing for an addition to my Etsy store - http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=23614025. I do enjoy knitting hats and they sell well around Christmas. The fall that I quit smoking, let's see, 3 years ago, I think, every time that I wanted to pick up a cigarette, I would pick up my knitting needles instead. I think I made about 30 hats in September and October.

PhatFiber Blog

Oh, my, everyone. Look what I found this morning http://phatfiber.blogspot.com/2009/04/north-star-alpacas-and-giveaway.html What a lovely write up. Thank you, Jessica.

Getting Ready for Summer

My latest accomplishment! I am on 5 acres of land and, granted, a lot of it is already pasture, but a lot (way too much) is lawn, so I've vowed to cut down on what I have to mow this summer. If you recall, last fall I taught myself to drive the riding mower (with instruction manual in hand), but I was always terrified of mowing around the lagoon ↑. I found some plastic posts that I could just step into the ground and added 2 strands of white webbing and 3 strands of red and gray cable which you can hardly see in the picture. It's being mowed as we speak by the boy alpacas.
My other accomplishment, which probably doesn't seem like much to you, is that I put the screen door on the tack room. I am woman, hear me roar.
I am ecking away on the winter's worth of manure left for me outside by horses and alpacas. I need to get it out of here before the flys arrive. I really, really dislike flys around my 4 legged friends.

Love Me, Love My Dog

The granddaughters stayed with me for a few days of their spring break. I considered not posting these pictures for fear their folks wouldn't let them come back to this unsanitary home, then realized they're critter lovers also.

JR update: He weighed in at 44.7 pounds last Friday at 7 months old. A loss of .1 pound in a week. I had decided that if he gained substantially, I was going to cut out his noon feeding. Not happening.....

Tribute to Tribute

Look who came to live at our farm today. Beth is unloading Tribute to Money, a light silver gray Huacaya herd sire, born 3/10/03. He is 1/2 Chilean and 1/2 Peruvian and what a gentleman! We picked him up in Belding at Irish Valley Farm owned by Leslie and Bob Gosnell. We are hoping to get some outside breedings for him. There aren't many gray herd sires in our area. I will advertise him as a drive by breeding, meaning I can take him to the female's farm. He's such a nice guy that I can easily load, unload, and handle him by myself. Tribute has several cria on the ground so he is considered a "proven" stud.

That's the girls' pen behind and Tribute has just arrived. Is that lust in their eyes? The youngest girls, maidens, were the most interested in him. The older girls just came up for a look and went on with their business of cushing and chewing.

It's such a joy to have this handsome guy in the barn. All the way home, Beth, John, and I were talking about which of our girls would be the best matches. We also have medium fawn Polaris here, our own home grown herd sire. He hasn't proven himself as a breeder yet, so we are trying to figure out the best match for him.

Alpacas are induced ovulators which means that they ovulate after they are bred, sort of like rabbits. This means we should be able to time the breeding for when we want a cria. Gestation is roughly 11 months. So, if we do a breeding in June, we should have a May cria, or an October breeding should produce a September cria.

....and look at this totally awesome fleece that he's wearing.....