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.....

Walking and Dyeing

For a couple months now my neighbor, Billie and I have been walking two miles each day down our country road. We try to do it in half an hour. Max and Cassie ↑ go along on leashes if it's not too sloppy. Then they sack out for the rest of the day. I'm told that some folks don't allow their critters on their furniture ☺
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I don't have a lot to say today except that I seem to have gotten the dyeing bug. Here's a few of my yesterday creations from white alpaca, merino, and mohair roving. I feel ok about using it up because I have 10 more pounds right now at Zeilinger's mill.
Four more ounces are cooking away in my crock pot, while four ounces are soaking in vinegar water.

Snickers and Slammie Go on Vacation

Nine year old Amelia is going to show Snickers (Astra), white guy ↑ at the 4-H Fair in Alma this summer so we thought it would be fun for him to be at her house to work with him. Of course, you all know that alpacas are herd animals and won't do well alone so Slammie is vacationing with him. This is great for me because Snickers needs to be weaned and moved away from the girl pen. I've been told that, yes, at 6 1/2 months he could breed - now, I don't really believe that, but am not taking any chances. The only boy left with the girls is JR and I'm surely not

concerned about him connecting.

The picture above is the two of them in the back of my van on their way to Amelias. They both loaded very nicely and were well behaved on the way. Because I have heard horror stories of alpacas leaping into the front seat, I installed the wire barrier. You can see they have plenty of room and eventually cushed down for the ride. .....and here we are at the new vacation home meeting the goats. They are separated now but, hopefully, will get acquainted and be able to hang out together. This picture is a great example of how curious alpacas are. Their curiosity usually overcomes their fear - which, of course, could be dangerous if these were cougars.

I couldn't resist putting up this pretty yarn that I spun up yesterday. It's only 100 yards so not enough to do much by itself. I dyed it from some white alpaca roving that Sharon had given me last fall. I need to wash it and put in my Etsy store.