Thursday, August 30, 2012
Caller “your yarn is ready”
Me (outside voice) “awesome”!
Me (inside voice) “YAHOOOOOOOO”
It’s taken a long time for me to understand the importance of fiber processing. I have put so much time into understanding confirmation, lineage, colors, fineness, density, etc. I’m finally getting the all important “this industry has EVERYTHING to do with fiber! Wow, what a concept!
The past five years have been about breeding and raising the alpacas – not the fiber. Tisk, tisk, I know. Pictu read more...
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Monday, August 20, 2012
If you would have asked us 10 years ago about a life with alpacas – we would have laughed up a storm! Ask our daughter Stephanie about that one! When she went away to college across the country, and within a few weeks, the empty next was just that - too empty! We found alpacas and they filled a void. Her first visit home from school break she thought we were nuts. That was 5 years ago and now she has her own herd of 6 animals to offset her school expenses.
If you would have asked me 5 years a read more...
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Sunday, August 12, 2012
Lazy Days of Summer
Who said summer was a time for laziness? Remember that old song, “Here comes those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”? You’ll never catch me whistling this tune or singing those lyrics at the ranch!
Summer is a time for herd health, cria watch, cria deliveries, rebreeding, fleece skirting and fiber preparation! Who has time to be lazy? Not us….let me tell you.
Keeping the herd cool with water is one of my favorite things to do after work – and I don’t consider that work read more...
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
Oh, the joys of shearing. Hard on our legs and back but so nice on our eyes to see that luxurious fleece coming off the alpacas! This year, we sheared 23 animals in one and a half days. Kim, our shearer takes extra special care to see that each animal is handled calmly and uses great patience with us!
I appreciate how she gets us warmed up as we chose an unbred female who is very laid back to start with. Good thinking...starts the day off the right way and we get our instructions down pat. I read more...
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Thursday, June 7, 2012
Striking a pose -- 1 week old!
Welcome to the first of our crias for 2012!
Antebellum is a stunning medium rose grey with tons of chrome!
Eyecatching both in appearance and in lineage, her sire is El Nino's Golden Legend. El Nino's Golden Legend's offspring have shown extremely well and have garnered many Get of Sire awards to prove his capacity for producing champions. Antebellum's dam, Raggedy Rose is a lavender colored rose grey with amazing density and lingering fineness standing proud on her own show record.
With read more...
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Friday, June 1, 2012
Our nieces, both girls are 8 years old, came for a visit and wanted to play with the alpacas. They were thrilled to get to halter the babies and lead them around. Jaelyn is on the left, leading Liberty Rose who is 9 months old and Kaia is leading Legend, who is 11 months old.
These adorable little girls LOVE the alpacas and when I said, let's have an alpaca show -- they both beamed! Of course, neither of them have ever been to an alpaca show so Stephanie and I explained what to do and I acted read more...
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Monday, May 21, 2012
Taking our 22 year old daughter shopping for cria kit items seems like an easy feat – but when you think of all the necessary components, it can be more complicated (and embarrassing) than I thought. Having a modest daughter with a good sense of humor made this a fun adventure at the local drug store!
Our cria kit contains the obvious sort of things – towels, thermometer, iodine, scissors, thread (no, we aren’t sewing) garbage bag, latex gloves, corn syrup, syringe, sterile saline, bathroom read more...
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