Another Christmas done

Christmas has past, it's time for taxes. Hurrah!Hurrah!

I sold my spinning wheel, an older traditional of unknown origin. Thanks to Ravelry's Mariaknittedit for a smooth transaction.

Now I think I'm going for a Fricke Double Treadle like this...

It's closer to the style I learned to spin on and it folds for travel needs.

All of the animals are doing well. We had a close call with Bella getting sick, but after some wonderful care by Dr. VanAmstel at UT-Knoxville she's well on her way to recovery AND she held onto her pregnancy. Unfortunately they had to shave both sides of her body so now she's wearing a nice warm coat all winter.

A special thanks to Melody Johnson for mentioning us in her blog Fibermania. Check her out for tons of creative stuff... Fantastic quilts, art, knitting, etc.,etc.!

Time flies

Time flies! Since my last post we've had National Alpaca Farm Days, which was a rain out on Saturday and awesome on Sunday. About 50 people showed up! We were expecting maybe 10. Sweet! I was so busy I didn't get to take many pics, but here's Wendy and Kevin playing with a new cria in the rain.

My first SAFF was a BLAST! Kathy Swift-Lawson and I spent the entire weekend learning and shopping and shopping and learning. We did a fair amount of eating, too, but that's a whole other blog! We learned how to spin, I learned to crochet and needlefelt and nuno felt. It was a whirlwind of fiber! I got to try out lots of spinning wheels and see several alpaca friends. I could have stayed another week! Can't wait to go next year.

Skipping ahead, we just recently took some juvies to the Royal Alpaca Challenge, the first GA alpaca association show. It was a nice venue but would have been much nicer without the rain and if Brian hadn't lost his Nintendo DS. Our good pal Wendy couldn't take her boy Blizzard but we asked her to show Juliet to get some practice. She did better than all the others! Thanks Wendy!

Juliet brought home a 2nd place ribbon, Ember had a 4th because he was in a tough class of older boys who had all been previously shorn-he was docked for having "weathered" tips, Serafina got 3rd and Trinity a 6th. Tim Lavan didn't care for our "open locked" suris appearantly. Oh well, there ARE other judges. We love them all like banner winners.

We're looking ahead to Southern Select! I am planning to take a surprise attack, our newest addition-Eclipse. He's our new true black stud!

Oh yeah, he's a HOTTIE! And sweet as the day is long. We already love him and we're putting him to "work". His grand daddy is Silvio of Magical Farms and he's got tons of other gray in his background. We can't wait to see what he produces.

We're still deciding who else to take to Southern Select but a couple of our soon-to-be weanlings are looking really good. Rudy, the light fawn with dark fawn eyelashes is drop dead gorgeous!

And Marc, the beige suri, is shaping up very nicely.

My instinct is telling me to take Angelia, too, who will be in the yearling class of light suri girls.

The youngsters I took to GA will probably get to go as well if we can get enough stall space.

Our new boy

I felt bad after my last post having not taken pics of our new suri boy. So here he is, his name is Pumpernickel Fanfare...

New cria and preparations

Some females seem to have the same cria every year no matter who you breed them to. Star Dust is turning out to be one of those girls. Last year she was bred to a big strong 3/4 Accoyo guy (white) and had a great little white tight locked male (who sold at just 10 months old). This year she was bred to a small Peru import who's a rich mahogany color. She just had a great little white tight locked male, again. I can't pin a name on him so I think I'll let a visitor to our farm days name him.

Of course I was hoping to get Star to throw some color. I guess we'll try again. We just purchased a black suri male named Alpacaria's Pumpernickel Fanfare that I think we'll try on her. He's a good looking boy. I haven't taken a pic of him yet, mainly because I don't like his haircut. I know, I'm too picky. He was "belly shorn"; just his underbelly and legs were shorn making him look like Moe from the Three Stooges. It's a suri "trick" they use to keep their fleece long with the locks intact while shearing their belly helps them stay cool (as if!). I'll try to force myself to take a pic today. Then I'm going to shear him!

We're staying busy preparing for National Alpaca Farm Days that's coming up Sept 26 and 27. Since I'm not very meticulous about keeping the yard trimmed and stuff there is much to do. We are planning to have a spinner doing demos, Kathy is bringing her hand-knitted scarves and I'm sure she'll be doing knitting demos, we've purchased some product to sell, it's Peruvian but quite frankly that's what we could afford at this point. I hope that someday we can have nothing but US made product, but in this area the folks just don't have that kind of money. Dennis and I will be coming up with an obstacle course for kids to walk the cria through, there will be a pen to play with crias, another to pet some males, I want to have a felting station, and we'll also have some wet and needle felted items that mom and I have made for sale.

Posters are going up everywhere we go and the media has been alerted. There will be an ad in the local newspaper and the following week they said they will come and interview us and run a story on our farm! WooHoo! Our first article! {finally}

Another new cria!

It always seems like a VERY long time waiting for alpaca babies to arrive. You spend months deciding which male will improve on each female in your herd, you breed them, then you wait to see if it "took". After waiting and testing, and waiting more and testing more, you finally take a deep breath and convince yourself that she is, indeed, pregnant. Next is the REAL wait. Nearly a year later (and sometimes even longer!) you spend every waking hour thinking "When is the cria coming?", "Is there something wrong with the cria?", "Was that the cria kicking I saw?", "Is the cria positioned right for birthing?", "Will I miss the birth?", "Has it been too long?", "Should I DO something?" and a million other questions and doubts that mean exactly ZERO to the mom or the cria unless you act on your worries and get the mom stressed out, at which time she kicks it into 'low gear' and effectively delays the birth until you leave her the hell alone long enough to get the job done without any "help".


That's the stance I took with Halle Berry. Just let her have her cria on her own time. Well, she finally did, and I missed it. I had been gone for less than 10 minutes when my cellphone rang with the news that she was in heavy labor. We turned around and, in trying not to kill anyone, we were too late to see it hit the ground. When we arrived, just trying to stand for the first time was a gorgeous black boy next to Halle. The wait was finally over. He was perfect.

His sire's name is Black Mist and with his mother's name being Halle Berry we combined the two to come up with his name... Black Berry.

Monday's suck

I go out to feed the girls this morning. This is what I find trapped in their water trough.

A (insert expletive here) RAT!

I've lived here for 4 years and I have never seen a rat on my property, now I've got them vacationing in my girl's drinking water!

I can deal with possums, racoons, moles and mice. Anything but rats. The only animal that I truly, at the root of my core, HATE! I'm not afraid of them I just find them disgusting and evil. They eat anything, destroy everything, and they are nearly impossible to get rid of. They are the cockroaches of the animal kingdom.

Now, what to DO about this rat? Let it drown? Get it out and try to kill it? Shoot it? Or just let it go? I chose to let it drown. How long does it take to drown a rat? A VERY long time appearantly. I waited over 8 hours and she was still swimming. Now what? WHACk-A-RAT!!! I grab her up by her tail, drop her into an empty feed bag. Lay the bag on the ground and WHACK! with the biggest shovel on the planet. Wow! I've never killed before. Is it wrong to get actual pleasure from ending a life? Probably. But that damn rat will not be bringing her next litter to the "swimmin' hole" anytime soon.

FINALLY...Patty has her cria!

The wait is finally over. Patty had her cria today and it's a GIRL!!! Check her out. She looks just like her momma but a smidge darker. She was born without assistance while the whole family watched. I thought I was videotaping the birth but somehow it didn't record on my camera. Oh well, maybe next time.
She tips the scales at a whopping 22.2 lbs making her the largest cria we've had here so far.
Patty and her (as yet unnamed) cria are both doing fine and resting after a tough morning. The other crias are just overjoyed at the new arrival. They take turns sniffing the baby and getting spit at by Patty.

The Trouble with Crias

Yesterday afternoon I delivered one of our recently sold juvenile males to his new home. It's a great place and I was happy he was going to be with 2 other boys that had come from our farm, not with a bunch of "strangers". I was also happy he would be with a great couple just starting out with alpacas who fell in love with him the minute they saw him. All was fine when he was delivered. He found his friends and seemed content with them. He had 3 other alpacas, a goat and a dog to play with and lots of nice green pasture. I left after we had all decided he liked his new home.

9:30pm I got a frantic phone call from the lady. The little guy I had dropped off earlier had been attacked by the dog! He was bleeding all over and she didn't know what to do. Trying to remain calm, I asked if she had called the vet yet. She hadn't, so I told her to hang up, call the vet, and I would be there as fast as I could. I was just over an hour away so I packed up all of the first aid supplies I had and hit the road, trying not to speed.

By the time I reached her the vet had been there and left. The alpaca had puncture wounds all over his body and was (not surprisingly) very shaken up. I could see him sigh when he saw my familiar face and heard my voice. The vet had cleaned him up, given him a shot of antibiotics and steroids and given them directions to try to keep him calm as the stress could kill him but he didn't feel his wounds were life-threatening. The lady was very upset, feeling it was her fault. Her beautiful little boy was hurting and could die. As we sat in the barn trying to soothe our sweet baby a storm blew up outside. It seemed appropriate. When he seemed settled and began to eat a little I felt sure he would make it so I gave the lady a hug and headed home to a worrisome night of no sleep.



The next morning when I dragged myself outside to feed my alpacas I was still worrying about the young male. As I approached the girls pasture something yellow caught my eye laying out in the field. My bloodshot eyes couldn't ascertain what it could be until one of my juvenile girls came running up at top speed looking like this.....

Never in my life have I laughed so hard. That is giant fly paper that we use in our shelters. She had unraveled an entire roll and it was stuck to her fleece from head to toe. She had wrapped it around her mouth and couldn't eat. It covered one of her eyes and held down both of her ears.

While I was unsticking the fly paper I got a phone call saying our little boy had made it through the night and was well on his way to recovery.

That's the trouble with crias. They make you laugh, they make you cry and I wouldn't have it any other way.

How to entertain your alpacas for hours

While on cria watch today with Patty...

who is clearly uncomfortable and ready to pop, I noticed something moving slowly across the pasture. Upon further investigation, since I was getting pretty tired of staring at Patty's behind waiting for the inevitable, I found a small turtle that the alpacas hadn't yet seen. I went and picked it up and placed it in the middle of the area where my females were all relaxing in the shade. They all ignored it until it began to emerge from it's shell. All at once everyone was up on their feet and dancing about. One would get close, sniff it, then leap back when it moved. Then another girl would do the exact same thing... get close, sniff, leap back... until nearly all of them had checked it out, then they began the rotation again!

This continued until the poor turtle had finally made his way to the fenceline only to find that he couldn't get through the fence! I felt sorry for the little fella and rescued him. The alpacas stood and watched him until he was completely out of sight. Maybe I should have left him trapped inside the fence so the alpacas could have a pet turtle of their own??? They would probably forget to feed him, then he'd die, I'd have to go to the pet store and buy them another one before they noticed... you know the story. Better to just let him go on home.