relaxing Sunday mornings

I’ve decided that alpaca births are so much easier on me when I don’t see them. So keeping that in mind, Brian and I went on a long weekend get-away to Sedona last weekend. Tyche was due at any time. I left her in the capable hands of my mom and Brian’s mom and our friend Pat, and with the prediction of ‘she’ll have it on Sunday when we’re out of cell phone range’, off we went.
Sure enough, Sunday afternoon, the cell phone rang. It was Dot; “Tyche is having her baby! And she won’t get up and it’s taking too long! Talk to Pat!”
Pat described the situation to me:
Pat: “Tyche has been in labor for an hour. The baby’s head is already dry!”
Me: “ok, that’s no problem (thinking, an hour doesn’t sound all that long to me to have a baby, but what do I know about the subject). Does the baby look like its distressed?”
Pat: “No, but Tyche won’t get up”
Me: “So?”
Pat: “Doesn’t she need to be standing to have the baby? We can’t make her stand”
Me: “Well if it would make you feel better, go ahead and put a halter on her and get her up.”
Pregnant pause.
Pat: “A halter! That would make it easier.”
Ok, I have to admit, I was kind of giggling at this point.
Me: “Pat, I’m sure everything is ok, you’re doing fine”
And though she didn’t say it, I could hear it in her voice: “Oh sure fine for you, you’re in Sedona!”
My mom is officially over her desire to see an alpaca being born.
Anyway, long and short of it, the cria arrived within ten minutes of the call. So while we were looking at this:




They were looking at him:




A big (20 pounds) boy. He appears to be a light fawn. This is Donnach’s first cria, and he’s a good one. Straight legs, impressive density, good balance so far. I’m a bit bummed that Don has already left for Texas; this little guy has me so impressed.

Now we can turn our focus to the Southwest Regional Alpaca Show in two weeks. It should be fun, and maybe we’ll bring home some more ribbons!

Occasionally, I’m reminded that this really is a small world. Last year, while out doing chores, a car pulled up and the driver asked if he could take some pictures of the alpacas. I saw his small daughter was sitting in the car so asked if she would like to come in and visit with the animals. She spent some time feeding the alpacas while her father snapped pictures.
Fast forward; we pick up a job for a client out near our property. Our client, Mo Sheldon, is in and out of the office. On one particular day, I’m talking to him and all of a sudden, something trips my memory. Mo is the guy who was out with his daughter and son (Benjamin, who I assume was sleeping in the car) visiting all that time ago.
Mo graciously forwarded some of the photos to me and I’m posting my favorite of his daughter, Sarah scooping grain, while the alpacas wait patiently in the background. Or maybe they’re actually keeping an eye on her making sure she doesn’t steal all the pellets. They’re greedy that way.

Winding down

Oh to have a cats life


Well, going back to work after a couple of weeks of a very light schedule has been rather tough. There are still dozens of things around the farm that need to be done. Brian did manage to get the temporary fencing replaced with much nicer permanent stuff, but we still need to set up an area for Legend, who will be coming back at the end of the month. Legend is one of those super alpha males that just wants to knock the snot out of all other males, so he has to get his own “space”. We’ll have him next to the yearling boys, which means we need to reinforce that fence, since he has a tendency to try and climb them.
Have any of you read that alpacas don’t challenge fences? Well I have to amend that to say MOST alpacas don’t challenge fences. Legend just thinks you’re daring him to get to the other side.
Other than that, life has settled down to a pleasant routine. Jacko is doing well and growing strong.

Not bad considering we thought we had lost him at least twice in the past two months. We’ve been doing some breeding and Momo and Godiva have been spitting off. Don has made a couple of field trips to visit a girlfriend and the last time he was out, she treated him so badly. We were all really happy to see that, Don; not so much. Tyche is due in February and then we should be done with crias until next fall. Hopefully ’09 will be a little kinder to us in the breeding department than ’08 was.
Now it’s back to fleece work. I’ve been cleaning and storing away fleece for our next run to the mill. The plan is to have the fleece sent out in February. We’ll see how close we actually get to that mark. Plus there will be time in the shop, carding cria fleeces that can’t go to the mill. So much to do, so little time. Maybe I can train the dogs to sort and card fleece…


See ya later!

Here we are, the last day of 2008. A time to sit and reflect back on the year, which honestly was a year of challenges. Some we met head on a came out the stronger and wiser for. Some laid us down in defeat, but never for long. I never much thought of myself as much of an optimist, but I so strongly believe in what we have here and I see such a bright future, that how can I not be? Setbacks? We all have them from time to time, but the good so far outweighs the bad, that it’s easy to brush the negative off and keep on going.
I looked back through my old post and had to laugh at the reoccurring theme “I feel like I’ve been going non-stop”. Well, I haven’t had a single chance to say I’m board this year!
At this moment everyone is well, people and animals alike. Jacko has had ups and downs over the past month, but we keep working with him and he is responding by growing bigger every day. Only four more months (or so) of bottle feeding, then he gets to feed himself!
As a result of Daisy’s reoccurring back issues, she was put on a diet and is down to a svelte 12.3 pounds. We’re excited, she’s just hungry. Poor thing is wasting away to nothing. I hate to be the one to break it to her that she has another pound or so to lose to be back to “normal” for a miniature dachshund.
I started breeding some of the girls earlier this month, and discovered that some of my supposedly pregnant girls weren’t. Oh well, we’ll just try it again. The boys don’t mind.
So tonight, I’ll try my best to stay up to midnight (remember, I get my butt out of bed at 3:30 in the morning, 7:00 is late for me) to ring in the new year, but chances are, I’ll claim East Coast rights, and when the ball drops in Time Square, the New Year begins. That means I get to go to bed a 10:00…if I make it that long.
So here’s hoping the New Year finds everyone happy and healthy and may only good things come your way!

Year end rush

Whew! It feels like we’ve been going non-stop since October. Hmm, probably because we have.
Things started to get really crazy right after Jacko was born. Unfortunately, he got very ill and we nearly lost him. Our vet diagnosed septicemia, a very dangerous blood infection. The poor little guy must have felt like a pin cushion as we threw an army of medication at him.
He was diagnosed on a Wednesday and I had to leave Friday for Alpacafest west. I truly feared that he would not be here when I got home and wanted to cancel the trip and stay with him. My mother-in-law, Dot, really came through, she took over Jacko’s care and up-dated me every day on his progress while I was gone. He responded so well, that I actually got to relax and enjoy myself in L.A.
.
A shawl that I entered in their fiber arts contest won first place, and Aries came home with a third place ribbon in his class

Not only did Jacko survive the weekend, he looked 1000 times improved on Monday.
Then Tuesday came. I found Jacko in the morning limp and unresponsive. We ran him back to the vets where he was transfused. He had developed acute diarrhea and it was taking its toll on him. Again Dot came through. While I went off to work, she was over every hour and a half making sure Jacko got fed and received additional fluids, meds, anything we could think of. Then I took over for early morning and late night feedings. It was touch and go for a good week, then he slowly began to make progress.
Now he’s a bouncing happy cria, a bit small for his age, but making up ground quickly. We still have to bottle feed him, and I think it may be a permanent situation (well for the next four and a half months or so, anyway), but we have no doubts that he will grow into a big stapping male.

Dot took over feeding every time I left town, which seemed to happen often these past two months. One trip was up to Singletree Alpacas for their annual Christmas Boutique. It’s always great to see all my friends up there
and I look forward to this trip every year as a “girls” weekend. We work our butts off, but its well worth the effort.


Then we had our second annual open house down at our place. It was huge success, with easily twice as many people coming out as last year. Some driving way cool rods (Lloyd, you show-off!)
Hopefully it will only keep growing. Many thanks to all me “peeps” that came out to help make it the success it was.
Now maybe I can take a deep breath, relax and get back to my loom!

JMS Alpacas Open House

Hey gang!
Want something fun to do next weekend? JMS Alpacas is having an open house Nov 15th. To get the details, drop them a line.
17001 W. Hopi Dr.
Casa Grande, AZ 85222-9362
(520) 836-0637
(321) 223-6895
jmsalpacafarm@q.com

Introducing Jacko

Another busy week is behind us. Most of this week we were distracted, taking care of our ill dog, who is doing much better now. Imagine my surprise when I got home Friday to find Momo with a cria. The little guy couldn’t have been there long, he was still damp. I find that the births I don’t witness tend to be the easiest on me. Of course, I’m pretty much a big weenie.
Since the cria was born on October 31, we’ve been trying to come up with good Halloween names. For the time being, we’re calling him Jacko, short for Jack O’ Lantern. Though sometimes we just call him Pumpkin.
I went to my second Desert Weavers guild meeting, and made out like a bandit. I won two of the raffle lots that they do each month. I’m already plotting on what I can do with it. I see a whole lot of scarves in my future!