Happy July! I think, after a flurry of activity this last month, things will quite down and we will be able to enjoy the dog days of summer. And Summer is well and truly upon us. The girls have abandoned the front field and spend most of the day in the breeze way sitting in front of fans and coolers. The boys have been in front of the coolers since we turned them on. Read that any way you want, I don't judge. It seems that the alpacas don't mind the heat so much (the girls were still out sunbathing even though it was 108 degrees or better) as the humidity. As monsoon approaches the humidity is slowly climbing.
We rescued some feral kittens a couple of weeks back.

Their mom went missing when they were about four weeks old. It took a bit of doing, but we did finally manage to track the litter down four days after the last sighting of their mother. We've found homes for two of the kittens and are still looking for homes for the remaining three. We'll be working on getting them fixed shortly and then we'll post them on a local adaption sight. Everybody think happy, new homes for kittens thoughts.

We also assisted Arizona Llama rescue with find a home for some suri alpacas that had to be surrendered by their owner. The suris; Tommy, Dawn and Lola, are awaiting the trip to their new home on northern AZ as soon as everybody can get their schedules worked out.

I guess the big thing for us, was a trip to Branson for a family reunion with my folks and siblings and their families. It was a long drive but well worth the trip. My parents planned the outing in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary. It's been twelve years since all of us where together in the same spot. Like all good families, we just took up right where we left off. There was much laughing and catching up. I don't think I've eaten that well in a long time! My niece Meghan tried her hand at spinning,

and it turns out she's a natural, it must be in the genes! though she wasn't too thrilled with me snapping a photo of her working. Sadly, Brian and I couldn't figure out a way to become professional vacationers, so Monday morning we went trudging back to work.

On the drive back we stopped at a rest area in Texas and I just had to snap this photo. Comforting to know that if you can out run the tornado, they've built a bunker for you to hide in. Don't forget to wash your hands on the way out.



On a happy note, however, while we were gone, Dot managed to get all of our fleeces washed. Now we just have to send them up to Linda for picking!

Whooooooh! Shearing is done for another year. We've been at it all month. But I believe all the farms in the area are now full of naked alpacas. Belle was our last one. I ended up giving myself a break and brought her over to a friend's place where they had a professional come in to shear. I was more than happy to hand her off and write a check. I did about half of the alpacas on my own. My first day I did three and a half. It turns out Heilo isn't keen on the chute and after I got his blanket off, I decided it was too dangerous to keep going. So he ended up with a poodle cut for about a week until Pat and George came out and helped us finish him. I'm pooped!

In between shearing, we managed to get all the vegetable beds ready and planted . The Corn, beans and Armenian cucumbers are doing really well. Everything else went in late and is just coming up now. Sadly, I forgot to label the beds and now I've forgotten what went where. I love a mystery.

I've also been passing out broccoli seeds to all my friends. Turns out one flower makes a mess of seeds, and I let quite a bit of the plant bolt. Live and learn, now I know I don't have to leave so many blooms behind. Just means we get to eat more of it. Also on the agenda for April was getting everything prepared for the coming heat. The barn coolers got the once over, parts replaced got mended and the fans got oiled. Screens went up on the house this past weekend. I think I mat plant a couple more strategically place trees this year to help provide shade down the road. And though it all, Daisy still found time for a nap.

We hosted a fiber fun day at the farm last Sunday.

We focused on painted dying techniques this time around. About a dozen people were on hand getting dirty in a very colorful way.

Brandi jumped in and helps me run the class and kept mixing dyes for the others. Without her help I never would have been able to keep up! Here's a huge THANK YOU shout out to her. The day started out with beautiful weather, but the winds picked up in the afternoon and we had to retreat into the shop as a dust storm came in from the south. The wind died down pretty quick, but I think we were all ready to leave the dyes behind by then.



The only one not exhausted at the end of the day was Daisy, who found herself a nice little nest for napping

Peaceful times at the Tucson Wool Festival

Last Saturday was the last Tucson Wool Festival, as Kathy is moving to Maryland at the end of the month. She didn't advertise very heavily (short timer syndrome I think) and I thought the crowd was way down. I know sales where. And I couldn't have cared less or had a better time. It turned out to be such a relaxing day. I got to visit with friends, work on projects and have time to eat a decent lunch (thanks for the mac and cheese Kathleen!) In fact, after Kathy shut down for the day, we all just hung out for a while. Eventually we all packed up and headed for home. It was nice to arrive at the house after a show not completely exhausted.
Of course, I still need the busier shows to keep the alpacas in hay, so I'd best not get use to it.

I've been spinning yarn like a mad woman so I have enough for everyone to play with next Sunday. I'm hosting a fiber play day. We'll be playing around with hand painted dying. I have no idea how many people plan on being there, but weather it's one or one hundred, I want to make sure everybody gets to try at least a little bit of dying.
Now I just have to clean out that end of the shop, so I can set up tables...

I've been playing around with the web site and have finally figured out how to do a little tweaking. For the life of me I can't figure out why computer programmers aren't all insane. It took me two hours to change one price. But I did change it, and that called for a small celebration. I rewarded myself with a nice chilled glass of wine. If I figure out how to change a photo, I'm gonna give myself the whole bottle!

come on google, let me in...

Look! I'm up-dating the blog; now quit nagging me Pat.
I suppose I could tell you nothing has been going on, but we've been pretty busy, really. The problem I'm having is Google has decided to be difficult and keeps refusing my password. When I try to reset it, I get an email stating I don't have an account with the email I use. This is usually followed by another email telling me how to reset the password for the email they claim I don't have. ??? most of the time I decide it isn't worth bothering with. On occasion, I reset the password, only to be told the next time I try to log in that the pass word is no good.

I hate technology.

So what has happened lately? The Southwest Regional Alpaca Show has come and gone. I had registered Belle and Flynn, but the night before checking, Belle decided to get sick. Nothing serious, a bad case of the runs, but I didn't want to stress her further or take a chance she was contagious with anything so I opted to leave them both home. Belle was fine in a couple of days and completely unrepentant for having ruined my plans. Nobody else showed signs of illness, so it was probably something she got into. In hind sight, I was just as happy to not have the kids there. My mom didn't make it out this year, and I don't think I could have managed everything without her.
I headed up the ABA booth this year. I think we did pretty well. We managed to make a little hay money. (or made up the money we spent on not taking Belle and Flynn to the show)
The following weekend Pat and I participated in Arizona City Daze. The weather was quite nice, and I thoroughly enjoyed the wine I bought on the way home. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot to talk about. Think we'll put this one in the "thanks, but we'll pass" column.
We'll take a break this weekend and then head to Tucson for the final Tucson Wool Festival. Kathy has bought a home in Maryland and is shifting everything East. I'm sure she would welcome us there, but it is a bit of a commute.
One thing about AZ City Daze, I had time to take stock of my remaining product and realized that I am getting low on yarn. We have been selling it steadily all winter without me paying much attention. Now I'm hustling to get more done. My free time is spent carding and spinning. Now I'm getting notes that people are needing soap again. Shoot! note to self: free time must be spent carding, spinning and felting. Maybe I should just give up sleeping.
Some good news, yarn wise, our cream color yarn came back from the mill. I'm skeining that off the cones and on March 25, we're going to have some people over and spend an afternoon playing with hand painting techniques.
The other thing I've been trying to work on is getting our online store up dated. That is really not going well. (the "I hate technology" statement and the difficulties I have with Google should give you an indication of my computer prowess - slim to nil. On line stores are completely beyond me) Stay tuned for either a new on line store, or a news headline about a crazy woman that shot her computer.

Happy New Year!

Bu-bye 2011. Hello 2012. Let's see what the new year has in store for us.
The year ended in a whirl wind of activity. We had six events in eight weeks. All went really well except our own open house. For that the wind blew, the rain fell and the temperature plummeted. To say the least, it was a quite weekend for visitors. Oh well, can't win them all.
Then right on the heels of the events was teeth trimming day, Christmas and New Years. In between all of these, we had to keep running felted soap out to our vendors. That's some pretty big news for the end of the year; we now have soap in The Old Pot Shop in Tucson (an artist collective), Homology in Scottsdale (a contemporary home accessory store) and In A Pear Tree in Casa Grande (another artist collective).
I also plan on redoing the online store on our web site. But I've been planning on doing that for months, so I wouldn't be holding my breath on that one.
We did have some quite, fun moments du

ring all this. Like the afternoon we spent putting Santa hats on the alpacas and taking pictures. We had a blast and the alpacas were surprisingly tolerant. I guess they were in the holiday mood as well.
I finally got my but back out to the shop and have been dying and washing fleece again. I have an idea on doing some felted scarves. Hopefully after this weekend I'll be ready to actually start. I'll keep you posted.

The Holiday rush - I need a nap!

whewwww! We had our last event for the season this past weekend; and open house atr Mesquite Valley Ranch in Gilbert. The weather was beautiful and the turnout was good. I always have fun doing these events (ok, so maybe OUR open house last weekend when it was 40 degrees and raining wasn't exactly a good time...) but after four weekends in a row and events going on in 7 of the last nine weekends, I am totally sick of putting up tents and taking them back down. I'm ready for a rest!
And I'll have to keep waiting. We'll be trimming teeth this Sunday. Which means I only have Saturday to get caught up on four weeks of house cleaning and laundry. It's getting pretty bad even by my fairly low standards.
Mean while, our socks have been slowly dribbling in. We now have most of the crew socks back, and medium tan hiking socks. The mill sent out a rumor that another box would be ready for shipping by last Friday. I haven't heard if it happened or not. If it did go out, it should be here by the end of the week and I'm hoping it has more hiking socks. Our waiting list keeps getting longer and I really HATE to keep people waiting!
I was poking around on the Internet while waiting for my boss and I stumble across this: http://www.wmicentral.com/news/latest_news/neafaa-s-th-annual-arts-crafts-festival-the-orchard-at/collection_edaaf7c0-aca7-11e0-89b5-001cc4c03286.html
It's the show at Charlie Clark's up in Pinetop that we did last July 4th weekend. There's even a picture of me and our booth in there! Cheryl and I always have a good time at that show. The best part was that our booth was close enough to the stage that we got to enjoy "the man of a 1000 voices". We especially enjoyed his rap song!