Life is good

Friday I was the first person to the office in the morning. A homeless man sleeping in front of the front door startled me as I nearly stepped on him. I woke him and he moved out of the way. Instead of snarling at him to get a job, as I might have done at one time, I asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee.

            He gratefully accepted and waited outside until I came back with a cup of the freshly brewed stuff. He thanked me, took his coffee and headed down the sidewalk to do what ever it was he was going to do that day.

            On Monday I left work to go do yoga with my friend Lisa. Afterwards I stopped by the grocery store then moved over to the gas pumps to fill my car. As I was waiting for the pump to finish, I watched a man standing at the corner of the driveway, sign in hand, panhandling. Most of the cars went by without stopping, but one pickup did slow, the driver handed the man some money and drove on. As the truck pulled away, I saw the man bend his head in prayer. Whether he was praying for himself, or the driver, I couldn’t tell you, but it made me reflect on my life for a moment.

            I had just spent time with a good friend; I had a car full of groceries; I was working on a tank full of gas; I was headed home to a loving husband and a sturdy roof over our heads. I was blessed in so many ways.

            In my purse was two dollars. It was the change from a large order of fries I had bought earlier in the day, not because I was particularly hungry, but because I just wanted some french fries. As I pulled way from the gas pumps, I fished the two dollars out of my purse and a handed them to the man on the corner. As he leaned into the car to get the money he said, “God bless you ma’am.” All I could think was; he already has.

            Will these small acts of kindness make a huge difference in these men’s lives? Realistically? Probably not. But if a butterfly can flap its wings in Mexico, and cause a typhoon in China, imagine the potential a couple of dollars might have.

            Someday it may be me sleeping on the sidewalk, and it sure would be nice if someone brought me a cup of coffee.

Shearing 2013 -- DONE!

Shearing is once again behind us! This year, with a little help from our friends, (okay, a LOT of help from our friends. Thanks Pat, George and Chris!) we got everybody done in one weekend. There were a few minor injuries, mostly to the people, that I'm happy to say everyone is recovering from.

We sheared just in the nick of time. The day after we finished, we had a major wind storm. The gust where so strong that it actually blew a couple of bales of hay off the stack. I can just imagine the nightmare shearing would have been in that kind of weather. We would have been chasing fiber all the way to Casa Grande!

I meant to get some before and after pictures of the alpacas, but I set my camera down and forgot all about it until we were cleaning up on Sunday. So all you get is an after shot.

Jack-in-a-barn

 

This and that

The heat has been teasing us. We'll get hot for a couple of days, and we think here it is. Then we'll cool back down for a couple of days. No 100 degree days yet, so at least we get to ease into it this year.

The funky weather tends to catch the alpacas off guard every year, and every year we have one or two that don't stay hydrated enough and get impacted. This year it was Cartigan. I use a product called Magnalax, it is a laxative with a mild antacid, with a nice minty flavor. I know for a fact it has a minty flavor, I also know that alpacas don't particularly care for mint flavoring. Anyway, two  or three doses and it usually gets everything back in order. Cartigan was no exception.

We took Jack off medication again. So far it's been five weeks and we're keeping our fingers crossed. This is the longest he's been of meds in the last two years.

I've had a little free time recently so I've been working on the web store. People have been asking me for years if our yarns and such are on line. I finally figured out how to do it. I should be able to add some more of our one of a kind finished products as well, so check it out. Just remember it is still a work in progress, so if  it looks kind of unfinished, well, it is.

The big activity for this week is shearing this weekend. I'm hopeful that we can get everybody done, but if there are a few left by Sunday evening, I'll just get them finished up over the next couple of weeks in the chute.  Then it is back to the old routine of skirting, and tumbling and washing and....  you know how it goes.

Did you miss me?

Alas, poor blog, I have neglected you so.

I'm going to claim it's because I've been crazy busy, but there is a little bit of laziness involved as well.

We're gearing up for summer. The fans have been cleaned and oiled, we're doing some modifications to the coolers, and we have a couple of new great big water tanks for plenty of cool drinking water. (or a dip in the afternoon, whatever floats everyone's boat)

I have been busy at the loom doing some special order scarves. I finally finished them up yesterday so it's on to other things. The spinning wheel has dust on it, it has been so long since we visited, so that's on the to-do list. I won't even mention the state of the shop and the carder.

On the plus side, we did get over 300 pounds of fleece boxed up and sent off to a couple of mills for processing. Just in time for the next clip to start coming in. We're scheduled for the weekend of April 6 & 7 to get the bulk of our shearing done. Then it will be pretty much every weekend after that until all the farms are done in this area.

April 27 and 28, we'll be helping Pat and George with their Wool Festival. It may be at the Pinal County Fairgrounds, or it may be at their new home, I'm not entirely sure yet.  I plan to have fun where ever we end up.

The broccoli crop is in and I have a freezer full! The rest of the plants we're letting bolt so we have seed for next year. It looks like I'll be passing out seed to everyone I know again. It's amazing how many seeds you get of each plant. The snow peas are kicking into high gear right now, and we dug out first potatoes (and ate them already). I've got peppers and tomatoes in for the summer. I'll try squash again, even though I have failed spectacularly every year with it. I guess I'm just an optimist.

The alpacas love when we switch over to new veggie beds because they get to snack on all the old plants. So everybody is happy!

some shows are more exciting than others...

Happy Black Friday. For me this is a day to do anything but shop. But I’m funny that way.

We’re half way through our eight week marathon of shows and open houses. So far everything is going well… mostly.

Last weekend was a little rough. It started out well enough. I set up for Diane's open house Saturday. The day was quite, but the weather was nice and the company good, so no complaints.

Saturday night I started feeling ill. End up with food poisoning and was up all night wishing for the end to come and take me. Brian got me some anti-nausea stuff in the morning, so I was feeling good enough to go back to Diane's Sunday, late morning.

A guy that lives down the road from Diane raises exotic birds. Lloyd (Diane’s husband) brought a cockatoo over because he was trying to get Diane to let him buy it and he wanted Diane to see how friendly it was. I went in to meet the bird and after a few minutes turned to go back outside. The crazy bird (feathered demon) flew off Lloyd’s arm, landed on my head and bit a hole through my ear. And not in a location where I can just stick a stud through it and call it good. Stupid bird (winged hell-spawn) has no fashion sense.

Then while I'm sitting outside with a towel and some ice on my ear, just to add insult to injury, an alpaca walked up and bit my boob.

Oddly enough, I didn't notice my stomach bothering me much after all of that!

So net result; my ear hurts and Lloyd's not getting his bird. (flying minion of death)
 

This weekend I’ll be at Singletree Farm in Chino Valley. I’m hoping for an infinitely less exciting time.

Show season is upon us! Here is what we have planned for the next eight weeks:

 

Oct 27 & 28

JMS Alpacas Open House 17001 W. Hopi Dr Casa Grande

Nov 3

Southwest Fiber Festival Tubac, AZ

Nov 10 & 11

Open House at Diane's  in Stanfield (ok, I know how to get there, but I don't have an address!)

Nov 24 & 25

Holiday Boutique at Singletree Farm, Chino Valley AZ

Dec 1 & 2

6th Annual Open House at Alpacazona Farm

33117 W. Peters and Nall Rd Maricopa, AZ 85138

Dec 8 & 9

2nd Annual Open House at Mesquite Valley Ranch

22625 S. Val Vista Dr, Gilbert AZ 85298

Dec 15 & 16

Casa Grande Art Festival at the Promenade.

Time to come up for a breath of air! It's been pretty busy at the farm recently. I taught my first official class. In a Pear Tree hosted while I taught a class on nuno felting. I think it went well and my students went home with a couple of hand crafted scarves. I believe most were intended for Christmas gifts this year.

In a Pear Tree was also open for the first "Art in The Alley" of the season. I brought the trusty babe electric spinning wheel with me and spent a couple of hours spinning yarn.

Skeetzona Brand roving and yarns are now available at Tempe Yarn. I have been pretty busy getting the first order squared away and as of this weekend, it should hit the shelves. I've also been busy at the loom and with soap, gearing up for the coming holiday season.

We also started receiving back the felt that we have been working on with Spinderella Fiber Mill. It is always such a pleasure to work with a group that wants to be a part of the learning process. We told Lynn and Deanna what are goal was and they crafted a couple of weights of felt for us.

Now that we've had time to play with it, I've sent my thoughts and suggestions back and the next round is on the machine. So far we've been focusing on making outer-wear vest from the felt. We have a few other projects on the board that we'll be trying out as well, but they will have to wait until we can scrape together a few free minutes



.

I scored a couple of new display manikins. Brain decided that one, a child's body, just didn't look right without a head, so he dressed it up a little. Now the creepy little alien keeps showing up in various rooms of the house, scaring the crap out of me.

It hasn't all been fun and games. We had one of our boys, Donncha suddenly stop eating. I spent a week and ahlaf spooning gruel into him while we tried to figure out what was wrong. It moments like this, you really wish they could speak, and could tell you where they hurt. To make a long story short, it ended up being an abscess under his jaw. I had initially thought abscess, but couldn't feel any lumps in the usual places. This one was really deep and between the mandible bones. When I finally felt it, I had to actually check the other alpacas to see if it was in fact a lump and not something that was supposed to be there. The abscess was so deep, that Linda couldn't reach it to drain it without surgery. Fortunately, it finally opened at about two weeks out and Don was a happy camper from that point on. The wound is draining nicely and Don is making up for lost meals.

One of the things we did while trying to figure out what was going on with Don, was test him for valley fever. That came back positive (which had nothing to do with the abscess)so we've started him on Fluconazole for the next two months. Don is pretty good about taking his pills, especially because he knows he's going to get a nice big bowl of pellets afterwards. All I have to do now is shake the bowl and call his name, and he comes running.