introducing J.J.

So, we have another mouth to feed. And judging from his girth, that may be no easy task. This stray, now dubbed J.J., showed up last week. All our attempts at finding his owner have been amazingly unsuccessful, which was a bit surprising as he obviously had been well cared for. After two nights of sleeping on our front porch, Brian took pity on him and into the house he came.
There where some minor jealousy issues from Molly, but once she figured out J.J. had no interest in sitting on my lap, she accepted his presence. Daisy never cared one way or the other what the new dog was doing. She is supremely confident in her position as queen over all. For the first couple of days, J.J. just ignored the alpacas, but Molly has now shown him that oh-so-fun game of charging the fence to make the alpacas run. Great, now I have to attempt to train another one that this isn’t a game we like to play. I’ve only been marginally successful in getting Molly to stop. I had better luck with just desensitizing the alpacas to her attempts. Now they only run from Molly when they feel like it, but J.J. is obviously a much more vicious and frightening creature. Besides, he barks while he’s running, they’re not use to that.

Free time ahead!

Whew! I feel like I’ve been going non-stop for the last eight weeks. Well it’s finally all behind us. The last alpaca has been sheared, I have learned the secrets of spinning novelty yarn and the Pima County 4H fair is a pleasant memory.
We even have the rugs back from Texas, now. They came out beautifully, but then, I expected nothing less from Ingrid’s.
These 3’ x 5’ rugs are 100% natural, made from the fleeces of our own alpacas and woven right here in the Southwest. They have a delightful southwest theme and would fit right in, in any ranch house or cabin. We’ll be getting those up on our website soon.
The spinning class was quite the success, with many “ah-ha” moments. I’m anxious to try my hand at some more novelty yarn and have been busy clearing the back log of spinning I’ve promised other people.
I’ve also been playing around with some different dye techniques and hopefully will be incorporating those fibers into some spinning and weaving projects.But mostly, I’m going to take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy a little down time for a day or two.

shear magic!

Shearing time is upon us again! Friday we where joined by three other farms as a local shearer went to work on our alpacas (thanks Paul!). Of course I meant to get pictures, but, uh, well I forgot, so no visual aids for this blog. I’ll post some post-shearing photos of the gang in while.
We just had Paul shear out three yearling boys, as we may want to show their fleeces this year and he gets the fleece off so much prettier than we do. Saturday and Sunday, Brian and I went to work on the rest of the herd. We decided this year to just take our time and do a couple of animals each day and spread the shearing out over several weekends. We managed to get all the boys finished and about half the girls, and still had time to go out for lunch on Sunday. Next weekend we’ll finish up the girls and maybe get the crias done. Then it’s skirting and sorting and deciding what fleece will end up as what finished product! I love this time of year.

In between all this, I’ve been busy with my goal of clearing out the backlog of fleeces from previous years. My plan is to not have any stray old fleeces lying around with no purpose. To that end, I’ve been getting a batch ready to send out to be made into socks. Hopefully we’ll get those back in time for this years holiday season. I also will be sorting through all those bags of seconds that have been piling up, in the hopes of getting some rugs made. The test run is just about ready and we should be seeing the first rugs back in the next couple of weeks. I can’t wait.
We’re also exploring a possible felting project. And of course, we’ll be spinning up as many of the ultra fine royal baby fleeces as we can!

Another exciting day at the farm, Reba and Zoe returned home from breeding. I had every intent on isolating them from the rest of the hers for a few weeks, but, well, it was a long trip and I had a major headache, and well, I forgot. So much for bio-security.

Adama was fascinated by Reba and spent the whole evening chasing her, much to Reba’s dismay. Though by this morning it was more a mutual run rather than a chase, as Reba, Zoe and the three crias where off on a full out pronk at 4:00 this morning.

Just so you know, no one, including alpacas, should have that much energy that early in the morning!

Dye Day

some of the days results

Well Happy Dye Day! Our first ever hand painted dye class was held this weekend. I worked myself to the bone getting ready, on the heels of getting over a bit of a cold, and ended up flat on my butt for Sunday. But it was all worth it as we turned out a ton of beautiful, colorful yarn and roving.


Nancy was amazing and so very patient with all of us. And Molly the dog supervised all of the days activities. I’d say it was a successful class, and conducted with a minimum of dye on us (except for Jennifer, who’s hands may never stop being blue). I know I learned a lot.



After everyone left, I still had an iota of energy, so My mother-in-law Dot and I finished dyeing the left over yarn and roving. Hmmmm, now I need to decide what to do with all this yarn…


That winds up March. Now we need to gather our strength for April which will be a very busy month for us. We start on the 11th with Paul Sands, coming down to do some shearing for us. We’ll only have our three yearling boys to do, but there are three other farms bringing alpacas to be shorn. Then on the 18th I’m heading down to Tucson to take a class on spinning novelty yarn. Hopefully the new drive band for my spinning wheel shows up before then, or it may end up being a very challenging class. Finally on the 25th I’ll be judging the Pima County Fair 4-H alpaca show. I’ve even prepared a mystery obstacle for the kids and alpacas. I love a challenge!



In between all this, I have to get the rest of the alpacas shorn. Then comes the fun part of figuring out what to do with all our fleeces this year!
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

hello

hello

poo vac

still learning how to add text

Ok folks, you asked for it and here it is… the amazing poo vac.

All you need for parts are a 55-gallon trash barrel, a yard leaf blower/vac and some flexible tubing (oh and calk of some sort to seal the connections, but I forgot to ask if there was a particular kind.)

Cut a hole in one side to mount the yard vac. The one we bought has a quick disconnect, which makes it easy to start on the ground (for those with short arms like me) and then connect to the can.
We used an old pair of panty hose to cover the air intake on the inside of the can.
Next cut a hole on the opposite side of the can for the hose connection.
Viola, you’re done.

Some notes after using this for about a week. At full throttle, the lid of the can sucks in and can break the seal. We think reinforcing the lid will prevent this. We’re going to try cutting a piece of styrofoam to fit up in the to prevent the lid from bending and keeping the whole thing lightweight. Some other thoughts were to ad wooden reinforcement bars to the lid or some sort of angle iron.
Widen the wheels. This works great on flat ground, but can get a bit tippy when you go baha with it.
And finally, it works great in beans, but you need to break up any clumpy stuff or it will clog the hose. We used a 2.5” hose; Brian thinks if we go to a larger hose, this will be prevented (and may also solve the issue of the lid seal.)
Hope this helps everyone.