It must be an alpaca road trip! Sam pushes our dolly towards the hotel elevator on Wednesday morning, 4/17 with some 150+ lb. of water jugs. His relative good cheer given that this was taken at 5:30 AM was most likely because of the fact that we were on our way to get freshly made donuts. Homer Simpson has a point.

Some quick takeaways from the past 9 days while traveling to and from the Futurity:

1. Man can not survive on Krispy Kreme Donuts alone. At least not long term. For driving cross-country though, they’re just perfect. As Sammy pointed out as we were pulling into KC after a full day on the road, “I did have less than one per hour!” Barely.

2. For the overall quality of the show facility (the American Royal Center), the excellence and affordability of the hotel, and especially the vibrancy of the city itself, Kansas City, Missouri is my new favorite alpaca show city. No contest, really. No disrespect to the facility in Grand Island, NE we were at for the 2011 and 2012 editions of this show but this year was well, um…better. I for one, am psyched that the show is already booked for the same venue in 2014. It is a site and a town worthy of that event.

3. Having water in your truck’s diesel tank and losing power by virtue of a failing fuel filter is a drag. Doing so while hauling a fully loaded trailer of alpacas en route back home by way of the PA Turnpike and a stop in Maryland, doubly so. Many colorful words that described my feelings about that situation came pouring out of me at the time as we limped along I-70 at 20 MPH for some 5 miles, none of which I shall repeat here. Huge thanks to Woy Brother’s GMC of Somerset, PA for getting us in and out in a total of 90 minutes.

4. It all felt a little surreal last week watching the scenes from Boston unfold as we made our way out west. Not only was the neighborhood where the Marathon bombings took place intimately familiar to myself and Jen from our early 20s but my parents still live near Porter Square in Cambridge which was part of the area under lockdown during the final man hunt.

5. Next time you see either Dave Serino or Neil Padgett be sure to ask them about Dancing With Green Fairies. Trust me.

6. Speaking of our aforementioned partner/co owner from Maryland, Dave and I got to spend a wonderful evening — after the truck crisis was resolved — on Tuesday with Neil, Jo, and Bari Padgett at A Paca Fun Farm which is truly like a slice of Heaven. Elixir’s other home is a pretty cool place. I woke up in the Padgett’s guest room on Wednesday morning, the sounds of spring birdsong coming in through the window and thought I might just have understood why Odysseus was briefly tempted to stay on Calypso’s island when struggling to get back home to Ithaca. If you haven’t visited that farm before, you’re missing something quite special.

7. I learned more about honey bee reproduction, life cycles, and anatomy during Wednesday’s drive with my favorite amateur beekeeper than I ever knew. Seriously. We had a bit of time to kill. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not a drone (male) honey bee. Your entire life builds towards two to three seconds of rather painful sounding glory and then you fall to the ground and die. Kinda harsh.

8. Two days of showing at the Futurity served undeniable notice that the leading edge of huacaya alpaca genetics is alive, vibrant, and moving rapidly forward.  Our colleagues from Snowmass Alpacas showed up at the show this year with with a killer show string and while we did our level best to compete, let there be no doubt who reigned supreme. Onward and upward we go.

The Narrative Version

I dropped off our old friend (and beloved volunteer show slave), Dave Serino, as the I drove through the greater Albany, NY area Wednesday afternoon, before finally pulling in here at the farm that night around 6PM. Home! That was some trek. For yours truly, it all actually lasted a little over a week. I collapsed into bed that night with the comforting and familiar seasonal soundtrack of our pond’s peepers keeping the time and slept like baby.

With our kids on their spring break last week, Sam and I had driven out to the show together, having left on Tuesday the 16th.  Jen and Max flew into KC and technically arrived about an hour before us on Wednesday night after what was a pretty harrowing approach by all accounts. Dave completed our show crew, flying in from Albany on Friday morning, coincidentally on the same flight as our friends and VT Fiber Mill partners, Ed and Deb Bratton, who used to call KC home and were using the show as an excuse to come and visit friends and family.

In the case of the terrestrial travelers, Sam and I had originally planned to stop some 3 hours outside of Kansas City on Wednesday night, with the idea that we would then wake up early and saunter in on Thursday morning. Two things conspired against that plan though: first a temperature spike into the low 90s an hour or so past St. Louis would have made things rather risky for the alpacas in a stationary trailer and secondly, the joyous news that we would be dealing with heavy thunderstorms and an active tornado warning whether we stopped or not. As such we elected to go the distance into KC that very night. If given a choice, we’d always prefer to be a moving target rather than a sitting duck. Plus, one upshot of driving into the heavy rains was that the outside temperature promptly dropped 37 degrees! Though the fleeces on our alpacas looked sopping wet by the time we got into the city, at least the animals were comfortable. With Sam closely watching the Doppler radar on the Ipad, we also had a pretty good feel for what we were up against over those final few hours of the journey and were lucky to dodge the worst of the weather. In the end, we managed to pull our rig temporarily into the American Royal Center itself for the night (there was still an active tornado warning) and plug the trailer’s electrical circuit into a wall outlet so that we could power our onboard fans. By 11 PM that night, the CCNF show string was tucked away safe and sound and our little family was happily reunited at the Marriott hotel downtown. Many thanks to our friends Kevin O’Leary and Tim Vincent for making that all happen with minimal fuss. All good.

As many people know by now that have followed our family’s (mis)adventures, our poor Sammy had the misfortune of being born in 1998 on a date that would ultimately become setup day for this show in most of the ensuing years. We adapt though, make lemonade out of lemons and all of that. That we were able to go back to the American Royal, unload the critters, and set up all of our pens early on Thursday morning (only after presents and room service, mind you!) and then head back into town to have a little fun and a truly celebratory birthday dinner with both of our boys, just reinforced our early warm and fuzzy first impression of KC.

Did I mention that there was actually an alpaca show too? Over the years there have been few events in the alpaca industry capable of creating such feelings of excitement and dread all at the same time the way the Futurity can. It is the Major Leagues to every other big show’s AAA. We have always gone to the Futurity for the purpose of measuring our breeding program against the best alpacas in this country. The problem with that though being that sometimes you don’t always like what you learn. At this very moment, four days after the fact, I have to say that the overriding feeling for me is one of relief. We won some and we lost some (rather more than we won, truthfully), though we were genuinely competitive throughout. Of the 25 alpacas we took to the Futurity, the majority of our animals placed in the top 3 of their respective classes, we took the Reserve Light Female Championship (CCNF Avalon), won the dark Get of Sire class with 3 of our little Snowmass Matrix Majesty kids (CCNF Legionnaire, CCNF Moonbeam, and CCNF Capuchin), and only one of our animals got the gate. It is also worth noting that 22 of those 25 alpacas on our show string were born here on our farm (the remaining 3 were shanghaied from our friends at TGF — whom we missed terribly — late last year). Of course we are first and foremost victims of our own long term success and the high expectations that we have placed on ourselves and our breeding program as a result. Though undeniably bloodied by the time the show ended on Monday afternoon, we felt like we had fought and scrapped respectably and left KC with our pride mostly intact. While Dave and I had our little mechanical drama in Pennsylvania on the way home, Jen, Sam and Max (who missed two days of school to help the cause) were able to leapfrog us in the air on Tuesday morning and were back home by that afternoon. All in all while we were definitely not satisfied with what we had accomplished, we had to be at least somewhat pleased. Like everyone else that competed at the Futurity, we now await the official tabulations for Herdsires of the Year and Breeders of the Year. Time will tell. The only thing not in doubt is that the Futurity remains both the most important and the most humbling show in North America.

Now we are home decompressing as the rest of the world both here at the farm and in the rest of our lives (class plays, lacrosse games) continues to swirl around us as though we’ve been here all along. We need to catch our breath very quickly though as amongst other things, there is the small matter of shearing coming up in less than a week. We also need to take pictures of some females for auction later this year before they get their snazzy summer hair-dos. Reality cares little for the fact that we put our lives on a virtual hold for seven+ days so that we could walk in circles for a total of two in pursuit of ribbons, banners, and trophies. We will be home now in one form or another through the remainder of the kids’ school year, seemingly a period of calm after the craziness of March and April. Though Jen will be skirting show fleeces like a mad woman as soon as we are shorn next week in preparation for the upcoming spring fleece shows, our spring show season of fleece on the hoof is over. The fact is that many of those longer, finer fleeces will look better off of their owners than on them at this point anyway. In any case, it’s time to start shifting gears: the first cria of 2013 is due in less than 2 weeks!

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Though Jen and I arrived with the show string on Thursday to set everything up, I had to scatter my arse back north to Vermont on late Friday morning to pick up our boys and take them to their school’s annual spring music night. Meanwhile Jen and our Herd Manager, Kim Duprey, stuck around the show venue, helping with the color checking at the show all day long. The team was all back together again in Springfield by late that night though: a little knackered but ready to do its thing over the next couple of days.

Of course regardless of how well a show goes, it’s hard not to feel a palpable sense of relief when it’s all over with too. “Well, at least we don’t have to think about that for another 10.5 months or so…” So it was Sunday night around 6:30 when Sam and I backed the large trailer up to the garage doors on the front of the Main Barn here on the farm and disgorged 34 show animals back into their pens. Moments later Jen, Max, and our small trailer arrived carrying the 9 older males in our string, including favorite son CCNF Elixir, who has temporarily returned home again after a winter spent cooling his heels at his co owners’ farm in Maryland. Judging by their behavior, the alpacas were just as happy to be back on the farm as the humans were. Something about the dust, the din of the show venue, and the lovely chlorinated water of the Eastern States Expo that no doubt made our collective heart go pitter-patter down there at the NAAS…

So did you add that number up yet though? That was kind of silly. We were brain-dead enough that we purposefully brought 43 alpacas to a show. Granted, the NAAS is as close as we get to a “local” show. It’s only an hour and forty minutes straight down I-91, technically speaking even a tiny bit closer than the Vermont show we attend in the fall. With myself, Jennifer, and Sammy as well as our old friends Dave Serino and Pat Badger (the Ring-Walker lives!) all going into the show rings, Kimmy spent most of the day Saturday and Sunday playing pit boss and shuttling animals to and from our show pens, just feeding the handlers animals and number cards in the holding areas. It was a little seat-of-the-pants at times but all in all it worked out in the end. As the person who did the least amount of work on the training of the 25 rookies that were part of that show string, I also want to take a moment to toot Jen and Kim’s horn just a little. The only troublesome animals in the entire show string were the hormonal older males who were theoretically already trained, while the weaners for the most part behaved like seasoned pros. Perhaps we’ve (Jen and Kim) learned a thing or two about show training too in 16 years of playing this game we love?

Though we were of course pleased with the 2 Color Championships (white male and female) and 3 Reserve Color Championships (white female, light male, grey male) that our critters won, in some ways the more impressive take away may be that of the 43 individual CCNF animals that walked into the show ring over the course of the weekend, 42 of them left it with a ribbon. That’s not counting the production classes (Produce of Dam, Get of Sire, and Breeder’s Best 3) that we also won. We’ve always droned on about consistent results over time being the true measure of any breeding program’s quality and staying power but how about consistent finishes right across the color spectrum (all right not quite, we didn’t have any blacks, multis, or indefinites) at a single show? We’d have to be even more brain dead not to be at least somewhat satisfied with those results as well.

The North American marked the rather conspicuous debut of a large group of CCNF’s first Matrix Majesty crias, all of whom were born in 2012. Those accustomed to seeing our show pens filled with nothing but predominantly white/light alpacas could be forgiven for doing a double take at the large double pens filled with fawn and brown juveniles. Though none of them managed to win one of those lovely rectangular things, several of them did win their respective classes and as they mature those fleeces are only going to get more interesting, not less so. Stay tuned.

Last weekend was also a shining moment for a small group of our young females all of whom — not by chance mind you — bear the names of their famous and prepotent (and alas, deceased) grand-dams. CCNF Capuchin, CCNF Pachelbel, CCNF Tessora, CCNF Jesusa, and last but not least, CCNF Prestige all won at least a blue ribbon (Prestige and baby Tess were the white Champ and RC respectively) and made us all very proud in the process. The genetic legacies of their female ancestors, most of whom had joined our foundation herd over ten years ago, are in very good hands. Speaking of oldies but goodies: do you think, by the way, that it’s any coincidence that 3 of those 5 females were also Archangel grandkids as well? Just saying.

In between the actual showing over the weekend, we also got to catch up with the many old friends that we have in the alpaca world, as well as meet a ton of new people and even talk some business. Apparently our decision to temporarily offer a 10% discount off of our wholly-owned stud services last weekend caught people’s attention, as we left the show with no fewer than 5 new commitments for outside breedings this coming season. We’ve always enjoyed talking shop with new and experienced breeders alike, whether actually putting our hands on the animals themselves (Invictus was conveniently down there with us in person and won a blue ribbon for himself in addition to being part of Precocious’ winning Get) or just discussing different genetic lines more in the abstract. We’ve always felt that showing is far and away the most direct and effective form of marketing for our breeding program — I’ll trade you 10 full page ads in any industry magazine for one good show weekend any day — and last weekend was a perfect example. Quality and consistency, as always, speak for themselves.

CCNF Smoke Ring

Lastly, we want to offer huge thanks and congratulations to Dee and Don Sherman of Arrow Acres Farm for their purchase over the weekend of our beautiful grey Herdsire (Reserve Champion too at the 2013 NAAS) and Ring of Fire son, CCNF Smoke Ring. Though we were always prepared to keep Smoker at home in the immediate future, perhaps breeding him to the odd female and offering him for outside stud services, he will admittedly go to far greater and better use in a breeding program that has more than one unrelated grey female. We really look forward to seeing what he can do for the Shermans in the years ahead!

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Though there are opportunities to show alpacas almost year round, if we chose to, for more than 10 years now we have used the big April shows as the true start of our yearly show schedule. It gives the year a nice balance. In the spring we drive all over the place (some for the farm, a lot for our kids’ after school pursuits), show, shear, and start delivering crias. In the summer we do the vast majority of our baby catching as well as probably 80% of the breedings here in our herd. In the fall, the baby making/catching slowly tails off and we go back on the road for a couple of smaller regional shows. Then the winter comes and we catch up on all of the stuff that got put to the side beforehand as well as take some family vacation time away from the farm.

What that means though is that after 4 1/2 months of relative calm, come late February, we shift gears in a pretty big way. Not only do the weanling show animals need to be chosen and trained but all of the show gear (fans, banners, tables, stall mats, etc…) must come out of mothballs again. With a 20+ hour haul out to Kansas City in the offing for the Futurity, the farm truck and our large trailer will also each be given the once over to make sure that all is in good working condition. Ever broken down with a full sized, fully loaded alpaca trailer before? I have. It sucks.

Of course fixing wheels, bearings, brakes, axles, engines, and generators is in many ways the easy part. The rookie show animals are more challenging and definitely more time consuming as well.  We began several weeks back with a list of 25 untrained weaners but as of today I am happy to say that there are only 2 of them that could not functionally walk (read: not completely humiliate their handlers) into a show ring. That final duo will go into the round pen for the first time in next few days and will hopefully join their peers in walking up and down the hill by this weekend. For the the past few days we’ve been fastidiously putting the rest of them that still needed some extended study time through their paces and we’ve all got the sore right shoulders to prove it too! We’ve made good progress though. Some animals who seemed like real head cases when they first came out of the round pen are now walking on completely slack lead lines.

Jen’s desk up at the Main Barn has a big old worksheet on it that lists every animal that is going on the road this April whether they are 6 months or 36 months of age (we have two token adult males coming to the NAAS). That sheet is covered in a series of slashes, check marks, asterisks, and different highlighter colors across the animal’s names themselves all conveying to Jen, Kim, and myself where a given member of the show string is in their readiness for the ring. Not that we believe that all will be trained perfectly. While that’s always the goal, we’ve also been doing this long enough that we know to temper our expectations. For instance, the chances of a yearling male alpaca (think hormones!) submitting to being groped by a stranger front, side, and back before then getting the show ring equivalent of “please turn your head and cough” without at least some protestation are fairly slim. All we ask is that ultimately they do submit, that they generally look good doing it, and that they be calm enough that those of us on the other end of the lead line don’t get too thrashed about. Given that this showing business is after all first and foremost a direct way for us to market our breeding program, we obviously want to project an aura of calm even if only for the 20 minutes or so that a given critter is in the ring. Though it’s obviously helpful on those occasions when we have animals that seem to actually like and thrive in the environment of the show ring — and in those cases it’s just the way they were hard-wired at birth, we don’t take any credit for that — we’re also ok with them just faking it for while too. As of right now we have 10 days to go until the first of those rookie show animals walks into a ring with a judge present and we are starting to feel cautiously optimistic that most of them will in fact walk. Stay tuned…

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