• Elixir gets naked!

    Day 1 of shearing 2012 is in the books and we ended up doing a nice round 70 alpacas today. Only 137 to go! Below is the video I shot this morning of Futurity Judges’ Choice winner, CCNF Elixir, getting shorn. Minus a blip just before the blanket gets finished it’s pretty much start to…

  • Catching a break…

    Funny isn’t it how back in early April we were so desperate for rain and it wouldn’t come, yet with two days to go before shearing we just got over 1.5″. To put that in perspective, had it been cold out that would have been the largest single snow fall of the winter of 2011/2012!…

  • Shearing prep

    The really good news around here is that the cycle of seemingly endless dry weather finally went on hiatus while we were away at the Futurity a couple of weeks ago. The bad news though is that now that spring has decided to act like itself again, it is insisting on raining in the days…

  • The power of adaptation

    We had a pretty neat experience late this afternoon. 5P Cangalli, who is now our reigning herd elder, delivered what will be her final cria ever at the age of 17. While there is nothing terribly remarkable about an alpaca her age still being fertile and capable of carrying a pregnancy to full term, what…