Posted: July 10th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | 5 Comments »
Tomorrow marks a year to the day when we brought our first (and so far only) alpacas home and jumped headlong into the beginnings of alpaca ownership. We would have had an interesting year even if we hadn’t gotten them – Matt and I were each laid off and have since started new jobs, and then of course there’s our recent engagement – but the alpacas have added immeasurable joy and interest to our already fun lives, and I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of the things we’ve learned in the last alpaca-filled year.
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Posted: May 30th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | 2 Comments »
Yesterday was the very first shearing for our new little farm, The Glorious Grazers! Well, first shearing for the humans; the alpacas have been through this a few times. I was nervous but excited and looking forward to learning a lot about the process and how to properly skirt a fleece. The shearing took place at Jo’s Fleece Fields, who book shearer Bruce each year for the whole weekend and invite the local farms to book some time to bring their own alpacas for shearing.
Since we only have our three boys and we don’t do shows we don’t have a trailer, but Don and Jo had offered to lend us their trailer — in which case we’d take our boys up and also make any necessary stops at other farms for more alpacas along the way — or come pick up our boys. They dropped the trailer off the night before and, with no other farms to stop at, we took our boys up around eight in the morning Saturday. I was nervous the night before; having been hit or miss on getting their halters on properly over the near-year we’ve had them now I was worried I’d have a rough start to the morning. But I vowed that I’d get over my fear of having it on properly and just do it.
So Matt and I went out there and he held each boy while I put on their halters. This time I did it right: I got over my fear of it being on too tight and put them on properly. They need to be tight or the alpacas get nervous that they’ll slip down and cut off their breathing. I did the finger check and amazingly, as soon as we had them on each boy was perfectly calm. What a change! Even difficult Cinnamon was a different boy with his halter on and properly attached. They looked at me as if to say, “see? Every time you put it on wrong and we thrash around, we’re just trying to tell you that it’s not on right!” Then we walked them out, they walked right into the trailer (mostly — Silverton needed a teeny bit of coaxing), and we were off!
Benz and Silverton waiting their turns. Benz looking sweet as usual.
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Posted: February 13th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | 1 Comment »
We set aside time this morning to take care of farm chores and, since it had been about a month since we last did it, those farm chores included toenail checks, halter practice, and body scoring on the alpacas. This is only the third time we’ve done it in the six months we’ve had them and we seem to get better each time. Today we feel like we really made progress in being The Barn Boss with our most spirited alpaca, Cinnamon.
Are you talkin' to me? Are YOU talkin' to ME?
Because these are the first farm animals we’ve ever owned I’ll admit that we were really skittish and shy about how to handle them at first. Don and Jody of Jo’s Fleece Fields have helped us a lot with that, but really it just comes down to working with them more and more, which is why we’re trying to make sure we get some deliberate handling in about one a month even if they don’t need a toenail trim. Even though we’re not a farm in the big sense and our boys don’t have to be handled except when they get sheared and they get their toenails trimmed, what if — as unlikely as it is — we had to move them in an emergency and we were still uncomfortable with halters? And of course we want to be fully comfortable for all of this when shearing day comes up in early June. In order to do this, we are making a concerted effort to step up to the plate as Barn Bosses.
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Posted: January 4th, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas, Spinning | Comments Off
I spun up two of the batts I’ve been making for the Silverton Sweater project. Just to document this process properly and recap a bit, here’s a quick shot of my boy, Silverton, a little wet and leaf-covered, just the way he likes it.
Look at that smile.
Here’s a one ounce batt that consists of roughly 60% Silverton’s fleece, 20% Merino wool that I dyed blue, and 20% white Tencel.
60% Silverton. Make that 60% of AWESOME.
I test-spun two of those batts. With the first batt, I pulled off pieces and spun it over-the-fold with a supported long draw. I knew this would ensure a truly woolen yarn, which would give it softness and loft. With the second batt, I pulled the batt into roving and then spun the roving with a modified worsted draw — instead of really short pulses, I let my front hand pull the fiber a bit longer than you normally would in a true worsted draw, while also pulling the fiber supply back a bit, and then I smooth the single with my front hand down to the drafting triangle and repeat. Here’s a shot of the finished yarn from the second batt, plied 3-ply. It’s not the best light, but it’ll do for now.
A short section of 3-ply test.
Tonight I knitted that yarn into a test swatch with some impromptu cabling, since I know I want cabling in the final sweater.
Beautiful!
I absolutely love the blue tweedy look combined with the beautiful natural color of Silverton’s fleece. And it’s very soft. This is the semi-worsted yarn, and tomorrow I plan to swatch the true woolen yarn to see which one I like better for the final project.
Posted: January 3rd, 2010 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | Comments Off
The adaptability of alpacas to new experiences just amazes me every time I see it. It seems like dogs and cats, whose surroundings and daily routine seem far more susceptible to change than that of alpacas, take several events of a specific type occurring over and over before they’ll get used to it happening. Alpacas, on the other hand, seem to only need to experience something once before they figure out if it’s harmless or not.
Take The Mysterious Broom, for instance. A few weeks ago we picked up a large push broom to keep in the barn because the boys throw their hay around when they eat with wild abandon, and so every morning when we feed them we sweep up the mess to discourage vermin and keep the boys from cushing down in it and getting it stuck in their fleece (because I’m the one who has to clean that out later). The first time we brought out The Mysterious Broom the boys were eating in the barn and they immediately panicked, flailing around and clumsily bumping into each other in their rush to get out of the barn. OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING?! It’s some…big…brown THING! And they’re pushing it toward us! Get out! Get out while you still can!
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Posted: December 31st, 2009 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas, Spinning | Tags: Alpacas, Knitting, logos, Spinning | Comments Off
It’s the end of a year and wow, what a year. I started 2009 off in a rocky financial situation, lost my job not once but twice, and yet somehow this has felt like the best year ever for me. I jumped into alpaca ownership after years of dreaming about it and it’s been far more rewarding than I ever thought it could be. And even though I lost my job twice it actually proved to be perfectly timed — I was able to take a job offer at Uber, where I’d wanted to work since they started it about a year ago, and it’s turned out to be the best job I’ve ever had, hands down. So all in all, despite the recession it’s been a pretty up year for me.
The boys circa July 2009. So skinny.
The alpacas don’t seem to get any less cute as time goes by. They’re getting fuzzier by the day and are starting to look more like teddy bears than they did when they arrived. In fact, it’s pretty funny to look at them now and then compare them to the pictures we took the day they got here, when their necks looked so skinny because they’d just been sheared.
They’ve finally acclimated to most of the fauna around our place. During the first few weeks in their new home every little nocturnal sound was a potential threat so we were constantly awakened at night with their alarm call (and one of these days I’m going to record it). Now that they’re more used to the place we actually haven’t heard it in a while…at least until winter changed the landscape a little.
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Posted: December 2nd, 2009 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | 2 Comments »
When we made our first — and so far only — alpaca buy this past year we started with three, and that’s still all we have right now. We don’t have as much room as the folks we think of who are, well, “real” alpaca farmers. At most we could likely support up to five alpacas comfortably on our little pasture of about three-quarters of an acre; anything more than that and we’re edging into possible dry-lot territory, something we’re not interested in doing since we don’t plan to be what we consider a “real” farm (i.e., one that breeds and sells them or at least has a number more substantial than three). From the start this was an enterprise we embarked on because it would give me a constant source of my own fiber to spin — some of which is certainly selling (sometimes even just the unspun fiber, such as the couple of ounces of combed top from Silverton earlier this year) but none of which will ever likely fully pay for the boys’ room and board, nevermind make us any actual money. And we also embarked on it for fun and for the experience of raising farm animals, both of which we’ve gotten back in spades.
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Posted: October 11th, 2009 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | Comments Off
The time to trim our alpacas’ toenails has been creeping up on us so we decided today was a good day to finally tackle that job. We’d done some practice trimming at Jo’s Fleece Fields so we’d been able to ease our minds a bit about the process, but we were still nervous because we’re still learning exactly how to handle our alpacas. But toenail trimming time is a good time for us to get more practice haltering the boys, trimming their nails, and generally trying to get a hold of them when they don’t want to be gotten a hold of.
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Posted: September 2nd, 2009 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | Comments Off
I’ve said before that animal behavior has always been fascinating to me, and I got an eyeful of some new behavior a few days ago when we saw our first full-fledged, knock-down, drag-out fight between the boys. No one was hurt and it appeared to simply be a display of posturing on a dramatic scale, fortunately, and it was actually quite fascinating to see. The question it raised for us, though, is this: how do you tell who “won”, if there is such a thing?
We had a bunch of people over for Matt’s birthday and his mom and my sister had just come out with me to give some feed to the boys. Cinnamon mows through his handfuls of feed so quickly that he spills more pellets than he actually eats, and every time now he’s taken to cleaning up his mess for several minutes after we’re done, hoovering up pellets from the barn floor or the pasture (wherever we’ve managed to feed them).
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Posted: August 3rd, 2009 | Author: Hellchick | Filed under: Alpacas | Comments Off
I’ve always enjoyed being a student of animal behavior. To me, having two cats in the house is more than having a couple of companions who like to shed and get underfoot, it’s also having a mini animal behavioral lab right there to study every day. I’m fascinated with Cesar Milan’s books and his astute observations of the canine condition. So in addition to the main reasons, having alpacas is yet another way to study the myriad ways that animals behave with both us and with one another.
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