Alpacas 101 – April 2009 Edition
WRR Amber
It was incredibly lame for me not to take a single photograph yesterday for the blog. (Above is the requisite alpaca shot of Amber thrown in for my beloved readers.)
Several times I thought of calling the house and having someone bring my camera to me. But my husband was sick and he had already taken the kids to the cold, windy soccer game (When they got there, no game ever materialized because the other team never showed up.) It just never seemed like it would be a good time to call…
Anyway, we had a very nice Alpacas 101 class. Visitors came from as far away as Miami and South Carolina came to learn more about breeding alpacas. The interest in alpacas is actually very good right now. 2009 is a great time to be getting into the alpaca business. (See yesterday’s post for more on that.) Several times we thought Honeybelle was going to deliver her cria during the class. False Alarm. No cria. Not even today.
This guy is who we have to thank for introducing Alpaca to the World!
For the past few years, I have had our class lunches catered. This time I prepared a light pasta salad, fruit salad, and a lemonade cake. We also had a delicious chicken salad with croissants. We added an amazing article, Sir Titus Salt and the Golden Fleece, written by Adrian Stewart, to the curriculum. This piece tells the story of how this British gentlemen discovered alpaca fleece and built a textile empire around it in England. He singlehandedly brought alpaca fiber out of the Antiplano in South America and INTO the rest of the world. Without him, we might still not know much about the alpacas or their fiber. It was great to be able to share this story with our attendees.
Victorian dress made from alpaca
Pages from the article on Sir Titus Salt
I love history. Being able to share the alpaca’s history is important to me. It colors how we view our work with alpacas today and for the future.
We cover lots of topics in Alpacas 101. Leave a comment and tell me what would be the topic YOU would want to hear about most?
April 19th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Oh I so wish we had made it to Alpaca 101! That article about the Englishman who introduced the alpaca fleece to Europe sounds fascinating!
If I had to choose, I’d like to learn more about color genetics. Very interesting!
There are so many topics I’d want to hear about, how ever can I choose just one?!!
August 4th, 2009 at 3:24 am
great article, will recommend to friends rep