photo by Ivar Vong of Oregon Daily Emerald

Participating in Wordless Wednesday

Read the Oregon Daily Emerald article about Audacious Alpacas at the Alpaca Festival of Oregon.

June 22nd, 2010 | Tags: Alpaca Festival of Oregon, alpaca show, Alpacas, Audacious Alpacas, obstacle course, obstacles, Oregon Daily Emerald, performance, Wordless Wednesdays | Category: Alpacas, Showing Off!, The Alpaca Lifestyle, Wordless Wednesdays | Comments (9)

This picture was shared with us by Pam Pullins of Sweet Home ALApaca. Thank you Pam!

This alpaca was not so sure about riding in the van – until she had the chance to play with these children. Apparently Loretta loves children.

They all wore each other out!

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

April 28th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, Alpacas, Pam Pullins, sleep, sleepy, Sweet Home ALApaca, Wordless Wednesdays | Category: Alpacas, Lifestyle, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (10)

Alpaca Farmgirl Neopolitan Hand Spun Yarn

This is my favorite yarn! It was inspired by some yummy yarn that the incomparable Spazzyarn spun out of merino that was very similar. I fell in love with her hand spun merino Neopolitan and bought it last year.

I had not picked up knitting needles since I was in 7th grade. But her yarn inspired me to get fiber-y again. That and the fields of alpacas in the backyard…

I have to admit though, when I got the merino in my hands I was shocked at how un-soft it was. Let’s face it – I only knew alpaca. That was all I ever felt. And alpaca is just SO soft. I’m spoiled. So I said, “Spazzy, my love…let’s do this in alpaca…” and a project was born.

(above) The merino Neopolitan knitted up in a scarf for my baby.

Here is what the lovely Spazzy has spun. You can purchase it in the Alpaca Farmgirl Shop.

April 23rd, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, Alpaca Farmgirl Shop, alpaca fiber, Etsy, fiber, Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday, hand spun, hand spun yarn, merino, neopolitan, Spazzy, Spazzyyarn | Category: Alpacas, Fiber Arts, Fiber Arts Friday, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (11)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

April 13th, 2010 | Tags: Alpacas, alpacas on Today Show, baby boomers, retirement | Category: Alpacas, Farm Business, Notes from a Newbie, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (15)

Alpaca is High Fashion

People are often asking me, “What is “royal alpaca?” and “What is superfine?” How do you know? There are a few different charts and ways to determine. I will be posting a few in the coming weeks. Here is one used by the company Inca Tops:

• Royal Alpaca 19-20 Fiber Length 56-60 mm 2″-2.2″
• Baby Alpaca 22-23 Fiber Length >64mm 2.5″
• Superfine Alpaca 25-26.5 Fiber Length > 65mm 2.6″
• Vicuna 11-14 micron 30-50 mm1-2″

April 6th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca fashion, alpaca fiber, baby alpaca, inca tops, micron, micron count, royal alpaca, superfine alpaca, vicuna | Category: Alpacas, Fiber Arts, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (1)

Everyone Loves Alpacas!

This is Daniel with little tyke Charlie.

Daniel loves alpacas. He only recently realized this when he came to work on our alpaca farm for a brief stint before heading off to the army. (Seems so many great guys are heading off to the military these days, doesn’t it? Strange times we are living in.)

Daniel admitted to me before he left that his favorite alpaca was Bella (that’s her in the background above). She is curious and has a super soft muzzle and let him pet her.

Admiring the Fleece

While waiting for the shearer to come over to shear Gingerbread Man, Daniel got to see some real alpaca enthusiasm from my friend Carmie.

Carmie is one of the most delightful people I have ever met. And she LOVES alpacas! Always willing to help and be around anything to do with the alpacas, Carmie brought her sister and niece to shearing day to help. She cannot wait to have her own alpaca farm. In the meantime she visits ours and gets her alpaca “fix” any way she can.

I think Daniel was a bit surprised at first when Carmie lay down in the fleece. But most of my readers won’t be. Most of you fiber lovers won’t be.

Who doesn't love a good fleecing?

What do you think? Would you wallow with alpaca fleece? On or off the alpaca? Leave a comment and tell us – how much do you love alpacas and their fleece?

April 1st, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, Alpacas, fleece, fleecing, love alpacas, shearing | Category: Alpacas, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (12)

Felted Easter Eggs

from Ann Merriwether, Nyala Farm Alpacas

This Fun Project really celebrates Spring. In this project you will learn how how to make

Two Kinds of Alpaca Fiber Felted Easter Eggs

Get some of those plastic eggs and get ready to felt around them. With these directions you can make two kinds of Easter eggs.
For the first kind you need:
• Carded dyed fiber
• Plastic Easter eggs
• Soap (Dawn dish washing liquid works well)
• A large dish with warm water
• An old knee high stocking
• A bit of yarn or string to make a hanger.
• An embroidery needle to thread the hanger though the end of the egg

1. Wrap the egg in three or four layers of dyed alpaca (carded fiber works better than un-carded fiber).
2. Stick the wrapped egg in the toe of an old knee-high stocking and loosely knot the stocking behind the egg.
3. Dip the whole thing in warm soapy water (a large bowl with just a dash of Dawn dishwashing liquid works well).
4. Squeeze and pat the egg in the stocking until the fiber seems to be felting around it. Don’t squeeze and pat so
much that the fiber felts right through the stocking.
5. Remove the egg from the stocking and squeeze and pat it some more. If you want to felt the fiber really tightly to
the egg and do it faster, when you take it out of the stocking throw it into your dryer while the egg is still damp.
Let it bang around in there and it will felt really tightly
6. You can make little hangers for them by stringing yarn through one end with an embroidery needle. Repeat with lots of colors and make a nice felted Easter Egg Tree.
7. You can just leave the felted egg on the plastic eggs or you can cut them off (bandage scissors work well) and have hatching eggs! Dye some fiber yellow (I use a mix of orange and lemonade Kool-aid to get a brighter yellow) and needle felt a little hatching chick!

felted easter eggs

Foam felted eggs with needle felted designs
You will need:
• Carded Dyed fiber
• Styrofoam Craft Eggs
• Soap (Dawn Dish washing liquid works well)
• A large dish with warm water
• An old knee high stocking
• A felting needle
• A bit of yarn or string to make a hanger.
• An embroidery needle to string the yarn through the felted egg.
The other way to make felted eggs is to purchase some Styrofoam eggs at the local craft store. They come in a variety of sizes. Any size will work it just depends what size egg you want to make. You felt the fiber to the egg in the same way as you do with the plastic eggs. You are not going to cut the egg off of these but you can needle felt lovely designs on them since there is a foam egg inside. Some ideas are just abstract designs like spots, or rings.
Alternatively, I like to do bunnies, chicks, flowers, even tiny little Easter baskets. You can then put a hanger on them and hang them up on your Easter egg tree. These make lovely presents! Happy Felting!

Thanks so much to Ann Merriwether of Nyala Farm Alpacas for sharing this awesome project with us. Ann lives in New York on a farm with both alpacas and sheep. She admits that she and her family are “fiberholics” and she is happy to teach others the joys of fiber arts.

What fiber or Easter projects are you working on? Leave a comment and share with us.

March 29th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca fiber, Ann Merriwether, carded dyed fiber, Easter eggs, felted easter eggs, felted eggs, felting, Fiber Arts, foam felted eggs, needlefelted, Nyala Farm Alpacas | Category: Alpacas, Fiber Arts, Girl Stuff, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (15)

Alpaca Shearing

I thought we would hit 100, but it was only 97. (I can just hear Mac in the background now saying, “Only 97?!!” incredulously.)

That’s Mac above with the hat and the gloves. He and his wife, Mary, have helped us for the past three years on shearing day. They are spinners. Mac works the ropes on shearing day like a man half his age. Mary weighs the fleeces and keeps me together. She and my beloved friend Ann are both very calming, which is helpful on shearing day. Great energy for the animals too.

Friends Brought Alpacas for Shearing

How did we have 97 animals to shear? Not only did we have our own alpacas to shear, but we also had alpaca females who were visiting our farm for breeding, alpacas who board on our farm, neighbor alpacas who came over, and some alpacas owned by a friend from the next state who brought hers for shearing too.

We set up outside pens for visitors

Our professional shearer Mark Loffhagen with head man Cody

The alpacas’ legs/ankles are placed in ropes and they are gently stretched out and laid down on mats for shearing. They are turned about and then lifted up and returned to the stalls with their friends. (See more pics from last year.)

While the alpacas don’t love shearing, it is a quick process that does not hurt them, and it is good for their overall health. Shearing allows us to harvest their fleece, and prepares them for the coming warm months, preventing heat stress. Some teeth and toenails were also trimmed while we had the alpacas as captive patients on Saturday.

"Sparkle waits her turn."

In this stall some of the alpacas have already been shorn, others are waiting their turn. We go by color, starting with the whites, moving to darker colors, cleaning up between each color group, with the black alpacas being shorn last. This way the lighter fleeces do not become contaminated by darker fibers and vice versa.

Sparkle "BEFORE"

Sparkle "AFTER"

These alpacas don’t want to come inside. The noise of the shears and all the commotion was scary to them. It usually took more than one person to round them up and herd them inside.

Joey and Daniel catch Tapioka for shearing

We were blessed with some of the best friends and helpers in the world on shearing day (not all are pictured here).

Hardest-working fleece picker uppers!

The best Rope Men in the Biz!

I love introducing babies to alpacas!

Our friend Joey helped us with alpaca shearing several years ago. Now he’s back, and this time he is married with a lovely wife and a beautiful baby! How wonderful to meet them. (I have no idea how he does this wearing shorts, but he does. Wow!)

A special shout out to Carmie, her sister, and her niece. We couldn’t have done it without you. I have a special post planned to show off Carmie’s enthusiasm and alpaca love later next week.

Thank you to Sarah Elhoffer and her fella, to Mary and Mac, Ann, Stan and Stephanie Mize, Bud and Daniel, Joey, Stephen Thompson, Sarah, Cody, Steve, and my kids for all your help. I hope I’m not leaving anyone out. It takes a big team, this one headed up by none other than shearer extraordinaire Mark Loffhagen. I cannot recommend Mark more highly or say enough good things about him.

Not only is Mark an excellent shearer, but he also makes the alpaca owner feel at ease. He takes over, makes the “boss” feel like everything is going to be fabulous. (He’s the only person who ever calls me “the boss” – can you tell I luv it?)And it always is! That’s the kind of guy I like to have shear for me every time.

You can visit Mark at his Alley-Pac website.

If any of you tried to follow my Tweets from @AlpacasLive, you know that I had technical problems and that failed. I was able to tweet some pictures from @AlpacaFarmgirl and you can see those on my AlpacaFarmgirl Tumblr site.

If only I had a tech crew…maybe next year…

March 24th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca shearing, alpaca shearing day 2010, Alpacas, Shearing Day | Category: Alpacas, Husbandry, Lifestyle, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (9)

My husband, the Artist, loves animals. He loves the alpacas. He, himself, is so tenderhearted that he probably never would have chosen a business that brought with it the inevitability of animals dying. We all feel sad when an alpaca passes away on the farm, but I’ve long suspected that the Artist takes it the hardest.

In recent days, I had been nursing an alpaca that our vet suspected had developed a gastric ulcer (perhaps more than one). To paraphrase a beloved and revered vet in the alpaca industry, “When an alpaca develops a stomach ulcer, she usually goes on to alpaca heaven.”  We had been treating our alpaca girl, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at her trying to save her…but nothing seemed to be working. Sad, resigned, I continued to treat her, and to try.

On this particular morning,  the kids had just gotten off to school, and I was hoping to take a little bit of time at the house before heading to the barn. The Artist was doing farm chores that morning to give me a break. I had just settled in to pay some bills and do some seriously neglected paperwork, when I realized that the Artist was heading out there first thing. Oh no! I jumped up and threw on some clothes.

Murphy’s Law. What Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong. You know how this law applies to your life right? I believe this life applies in spades on a farm.

Remember how I said that the Artist is hit the hardest by death? Well, he also has the uncanny, extremely unfortunate ability to happen upon about 80% of animals that have died as well. Luckily alpacas are pretty hearty creatures and it doesn’t happen a lot, but I swear when it does happen HE always seems to be the one to be there. Because he’s the one who’s the most heartbroken. It really stinks.

I had been working the farm all week, and was really looking forward to the Artist doing some chores for me that morning so I could stay inside (where it was warm & cozy) past 9am, but I did not have a good feeling about my little ulcer girl so I flew out the door. I wanted to get to the patient before he did.

Whew! I could see that the Artist was still at the boys’ barn. Yes! Bullet dodged! I scurried to the main barn, said a quick good morning to my herdsire Magnum, and went to check on my little girl with the ulcer.

I stopped still in front of her stall.

She was all alone in there. dead.

“Damn,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

I stomped my foot just a little. My breath made a cloud in front of me from the cold.

I went into my office and wrote “deceased” on her paperwork with a wry sense of satisfaction that I had gotten some paperwork accomplished.

Then I went in search of a tarp with which I could move her sad, lifeless body.

I found a tarp in the shed. As I was coming back with the tarp I saw the Artist. Seeing the tarp, he knew that my patient had died. We exchanged sympathetic looks, and I headed back for the barn.

As I was walking through the gates and closing them behind me, I was thinking about millions of things. Meanwhile my brain was processing these additional thoughts as I looked at the alpacas as I passed by them:

baby alpaca. grey alpaca. tiny alpaca. there are no babies in that pen. wait. there should be no babies in that pen.

Finally my brain focused in on what it was trying to see and process:

We had been blessed with a new baby alpaca that morning!

Even though his dam, Rose Point, had not been due for three whole weeks, she had had a healthy rose gray baby boy!

The elation we felt was a balance to the sadness of losing our little girl from the ulcer. The rainy day was saved by the sunshine at the end. Does the sunshine make up for all the rain? No, but they work together to form the very fabric of life. They are woven together, like a tapestry. It is impossible to have one without the other.

I believe that farming is a metaphor for life, a venue for life to play out on nature’s stage. There is death and there is life. And what a blessed day it is when you can see all these things at work in the back yard before 10:30AM.

February 11th, 2010 | Tags: alpaca, alpaca farm, alpaca farming, Alpacas, cria, farm, farms, rain, sunshine | Category: Alpacas, The Alpaca Lifestyle | Comments (10)