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Friday, March 29, 2013
Karen, Vetal and Kris shearing "Shear Magic's" blanket.
Spring is always a busy time around the ranch. Crias's being born. Getting ready for shows. Getting the irrigation ready for another year. Fertilizing pastures and OH Yeah, Shearing.
A couple of year ago I moved my shearing to mid March with the plan to have everyone but the show string sheared before April first. I did that because it is not unusual to have a day or two in April that's about 100 degrees. The pastures are drying out and the alpacas are finding places to have dirt baths. Add to that the oak trees are starting to bloom and with the pollen and little dried flower remains coming off, well you just get a cleaner fleece in mid March.
I must admit you do have to watch the weather closer because sure as you start to shear it will rain. This year has been the driest March on record. Guess what? It rained. Not much rain just enough to cause concerns. Everyone was confined to the barns and we made it just fine.
Slick shearing the legs.
Lining up for their day at the Spa.
Removing seconds.
Checking the topknot
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Sunday, March 10, 2013
Upper right corner is Pistachio color, What do you think?
Several of us got together to dye a variety of fibers this weekend. The weather was glorious and we had a great day. It was fun to see the results of each person's color selections.
What's really fun is to read the name of the color and have an idea in your mind what it will look like when you haven't seen a color chart for that color. Today that color was Pistachio. I was expecting a green color like the pistachio inside the shell. Wrong, the color had a lot of blue undertones. Very pretty but not what was expected.
Raven, wanted to create hand painted yarn in brown, sangria, and fuchsia. The brown was not coming out as expected so it was doctored with some black, more brown and I forget the third color. Guaranteed you will never be able to repeat that color. It turned into a beautiful taupe color. Sandy did a rainbow crockpot and hand painted some suri fiber with the same color she liked the hand painted best. Joan wanted to create large amounts of bright yellow and chartreuse to add to her art bats. Boy those were bright colors.
My favorite thing to dye is natural multi-colored fiber. The loose fiber has black, fawn, brown, white and grey in it. You can get such depth of color in a single dye bath.
Sangria over mulit color fleece
Raven's Taupe, Fushia, Sangria hand painted yarn
Chartreuse over mulit color fiber.
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Monday, March 4, 2013
Daisy
Daisy was born, at a friends farm, to a first time mom who rejected her. I don't mean she just was a little slow in figuring out motherhood. She would NOT let Daisy nurse. The farm tried diligently to bond the mother and daughter. The vet suggested drugging the mom and putting her into the twilight zone. They tried this for days. They followed the vet's instructed and increased the dose until the mother was so out of it she was staggering around. That is until Daisy tried to nurse. Then she came to and was out of there. This went on for about 2 weeks. They also attempted to graft Daisy onto one of their other nursing dams with no luck. Daisy did get pretty good as snitching a suckle. The finally decided just to make Daisy a bottle baby. Actually Daisy was a bucket baby but that's a different story.
The part that broke their hearts was at night when the herd kushed. The mom's and crias kushed side by side. Then there was Daisy all alone with no one to cuddle up to on those cold nights.
So you ask how does that have anything to do with me. Well that's the rest of the story. One day I was out I the pasture with my new mom's and crias. I was petting, new mom, Elpahba. Her daughter, Cosette was standing in front of us. Elphba turned around to see another cria nursing on her. She just turned back looking at her daughter without a care. I immediately got on the phone to my friend saying get Daisy up here, it looks like Elphba might let her nurse.
Daisy arrived and we put her under Elphba. Elphba was a little reluctant but with a minimum of head holding she stood and let Daisy nurse. Yahoo!! This might work. After a few short sessions holding Elphba's head she accepted Daisy. It was so heartwarming in the morning to go out and see Daisy kushed next to her new family.
Daisy and her "sister" Cosette are now about 4 months old both are about 50 pounds. Mom is doing great and easily is providing milk for both her girls.
Daisy has a new Mom and Sister
Elpaba nursing Daisy and Cosette
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Monday, February 11, 2013
Spring in Winter
We have been having a very mild winter here in Northern California. The end of 2012 brought lots of rain actually some flooding with record setting snow fall (for time of year) like 162% of normal. Then a warm dry beginning of 2013. Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humor, The trees are in bloom and it looks like spring, but I know when I get ready to shear in mid March she'll change her mind and send lots of rain.
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Sunday, January 20, 2013
Fantine and Sierra
So did you like the movie "Les Miserables"? Well so did we. We named Sierra's female cria Fantine (Anne Hathaway's Character) we also have Cosette and of course Hugo named for the writer Victor Hugo.
Fantine was born January 20, 2013 at 19.5 lbs. She is an early bird as she was born about 7 AM. Guess mom forgot to read the page of the book about "normally" birth between 10 and 2.
Who cares she is a beautiful medium fawn cria that is very dense and appears to be very crimpy. Her color was unexpected as her sire LV Vantagio by Bisturi is medium silver grey and mom is dark rose grey. Go tell, this has been the biggest year yet for not as expected color's in the crias.
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Monday, January 7, 2013
Mercedes, about 15 minutes old.
Well I guess our due date was wrong on Sedona. She had her cria today and it's not a premie.
I was out of town and my granddaughter Shelby was on baby watch. She returned home and not 10 minutes later her dad called and told her there was a baby on the ground. She thought something had happend to Bentley or York in the 10 minutes she was gone. He said no, "it's a new baby!" She and her twin, Mariah, run to the car for a wild ride to see the new baby. They lives just 5 minutes away.
We thought Sedona was due on February 7th the breeder must have given us the breed date not the due date. Mercedes, who's sire is OVA Viper was 12.7 pounds. She picked the perfect day as our daily temperatures had been in the 40's with evening near freezing. Today the temperature was about 70 degrees.
One to go:
High Sierra is due February 1st with a Vantaggio cria.
Mercedes 1-17-13 (9 days)
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Friday, December 28, 2012
Welcome GypsyRose Lee (3days old)
NessaRose finally had her cria. I shouldn't say finally because she was actually a few days early.
I predicted she would be born on the 28th as my niece was visiting and like clockwork there is normally a baby born when she is here. So the morning of, December 28th at 8:51 AM Nessa had, GypsyRose Lee, a beautiful female cria that is medium fawn. Her sire is KTL El Torro. Fortunately, Nessa decided to have the cria while we were cleaning and feeding. This meant we were there to watch the delivery and dry the cria so it didn't get chilled as the day was quite cold and rainy.
I was wondering how I could best help maintain the cria's temperature that evening. There is no heat in the barn, as always I spread a thick layer of hay for the cria to kush in. I remembered a comment I saw on one of the alpaca chat sites. They used the foot warmer inside the cria coats. (Don't use the hand warmers, they get too hot!) I had purchased some at Costco. They were just the ticket to help keep her warm. She was already decked out in 0-3 month old T-shirt plus a cria coat. I put the warmers between the two and she was good for the evening. That was a great idea and a lot safer than trying to rig up a heater that someone can get burned or knocked it over and start a fire.
Welcome GypsyRose Lee as the latest member of the herd at Arapaho Rose Alpacas.
COMING SOON Pending Due Dates
High Sierra Due Feb 1
Sedona Due Feb 7
NeassRose and GypsyRose
GypsyRose 1-17-13 (20 days)
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Holly and Havana
OK so we didn't get a White Christmas, BUT, we did get snow here twice in the last couple of weeks.
Snow is not unusal here since the mountains are just a few short miles away. It's not unusual to have the roads closed going north, east or west and on the rare occasion south. Redding is a little lower so we occasionally get snow. If we are lucky once or twice a year we might get some. So when we do get snow it's a BIG deal.
I love the snow and love it even more when it only last a day or so. You get all the joy of it's beauty without the trouble of having to driving in it or having to watch it turn to a dirty mess. I must admit feeding and cleaning the pasture in the snow isn't at the top of my fun list.
What we got for Christmas was rain all day. I can tell you NessaRose (alpaca) is getting really tired of the rain, snow, and cold weather. She is due any day with her first cria and has been getting stuck in the barn a lot! Coming soon pictures of Nessa's cria either Gypsy Rose Lee (girl) or Tulas (boy).
Fuju Persimmons
Nandina
The Pond
Pastures in the snow
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Saturday, December 15, 2012
Removing the first scarf from the loom.
We have just finished our first two "Weave an Alpaca Scarf" classes. This class is designed for you to learn to weave. You learn the basics and terms of weaving and the basic weave pattern. It's just a fun easy class to learn the basics.
Colleen Harvey-Arrison taught our first classes. She pre-warped the looms with alpaca yarn. The students chose two colors for thier scarf which sported a few small stripes.
Everyone had a great time and completing their alpaca scarves. Some of the students made scarves for themself and others were gifts. The weather outside was stormy and it even snowed (very unusual in Redding). Unfortunately, it kept us from visiting the alpacas and their new crias. We stayed inside and enjoyed watching nature from the warmth of the house. Everyone had a great day.
We already have requests for additional classes. Watch our website for new dates and times.
Check out our classes. CLICK the Store tab, then Instructions on the left side of the screen to see whats classe are available.
Weaving on a Cricket Loom
Hard at work
Focused on Weaving
Colleen answering a question.
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Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Bently DOB 10-26-12 few minutes
Here is our fall line up.
10-4-12 Cosette (dsg)female from Elphba (bb) and LV Vantagio (dsg)
10-2-12 Hugo (lf) male from Windy (bb) and LV Vantagio (dsg)
10-9-12 India (db) female from Citrine (mf) and Skywalker
10-26-12 Bentley (mf) male from Bonita (bb) and OVA Vyper (mb)
10-29-12 York (mb/lb?) male from Kiss (mb) and OVA Kiernan
11-28-12 Terra (bg/lf) female from Hevaeh and White Saber (w)
Still to come:
NessaRose. any day
Sierra Feb 13
Tuula Feb 13
Sedona Feb 13
Cosette DOB 10-4-12 on Day One!
Hugo DOB 10-26-12 India DOB 10-9-12
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