Wow, it's November already! We've been very busy the last couple of months. John has been to 3 shows already and I've been really busy with the Lexington Farmer's Market. We totally emptied out the Draper farm and listed it with a new realtor. I'm so ready for it to be gone!

We have had one cria born since moving here - a boy, born September 20, just 6 days before our National Alplaca Farm Days open house. He's gorgeous, and growing like a weed!!

Hi all!!

Long time, no posts, right?? Well, I plan to post regularly, beginning next week.  We are busy, busy, busy moving our household, 45 alpacas, 3 lgd's, 2 barn cats, 1 house dog, and 1 house cat to our new digs! The logistics have been almost overwhelming!! John is at the new farm with all of our girls and crias. I'm still here with our males, cats, and dogs.  The young boys go up tomorrow. The truck comes on Tuesday for the household goodies. (We've moved a good bit of the stuff ourselves, but there are limits...)

I will add some photos in a few days. I will be without internet until Wednesday.

Venus at 30 minutes old

Our princess doesn't feel right... She's in early labor!!

Venus at 3 days old.

Opal and Venus resting in the barn

YEAH!!!! Our last cria has arrived! We had another girl.  Opal, our princess, went into labor on Sunday afternoon, just a few hours after my last posting.  She didn't make things easy on herself.  She laid down for most of her labor.  Venus was born just before 4 pm on Sunday, June 3.  She is white with lots of curls and crimp.  Her fiber looks like berber carpet.  She is very small: 12 lbs 6 oz at birth.  Her mama is our smallest female.  Our vet came out the next day to check on her.  She was not premature.    She has spent the first week being very passive but now that she is 10 days old, she runs and plays with Mocha.

Our first girl!

We have finally had a female cria!  Bubbles delivered Mandoline (Mandy, for short) on Friday, May 25 at 10:15 am.  I didn't have to assist with this birth either but was able to see most of the delivery.  She is a beautiful little thing with berber carpet fiber!! We're very excited about her overall appearance.

We have one more preggie on the farm to deliver still.  Opal is due within the next week.  I think she'll have deliver in the next few days.  She was our little PR gal before she got pregnant but she's been pretty aloof since she's been bred.  Just in the last couple of days though she has come back around for attention.  She's following in the same pattern as Ginger.  Anyone want to take bets on whether I'll be proven right?

Today, Sunday June 3 has been pretty busy for us so far.  We bred our junior herdsire, Zamboni, to Ruby.  He wasn't too interested at first, with this being his first breeding.  We brought Ace in to the pen to show him the way and after that he was fine!  Ruby is a dark brown  and Zamboni is a light rose grey so they will make a really nice cria!  We'll find out next year!

Surprise! We have another cria! Ruby delivered a little boy yesterday afternoon around 2 pm.  He appears to be a rose grey.  He weighed 18 pounds at birth.  He was up and around 45 minutes and was nursing within an hour!  He's beautiful!  Her delivery was quick and easy.  I saw the whole thing but didn't have to help at all, so I took photos! Yeah for I-Phones!

We haven't named him yet.  We do have a name for Ginger's cria now.  Officially, his name is NRVA El Corazon's Don Quixote.  His farm name is Quixote. I call him cutie Quixote!. He is growing by leaps and bounds. By yesterday he was 35 pounds!

We have named Ruby's cria. His name is Mocha Latte.   Here is another photo of him.

Welcome our newest addition to New River Valley Alpacas!!!  Our first cria of the season was born on Tuesday, April 17 at 1:45 pm.  It's a boy!  Ginger is the proud mama.  I even saw him born this time, and, in fact, assisted in his delivery.  One of his front legs was not extended out at the elbow so I garbed up in ob gloves and lots of lubricating gel and manipulated his other leg so that is was straight out and then Ginger pushed one more time and out he came! He is mostly white with some beige coloring on his neck and head.  At the moment we are calling him baby.  We are still trying to decide on his official name.  Here are some photos of the little guy.

I was suspicious of Ginger's behavior last weekend and into Monday.  She is very hormonal when pregnant!  We would simply touch her neck or back and she would turn and threaten to spit at us.  However, the last 2 days before delivery, she was giving us kisses! It was a total personality change!

Happy Easter to everyone!  It's already April 10, and way past time to update my blog.  So, here I go...

We had herd health last weekend and everyone is doing fine.  Ginger will be having her baby by the end of this month.  Bubbles and Ruby are due in mid-May, and lastly, but not least, Opal will be delivering in early June, hopefully.  We've had everyone out in pasture for 2 weeks now.  They are so happy to be out there again!

We moved the babies over with the teenagers on the boy's side so now Banjo, Wyatt , and Zamboni have 2 new friends.  Everyone is getting along very nicely!!

We'll be breeding the open girls in mid-May.  They are all going to other farms this spring to be bred.  The logistics might be a bit tricky to get 2 of them to their respective studs, but I'm sure it will all go smoothly.

Burgundy wool blend

Angora bunny/alpaca blend 

Wool blend plyed with angora/alpaca blend

I've kept busy knitting and spinning this winter.  I'm attaching a few photos of my newest handspun yarns. I have also woven one shawl on my triangle loom and have another one in progress. Shown below are 2 photos of my first shawl.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in southwest Virginia.  The forecast is for highs in the mid 50's with some wind.  We're expecting gusts of 20-30 mph.  John is home for the weekend.  I have scheduled herd health for this weekend.  All of the 'kids' need their AD & E shots.  We also need to weigh, check membranes and body score.  Last but not least will be trimming toenails.  My friend, Renee, was kind enough to help out on Thursday evening with the younger animals.  We did the basic herd health on the 2 babies, and on the little boys, as well as trimming their nails.  I also weighed Bubbles but decided to wait for John before trimming her nails.

This weekend, we'll be doing complete he'd health on the rest of the kids.  Opal is going to get a hair trim as well.  Poor thing, she has so much hair around her eyes that she has to look up to be able to see.  You might wonder why we've waited so long to remedy that.  She is the barn princess... with the accent on the -cess! lol  She prances around the dry lot.  She has tons of attitude!  Renee and I were going to start on her trim the other day.  I had Ruby, Opal and Bubbles closed in the barn for that purpose.  I decided to let Ruby and Bubbles outside and Opal managed to push her way out as well!  After that, we tried to bribe Opal back in with treats, hay and such but she would have no part of that!  She's no dummy!

Here are some photos of barn time for you.  I have a shot of each pen, just after dinner time, when they've been given a fresh stash of hay for the evening.

The 'baby' pen: Genny, Fiddler, Doc, Amy, and Genny

Patches, Solomon, and Ace

Bubbles, Ginger, Opal and Ruby

From left to right: Banjo, Zamboni and Wyatt

 It is now February 2, Groundhog Day. I have no clue whether 'Phil' saw his shadow.  I do know that it's a balmy 54 outside at New River Valley Alpacas.  All of the kids are enjoying the sunshine!  The chickens are out free ranging and the boys are taking sunbaths!

 I have 2 new photos to add of my newest spinning projects.  The first is more 'funky' yarn, played with a metallic thread.  The second photo is alpaca fiber dyed blue.  I can't wait to try my hand at dyeing! I had some help with the yarn shown here.

Blue Sparkle Cloud 

Blue Alpaca

Happy New Year!!

I hope that everyone is having a good start to 2012.  How many of ya'll have made resolutions? I have made quite a few... too many actually. How many have we bombed out on already?  Hmmm... I'm not ready to divulge that information yet! lol

So far, things are pretty quiet here on the farm.  I had a chat with a few of the hens.  The Easter Eggers were not laying at all, so I let them know in plain terms that they needed to get into action if they didn't want to end up as stew meat.  It was really an idle threat, because I could not do them in myself.  If John wants to try his hand at it, fine.  Anyway, they seemed to have gotten my message.  We've had quite a few green eggs in the last couple of weeks.

The boys are all in dry lot until spring.  We had all of the fields reseeded in late fall and so the boys will have to make do with grain and hay until it's warm and dry enough to let them back into their pastures.  Hopefully by March we'll have a nice pastures of orchard grass for them to eat!

The girls have been more fortunate.  We created a containment area for future visiting alpacas (primarily for females coming in for breedings).  Since we currently have no visitors, our girls have had the fortune of grazing there.  They have to take turns.  The bred females and Kisses go in one group.  The open girls and the baby boys go in the other group.  It's fun to watch them charge down there and then back up to the barn later!  Sometimes they will even prank!

I have been busy spinning lately.  I have several different bobbins going at present.  I did finish 2 singles of dark fawn (Ginger's fiber), but only have 1 skein that has actually been plyed.  Here is a photo of that yarn. It is a blend of merino wool, alpaca, bamboo, angelina, firestar, and silk noil,  played with bamboo thread.

Oh, we did have a vet procedure done on our male llama last week.  He was neutered last Monday.  I'm happy to say that he survived the surgery quite nicely and is already totally healed.  That should help calm him down.  He was getting pretty rowdy with the alpacas.

Have a great week, everyone!  I hope to give you some more photos by next week.

Wow! It's less than a week until Christmas!  I feel bad that I've let so much time pass without updating my blog.  My sincere apologies to my followers and visitors alike.  Let's see, where do I start with my updates??? I'll begin with the easiest: my feathered friends.

The hens (or girls, as I call them) have not been producing quite as many eggs lately.  I know that 2 of them are molting, and possibly more.  That apparently takes up most of their energy.  Plus, we've had quite a bit of frost here already.  Such cold temperatures also effect affect their egg-laying.  I haven't had enough to sell, but I've had enough for our personal use.

Doc's first show - a 5th place

Amy takes a 4th place

Zamboni

We've added a few new alpacas to our 'barn family'.  Zamboni, Amy, and Ember are our new additions.  They have fit in very nicely with their new surroundings.  Zamboni, pictured below, is with the young boys, and Amy and Ember are bunking with the babies, who are not so small anymore!
We also brought Genny home.  She is in with Amy and Ember and babies, as well.  We are half owners of one other boy, All in Favor.  He was with us for a month but has gone back to New York to his other farm for the next 6 months or so.

John and I have been to 2 alpaca shows this fall: Royal Alpaca Challenge in Conyers, GA, and VAOBA Expo in Doswell, VA.  Favor took a first place and Reserve Champion in GA and a first placer at VAOBA.  Zamboni took 2nd place at RAC and a 3rd place at VAOBA.  Amy placed 4th at Vaoba.  Our two other ribbons at Vaoba were 5th for Doc and 6th for Banjo.



John and I were vendors at a Holiday Market in Wytheville a week ago.  Despite very cold, windy conditions that morning, we did quite well.  We sold lots of alpaca socks! The therapeutic socks and hiker socks were by far the biggest hits!  Here is a photo from that morning!

Okay, to finish off today's update, I'll tell you about some of my newest spinning projects.   I have 3 skeins that I'm particularly excited about:

300 yds of grey from Wyatt's fiber, 200 yds of Ginger's fiber, and the third skein is my funky yarn.  I took my wheel to the GA show because I knew that they would have a spinning circle there.  Moonwood Farm provided samples of fiber called "cloud".  It was a blend of several different fibers, actually: alpaca, wool, milk fiber, bamboo, and angelina.  She handed me a small chunk of fiber to start spinning.  I was definitely spinning outside my normal comfort zone! Not only was it a mix of different fibers, not even carded, but the colors were totally opposite of what I would have chosen for myself.  It all turned out great though!  I even bought some of it to add to the freebie fiber she gave me.  It went to a friend of mine for Christmas that absolutely loves anything and everything funky and wild! (see below for photos of aforementioned yarns)

Wyatt yarn

Ginger yarn

My first 'funky' yarn - won't be my last!

Well, it's getting late!  My barn is calling me to get my tail outside to scoop before it gets too dark!  Bye for now! I'll try to update things here more often now.  That will be high on my list of New Year Resolutions!!!  Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year too!

A Spunster at Work!

I have been very, very busy with my spinning over the last month.  I joined the Spunsters up in Blacksburg a couple of months ago, so my wheel and I head to Blacksburg most Thursdays for 2 hours of spinning.  Wednesday mornings are saved for spinning club in Pulaski.  My newest endeavor in the fiber realm is learning to dye fiber.  I'm having lots of fun!!

Other farm news:  More of the chickens are laying now.  They have graduated to hen status.  I'm not sure which ones are still pullets.  The most eggs I've had in a day is 9.  We had one that was so large that it wouldn't fit in the egg carton.  John had that one for breakfast one morning.  It was a triple yolk!!! See below for the photo we took of this treasure!

Our first triple yolk egg

My first handspun alpaca skein - a blend of fiber from Ginger and Solomon

The weather is cooling off a bit now.  We had temperatures in the 90's less than 2 weeks ago.  Last weekend, we got 5-6 inches of rain in just 2 days, thanks to Hurricane Irene!  Things are drying out now but fortunately the air temp is a good 10 to 15 degrees cooler.

August already!!

We've had a busy summer! I can't believe that's it's almost over!

We now have confirmation of pregnancy on all four females currently at our farm.  Opal was away for her breeding and is now pregnant.  We will be bringing her home in 2 days.  Debbie at the other farm has reported that she is just as sweet and loving now as she was when she arrived there.  So often, the girls get very testy when pregnant.

The first yarn I spun on my Majacraft Susie spinning wheel

My third yarn

A day at the Draper Merc farmer's market

Our chicken coop is at full occupancy now.  I saw an ad on Craig's list for some chickens and it was such a good deal and good timing that I couldn't resist!  I added 2 barred rocks and 2 aracaunas to the mix.  Only one of the new girls are laying so far but they should all be laying within the next 2 weeks, I hope!  I have only named 1 of them so far.  The other 8 girls all have names: Rosie, Annie, Joanie, Lucy, Thora, Alice and Moe.  The one new one is Gracie.  I'm open to suggestions for names on the 2 barred rocks.

I have been to several farmer's markets to sell product and promote the farm.  My eggs always sell out quickly.  The rovings and yarn attract a lot of attention but I haven't sold much of it yet.  The felted soaps are totally gone now so I'm in the process of carding 2nds from this year's shearing so we can make more felted soaps for the fall and holiday season.  I have brought my spinning wheel to the market with me for demonstration purposes.  The spinning wheel draws most of the crowds.  I even had someone ask if she could take a photo of me!  Glamour magazine here I come!!  NOT! Oh, well ...

I have posted a few photos today: 2 of the yarn I have spun so far and one from the farmer's market.  The highlight of today's posting is a brief video of a day at a farmer's market.   I am spinning alpaca fiber in the video.  I'll post some photos of the soaps when we get another batch made.

We have 3 expectant moms onboard!

Our vet came out last week for a farm visit to do ultrasounds on our 3 bred females.  I'm proud to say that we have 2 ultrasound confirmations and a probable third.  We are waiting on the progesterone test results on the 3rd female.  2 of the girls were bred to herdsires that are from other farms.  The third, Bubbles, was rebred to Ace.  She's most likely pregnant and will have a full brother or sister for Doc Watson next May.

The little boys are growing up fast!  They are both well over 40 lbs now.  They are great buddies.  Each evening around 8 pm they can be seen pronking on the farm.  They have both learned the value of a good hosedown on a hot day!  It was in the high 80's today. I hosed all of the animals down to help keep them cool.  Doc and Fiddler were right in the middle of things, waiting for their turns!  They wasted no time running out to the pasture and rolling in the dirt afterward.

Our Anatolian, Tasha, proved herself very worthy this week.  She killed her first varmint!  Unfortunately it was a skunk!  She still smells!  I found the dead skunk in the pasture early this afternoon.  I wonder what varmint will be next?

The chickens are all doing great!  We're getting at least 4 eggs a day now, most days.  The pullets I bought in May are almost full grown!  I stopped moving them back and forth to the shed in their crate a few weeks ago.  They now live full time with the other hens.  They haven't joined the big girls on the roost at night though.  I guess that will happen soon enough.  I'll be glad when we have them laying eggs as well.  Right now, I usually can sell 2 dozen eggs on Saturday at a local farmer's market.  By fall, that will be up to 3 dozen!

Spring has sprung!

Wow! It's been forever since I last wrote.  Sorry about that!  It's now May 20. It's only 60 degrees here today.  We've had about 3 days of rain and cool temperatures but it is supposed to be in the 70's today and up in the 80's and sunny for the whole weekend.

The girls love to free-range!

Our hens have been busy laying, giving us 2-4 eggs daily.  I bought 3 pullets a few weeks back that were about 7 wks old at the time.  They have almost doubled in size! Right now they live in a wire dog crate.  I move the crate out into the chicken yard each morning and move them back to the shed at night.  It's good for the hens to see them and get used to them.  I do keep the little ones in the shed on rainy days but keep the light on for them.  I should be able to integrate them with the big girls in another month.  They won't be laying til this fall though.  I've named all of the chickens.  The 2 Rhode Island Reds are Rosie and Joanie.  The Americaunas are Annie and Lucy.  I've been letting the big girls free range in our yard in the afternoons on pretty days.  Their favorite place seems to be under and around the bushes in the front yard, near the porch.  It's nice to know that they will come back to the chicken yard and coop at night for roosting. See below for photos of the hens and "younguns".

The crias are growing nicely.  Fiddler will be 2 months old on the 30th of May.  He is already eating hay and mooching grain out of his mama's feed dish.  His weight is up over 32 pounds now.  Doc Watson (Doc for short) is around 34 pounds now.  He just started eating grain this week.  He's not a chow hound yet though.  The two boys are so cute together.  They play alot!

We've been busy breeding our girls in the last couple of weeks.  Ginger (the medium fawn girl) went off farm for a few weeks to be bred.  She'll be coming back in the next week or so.  We bred Bubbles 2 weeks ago back to Ace.  Hopefully Ruby will be bred tomorrow for the first try.  Her service sire is coming up to Virginia to another farm for a few months.  The Va farm's owner is bring him over tomorrow to do the breeding.  Never a dull moment!

As you can see, John and I keep quite busy around here.  Last weekend we planted the fourth tree.  We now have a shade tree planted in each of the 4 pastures.  They're not terribly big right now but over the next few years they will branch out nicely.  We planted autumn purple ash trees.

Chillin in the pasture with Opal

I have a vegetable garden started also.  I have 4 blueberry bushes, some rhubarb, herbs and the basic veggies: zucchini, yellow squash, sugar snap peas, peppers, tomatoes and watermelon in the ground.  Yum!!

Baby watch is over, at last

Doc's first day in pasture

Doc Watson and Bubbles

Doc at 6 hrs old

Bubbles delivered her cria on Thursday, April 21.  He was born around 8 am and weighed in at 19.7 pounds, 4 pounds heavier than Fiddler weighed at birth.  He is a beautiful white boy, with a small fawn patch on his left leg, just above his knee.  The weather was so nice on Thursday that we gave the mamas and babies some pasture time.  Fiddler is thrilled to have a playmate and he wasted no time trying to play with him on his birth day. We welcome Doc Watson to the herd!

Shearing Day 2011

The girls after shearing

Banjo being prepared for shearing

Banjo after shearing - 2010

Hi all!

We sheared on Wednesday, April 20.  Bubbles hadn't delivered yet so she was shorn first, to minimize the stress level for her.  They all look so different now!  We have 10 nekked animals on the farm! lol  It's always interesting to see how they react to the experience.  Bubbles screamed the whole time.  Opal was spitting.  They sure feel better now to have all that fiber gone!  Now my work begins!  I get to sort through bags and bags of fiber.  I'll be cleaning "blankets" and deciding how to get it all processed.  (The blanket is the primary fiber that comes off the animal: to clean is basically to carefully shake out dirt and pieces of hay that is stuck to the fiber)  I was so busy helping with the  shearing activities that I didn't get any photos but I took some last year so I will post a couple of photos from 2010.  I'll also add some after photos from this year.

The Cria Watch continues....

Bubbles is so ready to have her cria but apparently he or she isn't fully cooked yet.  Her official due date was today.  All of the "kids" will be shorn next Wednesday.  I hope that she delivers before then!

It is 5 pm on Friday, April 15.  I'm writing this from the glider bench on our back porch.  Everyone is out in the pasture, except Tasha and Quigley.  Tasha is confined to the 'maternity ward' while all of the girls are out in pasture.  She's too big to be running with Fiddler.  Quigley is hiding out in one of the boy's pens.  The wind chimes are gently blowing.  There's  a nice breeze right now.  A storm is blowing in, though, so I'll be bringing everyone back in from the pasture shortly.

A quick update on Fiddler:  His weight is up to 20 pounds now.  He's only wearing the cria coat at night when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.  He is loaded with energy.  It's fun to watch him run around in the pasture.  I can't wait til Bubbles gives him a playmate!

Check out the new photos of Fiddler!

A Beautiful Sunday afternoon!

Today has been gorgeous! It's 5 pm already and still 66 degrees outside! I have my jeans drying on a clothesline outside in the sun, the hens are busy in their chicken yard, and the "kids" were all out in the pasture earlier.  We even had mama and cria out in the pasture for an hour.  He's cushing in the sunshine right now.  We took his cria coat off for the afternoon.

We always find lots to keep us busy on the weekends!  We've hung fly strips in the barn, raked some alpaca poop over the garden bed, and tried to start my neighbor's cultivator so I could actually plant some herbs today, but it just wouldn't start! Bummer!

Check out the new photos!