Time flies.....

Wow1 It has been over a year since I last wrote. I can't believe how time flies by! Lots of news on the farm in that time, but hard to remember all the happenings. Our little Miss Molly who was born on Labor Day, 2014 in now over a year old and is a wonderful little girl. I at first thought that she was a bay-black in color, but since shearing, we can now see that she is a true black. So very pretty! Can't wait to spin her fiber! Miss Molly has always been attached to our LGD Snowy. They were great pals until Miss Molly grew up and is now twice as big as Snowy and likes to play a little too rough with the dog, LOL! I attended a Certified Sorted Fiber Sorting School last November to learn how to grade alpaca fiber. It was very intense with lots to learn about fiber and fiber characteristics. I am hoping to be able to finally get all my bags of fiber sorted and sent off to production. Of course I will keep the best fiber to handspin into yarn to sell. I am also available to help other nearby farms sort their fiber. Our past summer was a little different this year. Very, very dry and warm. The pastures gave up on trying to grow grass in July, making it necessary to feed hay to the alpacas this summer. But, we have now had enough rain for the pastures to produce grass for foraging again and it looks like our first frost will hold off for awhile....happy alpacas! This was also the first year with no new cria on the ground. Seems really strange to not have a little one under foot. However, we are hoping for 4 new babies next summer. We were very fortunate to purchase a very wonderful herdsire, Silver Rose Top Secret, and he was very busy this past summer! He is rose gray with wonderfully dense fiber. Can't wait to see his cria!!! We also sheared our own herd this summer. Last year we attended a shearing school and managed to shear 5 animals. This year we sheared all 30! Our next big project is to build a small alpaca store on the property. I had leased a space for a couple of years about a half hour from the farm, but it will be so nice to have my own store right on the farm! Look for upcoming news about the store soon!