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January 2010

Greetings one and all...

Here it is Janaury already. Surprisingly enough there is snow on the ground still. It has been an exceptionally cold winter and we have had more snow this season than any other years since we moved to Virginia in 1990. Unfortunately for Chuck and I we have apparently become acclimated to Virginia living and are now somewhat bothered by the cold. I sure wish we hadn't teased our children about their not being New Englander's any longer...

The crias are all thriving and happy. We can tell the thriving part by the scale. The happy part is shown to us every day when we watch them run and play. What a delight they are. I am looking forward to the day we decide to take the cria coats off. Generally they wouldn't be wearing thenm any longer but we decided with temps in the thirties it wouldn't hurt to leave them on. Maybe next week.

I goit a notice via email and again on FB that friends of ours have opened up their internet farm store. Barbara and Doug Johnson of Timberwood Farm in Orange County VA raise goats, sheep and chickens. They have Nigerian Dwarf and Angora goats as well. Anyway, like any good friend I checked out the link to their store when it crossed my path... You can check it out too!
Timberwood Farm and Fiber

Great service too - I already got my order!

Show season is ramping up. First one for me is the Carolina Alpaca Celebration in February. Next up will be the Palmetto Alpaca Classic in March and in April it will be the California Classic.

Guess that's it for today!

December 23, 20009

Greetings!

I sit here this morning procrastinating.... How long do I think I can really avoid Christmas shopping? Not much longer. Today will have to be the day. I had really hoped for my check from my last 2009 show in order to do the kids up well but apparently that is not in the cards. That will teach me to ever do anything without a contract again. Granted a contract wouldn't have insured payment but at least I would be able to do something about it. Sigh, lessons learned.

We got word last week from Suz that the IL2 treatment didn't work. From the sounds of it she was it she may have been the only one who took the news in stride. I know I didn't do well with it down here and she told me her sister and daughter melted too. The thing was that it just didn't seem fair she went through everything that she did for nothing... Just to recap, since I am relatively sure I haven't posted throughout, back in October Suz went into Yale for a week of IL2 treatments. That week was rough but she made it through okay and was able to get around the next week okay. I remember just before going back in she had spent a day at the farm with Bart and gone out to eat at a restaurant which she enjoyed. We heard that preliminary tests looked promising and that her blood was almost back to normal. The second round was horrible on her. Her body didn't take well to being beat up again so soon. It finally looked as though she had made it through when she fell and broke her leg at the hip the morning after the last treatment. It caused her excruciating pain and she lay in that state the entire weekend waiting for the IL2 to get out of her system so the could operate. She was in an altered state during that time frame between the pain and the narcotics and I am thinking she must have felt like she was in hell. The operation took place and long story much shorter she has now been through rehab and is back home. With another side trip to the hospital with a bleeding ulcer... Suz has lost a lot of weight and does still look good. How she can have a real smile after all she's been through is remarkable... I guess it is because she's here to try. We love you and are hoping the new treatments are kind to your body and successful...

Meanwhile here on the farm the fall cria crop is growing by leaps and bounds. They are delightful to watch - especially now that they are experiencing their first snow. We had a storm over the weekend that dumped about 15 inches on us. It's still pretty out there but is beginning to melt and that is going to mean mud - and lots of it! Chuck plowed pathways with the tractor so the little legs could navigate better... The dams appreciated it too! Now, we have these four little speed demons running like the wind on their very own race-track! We won't count the number of times my heart has been in my throat watching them take the corners at light speed!

We had some new girls come to live with us last week. Jade, Cheyenne and Tabitha have joined the other 25 alpacas living here at Nottingham Hollow. Jade is Augustine's dam and they had a nice little reunion. Augustine had come here before shearing last year to wean and just never went home! Throughout the snow, which came within a couple of days of the new girls, we would look into the barn and see the different family units. I love that. Anyway, Jade is pregnant and due in either February or March. If it is February we know who the sire is although we cannot figure out why we would have bred her for a February delivery... If it is March we must be looking at a "who's your daddy"... I have that going on with Cheyenne and her cria Tabitha. Oh - and this new Tabitha? She's white also, just like "our" Tabitha... I may change her name (Tabitha two)since I am guessing she won't answer to it anyway and she's not registered yet.

Well, guess that I had better close and get on with this day. Happy Holidays to all!

Until the next time....

Sad Day

It seems we have been on cria watch forever with Clara... She's still pregnant and it is day 337 now coming to a close. Unfortunately, as closely as we were watching today one of the other dams aborted her fetus. She was 199 days pregnant and it was a girl - dark skinned. Another one for the Rainbow Bridge. It doesn't happen that often but is always so sad when it does. Sigh. Until the next time....

November 2009

Wow... I cannot believe I haven't posted since August! I have been out straight busy with shows mostly. It's a good thing Chuck is full time on the farm now.

Beginning in August registration opened for the VAOBA show. We beta tested the new AOBA registration software and it was an experience. I think that once it is ready the next testers will have an easy time of it. It has potential but I am afraid it just isn't going to be something that is appreciated. I ended up finishing the show up manually. I never did get access in to be able to do anything myself and having reports in PDF files just doesn't cut it. Anyway, the show itself went well and Jeff came and made the changes that were needed. It was nice having that task off my shoulders and it was really nice that I was able to get some sleep the night before the show. What was unfortunate was that we had about half the number of entries as the year before. I have since heard that a lot of people have just given up when they have issues with the software and now have to wonder if that didn't play a larger role in our entries being down than I thought. I guess we will never really know.

The week after the show in October saw us with a visit from my good friend Sara and her family - mother, husband and grand kids. Three of which are way too old and big to let me pretend to be somewhat young still. Why is it that when your own kids and grand kids age it is the way it is supposed to be but your friends family is stuck as they were ten years ago? Odd but it happens all the time. The entire family suffers from animal allergies so it was a short visit. First time I have ever served up Benadryl and water to guests! LOL

That weekend I flew to Denver for the Alpaca Fiber Symposium. I have been with the Symposium since the beginning and totally enjoyed being there for this one. We really are doing a worthwhile venture here... I hope that it continues on and am really hoping we can get one here in Virginia for the next time around...

Next up was the AlpacaFest West show out in City of Industry California. That is outside LA in the San Bernadino foothills. Nice show. I really enjoyed it and everything went well. I have to say that the hotel accommodations were outstanding.

One more show this year - that's next weekend in North Carolina, the Carolina Classic. It's a Level II show and will beheld in one day. Usually there is an auction on Saturday but this year there are seminars and a pen sale instead.

In early November we had two new crias born... Miss Wise and Whitney were both bred to Amerikhan Legend; Wise gave us a dark brown girl and Whitney a very light male. We named them Amerikhan Obsession and Amerikhan Klassic. Both are doing really well.

Black Velvet had her cria too - she had a dark brown female whose name is Autumn Bliss. Now we are just waiting on Clara. I am actually surprised that she is still hanging in there. She's not late by any means - it's just that she had been going early. She's bred to CVA Cadbury, a true black male owned by All About Alpacas... Maybe a black female? I really do want a female from Clara. All she's given us so far are boys. But healthy - that's what is really important! I don't ever forget that.

Registration opened yesterday for the Carolina Alpaca Celebration and I was happy to see we had about eight entries already. Good start. That show is in February. In March I have the Palmetto Classic in North Augusta, SC. New venue this year. Finally, if all goes well I will get the California Classic in April. Just answered that RFP today but I expect to hear before Christmas...

That's about it business wise. On a personal note our sister Sue has had a really rough time of it. She's been fighting skin cancer since 2002 and has had surgeries and treatments for that regularly. She also had an accident at the stables and wrecked her leg and foot. She's undergone a lot with that as well. The last cancer check found that it had metastasized to a spot on her lung and a couple of significant spots on her liver. She went into Yale for treatment in October. She had the IL2 treatments and they are pretty brutal. She did round one and had almost a week off and went back for round two. The blood test following round one looked promising, her blood was almost back to normal. After she finished a rough week of round two of treatments she somehow broke her hip and leg. That ended up being life threatening and it was touch an go for awhile. Everything seems to be on the mend finally and except for the fact that she has missed going to the Philharmonic tonight with her daughter we are hoping she will be back in circulation really soon. Chuck is going up to visit soon and that's a good thing.

Until the next time!

Dog Days...

Greetings!

Today nothing would make me happier to have to exit this in a hurry due to a thunder storm! The hot, humid days of August hit hard following a relatively cool start to the season. I didn't appreciate temps in the 80's as being cool when we experienced them but now that we flirt with 100 daily I have to admit the early summer wasn't all that bad.

Lot's of changes happening or getting ready to happen around here. Chuck has retired and is full time on the farm now. That is a tremendous help having him as the chief farm hand. It is allowing my part time job to become full time. I am busy with registrations and preparations for three shows and the next fiber symposium. It's been wonderful being able to concentrate on that knowing the alpacas are getting what they need without me.

Jacob presented this month with what was most likely emac. We noticed an extreme weight loss, diarrhea and lack of eating. None of which were typical of him. He's 10 years old and has always been over 150 lbs as an adult. Well, he dropped down to 135 over a couple of months. Not good. We actually thought his teeth were the issue first. Denial I guess. They needed trimming and we thought they were to the point he was having trouble eating. Trimmed them and discovered they looked as though there may be cavities. Okay- I didn't know camelids got cavities... I read online that an eight year old female presented with diarrhea that wouldn't clear up and the vet determined it was due to an infection. They gave her Biomycin. So, we started Jacob on that. We were getting a handle on the diarrhea using Kaolin-pectin but the minute we stopped giving it he would go right back. After trying to do this on our own for about a week I called the vet. To her it sounded like emac so we decided to treat as though it was. I had done a fecal or three but do not have the knack of setting up the slides yet and even though I thought I saw it, that was while watching the liquid move so who knows. We were fortunate enough to be able to purchase the Marquis by the dose instead of buying the entire tube. Since then I have purchased Baycox from a company in Australia. That treatment is one dose followed by a repeat in 14 days if needed. It is less expensive and who can complain about 1 dose compared to 3-5? We also started him on Sucralfate in case he had developed an ulcer. Over the course of weeks we have been fattening him up offering about anything we can think of to get him to eat. He likes rabbit pellets, samples calf manna, nibbles on sweet gum leaves, likes the feed we used to feed but won't eat our current feed! Everyone else seems to be doing fine on it but I guess we will probably go back to the previous... Oh - we also keep him in good hay as well as not so good hay so he has the choice. He's getting about three cups of feed a day which normally would be too much but is helping him put the pounds on so we will stick with that for a while longer.

Did I mention that we are down to three Muscovy females? A friend of our daughter came and picked up the ducklings a week or so ago. The relief at having no males to help these girls procreate is intense!

Work is progressing on the front pasture but came to a halt when the tractor bucket found a ground nest of bees. That was painful - Chuck was stung about five times; really not that many considering. Luckily he is not allergic to the extent of needing epi but he did go through discomfort and itching. While sorry he got stung we were glad he found it before alpacas would be introduced to the area. They were/are in a man-made hill so what man has made, man can un-make! In this case anyway.

We will soon have a new photo gallery on our website. Our webmaster has it all set-up for us and I am working towards filling the various albums now. Much easier said than done I am afraid. Oh, the mechanics of actually filling the album aren't the hold up - it's getting the pictures of the alpacas that doesn't come easy! I need them to stay still, face left, face front, face right, face back, look at me, show their presence, not slouch... the list goes on. Will they cooperate? Do alpacas ever cooperate with what a two legged wants? I guess this weekend we will have to get our daughter over and have a photo party. We'll have to see if we can disguise the poop piles of course. Did you know that was a "rule"? #199 - if you must eventually cooperate with your human and pose nicely it is required that happen with the poop pile prominently displayed such that they cannot crop it out. I love my 'pacas..... Of course it shows us with a 50% chance of rain. Hmmmm. Maybe we'll just have to make pictures part of the daily farm chores and slip in just ahead of the belly baths (which are followed by the roll in the sand, rule # 201).

Until the next time... Velvet is impatiently waiting for the keyboard.

July 24, 2009

Well hello again!

Before things get extremely busy with me I decided to get another blog entry made. It isn't August when we usually have the dog days of summer but it's close enough and hot enough... We have threatening skies at the moment and since I do believe in shutting down and unplugging my computer etc. I may possibly end this post abruptly!

Things are going well outside with the animals... The crias are growing like good crias should! It's so enjoyable watching them play. I can't think of anything I would rather do more. Little Mangini is full of oats already and Black Perl is practicing her spit response. She's getting pretty good with it too!

Quinn still longs for his dam when in the barn and Darius sort of reminds him who is the top banana in that paddock on a somewhat regular basis. Mark often comes to Quinn's rescue which is nice.

We had to move Duncan and Dougal in with The Sheriff and Archer. It was touch and go the first day. Things are not being helped along because we think Tabitha is once again open and the boys seem to agree. It's hard to tell for sure if the maidens took and if they didn't they are likely a contributing factor to the fighting. The boys seem to be getting along pretty well now although they do have their moments. I am thinking that's never going to change!

The other males are all in their own bachelor pads, side by side. A little hard to get in trouble with each other under those arrangements.

The baby ducks have lost one of their siblings... Not sure if I knew that the last time I posted. We are down to six. They are really growing quickly and helping keep the fly population in check. If they can't find an opening bigger than the 2" wide by 4" high opening in the fence they no longer can get through it. I have to think their mother is happy for this as they kept her going ALL day long. It's really amazing they can actually gain weight since they move almost constantly. My daughter found a home for them and I am hoping before they get much bigger we can wave good bye. That will leave us with three adult females and NO MALES! Which means no more baby ducks. I look forward to that only because Muscovy ducks are very prolific.

So, registration is opening for the VAOBA Alpaca Expo on August 1st. A couple of weeks later it will open for AlpacaFest West out in sunny California. It's going to be a very busy fall season for me traveling to CO in October for the Alpaca Fiber Symposium and California in November for the show.

And, as if on cue I hear thunder. Until the next time!