HISTORY 13

June 4, 2002

What an exciting two months this has been! We went to the Mapaca Jubilee this year, and I think it has to have been the largest alpaca show in the world. There were almost 2000 animals there... someone else will have a more accurate count, I'm sure... and most of the exhibitors were small-to-medium breeders with fewer than 100 animals on their farms, and many of them took top ribbons in the various show classes. That's encouraging, because next year we may have an exhibit of our own: Molly, if she's good enough. In any event, it was a great show, and we had a wonderful time. But I found that I was rather anxious about the animals I had left at home! I wanted to get back to them... they're so addicting! heheh!!

We shared expenses with the Ciszewskis and got a shearing table, and after we helped them with a couple of their animals, they came to our farm with the table to help shear ours. We had a professional shearer do the actual shearing, but it was good that we had all four of us to help with the animals. We tried using those fleece-beaters I had purchased, but they were a real waste of time. I guess they're only good for fluffing things up a bit at the shows. I gave them a few drops of Rescue Remedy to help calm them, then we blew as much dust out of their coats as we could without really panicking them. Then up on the table with them, where Isaac Lewis sheared them. He doesn't do a "show" shearing job, but I think that's because he's really a sheep-shearer and isn't quite sure yet where the alpaca is under all that fleece. But he did a good enough job that we'll probably hire him again next year.

We only had two problems with the shearing. First, the shearer only brought 3 sets of combs and cutters. When he's shearing sheep, he can do many sheep on each set, because sheep have a lot of lanolin in their fleece and that keeps the dust out during the growing season and keeps the shears cool during the shearing process. Without lanolin to keep the dust out, even though we blew them out with a shop-vac, the dust dulled the cutters very quickly. So we only got to shear 3 1/2 alpacas. Poor Sarai was left with her left half completely unsheared and her right half completely sheared. She really looked strange!

The shearer came back several days later and we sheared the other half of Sarai and all of Sobata. The second problem we had with shearing was with Sobata. She didn't spit, although she drooled spit on the table. She urinated on the table. She cried. She kicked and carried on so badly you'd think we were skinning her instead of just shearing her. She's our pregnant gal, so we were very concerned about her stress level. Even a couple of doses of Rescue Remedy didn't seem to help her. I'm glad Lee Cisewski was here - Sobata knows her much better than she knows me, and Lee held Sobata's head during the shearing process and sang and talked to her. I hope that helped.

Kimball had the smallest fleece - only 3.3 pounds. Sobata had the largest fleece at 6.8 lbs. But there is nothing spectacular about that; with really great fiber animals, they're shearing 10-12 pounds per animal. Our guys are just too small, I think. The last three pictures on the photos page show our shearing endeavors and finished 'pacas.

The next exciting thing was that we went camping over the Memorial Day weekend and left the alpacas at home with a neighbor taking care of them. I really enjoyed our weekend away!. It was nice to be with the family - and delightful that they surprised me with a birthday party - and I rarely even thought about the alpacas!

Then Rick did buy the trailer we were looking at. I am very glad he did. We took Sarai down to the Double-O-Good alpaca ranch to have her bred to Ernie Kellogg's Dark Cloud. We took Kirk and Forrester along to keep her company. Well, she only needed one other alpaca for the trip, but then the one we took needed a companion on the way back! So we took three down to Gainesville and brought two back.

Here is a picture of our new trailer... and another of our truck with the farm logo on the side. As usual, click the image to see a full-sized version.

When we got to Gainesville, we opened the back of the trailer and found it covered from top to bottom in alpaca spit. Sarai and Kirk had apparently had a royal battle... Kirk's lips were still flapping, although Sarai's were not. Forrester just looked miserable. We put Sarai into a pasture by herself next to a field full of weanling males, and she frolicked from one end of the pasture to the other. She ran back and forth several times, kushed in the field, snacked a bit, and then ran over to the shelter to get sprayed when the herd manager brought out the hose. She seemed to be having a great time, so we felt pretty good about leaving her there.

When we got home, we immediately cleaned out the trailer. It took us an hour to clean 99% of the spit out of there, and we had to pull both mats out to spray them down. They're really heavy... made out of recycled automobile tires... so it took both of us to move each one. But we finally got everything as clean as we could, given that we ran out of water before we ran out of spit. Next time, I think I'll just fill a bucket with soapy water and wash it all down before I take the hose to it. The mats will still need to be sprayed, but I betcha we won't run out of water doing it that way!

On June 6th, we're heading down to Florence, Alabama to pick up Molly and Ricardo. We're taking Kirk and Forrester with us so that Forrester can keep Kirk company on the way down. We'll stop halfway and board the animals overnight at the " R & J Humalong Ranch " in Church Hill, TN. It's about half way between here and Florence, so we'll drive for 8 hours, let the animals out of the trailer overnight, then drive for 8 hours the next day. I think they can handle 8 hours in the trailer as long as we stop every couple of hours and give them water. We'll no doubt have to clean the trailer while we're overnighting in Church Hill; perhaps we can do that at a carwash or a gas station. We'll have to remember to take along receptacles to hold the waste hay and the 'aca poop that will no doubt accumulate.

We'll arrive in Florence the night of the 7th, then spend the night there. We'll clean the trailer again, then leave Kirk there, pick up Molly and Ricardo, and head home again. Once again, we'll stop in Church Hill so the animals don't have to stay in the trailer overnight. I wonder what the big transporters do with the animals while they're on their way cross-country? Do they leave the alpacas in the trailers overnight? How do they clean their rigs? Lotsa questions here!

In any event, we're really grateful to Richard and Joanne Miller of the R & J Humalong Ranch in TN for letting us keep our critters there overnight. They've even offered to let us use their guest-house while we're there, and that, too, is really appreciated! I'm not looking forward to the drive, but I'm sure looking forward to meeting such nice people!

The folks from whom we are buying Molly have asked us to register Kirk before we bring him down there. We sent the proof of gelding off to Magical Farms, along with a check for $75 - although it only costs $10 to register him and some $40 for all the bloodwork - and the registration should be here soon!

The person to whom I sent all the fleece for processing hasn't sent back Rebekah's fleece or Sheba's fleece.... and she isn't answering my emails. I guess I'll have to call her to find out what's going on and why she hasn't returned the fleeces yet. The lady who is crocheting the shawl for me has cancer, so she can only do a little bit at a time, but her daughter is keeping me informed of the progress she's making on it. And now I have fleece from 5 animals to clean before sending it off to AFCNA - the fiber co-op - to be processed into finished goods.

Well, we're almost at the end of our first year, and almost at the point where I had planned to end this history. Our first alpacas were delivered on June 10, 2001, and we expected by now to have been able to report on the experience of criation (birth), but since that hasn't happened, the histories will continue until we do. Sobata is expecting her cria in September, so the histories will continue at least until then.

More later...

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