Full of eggs

Hi Guys, I know I have been mia for quite some time now and I'm sorry. I have been really busy having a mid life crisis ;)

I am going to turn my blog into an alpaca blog only. It will still be worth checking out when I do post, however posting will not be everyday, as I was TRYING to do before. I am trying to get this little alpaca business off of the ground. I have been taking classes, watching any videos I can get my hands on and driving the seasoned alpaca farmers insane! I have found some local farmers that are less than an hour from me, whew! I was worried I was going to have to move to Denver lol.

The alpaca farms on my side of the mountain a few and far between and they are struggling to start up a fiber processing mill and a network of local people to help this thing grow. Soooo I am doing my usual knee jerk reaction and jumping in head first! You would think I would get tired of all of the bumps on my head but this is something that is near and dear to my heart.

Alpacas Rock!

Here is what I have going so far: I am signing up for a class in August at some place beautiful in Idaho to become a certified sorter. A sorter can either go out with the shearer on shearing day or have it sent to them and sort out the #1, 2 and 3 parts of fiber. The #1 fiber is worth more money than the 3rds of any fiber.

I am teaching myself to spin the fiber into luscious yarn.

I am teaching myself to dye the yarn.

I am teaching myself to weave, I may give up the "teaching myself" and go find some help on this one!

I went to a neonatal class a few weeks ago. Very informative...and I'm terrified now! When an alpaca is birthing and by some sort of bad luck she has a distosia (sp?), you can lose your cria, I will just die if something happens to En Vogues cria :(

Speaking of En Vogues cria, I had to take little miss Rita in to have her teeth trimmed...that was a freaking rodeo. When you are holding an alpaca for someone....stay close to them...I mean like bear hug close! I thought she broke my collar bone when she decided to jump out of the chute. It doesn't hurt them she was just a little freaked out by the hour long ride in the horse trailer and weird people sticking weird things in her mouth.

I learned something right after I had her teeth trimmed that day and I trimmed her toenails on another day and had the traveling vet up to give them their vaccinations and to do fecals on another day. I FIGURED OUT THAT ON SHEARING DAY YOU DO ALL OF THAT.... WHILE YOU HAVE BIG STRONG GUYS HOLDING THEM DOWN!!!! Hahahahahha that was a good one. Ouch my head hurts.

But as you all know I wanted to go to school and learn something that I could do and love until the end of my time....well I have been to the school of hard knocks before and they were missing me so I decided to enroll yet again!

It's a good thing that all animals are pretty forgiving, especially when I'm in charge.

I have been playing around with and learning the different fibers out there in the world and I have decided that I want to raise angora rabbits.

Have you seen one of these?

Is this the cutest damn thing ever!?

Their fiber is like sticking your hand into a cloud. I'm sure all of you have had an angora sweater at some point in your life...right? I think I had a hand me down when I was 12 or something but I had forgotten how heavenly it was.

If I could mix angora and alpaca....mmmmm it would be yummy!

My niece just found out that she is preggers and I would love to make a baby blanket out of the alpaca/angora mix....well someone else will make it cuz I ain't learning how to knit. Too much on my plate right now.

...I went to San Diego for spring break and it was cold and windy the entire time I was there...pffft. The beach..any beach is still beautiful any time of year, but cold and windy just for me??? Why???

I took Buddha and he was not welcome anywhere. I thought Californians were the dog lover capital of the world.

OH Well.