Short Update and Opinions Needed

Well, I've calmed down...  The dog fiasco has become less of a worry, and the llamas are settling in nicely.  They've finally explored the entire pasture, and are working on picking up every burr out there!

Bluff also left for her new home today.  It was a bittersweet moment...I'll definitely miss her, but she's going to a FABULOUS home and I couldn't be happier!  I can't wait to see what she gets to do with her new family!

A much fuzzier Bluff...this picture is about 5 years old!

And now for the opinions I need!  I've finally started my first Rhinebeck project!  I'm making a felted bag, which gets flowers and leaves sewn onto the front (they aren't felted).  I bought yarn from Knit Picks, but ended up not getting enough of the main color for the bag, so I "borrowed" some from my mother-in-law.  I love how the bag looks now (it is a lot more colorful), but my original yarn for the flowers now doesn't work!  So I need something new.  I searched through the yarn stash again today, looking for options...  I need to knit flowers AND a vine with leaves, so the pictures show two colors (green and something else) that I would use.

#1 (blue).  Probably my favorite option.

#2 (white), and #3 (yellow).

#4 (dark pink).

#5 (light pink).

#6 (light blue/grey).

So...which color do you think I should use?  Technically I could use two colors, if you think more color on the bag would look better!  I appreciate the help!

Shearing Part 2!

Well, I managed to get a LOT of pictures of the process of shearing Kara, which I talked about in length in the last post.  Now you get to see the rest of the herd!

I'll warn you, I'm not the best shearer in the world.  Plus none of my animals are going to shows this year (boo!), so they don't have to look super-awesome!

First to set the scene...This was the view from our front yard back in Indiana, the first week of May.  It was gorgeous, but it did rain more than I'd like.  Hence I had to get 5 llamas shorn in 3 days!

Next, the "before" shots...

Kara was by far the dirtiest (maybe T...it was close!).

Bluff has nice white fleece that somehow always stays clean.  She was easy!

This guy was a nightmare!  On top of everything I body sheared him, so I tried getting his neck and legs clean, which was a lost cause.

Good old Ralph and April...  Poor Ralphie hasn't been shorn yet.  I thought I had an alpaca breeder lined up to shear him, but it seems to have fallen through.  Now it looks like a llama breeder friend is going to shear him!  And you can't see April's barrel, but is is ALWAYS clean!  Normally it is wasted since I don't use her fiber, but not this year!  I actually groomed and washed her like the rest of the llamas (though I forgot to blow her out), and am going to have her fiber (along with part of Ralph's and Bluff's) made into felted insoles for shoes!  Such a cool idea!

And last but not least, Duque!  Like Bluff he stays pretty clean (the one upside of double-coated llamas!), and he is very easy to clean.

Duque's gorgeous fleece, after a bit of grooming.

Here's Bluff after grooming, waiting for her bath.

Now to the "after" shots!

Poor Duque got the worst haircut!  In a month you'll never know how terrible it looked at the beginning though!

April looks pretty good if I say so myself.  Even though she really didn't want to cooperate for some reason...

Beautiful "baby" Kara.  Her cut wasn't as good as I hoped, but it is nearly impossible to get a smooth cut with such a fine fleece!  She feels a lot better now though, and that's the most important part!

Bluff is the only one with a really nice cut.  There are a few rough spots, but again in a month she'll look awesome!  She will probably be shown by her new owner, so I wanted her to look good!  This is the first time in several years that I haven't body shorn Bluff...she's moving to New Hampshire in June, so she won't have the Indiana heat and humidity to deal with.

And last but certainly not least...Mr. T.  By most people's standards he probably got the worst haircut, but I think he looks awesome!  His neck and legs were incredibly matted, so I wanted to get that fiber off.  Now I can body shear him every year and use 100% of his gorgeous fiber!  The funny patch on his side is for walking fleece shows, even though he won't be going to any this year unfortunately.

Now I have lots of bags of beautiful llama fiber to play with!  I explained already what I'm going to do with April's fiber.  Duque and Bluff's fiber (from this year and last year) is going to get blended with a purchased alpaca fleece and a purchased Bluefaced Leicester (sheep) fleece, and get made into a grey roving.  Kara's will be spun into yarn that has been pre-purchased, and T's fleece was also pre-sold and has already been sent to the lucky recipient!  Ralph's fleece is pre-sold as well, and will go out this fall.

Shearing A Llama: Kara's 1st Haircut!

FINALLY I'm back in the land of camera-computer cords, and can update the blog!  I spent the past week back home in Indiana on the farm, and took lots of pictures as I was busy grooming, washing, and shearing llamas, but I somehow managed to forget the cord that connects the camera to the computer, and thus I couldn't share any of them!  But I'm back in New York now, and want to show off my naked llamas!

But first, the story of a baby llama's first haircut...

In case you don't remember her from previous posts, this is Kara (aka Autumn Hill's Karakoram).  She's the last baby llama we had born on the farm- she was born April 29, 2012.  She's been growing a beautiful fleece for the past year, which even won 2nd place at a llama show last fall (in walking fleece, which is judged on the llama).  It's been getting hot in the Midwest though, so Kara was more than ready to get rid of her heavy fleece.

This is baby Kara, the day she was born.

This is (a very wet-nosed) Kara, looking very grown up at just over a year old.

The first thing that had to be done was lots and LOTS of grooming!  Kara LOVES to get dirty, and her fleece really showed it.  Over the course of 2-3 days, I spent several hours brushing Kara.  Luckily she has her mom's sweet and manageable personality, so most of this was done with her loose in the training pen in our barn (as opposed to being tied in the chute so she doesn't move).  I brushed out the surface of her fleece, which had most of the dirt and grass, and then dug in deep and worked through every other inch of her barrel (belly) area!  I like to use a soft slicker brush when I groom, it gets a lot of debris out, and doesn't seem to pull the fiber.

Kara, BEFORE any grooming!

Grooming Kara out in the training pen.  She laid down about half-way through, but that's still not bad!

The second step was to blow the dirt and dust out of her fleece with a high power blower.  Kara had never had this done to her before, but luckily was very well behaved for it.  (A lot of babies freak out the first time they are blown out!)

Blowing Kara out.  It's not easy with such long fiber!

The AFTER grooming photo, BEFORE shearing.

The third step is another big one...washing!  Luckily Kara had a few other baths last fall for the two shows she went to, so this wasn't as scary for her.  When washing, I first soak the area I want to wash (when shearing I typically only wash the barrel (belly) area), then apply soap/shampoo with a handy contraption that hooks to the hose and dilutes the soap as it is sprayed, scrub just a little, and then rinse REALLY well with plain water.  I walk the llama around a bit to shake a good amount of water out, and then either stake them in the yard or put them in a pen to dry.  Kara isn't stake trained (yet!), so she and her mom Bluff went into a pen beside the barn to dry for a few hours.  I washed them around 10am, and Kara was still slightly damp when I sheared her about 8pm.

Kara getting washed.

Kara trying to escape from her pen beside the barn.

And last but not least, I do the actual shearing.  With Kara (and most baby llamas), I first removed the fiber with scissors, and then went back with electric horse clippers and smoothed out the cut.  She looked a bit ridiculous before I smoothed her out!  As I shear I'm very careful to place the fiber in a clean bucket or paper bag, and don't let it touch the ground.  This year I found a handy bucket that would hang on the doors of the chute, which made it easier to deposit the fiber.  And as I should have expected, Kara was an absolute angel when I sheared her!  She was rather worried while I sheared Bluff before it was her turn, but once she got in the chute she mellowed out very well.  Lots of grain helps too!

Shearing Kara, just starting on the second side.  You can see how rough her coat looks after the hand-shearing portion!

Now I have a beautiful shorn llama, and an even more beautiful bag of shorn fleece that I get to spin!  Kara's fleece was sold as handspun yarn as part of our new CSA program, so I get to process and spin all of her fiber, and then send it off to a very lucky person!

And the final AFTER shot!  I'm not the world's best shearer, so her cut is still a bit rough, but in a month you'll never be able to tell.  Kara is now much happier (and cooler!), and I can't wait to spin up her fiber!

I'll make another post soon with before and after pictures of the rest of the herd!

Winter Wonderland

Things have FINALLY calmed down (and I am once again in possession of a camera cord to download pics!), so here's a new post!

I have lots of new pictures, but I think for today I'll focus on the snow!  The day after Christmas we got about 8" of snow at home in Indiana, and of course the dogs had a blast playing in it.  We took several walks around the pond and pastures, letting the dogs run and play.  It's really nice having most of our property fenced...now the dogs can run in the areas where there aren't llamas.  Luckily no one decided to take a swim in the pond.

Our pond.

Kaya was almost too short to play in the snow.

Cerro (left) and Abby (right) had a blast!

And of course I had to take pictures of the llamas in the snow.  They weren't quite as amused as the dogs, but I did see Ralph and T eating snow off the fence on several occasions!

Ralph peeking out from behind Kara.  She's now bigger than he is!

The humidity gave T the most gorgeous curls!

A Ralph sandwich...Bluff's in the back and Kara's in front.

Another view of the Ralph sandwich.  See how big Kara is!

Strange looks from both Bluff and Kara, but look at those ears!

I've been knitting and spinning up a storm recently, but I'm not quite done with my favorite project, so I'll make a new post about that all when I'm done!

NAILE!!

What a great weekend at the North American International Livestock Expo (aka NAILE)!!  I took my two little "guys"...Ralph and Kara.  At just 6 months old Kara is already bigger than Ralph!  (She weighed 163 lbs on Sunday, at 6 months and 1 week old!)

Anyway, the show was a huge success.  I entered both of them in pretty much every class possible.  Friday night Kara had her fleece evaluated for walking fleece, and ended up placing 2nd in Single Coat fleece with crimp, under 24 months!

Kara's baby fleece...can't wait to shear her next spring!

Saturday was quite hectic, running back and forth between 3 show rings...alpaca, performance, and llama halter!  Ralph and I won the Adult Alpaca Showmanship class, and then he got 1st and GRAND CHAMPION in his halter class (non-breeder alpaca) too!  Kara didn't do so hot in halter Saturday, placing 7th out of 11 (I think) in Silky Juvenile Female.  For some reason my sweet little girl doesn't want anyone but me to touch her!  Both Ralph and Kara went through 2 performance classes- obstacle and public relations.  Ralph won both of the alpaca performance classes, and of course Kara didn't place in her respective Novice classes.  But she did pretty well!  Ralph also had his fleece judged for walking fleece, and also got a 2nd in his class- Dark over 24 months.

Ralph and I in Adult Alpaca Showmanship.

Sunday went much better for Kara!  I decided to try Adult Showmanship since she behaved so well Saturday in halter, and we placed 6th out of 10-11.  She did amazing in halter too, placing 3rd out of 8-9 in Medium Wool Juvenile Female!  The judge really liked her!  Ralph continued his winning streak, winning Open Alpaca Pack and essentially getting GRAND CHAMPION Open Alpaca Performance!

Kara and I in Adult Showmanship.

Oh, and my skein of alpaca/silk handspun yarn won the handspun yarn class too!

Overall, it was the perfect way to end the show season this year!  I can't wait to work with Kara some more and take her back into the ring next year!

I'll apologize now for the lack of posts in the coming weeks...school is getting crazy!

Mom and baby...Kara and Bluff were very happy to be reunited after the show!

I was glad I left T at home...Kara and Ralph are so much easier to groom!

FOR SALE: Overman Bluff N Fluff

It's sad to have to do this, but the time has come to look for a new home for Bluff.  The herd is moving to central NY next spring/summer, and I have to downsize as much as possible.  I'm keeping Bluff's gorgeous daughter, Kara, to carry on the legacy in my future breeding herd.

Bluff at ~6 months of age (Fall 2006).

Bluff is definitely one of the coolest llamas I've ever purchased, and she is still one of my favorites on the farm.  I bought her in 2008 from Doug Overman of Overman Llamas in Otterbein, IN.  She was only halter trained, but she had a very calm disposition and I knew she would be easy to train.

Bluff at ~1 year of age (Spring 2007).

A family friend showed Bluff at her first show (Kentuckiana Classic) just a month after we purchased her, and Bluff placed 2nd in a very competitive halter class.

Bluff in April 2008.

A couple of months after that I showed Bluff for the first time at the Allen Co. Open show, where she placed 1st and Grand Champion in halter!  I was over the moon!  We also went to the Ohio State Fair, where she placed 2nd in her first Novice performance class!

Bluff and I in Adult Showmanship at the 2008 Ohio State Fair.

Shortly before the Allen Co. show we bred Bluff for the first time (to MRLF Ridge Runner- our ALSA Halter Champion herdsire at the time), and Bluff entered the "mom" portion of her life.  In June 2009 she gave birth to Autumn Hill's Rainier, who has since gone on to win Champions in halter and place in many competitive Novice performance classes with his new owner.

Bluff and Rainier at the 2009 Indiana State Fair.

Bluff and Rainier getting ready for the costume class.  Bluff is the one covered from head to toe!

Rainier at ~2 months of age (Summer 2009).

We bred Bluff back to Ridge later that fall, and in October 2010 she delivered Autumn Hill's Iliamna (aka Lily).  Lily was almost perfect in every way, and it was devastating when we lost her to a cruel dog attack at just 3 months of age.

Lily and Bluff, Fall 2010.

Desperate for a Bluff/Ridge baby to keep for myself, we bred Bluff back to Ridge one more time, and Autumn Hill's Karakoram (aka Kara) was born this past April (2012).  She is even more colorful than her two full siblings, and I hope she matures just as well as Rainier has!  She shows a lot of potential, and has her mom's fabulous personality.

Kara and Bluff, Spring 2012.

Kara and Bluff, Spring 2012.

As much as I hate to see her go, Bluff deserves to be more than a pasture ornament.  She has an extremely friendly personality, and would make a great Public Relations llama.  You can touch her anywhere, and she isn't spooked by large crowds or loud noises.  She would also make a wonderful 4-H or open show llama.  She's already obstacle, pack, and costume trained, and would have potential as a driving llama.  With a little bit of practice she would be amazing!  And with all of the gorgeous crias she has produced, Bluff also would make a great breeding female.  She has good conformation, huge stature, and tons of presence.  Her fiber is gorgeous and she passes on her sweet personality.

Bluff, Winter 2008.

So you can decide...what could Bluff bring to your herd?  I'm asking only $500 for Bluff, which is much less than what she is worth, especially with her training.  And to the right home, I would even consider lowering her price.  She is a one-of-a-kind llama, and deserves to have a home that can appreciate that!  Visit our Facebook page, or call (317-979-2669) or email (llamapyr 25 @ earthlink.net) (get rid of the spaces!) for more information on this gorgeous girl!

And last but definitely not least...her bloodlines.  Her sire is MSF Ringmaster...a Tuna Catcher son from the famous Mark Smith Llama Farm!  Her dam is a beautiful white Chilean girl, who throws a lot of gorgeous female crias!

Bluff's sire, MSF Ringmaster.

Bluff's dam, Chilean Fluff & Buff.