Shearing is DONE!!

Finally, after 2 long weeks, shearing is done for the year!  I have a love-hate relationship with shearing...I hate doing all the grooming and I'm terrible at shearing, but I love having fresh fiber and I love how the animals look shorn!

First up was Ralph.  I'm not brave enough to shear him on my own (and my shears are definitely not up to the challenge), so I got a recommendation for a local shearer and called them up.  I didn't want to pay a set-up fee for just Ralph, so I took him down to their farm while they were shearing their own animals.  It has been several years since Ralph was shorn while stretched on the ground (he's been shorn standing at a llama show we used to go to), and he was NOT happy!  Luckily he didn't pee himself this time though!

And now I have 1 handsome burr-less alpaca, and 2 gorgeous bags of fiber!  The best fiber is at the mill, ready to be processed into roving.  The leg and neck fiber will go to another mill in a few weeks, to get made into more insoles.

Ralph's fiber will get processed the same as last summer...it will look like this!  70% alpaca, 20% merino, 10% firestar.

Next up, and first for me, was April.  April's always the easiest for me...she has pretty terrible fiber, so I don't bother grooming her like I do the others.  I just blow the dust out (to save my shears), and go for it.  She always ends up with the best haircut too, since her fiber is so coarse and easy to cut with the shears.

First for a "real" grooming was Duque.  Luckily he was pretty clean, so just a bit of brushing and a bath and then his haircut.  He even got to spend the afternoon grazing in the garden with T while he dried.  Duque's fiber is going to be hoarded this year for a special project...details to come.

Duque and T in their garden pen.

Duque getting shorn.

Handsome boy!

T was next to get shorn.  He took a TON of brushing, and I didn't realize how dense his fiber was!  A couple hours later he was ready to blow out and wash.  He had to stay out overnight with Duque and Kara to dry.  He was not real happy about being shorn, but finally with a bit of a bribe we got it done. He got a complete body shear, and unfortunately I had to toss most of his neck and leg fiber since it was so full of burrs.  He looks a bit rough right now, but hopefully by the time the NY State Fair comes around in August he'll be grown out and look decent.  T's fleece has already been sold.

Last but not least was Kara.  She wasn't quite as dirty as T, but I'm planning to show her fleece this summer and fall, so she had to be impeccably clean.  Luckily she doesn't mind being groomed as much as T!  She also had to sit out for a couple days to dry since her fiber was so dense.  I decided to hand-shear her first so I could get the fleece without any second cuts, and for some reason she freaked out!  Once I started cleaning her up with the electric shears she was fine.  Weird girl!  I really hope her fleece does well at the shows!

Kara didn't want to stand up straight!

My gorgeous little herd of shorn lamas!  Pardon T's stance.

New Rugs!

When my parents (and grandmother) came to visit a few weeks ago, my mom brought me a present...new rugs to sell!

The first two are my favorites...they're made from sock tops!  During manufacturing, they cut the tops off the socks to get them to the right length.  These rugs are really soft and durable, we've used them for years.

The other type is my mom's favorite.  They are made from textured fabric remnants, and weave into very soft, thick rugs.  They would be perfect for a bathroom.  At the moment we have 2 colors to offer, a light tan/grey and a darker brown/grey.

All of the rugs are available in my Etsy store, just follow the links.  I still have some of the brown and purple cotton rugs as well.

Growing Rocks

Around upstate New York people joke about how we "grow" rocks.  Spend 5 minutes digging in the dirt and you'll understand why people say it!  Putting in the fence last year (and digging lots of holes), I quickly realized that they were completely right.  Now that I've been working in the garden, I'm really sick of rocks!

The garden before I removed the top layer of rocks.

I wasn't crazy enough to think that I'd be able to get all of the rocks out of the garden, but I at least wanted to get the top layer of big ones out before I planted.  And once the garden is tilled I'm going to remove a few more from the bed where I'm going to plant the root vegetables.

The garden after I removed some rocks.

I spent a few hours removing rocks last week.  The second day I even had a friend...I brought T out to graze in the garden while I worked.  It was a great opportunity to do some "green" mowing and work on his stake training as well.

A work in progress.  I used the rocks to "pave" my muddy parking space up by the house!

One very happy grazing llama!

We also spread compost on the garden.  The front-loader on the tractor is a bit less maneuverable than I was hoping, but we still got the job done.  I may need to straighten the pallet fence around my compost pile though!

Lots of gorgeous compost underneath all that hay.

Spreading compost with a very large tractor.

Compost on the garden!

I'm hoping to get the garden tilled (or rather, have my husband till it!) this weekend too!  We got almost 3" of rain on Friday, so it will need a bit of time to dry out first.  It will be so nice to get plants in the garden!

Pasture Management Continues...

If it hasn't been clear from my posts last year, pasture management is an ongoing chore around most farms!  And since I didn't do a great job with preparation last spring, it is going to take me a bit longer to get the pasture just the way I want it.

I'm happy to say that the grass seed I planted is coming in great!  It still isn't long enough to graze, but it will get there.  There actually are spots that need to be mown!

View of the top of the pasture.

There's one big chore left to work on though...ridding the pasture of burdock!  Originally my plan was to pull them all up with a handy little dandelion picker tool, but after giving myself a nice blister on my hand, I decided that wasn't such a great idea.

Next I wanted to try another dandelion picker tool...this one you use while standing up, which is much easier on the knees and hands!  Unfortunately the burdocks have a longer root than dandelions so the tool just twists them, it doesn't actually pull them up.

Now I'm going to take a 2 prong approach...pulling up the biggest plants, and mowing the areas with lots of burdock.  Hopefully between the two methods, I'll be able to make a dent in the population.  It will get more serious when the burdock goes to seed, I just hope I'll be able to keep up with them!

My tool of choice.

I've picked buckets and buckets of burdock in only a few days!

I can't wait to see how the pasture looks at the end of the fall!

A burr-free area!

Knitting Pattern #6: Karakoram

I figure over the course of my life I will have knitting patterns named after most of my animals.  So far I have the Abby Cowl, and this one I'm naming after one of my beautiful llamas, Kara (Autumn Hill's Karakoram).  I'm terrible at coming up with names for patterns, so this will have to do!

This is a super easy pattern, and also super quick!  You can adjust the number of knit and purl rows for your preference.

Karakoram Cowl

Adult

Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick, 1 skein (or ~102 yards Super Bulky weight yarn)
#11 needles (circular)

10.5sts = 4" in stockinette

Cast on 68 stitches, join to work in the round.

• Knit 3 rows
• Purl 1 row
• Knit 6 rows
• Purl 1 row
• Knit 4 rows
• Purl 1 row
• Knit 8 rows
• Purl 1 row
• Knit 2 rows
• Purl 1 row
• Knit 5 rows

Bind off.

Tomato Transplants

All the tomatoes are now transplanted to bigger pots!  This was the first batch that I transplanted, the Iron Lady and Cherry tomatoes.  They are now about 6-8" tall!

In other news, I think my cold frame is too hot!  I've been careful to ventilate it, but I think the onions got overheated.  About half of them are very wilted and looking dead.  I'm now on the lookout for some organic onion plants/sets to order.

We finally got the tractor fixed, so after I'm finished shearing I hope we can start making real progress on the garden!

Llama Biography #17: Autumn Hill's Snowflake Obsidian

I'll warn you...this is a sad llama biography.

Llama #17 in our herd was Autumn Hill's Snowflake Obsidian.

Sid had a lot of symptoms of being dysmature (looked premature but wasn't born early): floppy ears, weird fiber, and soft pasterns.

In the spring of 2004, we finally managed to get our junior herdsire, AAL Navarro, to successfully settle a female.  He was bred with Casa Loma's Little Sheba, and in May 2005 she gave birth to a little male cria.

I came home from school one afternoon to find Sheba looking very uncomfortable.  I waited around to see if anything would happen, but she hadn't made any progress by the time my mom got home.  We finally decided that we needed some help, so we loaded Sheba up in the trailer and headed for the vet.

By the time we got there Sheba had managed to deliver the front legs, and the vet quickly pulled the rest of the cria.  The vet thought that Sheba's contractions weren't strong enough for her to deliver the cria, possibly due to a selenium deficiency.  We then spent an hour or so waiting for the cria to stand and nurse, and finally we headed home- Sheba in the trailer and the cria on my lap in the truck.

The night was very stormy, and after hearing a song on the radio I really wanted to name the baby "Rainmaker", but I'd been waiting for awhile to name a black and white cria "Snowflake Obsidian", so I went with that instead.

Sheba and Sid spent several chilly days and nights locked in a pen in the barn, but finally they got to have some time outside in the back yard.

Sheba and Sid.

When Sid was 2 days old, we had our other vet out to the house to draw blood for an IgG test (which evaluates the cria's immune system and how much colostrum they got).  Two more days later, we found out that his IgG was low, and the vet was back out to give him a plasma transfer.  Sid seemed to have turned a corner by the time the vet gave him the plasma, but shortly after he finished the transfer Sid started straining and acting very uncomfortable.  I'm still not sure what happened, but the next day Sid was septic and going downhill fast.  Unfortunately he didn't make it through the night.  I'll never forget my sister's voice on the phone (I was at dance that night) when she was telling me that Sid had just died.  I cried all the way home, and on and off for the next day or 2.

Sid had the coolest fiber...he may have been our first suri!

Sid was the first cria (actually the first llama of any age) that we had ever lost, and it hit all of us very hard.  Sheba cried for days, it was pretty heartbreaking.  We gave Sheba several months to recover, and then bred her for another cria.  She sold before the cria was born, but luckily she easily delivered a healthy cria the next time around!

RIP Sid.