Happy Memorial Day

In rememberance of all the men & women who gave their lives fighting for our freedom.

40 Mile Point Lighthouse Arts & Craft Show Rogers City, MI

I have been busy working on new items for this show on Memorial Day Weekend.    Plan on coming to visit me.  It is Saturday, May 28th and Sunday May 29th from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. You can also tour the lighthouse while you are there.

R.I.P. Fame - N- Fortune

10/7/1998 - 5/12/2011

Our "special" girl has passed away. Gary found her yesterday evening next to the girls shelter. If you remember I had blogged about her this past winter. Fame was part of a herd that we intially purchased for breeding. She was not breedable do to her neurological problems. When she was living in Illinois at another alpaca farm, she had a contracted a worm called the meningeal (brain) worm. You can read more about that here.  She did survive it, but it had lasting effects. The farm that we had gotten her from had bred her, but because her legs gave out on her once in awhile, she had fallen on her cria and it died from the injuries.  We decided that we would not take that chance and never bred her while she lived here on our ranch.  She was a good "Auntie" to the other crias that have been born here. I did also love her fiber. She had the most soft, lofty, silky feeling fiber. I posted a picture of her being sheared of that beautiful fiber. 

I also liked to felt hats with her fiber.  Here are a couple of pics of some of them.



Wide Brimmed Fedora





Fedora



Gary & I miss her already. She had a "special" place in our hearts.

Rest in Peace Fame.

Happy Mothers Day

Bella's baby cria.

She is growing fast.

Eva's kid goats

They are already 6 weeks old.

Our Annual Spring Brushing of the Maremmas

Now that the weather is warming, our Maremma's start to shed their second coat.  They have two coats to keep them warm during the winter. Here is a picture of Gary brushing Pan.

They shed so much, I could spin a lot of yarn with it.

Here is Pan after his first brushing. There will be several more as he is not done shedding all of that undercoat. 

Ocqueoc River has crested it's banks!

We live on the Ocqueoc River. Our house is high up on a ridge and is set back 400 ft. from the river.

When we built here they told us that there was a 100 year flood plain down by the river.  If we would have built closer to the river the house would be sitting in the water at this time.  After all of the snow melting from the storm and all the rain we've had here the last two days, the river has finally flooded some of our property.  Here are a few pictures.

The river is flooding on both sides.  Normally this bend is only about 10 to 12 feet across.

Normally the banks in the summer are about 5 feet above the water level

This is yet another view of the water flowing on the property.

This poor bird is sitting up on the tallest trees by the river. Hopefully it didn't lose a nest.

The alpacas, and all other animals are fine. They are just a little wet and the barnyard and pastures have a lot of water in them. We are supposed to have more rain this afternoon. Friday is going to be a sunny day. We sure do need it.

Wordless Wednesday - Got Milk?