Happy 12-12-12

I know I have neglected the blog. I am so sorry. Life just seems to get in the way and something has to give, which ends up being the poor blog.  I do try to post pics on both the ranch's Facebook page and on the Twitter feed. So if you follow us there, at least you get to see some cute pics. 

To get everyone caught up of what we have been doing... well we had a few more visitors this fall.

Melissa Fleis, finalist on this season's Project Runway.  For those of you who do not watch this show, it is about designers competing to win a lot of money, equipment, and publicity to start their own clothing lines. The 3 finalist of the show, get to show a collection at fashion week in N.Y.C. Meilissa Fleis is from Rogers City, MI. She resides in San Francisco.  She came "home" after the show and was honored by her hometown.  We invited her to meet us and the alpacas here at the ranch. Her and her family came out for the afternoon. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed their visit.

Melissa meeting Thing 2

We also had some fun with the Girl Scouts from Rogers City. The troop came out to the ranch to meet and learn all about Alpacas.

Girl Scouts feeding grain to Abby

Then a couple of weeks later I attended one of their troop meetings at the Rogers City High School. We did a fun project of felting soap with the alpaca fiber. After they were done with felting the soap, they even created Alpaca Soap commercials and performed them for me. What a "hoot".  Well done girls!  I really enjoyed it.

Girls Scouts hard at work felting their soap

I have been busy with all aspects of the fiber side of the business. I belong to spinning and weaving guilds. So I clean and card fleece for them to spin,  I also am filling orders for fleece, yarns, and finished projects. I am working on knitting an alpaca jacket, that I hope to get done soon as it is a Xmas present.  I have towels on on of my looms that I need to finish.  I did finish my alpaca felted slippers. I did a post about this project when my spinning guild visited the ranch. Here is a picture of my slippers.

Felted Slippers

Now we are finishing up anything that needs to be done outside, since our winter is starting here in Northern Michigan. It seems we are never fully prepared, but we do try.  I surely cannot end this post without a picture of some of our alpacas. Everyone take care and I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season.

Good Bye

Fall is a busy time at the ranch.

I haven't posted much as I have been very busy.  I have been processing our Alpaca fiber (washing, carding and spinning).  I also have done 2 arts & craft shows this fall.  I am now busy trying to restock inventory.

Green tomatoes

We also have been putting the garden to rest. I had to bring in green tomatoes as we had an early frost that killed the plants.  I ripened them in a container in our house and of course this weekend they were ready to be processed. I canned them and also made tomato juice with my juicer. We still have some left that are ripening every day for us to eat. Even though we had a very dry summer and our garden relies on Mother Nature to provide the water, we were able to harvest lettuce, cucumbers, corn, potatoes, onions, zucchini, green peppers, tomatoes and our first attempt for growing mushrooms, we had wine caps. They were delicious.  Most of our beans, peas, and other squash were eaten by the deer.  Next year we will have to put back up the electric fence we once had around the garden. (We used it for the goats this season). We also have our meat chickens and turkeys in the freezer.

Wine Cap Mushrooms

 We have to now work on getting the animals ready for winter. We need to do a herd health check when it is not raining outside. It has rained now for the last 3 days. We have about 5 inches so far. Well, I guess that is better than the "white stuff".  I really am not ready for that.

Rain is coming

This year's crias are growing.  They are adorable.  What have you been doing this fall?

Smile for the camera.

A Fun Day of Handpainting Alpaca Yarn

Glenda & Susan hand painting with Joanne mixing dyes

This past Monday, my weaving guild, Loose Threads, met here at the ranch. We had planned to do hand painting of yarn for warp in our weaving. For anyone that does not know how we do this, we use fiber reactive dyes and literally sponge paint the yarns. Then we cover them with plastic and let them sit and process for 24 hours. We had a potluck lunch after we finished.  I will post a follow up on this project, as some of us will be weaving mobius scarves and others shawls. We all had such a good time, thanks girls.

Patty is busy painting

Sara & Pat hard at work

The yarn drying after rinsing them the next day

 

A fun day of spinning at the ranch

Yesterday at the ranch was a day filled with sunshine, warm weather, alpaca fiber, good food, and best of all, spinning alpaca yarn with my good friends from the Sunrise Spinning Guild.

Mary Lou

Kathy & Delta

Gail & Donna

Our guild had planned this event last year. I prepared the batts of Alpaca on my carding machine and drum carder. Each person that attended was given 8 ozs. of the Alpaca batts to spin into yarn.We spread out blankets and rugs to set our spinning wheels on at the barnyard. We watched the Alpacas, goats and chickens while spinning. We plan on knitting slippers to felt with the alpaca yarn that we spun up.  I will have to do a follow up post of every ones slippers when they are completed. Our guild also does a pot luck for our monthly "spin-ins"  The hostess provides the main dish and everyone else brings something to pass, such as salads, breads, desserts. My husband made a beef stew for our main dish. The others brought all kinds of good food to eat. It was delicious. A good time was had by all. Thank you ladies for traveling to spin at the ranch. I know some of you traveled many miles to attend. I had a really fun time with everyone.

Eating lunch under the shade from the carport

Cria #2 was born this morning

We went out to do our chores this morning and found another surprise. Bella had given birth to a female cria. The cria was already running around in the pen. Bella (mommy) usually gives birth around noon. I guess she decided to have the baby during the cool hours of the morning. Here are some pictures of the new cria. I also have a couple of videos posted to YouTube of the latest cria. Now we have to name them. Any suggestions?

A New Cria Was Born Today

We have been on cria watch this past couple of weeks.  We had a new "mommy" bred this year, so we are not always sure how things will go or how long she will go before giving birth.   Pocahontas was bred to one of our studs named Cyrano. The bred date was 8/20/11.  The average gestation for an Alpaca is 11.5  months. As you can see, she was just under 11 months.   Oh and it is a girl!  She weighs 17 lbs.  So here are the pics when we first went out after the thunderstorm this morning, to do chores and check on all of the critters.  I also posted a couple of videos to YouTube.   One of them is graphic, as it does show her expelling her afterbirth.

It's a girl!

New Mom & Cria

Shearing & haying are finally done

We live in Northern Michigan, so we shear later than the farms south of us, as we usually are cooler here in the north. This year though has been an exception. We have never had so many hot & humid days in the spring. I'm talking high 80s & low 90s!  Our Alpacas were very happy to have their winter coats sheared off.  We did shearing on June 22nd.  Our schedule was changed due to both the shearer having a family emergency and then the weather. The night before our second date for shearing it stormed and our Alpacas decided to cool off in the rain, which of course they were soaked. We cannot shear them when they are wet to their skin. We did finally shear on June 22nd.   We had a really good crew of helpers considering the last minute changes of the date and that it was during the work week.  Thanks everyone, we really appreciate it!

Dave our shearer

Our neighbors bagging the fiber.

Edie holding Cyrano's head & Gary cutting nails.

After shearing on Friday, Gary & I drove to Mackinaw City early Saturday morning to setup my booth for the Arts & Craft show for the weekend. Wow, were we tired after those 3 days.  Then the following week, our neighbors started cutting hay. So we worked on unloading the hay wagons and stacking them in the barn. They also helped us unload when they could. One day that we worked it was over 90 degrees again. Talk about a scorcher! We put up over 600 bales in the barn this year. I'm glad that job is over.  It sure is nice to live in a community, where we all help each other. That is what I most love about living here in rural Northern Michigan. Thanks again everyone.

This weekend (July 7 & 8), I will be at the Dancing Hippo Show in Bearinger Township. It is a show you don't want to miss! So, if you are "up-north" , plan on attending the show. You won't be disappointed. I hear a lot of people complain to me at this show, that it is to hot to think about wearing Alpaca, but this year I have a surprise for all of you. I have something that you can wear that will cool you during this heat wave. So stop my booth to see what it is!  

I promise to try and update my blog more often!  (I admit, I have been slacking). Have a great weekend everyone!