Ribbons for everyone!

We haven't attended an alpaca show in a couple of years, but we still remember the feeling of bringing an animal into the ring and leaving the ring without a ribbon. I am extremely happy to report that all four of our alpacas received ribbons at this year's Great Midwest Alpaca Festival!

Frances Bean received a 2nd Place ribbon! We had to wait until Sunday afternoon to show her but we're happy with her beautiful red ribbon. HPF Leroy took 3rd place in his medium fawn juvenile suri male class. The judge remarked that he couldn't place him higher than third because his color was inconsistent (light fawn, medium fawn and dark fawn throughout his body). I'm thinking he would have done better if we had placed him in a pattern/indefinite color class instead.

Nuno took home a 4th place ribbon and Luxor's Lucas took 5th in his class. I'm especially pleased with Lucas' placement mainly because of the tough class of light fawn males. Lucas has a "flat lock" structure to his fiber which doesn't always look as impressive as those with the tight spiral-shaped locks of fiber. Lucas was the only alpaca in the ring with flat locks and he placed above two other males because of his luster and density of his fleece. I know many people wouldn't be happy with fifth place, but it sure felt good not having to walk out of the ring empty handed.

We took pictures in the show ring but none of them turned out. All of the pictures were blurry, probably because of the distance we were standing from the ring or the lighting in the arena. Whatever the case, they didn't turn out. I was really hoping I'd have at least one photo to post.

We arrived in Madison Friday afternoon and had our stalls set up and animals color-checked by around 5:30 or 6:00. It took about three people to decide which color class to place Leroy in because of the different color variations. In the future, I'll plan to put him in a pattern class if possible.

We were up bright and early Saturday morning to get to the arena before 8:00 and get our stalls cleaned up again. Then we waited...we didn't get to show Lucas or Leroy until late Saturday afternoon. Rick took Nuno into the ring Sunday morning and I showed Franny in one of the last classes of the day on Sunday afternoon. By the time I brought Franny into the ring, we had most of our things packed up for the trip home. It was a long weekend with a lot of waiting time and nervous butterflies. It's good to be back home again.

Next on our list is to start shearing alpacas. There are some fleece show and spin-off deadlines coming up soon so we'll be shearing some "entries" this weekend.