The Results Are In!!

Yay, pretty ribbons! Our first ever fleece show entries did well. Leroy received a 1st Place Blue Ribbon in the juvenile suri male indefinite color class. Lucas received a 3rd Place White Ribbon in his juvenile suri male light color class. The judge also commented that Lucas has "Great Luster!"

We didn't receive the DVD from the AFCNA Fleece Show yet, but I'm sure they are still editing from this past weekend's show. It will be nice to see the comments from the judges on the DVD. One area where I know we have to do better next time is to include more fiber. We scored low on fleece weight. I'm thinking I didn't bag enough fiber from the blanket area and may have thrown some of that fiber into my bag for leg and neck fiber during shearing.

We'll definitely get better at this, but at least our fleeces did well in spite of my mistakes! I'm really glad we finally entered a fleece show. Now that we've gotten the first one done, it doesn't seem as hard to do and we learn as we go. If you've never entered a fleece show or spin-off before, give it a try...you can't win if you don't enter.

Leroy asks...

As you know, we entered our first fleece show recently. Leroy and Lucas (left to right) aren't the only ones anxiously awaiting the results of this past weekend's AFCNA Fleece Show. Hopefully we properly prepared our entries. We'll just have to be patient for the results.

Other than that, we are waiting for a few days in a row of dry weather so that we can cut and bale more hay. We had a lot of heavy rain this past week and I admit, we really needed it. But now, we need some baling weather. There's a 70% chance of rain tomorrow so we won't be cutting any hay tonight for weekend baling. That's probably alright since the temperature is supposed to get into the 90's over the weekend. It's not fun stacking hay in hot temps like that! Maybe next week will be better.

First Time Fleece Show Entries

Wow! It was a lot of work but we skirted two fleeces for the 2009 AFCNA Continental Fleece Show coming up in Gettysburg, PA, this weekend. This is very new to us because we have never before entered a fleece show competition. I'm really excited to find out how things turn out.

What is even more exciting is the fact that they will be sending us back a DVD (at no extra cost) showing the fleece judging as well as all of the seminars at this weekend's event. Even though we won't be there in person, we'll still get to see all the seminars. Even better -- or not -- we'll get to watch as the judges look over our fleece entries and make their comments. Good or bad, it will be a learning experience for us. If the comments are bad, we'll know better next time.

PHOTOS: The "golden" fleece in the box above belongs to our now 12-month old suri male, Luxor's Lucas. I'm worried that as a suri fleece I may have let it get too "fluffy" in preparation. His flat lock style was more connected and actually fell off in more of a blanket as I hand sheared him.

In contrast, our 10-month old suri male, HPF Leroy had all individual pencil locks in his fiber. This photo doesn't quite do it justice since the sky was so overcast as I snapped the picture on my back porch. Although the photo makes it look like a mop, it really is beautiful to see in person.

Both entries are different from each other so we'll have to just wait and see how each of them fares in the fleece show. As they say, you can't win if you don't enter. We took a blue ribbon in our first spin off competition...maybe we'll be just as pleasantly surprised in the fleece competition. When we hear the results, you'll be the first to know!

Tis the season for shearing alpacas...

And we will definitely get started this weekend. We'll start with our huacayas because their fiber is so thick, and it is actually easier for us to shear than the slippery suri fiber. The huacaya fiber will come off in a nice, full blanket, followed by all the leg and neck fiber. The suri fiber is more loosely connected because of the individual locks throughout the body. Once we start shearing, we gather up the suri fiber in clumps as it falls off the alpaca.

Whether we're shearing a suri or a huacaya, our separation process is the same. We have a three bag system where we place the blanket fleece in one bag, the upper leg and neck fiber in a second bag, and in the third bag all of the extra fiber (second cuts and the less desirable, coarser and dirtier fiber from the lower legs, etc). I always mark the bags or slip a note inside with the alpaca name and shearing date as well as the bag contents (blanket or leg/neck fiber).

We're planning on entering some fleece shows and spin-offs this year so everyone will be working on skirting fleeces and preparing entries. I've been compiling a list of show dates and entry deadlines this week. I'll post more about skirting later.

I hope to find time to post some shearing pictures and comments from the weekend by Tuesday...

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.