Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had a safe and happy New Year so far. Here's a photo of what 2009, and actually the last month of 2008, has looked like for us. This is the road to our farm and I thought I'd take some pictures to remember how pretty it looks with all the snow and ice on the tree branches.

Monday morning on my drive to work it was -4 degrees and today it was in the 20s. We had more snow today and expect more later this week. We're hoping to drive down to southern Wisconsin to pick Misty up from another farm. After she lost her pregnancy this summer, we needed to rebreed her. I'm praying for good weather for our drive because it's no fun towing a livestock trailer on slippery roads, especially with a pregnant alpaca in the back!

I received an update from the American Alpaca Fiber Federation recently about the denim show in Paris. It sounds like there was a tremendous interest in the alpaca denim product with over 70 mills, manufacturers, retailers and designers interested in samples of the new Alpaca Fiber - Cotton Denim! Stay tuned on this one... there is sure to be more good news as the AAFF follows up with all of these leads over the next few months. Did I mention that some of those interested in the product were top designers like Salvatore Ferragamo and Versace as well as Gap, Levi, Tommy Hilfiger, Old Navy and more? Very cool!

That's all for tonight. I'll plan to post again this weekend. Stay warm!

Where have I been?

I didn't realize it's been a couple of weeks since the last time I wrote. Time really flies. My back went out right around the time of my last post, then I had some additional health issues to take care of. Now my back is fine and everything is looking much better.

Last weekend we microchipped our three crias. Alpaca farms participate in the livestock ID program by microchipping or eartagging their animals. We use Riley ID and have a scanner to read the chips. The chips come in a sealed package and are inside a very large "needle". We use a special injector that pushes the microchip out of the needle after we poke the needle under the skin. Click on this link to see instructions from Riley ID on how to inject the microchips: http://www.rileyid.com/directions/injecting.htm.

It looks like it might really hurt, but after we're finished our alpacas are fine. They might be upset with us at first, but they get over it in time. Fortunately, we've never had any complications or problems while microchipping our alpacas. As a matter of fact, there most often isn't any bleeding from the process either. It looks lot worse than it is.

I received an update from the AAFF regarding the alpaca fiber they've purchased from member farms. In their latest message they said, "December 3 & 4, 2008 will make history for the alpaca world. That is the date of the Denim by Première Vision, show http://www.denimbypremierevision.com/." The show is in Paris, France, and it's dedicated to denim. AAFF will be promoting their American alpaca denim fabric. Let's hope they have great success at the show so the demand for alpaca fiber increases in the U.S.

Hey, tomorrow is Election Day - don't forget to exercise your right to vote!

What's up at the farm?

Here's Leroy and Callista enjoying the sunshine today. As you can see, Leroy is looking great and doing really well. He's finally gaining weight and is now over 23 pounds.

The fall color is really starting to burst on the trees around the farm. This is a great time for taking pictures of the animals because the background scenery is just beautiful.

We'll be busy this weekend, packing up our fiber to sell to the American Alpaca Fiber Federation. We'll be meeting them in Green Bay on Wednesday where they'll be picking up fiber from a couple of other farms besides us. I'll try to remember the camera so I can get a picture for the blog. I'm excited to see the AAFF fiber truck in person. I'm wondering how they can handle picking up so much fiber from farms across the country on each trip. I can't imagine where they store it all. That's what I want to see. Maybe they'll let me take a couple of pictures so you can see it too.

Learning about fleece preparation...

This weekend, Rene' and I went to a skirting bee at another alpaca farm. It was a really good experience for both of us. Since we don't show our alpacas as regularly as we should, I am determined to start entering their blanket fiber in fleece shows and spinoff competitions.

We took one huacaya fleece and one suri fleece with us to the skirting bee. The huacaya fleece is very fluffy and it's important to pick every little piece of VM (vegetable matter) out of it that you can, as well as second cuts (shorter cuts of hair from shearing) and coarse hairs that would deduct points in competition. Basically, you want the blanket fleece you show to be the best representation of the animal. The huacaya fleece we were working on was mainly white but had some small areas of black fiber since the alpaca has a couple of small black spots. We learned that we need to take out the black fiber and just stick with the main color. The judges look for consistency throughout the entire fleece (length, color, crimp, etc) We aren't going to be showing this particular fleece we worked on, but instead were using it to learn from. We plan on selling this fiber next week to the AAFF. (Read earlier posts for more info...)

The suri fleece is a little harder to work with since it doesn't stick together like the huacaya fiber. Suri fiber is long and silky and has more individual locks. Preparing it for competition is basically the same. Make sure all of the VM or as much as possible is removed. We were separating out locks of the same length to be sent in for a spinoff competition. We needed to gather up 2 oz of similar length fiber and put it in a gallon size ziplock bag.

What happens in the competition is that a handspinner takes the sample of your alpaca's fiber and spins it into yarn. As she works with it, she'll write her comments and score it. She'll also pick out any VM and guard hairs to show you why points were taken off for those different things. In the end, you'll hopefully get a ribbon for your alpaca's fiber, but at the very least you'll get some great feedback and a cool piece of yarn spun from your fiber.

I'm excited now and I can't wait to enter and see how we do. I'll let you know in the months ahead how things go with any entries I send out.

What to do with all that fiber!

We've joined the American Alpaca Fiber Federation (AAFF) and I'm excited to see how this investment works out. As members, we'll have the opportunity to sell our fiber every year to AAFF, a guaranteed place to sell it. The best part for us is that they do not require us to skirt, sort or scour it. We also have the option to not sell our fiber if we have other uses/buyers for it and that's what I really like.

The AAFF will travel to major farms, cities and alpaca events across the country with their tricked out fiber truck. Member farms can bring their fiber to these drop off points and get a receipt for their fiber. The special equipment in the fiber truck will allow them to weigh, cut and bale the fiber to get it ready for processing.

Eventually, our alpaca fiber will be made into denim and marketed as Paca Blues jeans. How cool is that? Hopefully, our investment, along with that of all the other AAFF members, will pay off and demand for American alpaca fiber will increase. We took the leap of faith to join the AAFF and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this has been a good move on our part. I'll give a little report now and then as we progress with this new organization.