Archive for May 2012

New Alpaca Cria Born

Gryffyndor at 2 hours old

Our first cria of 2012 was born this morning, May 28 a little before 11 am. He is a lovely boy named Gryffyndor. We’re not sure of his exact color yet, but he looks to be a dark brown or bay black. We’ll have a better idea once he fully dries and fluffs out a bit. He is a real cutie and we invite you to come by the farm to see him.

Peaceful Heart's Sharyn

Gryffyndor is the second cria produced by Sharyn and Gryffyn. Their first, Hyppogryff, is a gray beauty who just recently won top honors for his fleece.

FG Gryffyn

Sharyn had a textbook perfect delivery, and Gryffyndor was on the ground less than 20 minutes after his nose first appeared. He was sitting up and trying to stand quickly, and is already moving around the pasture easily keeping up with his mom. The other mamas-to-be were thrilled to greet him and are anxiously awaiting their own crias. Stay posted for more birth announcements. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to receive email birth announcements as well as monthly newsletters about life on the farm, you can sign up by clicking on the link to the right.

Greeting Gryffyndor

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New Dyeing and Wet Felting Class

We have some exciting wet felting classes coming up on June 2!

In the morning, we will be repeating our felted wall hanging class.  This is an opportunity to let your imagination run free and create an incredible piece of felted art.  We will have several examples to get your creative juices flowing, then you can choose from alpaca and wool fibers, stones, beads, or whatever else you want to include in your piece.  Feel free to bring anything you might like to include in your wall hanging.  Pictured here are several hangings created in class last year and by our class instructor, local felt artist Karen Simpson.  You can also see pictures of the works in progress on our Facebook page.

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. In the afternoon, we will be doing an all new class for Peaceful Heart Alpacas.  Karen Simpson will be teaching us some new techniques for creating dyed and felted scarves.  You will take 2 white silk scarves and transfer the patterns and colors from mens’ silk neckties to the scarves to create wonderful designs and end up with fabulous one of a kind scarves.  (If you have some silk ties you would like to recycle in this creative way, please bring them.  If not, there will be plenty to choose from provided in the class.)  Next you will take a predyed silk scarf OR one of the previously mentioned scarves and “needle felt” wool or alpaca fiber to the scarf and then wet felt the fiber to cause shrinkage and create another unique scarf.  This class promises to become another farm favorite.

Join us on June 2 for a fun and creative day.  Take one or both classes.  The felted wall hanging class will meet from 8am-12pm.  The dyed and felted scarf class meets from 1-5pm.  Lunch will be provided between the classes for those attending both.   Class sizes are limited (particularly for the wall hanging class, we can accommodate more in the scarf class.)  A $25 deposit will reserve your space in either or both classes.  You can register online, by phone, or at the farm.

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Shearing is Done!

Shearing is done for 2012, now on to sorting and processing all that lovely alpaca fiber

Shearing is done on the farm this year. Thanks to David for his excellent work shearing and to Claire and Susan Gleason for their help getting everyone shorn.

Now on to the next task. We sheared 57 alpacas and over 280 pounds of fiber this year (you can see the bags of fiber stacked behind David in clear and black bags as he cleans up his shears). I will be working to skirt and sort the fiber to be made into rovings and yarns.

You can read more about the process we go through while shearing our alpacas in an earlier post. You can also find more information on the next step, sorting and processing our alpaca fiber into yarn and rovings. You can also see pictures from shearing this year on our Facebook page.

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MAPACA Show Results

We just received the results from the 2012 Mid-Atlantic Alpaca Association (MAPACA) Jubilee Spin-Off competition, and we are very proud of our alpacas. Everyone did well and brought home some impressive ribbons from our oldest to our youngest.

Powergrid was the oldest alpaca we entered in the show and he once again brought home a First Place for his 2011 fleece (age 6 years). Bonnie Alice won a First Place at MAPACA for the second year in a row.

Lord Tennyson won a Second Place in his white class as did both Henrietta Ruth (Ruthie) and her daughter June Delight in their respective brown classes.

Peaceful Heart's Hyppogryff

We are most proud of our youngest entry: beautiful gray, junior herdsire, Hyppogryff. Hyppo has an incredible lovely medium silver gray fleece. He won not only First Place in his age group, but also the highest score in the gray color group. His first shearing in 2011, which is what was judged here, tested at an incredibly fine 16.9 microns. The judge commented on how easy it was to prepare and spin and the beautiful yarn that resulted. She also congratulated Hyppogryff on being the highest scoring entry of the entire show.

For those not familiar with alpaca shows, there are three main types of shows: Halter, Fleece, and Spin-Off. The Spin-Off, which is what our alpacas were participating in here, consists of sending in a 2 ounce sample of each alpaca’s prime blanket fiber. It is handspun and evaluated by the spin-off judge. Each sample is judged on fiber criteria focusing on uniformity and cleanliness/preparation; spinning criteria focusing on ease of carding and spinning; and the finished product. Entries receive a numerical score out of a possible 100 and are ranked within color and age groups.

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Shearing Continues

Lightning Bolt with his new haircut

Alpaca shearing continues on the farm.  You can come observe as we shear the alpacas and see both shorn and full fleeced alpacas.  We have pictures of shearing this year on our Facebook page. Share on Facebook

Alpaca Shearing this Weekend

Shearing Lord Tennyson

We are shearing alpacas on the farm all weekend and invite you to come and watch. We started today with several of our boys. Shearing will go on everyday until we finish shearing the herd.

Our regular business hours are Monday-Saturday 10 am – 5 pm and Sunday 1-5pm. Hope to see you.

{Lord Tennyson is pictured here being shorn by David.  “Tenny” was calm and relaxed during shearing, as he always is, and thrilled to be 10 pounds lighter when we finished.  It made our warm weather much more comfortable.}

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