Congratulations to Mountain Creek Alpacas on the purchase of two fabulous junior alpaca herdsires. They came to the farm yesterday to take home their new boys, Regal Copper and Wind Power. These young boys will be ready to start their breeding career next year and share their great genetics and fleece with Mountain Creek’s growing herd of huacaya alpacas. Regal and Wind Power share a birthday week and will turn 2 years old on October 4 and October 1.

Peaceful Heart's Regal Copper

Regal Copper and Wind Power are two of our favorite alpacas.  Regal’s deep copper color and incredible presence have always made him one of the first alpacas to be noticed, and he’s always the first alpaca to give a kiss.  Wind Power’s sweet face and fine fiber show his promise to be a great herdsire like his consistently fine sire, Powergrid.  We’ll miss them both, but are thrilled that they have found such a good home where they can help grow a great herd.

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Peaceful Heart's Wind Power

If you are looking to add a great junior herdsire to your alpaca herd, we invite you to see our boys here online and make an appointment to come meet them.  We also have some great packages available for female alpacas and mothers and crias.  We’d love to talk with you about alpacas.  If you are just beginning your search into raising alpacas, we invite you to our upcoming seminars on alpaca fiber and alpaca health care, October 6, 2012.

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Peaceful Heart's Lightning Bolt

Congratulations to Majestic View Alpacas on the addition of a fabulous junior herdsire to their growing herd.  Peaceful Heart’s Lightning Bolt celebrated his first birthday this week, and will grow into a great herdsire like his sire Powergrid and uncle Lord Tennyson.  He adds a great dimension to Majestic View Alpacas’ colorful selection of herdsires.

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Peaceful Heart's Henrietta Ruth, "Ruthie" and Tennyson's Arthur of Peaceful Heart

Yesterday we had a pleasant surprise among the fog.  I was walking through the pasture and noticed that our week old cria Elise was really kicking up her heels.  As I looked a little closer, I could see a second cria through the fog.  Our newest farm member was already on his feet, and Elise couldn’t wait to play.  It was really fun to see her excitement.  I have posted a video of the two crias on our Facebook page, as well as some more photos.

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Henrietta Ruth

Our newest cria is a beautiful boy from our lovely Henrietta Ruth and our impressive Lord Tennyson.  Tennyson’s Arthur of Peaceful Heart looks very similar in color to his full brother Becket (medium fawn), though he seems to have  a lot of gray on his face.  I suspect that we’ll have to wait until the sun comes back out to tell his true color.  Whatever the color, his fleece is incredibly soft and dense.

Peaceful Heart's Lord Tennyson

Arthur gets his name from a favorite theme of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poems.  He wrote three different poems about King Arthur, and we felt them name fit our newest alpaca wonderfully.  People often ask where we get our names.  We wait until we meet our new crias before we decide, but in some cases we have an idea of some choices ahead of time.  We have been naming all of Lord Tennyson’s crias for poems and plays written by the original Lord Tennyson, so we have Milton, Becket, Timbuctoo, Lady Clare, Sir Galahad, and now Arthur.  Lord Tennyson got his name due to his sire Lord Byron.  Henrietta Ruth and our newest cria Elise were both named for family members.  Sometimes names are inspired by time of birth (High Noon) or their appearance (Sugar Cookie), and often they relate to their parentage (Electric Snow).  Naming is one of the fun activities of alpaca farming, though watching the crias play and grow is even more fun.

We hope you can come see Arthur and Elise at the farm soon.

Arthur and Elise

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We hope you can join us for one of our last Fall 2012 Fiber Art Classes.  Our weaving and felting classes are held in our fiber art studio located in the upper pasture, surrounded by alpacas.

Three of our most popular Wet Felting Classes are coming up in September and October.  September 22, we will be wet felting one-of-a-kind hats.   October 13, we will be having our last felting classes of the year.  In the morning we will be wet felting beautiful alpaca and wool purses.   In the afternoon, we still have two spaces left in our class to create lovely felted scarves.

Our last Weaving an Alpaca Shawl on the Triangle Loom class of the year will be held the weekend of October 26-28.  We still have a few spaces left.  Join us for a weekend of weaving, fun and great food, and go home with a lovely alpaca shawl that you have designed and woven.

You can learn more about the weaving and felting classes here on our website. We hope you can join us this fall for some creative fun and learning.

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Cherokee

Fall is in the air.  As the seasons change, I always sit down and reevaluate our herd (which now numbers 50 alpacas).  I look at where our breeding program is and where we are headed in the future, and decide who we would like to make available for sale.  Yesterday, I looked at all our females (28 of our alpacas are female), and have chosen some great girls that I think will be great for anyone looking to diversify their herd or for those who are just starting to raise alpacas.  Let us work with you to find the perfect alpacas for your needs.

Peaceful Heart's may

We have listed 7 of our girls for sale in a way that will allow people to decide how many alpacas they would like to purchase, and choose the perfect combination of girls for their herd.  We have a lot of great genetics represented and are offering great discounts for purchasing multiple alpacas.  Whether you are in the market for one or a group of alpacas, look through the list and let us know if you would like more information about any of the girls or would like to come meet the alpacas.

Effie Mae & Ephraim

We also have a wonderful package available of two mothers and their male crias at side.  It is a great combination of genetics and color variety.  The boys are close in age and can wean together in a few months.  You can read more about the Mamas and Playmates package here.

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Join us this Saturday, Sept 15, 2012, at the Bethabara Apple Fest in Winston-Salem from 10am-4:30pm.  The festival includes a number of artisans, many of whom will be demonstrating their work (we will be spinning and weaving), traditional music and food, particularly apples from local orchards.  There will also be colonial re-enactors, book signings, and  pig races.  You can learn more about this festival at their website.

We hope you can join us for a fun day at the festival, or at the farm.  The farm and store will be open our regular hours, 10am-5pm.  If you are in the area, come on by and see our newest farm member, Elise.

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Peaceful Heart's Elise and her dam, FG Lystra

We are off to a great start this fall.  Our first alpaca cria of fall 2012 was born on September 8 to our champion producer Lystra, and it’s a girl!  Peaceful Heart’s Elise is a beautiful fawn color just like her mother and sister.  We are so happy to have another girl from our lovely Lystra.  .

Elise’s sire, FG Powergrid, has a beautiful fleece that has won numerous ribbons and is maintaining (even improving) its incredible consistency as he is getting older.  Powergrid turns 8 years old this month, and is still bringing home first and second place ribbons for his fiber (2012 MAPACA & AOBA Nationals).  Powergrid has been producing incredible crias for us since 2008.  Elise has 10 siblings on her sire’s side, including two full brothers, Asa Lee and Lightning Bolt.

FG Powergrid

. On her dam’s side, Elise has two multiple award-winning brothers, Reserve Color Champion Peaceful Heart’s Lord Tennyson and full sibling Peaceful Heart’s Asa Lee, who won highest scoring brown huacaya alpaca in spin-offs at two of the country’s largest alpaca shows in 2011 MAPACA and AOBA Nationals. Her sister Sunrise Surprise continues to produce first place winners of her own, and her next brother Pirate’s Luck of Peaceful Heart has incredibly fine fleece (16.8 microns at 32 months of age). Elise’s other brothers Peaceful Heart’s Regal Copper and Peaceful Heart’s Lightning Bolt are also fabulous.

Lightning Bolt

Lord Tennyson

Asa Lee

Pirate's Luck

Regal Copper

Sunny and Solar Flare (2009)

As you can see, Elise has a lot to live up to, but we are sure she can do it. She was on her feet in just 10 minutes and has fabulous fiber in a gorgeous color. You can see Elise and her mom Lystra in our maternity ward pasture.

The maternity ward has moved to the barn for our fall crias. Our spring babies are still in the pasture by the store and are growing fast. Come on up to the farm to see Elise and our spring crias. The leaves are starting to turn and it a beautiful time of year to visit.

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Reversible Alpaca Shawl, woven using Spice and High Noon's fiber

Foggy and rainy days are wonderful for indoor jobs such as updating the website.  I’ve just finished a task and wanted to invite you to see our beautiful alpaca shawls online.

Bright Alpaca Shawl, woven with lightweight Classic Alpaca yarn

All these shawls were woven on handcrafted triangle looms by our family.  Some were woven with alpaca yarn from our yarn shop, and some were woven with our alpacas’ fiber.   Those made with our alpacas’ yarn are made with all natural, undyed fiber.  We love the rich colors of our alpacas, but we also enjoy working with the vibrant colors of the alpaca yarns dyed by the Alpaca Yarn Company and Plymouth Yarn Company.

The shawls are now all online, and are also available to try on in our shop.  Keep in mind, you can also join us in a class and design and weave your own alpaca shawl.  Our last class of 2012 is October 26-28.

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Shawls and Scarves from our Alpacas' Fiber

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We had a great time at the Flea Market again this year.  Yes, it was hot, and yes, there was some rain, but we had the chance to see a lot of folks (some of whom we only see once a year at Hillsville) and share our alpaca products with some new people.  We also had time to visit with people who were interested in learning more about raising alpacas, which gave us a chance to tell them about our sweet alpacas and invite them to our upcoming seminars on alpaca fiber and alpaca health care.

We enjoy visiting with people each year

Now it’s time to focus on getting ready for fall crias to be born and our last few alpaca fiber arts classes of the year.

We do  have one more fun festival coming up on September 15, 2012.  If you are in the Winston-Salem area, be sure to come by and see us at the Bethabara Apple Fest.

Alpaca products from fiber to sweaters

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