BritKnitsAlpaca

Chicken Coop . . Part 2

2011-07-10T10:47:00.001-07:00

Here's the girls, they ran out of the coop to greet me when I went to take these pics.
Today's pic of the coop. We now have a perch inside but I've rarely ever seen them on it. Note at the back left there's a black square. That's a door that Jerry cut out of the hog panel. It's tied on with cable ties and we "lock" it up in the daytime with a caribener so the guineas can come and go. Even though they fly out of the pen area they can never figure out how to get back in and they go running around and around the outside of the pen wondering how to get back in. Now with their front and back "trap doors" they come and go. These chickens have not have that privilege until this week. We wanted them to get used to the farm and their area. Most of them seem quite content to stay in their yard but last night a few wandered out to the back area, not too far.

The back of the coop is where the back fence is for them so they have a good sized area to roam.
There are a good amount of trees that provide both perches and shade.
I painted this chicken years ago, not knowing I'd be owning some real ones! We just screwed it onto the front of the coop. It's kinda rustic version of a chicken.

The Chicken Coop

2011-07-10T08:40:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a year actually since we constructed and purchased chicks to raise for eggs. We have certainly gone through our trials and tribulations on the ownership of fowl. Suffice to say that after our neighbor's dog got through the fence and killed and took off with two of our Buff Orpington's, then our 3rd and final buffy drowned in the horse trough we learned a lot and was lucky enough to purchase 8 fully grown laying hens from a friend. They are all doing very well and enjoying life with more space and less chickens to deal with as they came from a flock of around 50.

This post is to tell you, and show you, how we built our coop. We are quite proud of it and it's well-built and standing up to the weather very well and accomplishing what we set out to do with it.

We have built shelters for the alpacas, put up hay barns, all with the use of the portable garages that can be purchased at places like Tractor Supply. We were very lucky in the fact that we were able to buy these kits at the "end" of the season (a season for garages???) for a mere $100 each. We took total advantage of this good find!

Before I knew about these large 12 X 20' structures I was sent to the store for a tarp and thought that the $79 tent structure would work well for a small hay barn. Well Jerry didn't think so and we didn't use it. This is a smaller, lighter version of the garage and I believe it measures something like 10 X 12', quite a generous size.

So then we decided to buy peacock chicks from our neighbor and needed a home for them especially until they were fully grown. I happened to remember the tent structure and asked why not build our coop around that? This was approved and we started. I knew I wanted to place it in an area not too far from the house, protected by trees and safe from too much alpaca nosy-ness!

Pic 1: This is the first stage, putting the poles together. I think this is the worst part of the construction because as you add one pole, another falls off. We actually screw the poles together on two sides with metal self-tapping screws to make them more stable. Every pole, every junction, anywhere there is a join you place screws. These poles were all concreted into the ground about 10-12" for security.

Pic 2: We screwed on 2X4's for purloins to make the framework more stable. Chicken wire went over the whole roof and down the sides. That is a 6' ladder in the pic.

Pic 3 (below): We went to a metal building supplier and bought their 2nds for $10 per panel. They are white on the inside so it looks quite consistent on the inside that shows. Because I wanted the coop to look like the alpaca shelters we did purchase sand colored panels for the sides and front.
We added shade cloth on the front half of the roof for extra protection from our hot Texas sun. Side panels are now in place, screwed on to the poles & purloins, again with the metal screws.

Pic 4: Another view of the sun shade. It wasn't wide enough for one run & we had enough for two runs which was just enough as we covered the end third of the roof with metal for shelter from the elements.

Pic 5: The peaks were cut to match the frame in front and back and now all we have to do is build the door. Oh, and we placed a cage inside that was here on the farm when we moved in. Thought they could use it to perch on top and the inside to cuddle together in the cold nights. One thing we didn't take into consideration. . . the cage is larger than the door opening!! Oh well, they do roost on it and lay their eggs inside it.

Door is built and we're pretty much finished. We did add some metal screen on the base around the front and sides to protect from predators which we put on with cable ties.

Pic 7 (left): Here's the colorful back side of the coop. These are the $10 panels that we purchased, no choice of color you get what you get. At least it the Texas flag colors. I have toyed with the idea of painting a star on the red but no-one sees it as it faces the back of our property.

NOTE: We did lay concrete pavers all around the outside of the coop to prevent predators from digging their way in.

Update: We currently have four guinea fowl (lost 4 to predators when we were out of town for a week) an assortment of 8 chickens. They all live together quite well. The male guineas are a little territorial but the chickens deal with it. Our lone peacock who loved his "flock" disappeared a month ago during mating season. We suspect that he is penned up over at our neighbors with theirs. Since they are new owners they probably thought he was one of theirs that came back! Maybe he'll return one day, we "lost" him for 2 months before.

We did pen in an area for the chickens and guineas just so the alpacas did not encroach on their area. The guineas will fly over the fence but come back in the evenings to roost. The male guineas roost in the tree by the coop but the girls go in with the chickens.

We get 8-9 eggs per day from all. They all lay in the same nest within the cage. Oh and we purchased wood shavings and laid about 3 inches on the floor of the coop. It's really good as far as not having the chickens walking in their poop, plus cleanup is only needed about every 6-9 months. It is funny when we rake out the dirty shavings and replace it as the chickens are afraid to walk on the clean new stuff. It doesn't take them long to figure it out!

Chickens are wonderful birds and very nice to have around. I think some of the breeds are just as nice as cats. . . and we really love cats!

I'm having a heck of a time trying to upload more pics so I'll post the current view of the coop tomorrow.

Kid 'N Ewe 2010

2010-11-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

Well I participated in the Kid 'N Ewe Fiber Festival this past weekend in Boerne (pronounced Bernie) Texas and what fun it was. Do you know how many people are as addicted to fiber as I am??? Well let me tell you that it's LOTS!

Here's a pic of my "wall of color" that caught a lot of people's eye.

Can you imagine what it's like to talk fiber to other fiberholics for 48 hours straight? Well I must say it is fun but very tiring. All that talking is way more work that doing all that dyeing!!

I was amazed that people and groups would come to my booth to have pictures taken in front of this color wall. What an impression that made on me.

Here's my booth, the other side with the "other stuff" like chicken and mouse pin cushions, hand painted yarns, knitting and embroidery "emergency" bottles (I'll show those in a future blog).

This was a lot of fun, although I wish I had been able to participate in some of the wonderful classes that were being offered. This is THE festival for the West Texas residents as nothing else much happens for us. We're so spread out that it's hard for people to decide what, where and when to have happenings for fiber people. We are hoping to get something started in the San Angelo area in the next year or so. We have a lot of wonderful people that are willing to share their experience with others both in arranging and preparing for an influx of people that need to be housed, taught and sold to!

Hopefully this will materialize into something real for 2011.

Where's the beer???

2010-03-31T19:12:00.001-07:00

You couldn't make this up even if you tried!

I tell you, I don't think he took the last one, look again!

I think he was kidding me, I think he drank the last one!

Oh no, now what, I'm going to be stuck in here!

I'm getting hungry, hmm, maybe I'll eat myself out of here

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-14T15:51:00.000-08:00

Some Valentine hearts.

Happy Valentines day, I thought I'd share these heart pics with you, just something a little different.

A heart shaped potato, don't see these too often!

This is, of course, a prickly pear cactus. Naturally heart shaped but what I'd call a dangerous heart, beware when touching!!!

My dog Gracie dug this heart-shaped hole for me!

2009-11-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

This is my new company logo for my knitted and crocheted finished goods. I decided to separate it from the yarn processing and the alpaca business as I knit from fibers other than alpaca. Since my email address is Brit Knits I thought it was only fitting to keep the name. Brit Knits was not available for my url so I added the "the" in front. I have posted a lot of new hats on the hats2 page of the website. Of course I also offer a lot of other finished items, shawls, scarves and clothing. I am really into the lace knitting right now so there are a lot of shawls.

Since I'm getting prepared for a 3-day holiday show at Fort Concho in San Angelo I am busy knitting hats so I have a good selection of sizes and colors. I do make hats in all different fibers but right now I am concentrating on using alpaca. I have made some in my handspun that has been dyed and some in natural colored alpaca. Our boy Donncha gives us such a selection off his fiber as he's shaded from a medium fawn all the way to a soft off-white.

This is one of the hats, obviously, hand dyed fiber then hand spun. After spinning up a single ply I then took some rayon that I dyed in the turquoise and plied it together. It's nice how the rayon sparkles in the fiber. You have the softness of the alpaca paired with the soft shimmer of the rayon, making a fun hat.

I am having a lot of fun designing hats. I have a lot of knitting books and have now found that most of them are simple plain hats made with chunky yarn. First, I don't like knitting with chunky yarn, I think the finer yarns have a much softer look to them. Secondly, I don't like knitting plain old stitches with lots of decreasing.

Consequently I have decided to select nice pattern stitches and choose ones that are easy to decrease with. Cables are one style that is easy to decrease automatically and now I'm researching some rib patterns that will work too. I'm currently working on a hat in the Harley Davidson colors, black and orange. I'll post a pic of it when I get finished.

The other thing I am doing with a lot of these hats is instead of making a pompom to put on top I am knitting up a long tail at the top of the head which I then knot. I am calling this style of hat Brit Knots. Just like a play on words. Here's an example. This is a man's size so it's a little loose on the "mannequin"

An open letter

2009-09-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

To: Waco Animal Humane Associate
From: Gracie
Dear Everyone at the Waco AHA,
I have had quite a time in my life since leaving you last Saturday. I was placed into a vehicle with those two nice people and we drove off. Wow, what a lot to see, I was kinda scared not knowing why I was no longer in my home with all those other barking dogs!
I took a long time for us to get finished with the drive. It was almost dark before they stopped the vehicle and let me get out. What a wonderful place they bought me to. I don't have to sit tied to a tree, or even in a cage, they let me run all over the place! This first pic is me after I had

been on a "tour" of my new home. It was so nice just to be with people that like me as much I as think I am going to like them. They gave me tummy rubs, let me run after their cats and I see these long necked big animals out in the big yard but I am not at all understanding what they are and why there are also here on this great big yard? I got my own room that night and I slept so well, what with the excitement of going for a long ride, then getting to run around, plus they let me into the inside of their home to let me be with them! Wow, it's a dogs life alright!

The next morning I ran, and ran, and ran, and chased cats, and ran but no-one tied me up! The people, whose names are Jerry and Vanessa, were outside putting together something called a Coop. It looked like a cage to me, wonder if it's for me? What's a coop?
They were making loud noises with machinery cutting wood and metal and going back and forth to their other buildings to get things. And all this time, they let me run around, get petted and explore! I love to explore. Then I sat down and just watched. I was getting tired with so much running around.

I don't know why they have those long necked animals on their place with me, I guess I'll find out eventually but for right now I'm pretending I haven't seen them as they look scary. But, I did find piles of poop. Wow, this poop isn't smelly, so I rolled in it. I think I'm supposed to do that so that I smell like the other animals on this farm.
Oh look, I'm no longer that pretty white dog you remember, this was after I rolled in the poop.

I think I see a cat! And look, grass for me too!

I am finding out that a farm dog's life is very tiring. I don't know how I'm going to keep this up, it's a tough job!

Thank you everyone for giving me to Jerry & Vanessa, I already know that I am the happiest dog in the whole wide world. And I'm going to do everything they tell me to do so that I don't have to come back and live in a cage. Not that I minded some of it, everyone was so nice to me.

Thank you, thank you,

Love,

Gracie

P.S. I'll write to you again soon

Wild Flowers

2009-08-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how time flies. I've been diligently taking all sorts of pictures for this blog, only to find 1. I have to go out and help Jerry with "farm work", 2. I'm at work and the camera is at home, 3. I sit at a computer all day and don't feel like it in the evenings. Well all that is going to change. I am pledging to post to this blog at least once a week. There's always interesting things going on at the farm at this time as we've been busy building our infrastructure for the past year or so and it's still ongoing, although we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
While making runs to the poop pile at an undisclosed area on our property, I have been amazed at all the wonderful wild flowers I have seen. I pretty much had decided that most all wildflowers are one of 3 colors, white, blue or yellow. . . wrong! So for the next few posts I am going to include pics of the flowers I have managed to capture with my very inexperienced shutter finger.

Of course the first picture is easy to identify, the Prickly Pear Cactus. I know this sounds mean, with such beautiful flowers, but my pledge is to eradicate each and every one of these from our property. They are the most prolific plant I have almost ever met. You can knock off a part of the plant and leave it laying on the ground, next thing you know, there's a new section growing out of the side of it, and it's rooted into the ground! Someone was telling me that the absolute worse thing you can do with a prickly pear is put it through a shredding machine, then you get new plants from EACH of the pieces you broke it into! Nature is amazing about reproducing isn't it? I just know that when you have alpacas, dogs and cats you are committed to taking the best possible care of, you can't have cactus, period, end of discussion. I must say that by eliminating each and everyone of them off our property is going to be a challenge, we've got a bountiful share of them.

I am with mixed emotions about this plant. Another alpaca farmer has taken the fruit fermented it and made it into dye which she said produced a beautiful pink on her white alpaca fiber. I will be collecting my harvest and trying this out for myself, not just on alpaca but on some the the merino wool that I also have. My challenge is to see if I can get that beautiful crimson color out of the fruit. I'll let you know.

OK so it's hard to realize size of each of these flowers as they have been taken as close up as I could get to show the actual blossoms. Prickly pear flowers can be as large as a woman's fist whereas the next one is half the size of a dime.

I don't know it's name, but it, like most wildflowers, is very prolific in Texas and other southern states. I can never remember if it's the small yellow flowers or the plant with the small lavendar-pink flowers that produce the goatheads, but I believe this one is just as treacherous. Why is that? Do they choose to tempt you with their pretty flowers, only to stick you with one of their seed pods that hurt like the dickens? I know, I know, even "cultured" flowers can do that, take the rose for instance.

I just know I am on a mission to eradicate "mean weeds" before they get to the mean stage. I will gladly allow all these pretty wildflowers to produce and delight me, I just remove the blooms before they get to the ugly stage.

OK, the next flowers, the 2 groupings I believe might be wild coreopsis, but I'll have to check on that.

This is a pretty flower that could be in a single clump, or in a cluster so I don't know if it seeds, or spreads by its root system. I believe a lot of wild flowers can do both.

I like this soft yellow. Talking of soft yellow, this one is almost a cream color. When these plants first started coming up I thought we had a strawberry field, they were very prolific and looked just like strawberries. It took a few months for the flowers to actually appear and again, they look like strawberries. I have not seen any fruit develop, but I'll let you know if they do.

This single flower I believe is a perennial and grows only one bloom.

Even though these flowers just all look like they're the same color, it's amazing the variations that they have. Some go towards the golden yellow, while others will have amazing orange or even red-orange centers.
While all I am showing are yellow flowers I thought I'd go through the groups by color. I must say that even though I thought I was pretty good at naming wildflowers, now that I'm in Texas I am totally stumped. I am going to go by the library and see if I can find a book that will help me identify the ones that I have found so far. They are stunning.

Here's one version of the Mexican Hat. These happy flowers are plentiful on the roadsides. In fact, I must confess, that these were on the roadside, along with some red ones and then some that had cross pollinated and were red and yellow. It's always a delight to see these during the late spring and early summer.

I do have a plan for all of this picture taking. . . . . more on my next post!

New Household member

2009-07-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

I WAS ON MY WAY TO THE OFFICE. . . . . .

Well there I was, tootling on my way to work. Just getting into town and going under the first bridge when I saw what looked like a little animal rolling off the freeway. "Just keep going, just keep going" I was telling myself, knowing that if it was a cat all we needed was number 9 in our household. Well how could I? Of course I had to stop, it could get hit by a car quite easily if I just left it there! So, I pulled over, walked back to under the bridge and there was this little kitten. I grabbed it as it ran from me and it had blood in its mouth, not like pouring out, just a little blood. I figured it had been clipped by the car in front of me but was sure that it had internal injuries and wouldn't last the day.

So, I put the little bugger in the car and immediately it wanted to crawl up into the heating duct. Oh no, this won't work, what do I have to put it in? Aha, my file box in the back of the car. I put it in and then took a bungee cord and strapped it down. Actually, I realized once I got it to the vet that the box had hand-holes on each side and the little critter could have forced itself out of the box if it wanted. Well it didn't, it was quite quiet. As I was driving off, about 100 yds up the road was momma kitty who had been run over by a car. If only these animals could talk huh?Left kitty at the vet to have it looked over, again not expecting it to last out the day.

At 4pm, called the vet. "Your kitty is ready to go home"
Me: "What did it have wrong with it?"

Vet: "Just a concussion and a scraped lip, keep it in a quiet place for a couple of days and it will be fine"

Me: "OK, let's take you home to the "house of endless food"

Now, for those of you that aren't owners of 2 or more cats you must understand that the more you have the more of a heirarchy there is among them. There is usually one alpha male and at least two more that want to be the alpha male. This means lots of growling and agressive stand-offs. It just happens that we have 7 males and 2 females. The females are old, over 11 yrs, and just spend their days sleeping on our bed. Sambo, Clark and Smokey are friendly welcoming boys, they are just happy to be living with us and will accept whatever we throw at them, cats, dogs, alpacas, etc. Scruffy, Lewis and Percy on the other hand all want to be "in charge" and so it's funny to see these big bruisers so afraid of a little kitten. Yes, they growl and leave the house when they see it.

Obviously I was aware of all this when I was taking the "I think it's a little boy" (receptionist at vet said) home wishing that I really had a little girl as it might make life a little easier for kitty. Got home and of course for the first two days we kept it in the front porch garden room where we could keep it isolated and away from prying kitty eyes and noses. That was fine as kitty was very sleepy and scared. It had had one hell of a day.

Now we had to come up with a name. Right away Jerry decided we should call it "Little Shit". As I said to him, if men were left to name all pets 80% or more would all have the word "shit" in their name. Why do they think that's cute? Why can't the be more original in naming their pets? Maybe if we left it up to them to name their children they too would be 80% with "shit" in their name???

Well his redeeming grace. . . he said "What about Oliver, like in Oliver North?"

Me: "Why him?"

Jerry: "Well he got into a big scrape and came out of it"

Me: "Well that's kinda clever, ok we'll call him Oliver"

2 days later - Friend comes to visit, we're saying how we're not sure of the sex of this kitten, he looks it over and informs us it's a girl. OK, name change to Olivia, I guess it could have been Olive but I think of Popeye's Olive Oil and it doesn't fit. So, Olivia it is.

Olivia has settled in just fine, is quite feisty and quite willing to make friends with all the other 8 cats. She's finding out who to avoid and who plays rough. All-in-all she has settled in very well and is getting to the point where she's learned to sleep on the bed beside me. Doesn't take long does it?

He thinks his tractor's sexy!!

2009-06-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

"HE THINK'S HIS TRACTOR'S SEXY"

TRACTOR DAYS AT A-SQUARED RANCH

Here it is at 6pm arriving on the property. There's Jerry walking over to see what he got himself into!

Yes, Jerry bought himself a tractor.

Ah, but remember, there's a 50% tax break on this, it actually only cost us $12,500!!!

Well we finally got there, Jerry has his tractor. Of course, I didn't go with him to buy it so he purchased a MUCH LARGER one than I was expecting! Boys and their toys!

So, What's this?

Here's Billy Bob, the salesman, unloading the tractor from the trailer. NOTE: He didn't want me to take his picture, but he smiled all the way through this painstaking ordeal!

Now we had our choice of a green, red, orange or blue tractor (that's the different brands available) Remember, our farm color is blue (check out our website at www AardvarkAlpacas dot com) you'll notice our logo is BLUE. As a child my mother dressed me in red all the time to match my red rosy cheeks, ugh! Green is the money color but the salesmen were obviously not eager to make money as they didn't show their faces when Jerry went by to see the machines. Orange, who wants an orange tractor????? Oh, I get it, it's so the hunters won't shoot it during hunting season?????

Here's my favorite shot. It's something they call an engine. Who cares???

(I guess the guys drool over this.)

OK, here's the studman backing up. Now this picture is very exciting isn't it?? You can tell, Desi the alpaca is very excited about it.

NOTE: The green you see are WEEDS, not grass. Can this expensive tractor cut them? Not if you want to fool the neighbors into thinking that you've slaved all year to get you GRASS to look that good. After I took these pictures I got out the regular hand-push lawn mower and cut them so it looks like a golf course out there. Did I take pictures of the lovely pristene grass? NO!

Isn't he cool?????

I think we got a great deal!

Knitting, animals, teddies, rabbits

2008-03-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Although I meant to keep my blog general I must post about what I am currently working on. I got inspired by this web blogsite http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/ and was hooked. Just had to make some teddies, rabbits and more. I searched and found just the right teddy for me to knit and so have been working on them for the past two weeks.
I am in transition from the old house to the new house so knitting these teddies is a small project that I can take with me from old to new house. I absolutely am having the most fun working on them. Once I get them all stuffed I'll post some pics. Why aren't they stuffed you ask? Well if you saw our garage you would understand that not everything is at my fingertips. It is organized into categories, kitchen, bath, livingroom, crafts and fiber (lots of fiber). It just happens that we have been too busy putting up fences, both new and old, in order to get the alpacas all moved down to the new property.
So during the week, while I am at the old house, I sit and knit teddies and sew them together awaiting their final stage. Wednesday's and weekends I am at the new place working with Jerry on fencing.
We had rain yesterday. So much rain in fact that I could not even get out to the alpacas to give them dry food. It was one giant puddle for acres and acres. This morning most all of the water had soaked in and the alpacas got extra rations. No complaints though, we really needed the rain.
Well once we get up and settled and the "office" painted we'll have the computer set up and I'll start trying to get some pics posted on this blog as well as my ramblings!

MOVING TIME!

2008-02-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

Well last April we moved from Arizona to Texas. After filling two, yes two, ABF trailers with all of our "stuff", driving over two days with the alpacas in trailers behind us, we SWORE it would be "the last time we ever move!". Famous last words!
Jerry got a promotion and it included a moved to San Angelo, Texas. It was all prompted when I overheard his boss telling a salesman from San Angelo that he was looking for someone full-time for that area. I mentioned it to Jerry as he had said many times that SA was a nice town.
Well one thing led to another and Jerry got the position.
We couldn't find anything other than slums in our price range that had the acreage we were looking for and a habitable home for us. Problem is in Texas people that have land, have land. Want 1500 acres, easy, 150 many available, but 10-40 practically impossible.
Two weeks ago Jerry was down there, working, and had 2 hours to kill. It would mean an early long lunch for him. He bought the newspaper and went to Chic Fil A for lunch. Lo and behold, 10 acres and a house for sale, right in the area we were interested in. He called the realtor and met her an hour later. 1/2 an hour later he had made an offer on the property. Yes, even without me seeing it he knew it was right for us!
That was on Monday. On Thursday he took me down to see the place and yes he was right, I loved it! The owners for some reason wanted a really quick escrow and closing is today (Feb 21st) at 2pm, right at the time that Billy boy (Billary) is arriving in San Angelo for the election crap.
Well not being ones to sit on our laurels, we booked a moving company to come in and move us on 23rd, this coming Saturday. So, I've had 2 weeks to pack, clean, co-ordinate, do the utility thing. . . and everything else.
Because Jerry needs to do some cross fencing to accommodate the alpacas I am staying put in our current place until April 1st with the alpacas and Molly dog. I will move into the "guest house" and then the new owners will have access once we close on it.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the same week Jerry found our house someone came along (from word of mouth in the community) and made an offer on our current place. Talk about things falling into place!
So, we'll be in a new spot. They say SA is an artsy community - good for the gourds. They say it's very much a fiber community - great for my alpaca fiber. They say it has great restaurants - great for my figure! They say there's a bowling alley - Jerry misses bowling (or is it the beer?). And I know for a fact that there's some BIG thrift shops - wowee, more stuff!
It's going to be a busy, tiring weekend for us and I'm so stressed right now worrying that everything will fall into place. It will happen, I'm too organized not to have all my eggs in a row.
More later. . . . after the FINAL move. Oh heck, if we didn't do all this stuff with our life I'd have nothing to talk about!

FIRE!

2008-02-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

First of all, I want to apologize for not being better at keeping up my blog. When I think of things to post I'm at work without pics, when I'm at home I forget! I will try to get better so you will visit often! I think this will make up for it. . .

Friday February 1st, 2008

I was at work, having my usual day. I had been sharing with my co-workers that when I was driving home yesterday there were four cotton bales in a cotton field near my property that had caught on fire and had just been put out by the local volunteer fire department. They just looked singed on the outside. I asked if they knew if cotton spontaneously combusted, they said it did. Next morning three of the bales were removed and the fourth one had been broken down.

3pm. I get a call from my neighbor, Robert, telling me that the field beside my property is on fire and to get home quick. Luckily I only live about 15 minutes from work so off I go to find out what's going on. Seeing the smoke from the freeway, knowing it was at "my house" is kinda scary. I did my best not to speed, but was so anxious to get home. I had called Jerry who luckily was at work and he was also on his way.

I arrive to bunches of vehicles parked outside my house and people going every which way. My first reaction is to go over to see what's going on with the alpacas. I was met by my alpaca caretaker, Cindy, who told me that the smoke was really bad, we needed to evacuate all the animals. The smoke was so thick you could barely see the alpacas, it burned your eyes and made it hard to breathe. I didn't even look around me to see what was going on, just focused on the alpacas.

Just as we were getting the females all moved into the center of the barn for haltering, the wind changed direction. It was amazing, within less than 3 minutes all the smoke had cleared. I also noticed that the field all around the alpacas was on fire, flames leaping 4-6 feet in the air.
Jerry arrived at that point and said there was no need to evacuate the animals, the wind had changed and they weren't in jeopardy. On the right here is a pic of the area after the wind changed direction.

More and more fire trucks were arriving, it was amazing how the word got out and they rallied around to save "us". I wish I knew each and everyone that came but some I did notice I'd like to mention, Trent, Sweetwater, Roby/Rotan, Mulberry Canyon and I think Tye Volunteer fire departments. The workers all seemed so well orchestrated, I felt useless. So what did I do? I went and got my camera. I needed pictures of this event that could have changed my life!

This is the view of the back side of the barn, to the north. The dark line in front of the fire is our poop pile and the edge of our property. At that point the flames had come around from the west and were headed towards the poop pile. Those large flames in the center of the picture were about 7 foot high at that point out in the grassland. (There are no alpacas out in the field north of the barn).

This is at about 4:30 pm at the end of our driveway, after the fire had been contained in the mesquite thicket. Jerry thinks they parked the big trucks between the mesquite and our pine trees (can you say fire fuel?) so avoid the flames jumping over. Whatever they were doing they were certainly doing a great job of containing the fire.

About 5pm the Forest Service pulled up two great big bulldozers and asked if they could move out some of the mesquite trees to give us a bigger fire break. Since it was not our property we really didn't have any real say in it. They said they were going to move it back about 20 feet to give a bigger space between the thicket and our property. That was fine by us.

Now, since then Jerry and I have realized that we were not in full acceptance of the situation we had been in. WE COULD HAVE LOST EVERYTHING!!! So. . . what did we do? We went out to dinner!!!!

An hour later when we returned, it was dark and those bulldozers were just finishing off their job of pushing back about 30 feet of trees and bushes back into the thicket. We found out the next day that the fire department had to come back in the middle of the night as some of the hotter spots that had been pushed back had caught fire again. These wonderful volunteers were out there until 2am making sure we were safe whilst sleeping in our bed!!

Saturday morning of course we had to go out and see actually what had transpired the day before. Now we had a short expressway where the county road had been. It looked so bare without any trees on it. There was still smouldering in the thicket and our poop pile was doing it's share of smouldering too. Jerry went and moved and covered the poop with dirt to keep the fire hazard contained. Things were quite calm that day and the water truck only had to make two trips to water down some overactive warm spots.

Sunday morning there was still three hot spots in the thicket and it did take three visits from the Trent fire department and their water truck to douse these areas to avoid any more fire!

We were so impressed with the professionalism of everyone involved. We were so impressed with how our neighbors rallied around to help us in this time of need. We cannot thank everyone enough for being there for us! Hooray for Texas!!! And for the wonderful people that live here!

2nd Annual Holiday Boutique

2007-11-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

Well I am a horrible blog hostess! I think about it, come up with some awesome ideas to talk about, and never seem to get around to it! I apologize and hope that the new year will make me a better blogger, otherwise I'll turn into a blobber!

This post is to invite you to our 2nd annual Holiday Boutique on the farm. We have a lot of new items that we didn't have last year. I am gearing my shop more towards a fiber crafting store and consequently we have Jerry's handmade knitting needles and his yarn winders that I absolutely love! I am contributing some new items that I have designed and made up, scissor holders (called chatelaines), crochet and needle cases to keep all those extra sticks contained together, hand dyed natural fibers, and some neat knitting markers. Along with the usual alpaca yarn I have now enough of my handspun, hand dyed yarns for sale.

We have a new stock of hats from Peru, nice colorful ones that keep you warm and cosy for the cold weather that is about to arrive! Lots of pretty handmade scarves have been added. And of course we have some neat gift items that are unique.

There are also some awesome alpaca christmas cards, specially designed for Aardvark Alpacas by Linda Hornberger, artist extraordinairre!

Oh, also we will be offering handmade goat milk soaps and lotions from El Coyote Ranch, our friends and neighbors (in Texas terms).

So, come on by, have some hot cider, join in the festivities, buy some unique gifts, and spend time visiting with the alpacas. Don't forget to see our newest boy, Waylon Jennings! We can now boast that Aardvark Alpacas is home to Waylon & Willy & the boys - literally!

10 am until 4 pm

The Black Hand

2007-10-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

So, when I started this blog I thought twice a week would be easy enough to manage. . . NOT!

Where does time go?

Well I had an elightening experience last week. I had alway thought that the term "The Black Hand" originated in pre-Mafia times in Russia or Italy or somewhere! Well I am her to tell you that is not so. I have done some research of my own and here is the "Rest of the Story!".

Long ago in Russia, when people were downtrodden by the Tsar's and had nothing to live for, the peasants had to make do with what they had. The winters were so bleak, nothing grew in the frozen ground. What they did manage to grow during the good months was all taken away by the soldiers, to feed the masses in the cities.

Then one day, some village women were gathering up the fallen pecans from the native trees. They were still in their hulls. These hulls provided the much favored brown dye that the peasants used to dye their clothing. A nice rich brown was useful in these times where clothing was not washed often, and the color hid the dirt.

The only problem was that the pecans needed to be removed from the hulls so that they could be hidden and used for much needed nutrition in the village. It was the womens' job to take care of the hulling and making of the dye. This was a day long process of removing those hulls and even though the hulls were a pretty spring green color, they produced, as mentioned, a lovely brown hue when used in the dyeing process. This brown oozed from the hulls once cut open and consequently got all over the womens hands. The obviously caused their hands to turn a very dark brown, or even black color.

Now the idiots in the cities did not know at this time about pecans and their values. They had no idea that these village women were utilizing them for their uses. They saw these women with the black hands and thought that they were smitten with some deadly disease that was turning their bodies black.

Women, being women, used this to their advantage. During these times these peasants were terribly persecuted and never seemed to get the upper hand (pardon the pun) on their opressors. But these women were smart, they already knew that their men had banded together to form a partisan group against the upstarts. They knew that by keeping these persecutors undereducated on what they were doing, they could fool them into thinking other things.

You must remember that in these times no-one was exactly "educated" in our sense of the word.

So, when the persecutors came to get their usual rations from the village, the women with the black hands were there to hand them out. Well, of course when the soldiers saw these women's hands they did not want to take anything from them. They were afraid that they would get the same affliction from whatever they touched. They got back on their horses and rode off back to town.

The villagers were so happy. Their women had fooled the soldiers into thinking that they had the "curse of the Black Hand". They knew it would be a while before they even thought about venturing back into their village.

Meanwhile, the villagers held a celebration. They had rations to get them through the winter. They had pecan nuts to nourish them through the hard winter months. And, within a couple of weeks the womens' hands were back to their usual pink color.

So, this is where I believe the term "The Black Hand" originated. The upstarts were so impressed with the women's cunning that they felt it would be an apt title for their organization. After all, weren't they going to fool us into thinking things aren't as they appear?????

Moral to this story: Don't peel pecans without rubber gloves!!! (not that I would do anything like that!)

National Alpaca Farm Days

2007-09-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has seen alpacas knows what unusual, cute creatures they are. We are one of hundreds of alpaca farms that are opening their gates this weekend to the public. It's a way to introduce alpacas to people that don't normally get an opportunity to see alpacas and learn about them.

Come to Trent, Texas (directions on our website at www dot MyAlpacaStuff dot com) and see spinners, weavers, knitters and fiber art. We have lots of alpaca related items for sale in the farm store.

A good time will be had by all! Also, if you're travelling from further afield than Abilene there is also a hot air balloon event all weekend so you can make the trip really worth while. Ballooning in the morning and alpacas in the afternoon. What more could a person wish for???

See you in the pasture!

Gardening?

2007-09-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

It was going to be so much fun. The climate here is great for gardeners. We knew that because when we moved here we had a very large lawn that had been nurtured for years. It was trim, manicured and looked nice. That's why we bought the place, it really had curb appeal.

So Jerry bought his stock, cantaloupes and honeydew melon, green beans, green peppers, corn, and of course tomatoes. We did not buy any squash, people around here tend to overgrow them and we are the recipients of their excesses. Well we're just two people that don't always eat dinner so two squash go a long way! Anyway, I digress, back to our gardening story. All got planted after the frost and before summer was well on its way to some hot days (so we thought). We had been a little hot last year in July and August when the temperatures soared to 106 and stuck there. We found out that living at 5,000+ feet in the Rocky Mountains has a little different affect on the weather than living at 1,700 (barely) in West Texas! In Arizona the temps would fall at night so that sleeping was possible. . . NOT in Texas. It went from 106 down to 94 or so and was miserable.

We are not ones to abuse air conditioners, in fact we'll wait until we are really uncomfortable until we turn one on. We would have to turn on the air half an hour before we went to bed, just so we could sleep. We then slept with the air on all night, just so we could sleep. So we were preparing for this "heat wave" and hoping we would harvest everything before the heat "hit"!

It was great, we got rain. Everything started peeking through, the carrots and onions first. Jerry was happy, he had put a lot of fertilizer into the rich soil to help it with nutrients for his project. He could see that it was worth the three trips to the neighbor to get his cow manure that had been, shall we say maturing? Then we got more rain. Suffice to say that the rain was constant all spring. It rained every weekend, hardly ever got a drop from Monday through Friday when I was at work in the office, no, every weekend we got it. It dumped on us every weekend and it wasn't small showers either. We not only live in the "Bible Belt" we are also,it appears, on the edge of the "Tornado Belt". I myself fit into the "tight belt" category and Jerry, as everyone knows is in the "having a belt" category! It got so wet that Jerry couldn't walk into his garden to pull weeds. It was just too soggy, so very soggy, soggy, soggy. We weren't too concerned, we would have Monday through Thursday to let it dry out and every time Jerry said "it should be dry enough by tomorrow to pull weeds" guess what happened? Yes, it rained, and rained.

I do love rain and I was really enjoying this year of rain. The cotton farmers were going to be happy, even though the hay farmers were concerned. Too much rain and they can't cut the hay, it would mould if its put up wet. I was not too concerned, Jerry would get those weeds cut and we'd have a great harvest. Got to, look at all the rain we're having.

The picture above is the result of rain on Jerry's vegetable garden. I am 5 feet tall and some of those weeds are as tall as me! He is not able to venture among these giants to harvest his crop. We got some wonderfully sweet honeydews. A few enjoyable cantaloupes. Enough tomatoes for me to make four pints of my own recipe for tomato sauce. We were never able to find any carrots or onions. Sadly the green beans and corn never made it. Our neighbor Robert would come to visit and he told Jerry that green beans and corn don't do well here. Seems like he was right, he would know, he's lived in Texas a long time. So we learned that we won't plant a garden without pre-planning for inclimate weather. We will put down weed cloth and probably spend $1,000 putting in raised beds so we can harvest a crop of tomatoes that would have cost us $40 at the store. I know, we were never too good at economics. Why does doing things yourself to "save money" always end up being so expensive?

the day after the great holiday!

2007-09-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, the long weekend is past and what did we accomplish? Well actually quite a bit. It's amazing what can happen when you can't sleep past 6am on your day's off!

Having arisen even BEFORE 6am on Saturday I had a bunch of things on my mind to accomplish. We were going to see about getting a storage room, yes a room not a building or garage. Where we live it's a small town. The old school was donated to the city of 348 people and they spent a year cleaning it out, re-flooring, getting things donated, cleaning up the kitchens etc., etc., etc. We found out (through the grapevine) the there were storage rooms (aka classrooms) available for renting for a mere 5 cents per square foot. I was ready to move in and live there! You cannot build anything for 5 cents, yes, CENTS per square foot. The average home is supposed to cost $100 per square foot but you know that is before you add that lovely italian marble tile, that "over the top" carpeting, those gorgeous sinks, and what about the window coverings - nobody wants shades any more! So, 5 cents a square foot got us not just one but two rooms for a mere $33 per month. All we had to do was furnish the padlock - a mere $15 with the hasp. $15 for a padlock chapps me, they are made in China (I hate buying foreign stuff - Did I say that? I'm a foreigner myself!!).

We got this carpeted room, sorry two carpeted rooms, nice blue industrial carpet that we couldn't wear out even if we tried! Blue pretty much goes with everything but that doesn't matter anyway, all my storage tubs are blue anyway!

Down one wall (24 feet long) is built-in cupboards and shelves. On the other wall opposite is a kinda store display cabinet, perfect for dust-free storage. Then we have like 20X24' space on top of all that! I'm going to have a field day. I love organizing (at least the first time) I will get to take all of my craft items (everyone that sees it says I have enough for my own craft store!), my fiber, my tools (yes, even crafters have drills etc) and store them out of the DUST that accumulates on a farm minute by minute! Do you know how much dust is blown into your house on a daily basis? Just live on a farm and you'll find out pretty darn quick (that's PDQ for you computer savvy people!). Every day, yes, every day the wind blows. No, I don't care where you live, the wind blows. I've lived in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and now Texas and everywhere I have lived I have had dust on my furniture. Yes, can you belive it? That was like when I found out that weeds grown in EVERYONE'S yards! (That's a story for another day)

Well, with "out buildings" as the realtors like to call them, you get double, even triple the dust that everyone else gets. Along with the dust comes the dreaded HORNETS. Have I told you how much I hate bugs?

When we moved in there were more hornet condos on the property than all the apartment buildings in Phoenix. Yes they were everywhere. Mud daubers, yellow jackets and those black ones. They even had the nerve to build in my bird houses. Opportunists. . . you bet. They can find the smallest crack in a building and they can move in 14 families into a hole so small you didn't think anything could fit through it. I bet they're even charging rent!

We did find out that these pesky pests have two redeeming charteristics, one: they dont sting (noone told us about the biting though), and two: they eat spiders. So, I thought, we could eliminate over 1/2 of them and still have "spider eaters". So, I have a plan.

First Jerry saw an ad for an EXTERMINATOR! Yes the real kind. There was an ad in the local paper, good prices, regular service, blah, blah, blah. But this caught his eye as a small swarm of bees had decided to move into the eaves of our house. First they had wanted to move into the eaves outside our bedroom door, along with the hornets. Not a friendly site when you're trying to get back indoors, or go outside. We didn't know at that time if they might be AFRICAN BEES!!! So, Jerry sprayed hornet/wasp spray and they left. Two days later the bees had taken up residence on the outside of the house, but still moving into the eaves.

It was time to take action. The Exterminator came today, yes he could remove them (that is another word for "kill"), he'll be back tomorrow to do the dastardly deed. His main concern was if the dog would attack him once he donned his bee-killer outfit. I told him our dog may be large, and bark, but she'd never attack. Not like I expect the bees will do once he starts into their domain. I wish we could have just had them "moved" somewhere else but apparently it's really hard (and expensive) to find someone who will take that stand. I have a real liking for bees, they are very hard working insects, and look at the end product they produce for us. . . honey, mmm, mmm, good!

Where would Honey Bunches of Oats be without bees? Where would the bears be without honey??? See, it affects lots more than you think!

So how did I start off with a post about moving "stuff" and end up talking about insects??? Have I told you I HATE bugs?????

So. . . tomorrow is the mass murder, oops, removal of the bees. Tomorrow I am going to post a picture about Jerry's wonder vegetable garden. You can't wait to see it. (Say, "I can't wait to see Jerry's vegetable garden tomorrow")

So, until then, feel sorry for the bees, try to think about humane bee removal and then think, "Would I do this?". OK, food for thought!

Pictures of "The Flood" and cricket season

2007-08-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Well here are the pics I got on the digital camera of the results of the 7.5" of rain last Saturday (Aug 18th 2007)

This is the car port and it is covered with about 2 inches of water! Below the water is the mud that always seem to come along with the rain!

Now further down this page is a picture that is not for the squeamish! I just want to warn you now in case you don't want to view it. If you have a phobia about bugs then you might want to prepare yourself!

Meanwhile, something that everyone can look at, everyone needs at some time in their life and something I thought I'd NEVER, EVER make. . . . yes I have made my first pair of alpaca socks!

They are hand dyed (no feet included in this) by ME! Yes I dyed the yarn, then I got up the courage to knit with 5, yes I said FIVE, knitting needles, double pointed no less so twice as dangerous. What a challenge this was in the beginning, I was beginning to think that all those sock knitters out there were genius's..... WOW what a challenge it became.

So here we have it. . . my first pair of socks. Jerry is the lucky recipient. Believe it or not he's thrilled as he absolutely loves alpaca socks. Wears the thick terry alpaca socks in the middle of the summer heat. He says because they have this wicking quality he can keep cooler in thick alpaca socks than he can in cotton socks. Go figure!

OK, as warned earlier. . . if you aren't ready for this sickening picture. . . go no further. For those brave enough to continue here it is. . .

This is a picture of the crickets that were on the outside of our window Saturday morning. Because all the ground was covered in water they climbed up the side of the house and were clinging on anything they could find, the window screen being one item they could easily hang onto.

My camera battery decided to quit at this point and I didn't get pics of the side of the house and the back yard fence. They were even more disgusting than this. If you could imagine 2 1/2 feet from the ground up, completely covered with crickets. . . yuck, yuck, yuck. Ooh I hate bugs.

But there is one more thing that's worse (for me) Somehow every evening, while I am sitting watching Law and Order (what else is there on sattelite TV?) knitting my socks every darn evening, at about 10pm a cricket lands on ME. Yes, ME. Did I mention that I absolutely HATE bugs? How they have the audacity to land on ME I don't know but let me tell you what happens next is not what they expect. I scream, jump out of my chair, kind of shaking and hitting myself to get this, this thing off me. Yelling at it to get OUT, get out, get out. It gives me the willies just thinking about it.

Now I have to mention that this was not a single incident. Every evening for about two weeks this happened to me. I swear that they were crawling up into the heater vent during the day and sitting there waiting for an opportune moment to kamakaze drop themselves right onto my right shoulder. Yes they even had a spot picked out for this adventure. I couldn't believe it. Did they "attack" Jerry, oh no. . . only me. How dare they!

Somehow, since the "flood" the cricket olympics have ceased to happen. Why I don't know, but I'm happy.

The other thing I don't think everyone knows about crickets. When they die. . . they stink. I mean sickly stink. I found that out last year when we were inundated inside with them (how dare they) and I spent every morning vacuuming up all of them, dead and alive. After two days of vacuuming I discovered that every time I turned on the vacuum this foul smell came wafting up to my nostrils. I told Jerry I thought it was the crickets, dead in the bag. Oh no, he didn't think so.

Well now that same stink is outside the house, outside the back door, in the back yard, on the side of the house, by the front door. . . . . everywhere! I am about ready to go outside and vacuum around the house.

Well my education has now become your education on crickets. They are immune to insect sprays by the way, don't know why.

Next year we are going to start early and spray indoors and out, and if I have my way I'll make Jerry spray all the heater vents up in the ceiling too! The neighbors told us that each year they always get a plague of something or another. Can't wait for the bol weavils (just kidding!)

We survived!

2007-08-20T07:55:00.001-07:00

Well it's Monday morning and we have survived the rain. It all started Friday evening, we were expecting rain, we knew it was coming, "I LOVE the rain", "I miss the rain", "isn't it nice, all the rain we've been having since we moved to Texas?". . . . and it rained, and it rained. . . all night it rained.

We got up about 7am and looked outside. Boy oh boy, had it rained! The rain gauge was full, which means we had AT LEAST 6 inches (it's max). The back garden was soggy lawn, the front yard was soggy grass, the circular driveway was "blocked" at each entrance with a very large puddle and you couldn't see the road in front of our property, it had turned into a stream!

Now we know that our alpacas are housed in some low points of the property so we were dreading what we were going to see. The boys especially when we get a good downpour have a "stream" running through two of the four pens for a day or so. Alpacas are not fond of walking through a stream that is very soggy and unstable at the bottom! It was as we expected, but lots worse. It was still raining when we went out to survey. We had to get the boys moved into the barn. They were so wet and bedraggled but luckily for alpacas their hair is very fine and even though they looked wet through they were completely dry on their insides.

Alpacas are herd animals and it appears the more there are, the happier they are. We separate our herd into three groups, the girls, the teenagers and the adult males. We had three "teenagers" to move in with the other four teenagers and one little girl who cannot go back in with mom for another month (after weaning). The boys all waited at their gate in anticipation of their buddies coming back in with them. They were greeted and then all settled inside the barn out of the rain.

Willy Nelson, our stud, was brought into another section of the barn and Kenny Rogers got the center of the barn to himself. So now all were re-situated to wait it out in comfortable quarters.

Even the barn was soggy on the floor and we put raking out the old straw at the top of our list, once we had the property evaluated. Alpacas are pretty adaptable and were quite happy to be in the barn all together.

We decided to go for a tour of the neighborhood to see if anyone else had a lake in their acreage. We have two county roads for access to the freeway and the rest of the world. Did I mention that we are situated out in the "country" 3 miles from the city (population 350)? We are actually 30 miles from Abilene and 15 miles from Sweetwater, the two metropolises that we do our business. Well the first county road had pretty fast flowing water and we were on the edge of it and the water was flowing over the base of the tire. Jerry decided to try the other county road and see if it was as "bad". So we backed up about 1/2 mile and off we went in the opposite direction. It really wasn't any better but our neighbor had decided to check it out too and was in front of us so we could see what we were in for. We got through, although it was no better than the other county road we took the plunge (no pun intended!).

Well we discovered that in our community water, in large amounts, flows north, right to our property. Not to say that there weren't properties that were as water logged as ours, or worse in some cases! We drove back home and decided to wait it out. It finally stopped raining around 2pm. It's amazing, in about an hour you could see how the water was soaking into the ground and the roadway started to appear once again.

Sunday was spent cleaning out the barn. We took advantage of the opportunity of wet feet by trimming toenails on all the alpacas. Yes alpacas have padded feet with two toes. Very much like us they have toenails that grow and since we moved to Texas on lovely soft soil, their toenails grow, and grow, and grow. They don't like their legs being touched so it's quite an effort on some of them to stand still while we do it. It was quite a workout doing about 15 sets of feet!

We were expecting more rain Sunday but were lucky enough to be spared a couple of days, the weather reports kept putting the next storm back a few days. Now they are saying late Monday or Tuesday. At least this deluge can soak down before the next one.

All I can say is that I am thankful we live far enough from the gulf coast not to be worried about hurricanes, but we do get some of the backlash!

Well that's it for the great rain of 2007. We are way, way above our national average for this year, the farmers are happy and I have enjoyed the rain. It might have been a bit better if it had been spread out a litte more! All in all we "reckon" we got about 7 1/2 inches of rain!

My First Day as a Blogger

2007-08-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well here I am in the land of Blogs! I said I wouldn't do it but everyone else is!

I will share some of the fun side of my life (of which there's lots) showing you what I'm up to, at least on a weekly basis but hopefully more regularly than that! I'll share stories about my alpacas, my cats, life on the farm, my projects and designs, and my hopes for the future near and far.

It's mid August, we've had a wonderfully wet summer, but that has put the cabosh on a lot of outdoor projects. Working full time and coming home to take care of the fuzzy critters (once it cools down a bit from the high 90's) takes us to about 8pm each evening. Since I don't like to cook any more (retired myself about 20 years ago but it's more like a semi-retirement!) I hope that Jerry, my partner, is not in a hungry mood and takes care of himself. Bless his little heart, he's more than happy to do that, or have a "hydraulic sandwich". Me? Well I'd prefer sitting and getting working on one of my many projects.

To back track for those of you that don't know us and what we are doing. Five years ago, when the stock market stunk and I lost a lot of my pension, I decided to "re-invest". From suggestions and seeing the TV ads I decided to look into alpacas. Now we're talking about someone who didn't own a pair of tennis shoes and had barely purchased her first pair of jeans. Long fingernails and high heels were my wardrobe and I loved it!

Anyway, we found that there was two alpaca farms in our little community and off we went to visit them. Well if that is not the dumbest thing for an impulse shopper to do! Guess how long it took to decide to buy alpacas? One week........ we purchased two females and a gelding.

Over the past five years we've had our share of "bad luck". In this business the females are worth a lot more than the males, of course we've had all males but one. Since one of the first girls we bought was named Wynonna I decided to go with a C&W theme for naming my animals. I thought I'd never get my Reba! Well finally she arrived, July 2006. Gretchen Wilson arrived on October 31st last year to make our total girls up to 2, woohoo! All in all we've had a wonderful string of wonderfully healthy boys and we're hoping that next year our luck will change.

With all this happening to us, we've not had the growth in our herd as planned on in the beginning. We have spent a lot of time purchasing females to get our herd going and to date we're up to 8. They will all be bred this fall to give us late summer babies next year.

Meanwhile I have revamped our business plan. We are now working more diligently on the fleece side of our business and as I love to knit, crochet and do all sorts of fiber arts my next natural progression was to learn to spin.

I live in the middle of nowhere Texas and it's not like I can sign up at the local yarn store and get going on what I want to learn, oh no, not that easy for me! So, I got my spinning wheel out and sat down in May and taught myself to spin. Believe me it wasn't that easy, I spun, and spun, and spun, and spun and thought I was never going to "get it". Then one evening it happened, I got it! Then I was off, spinning and spinning and spinning. . . I love it!

Well that's it for my first post. You will learn lots more about me and my life as I progress from here. Please visit often, send responses if you'd like, share with me. That's what life's about, giving and sharing.