Papercrafting

I don't know where I have found the time, but I have got some Spellbinders dies and just had to have a play. Love the fun

Need to practise my faux glue pearls, could do better.
Thank you Spellbinders.

Snowdrops & fieldfares

Got all the paddock cleaning finished before the rain started. The snowdrops are still about and the fieldfares are here. It is 10.7 degrees at present.

Pancakes Birthday

Hi, it is Pancakes birthday today. She was born on Shrove Tuesday, her dam was pregnant for Australian summer when we bought her. A lovely female alpaca she has provided us with two cria and number three is due later this year. We have repeated a successful pairing of Pancake and Regency, our Comissario male, that produced an excellent female, Honeysuckle, with plenty of fine fleece.
It is a perfect sunny day today, started with a good frost, which meant that as the ground warmed up it became too difficult to finish the paddock cleaning, just means more for tomorrow, but that's another day !!
Have been busy dyeing and spinning some yarn using cochineal lots of pinks, mauves and damson colours. Will try to get a picture when all is completed, and making some fancy tags.

Happy St Valentines

Hi, the sun is out today, but the paddocks are still not dry enough for working on. The alpacas were all pleased to see us this morning we fed their supplementary feed and topped up the hay, thankfully the water troughs are all clear of frozen water now. The barn is looking much better for the clearing out, hay delivery tomorrow to top us up, spring is just around the corner now !! Hope that you have a lovely St Valentines Day. I am off for a coffee now.

Show Entries

Just completed our entries to The Futurity Show, it was a difficult decision but decided against taking any alpacas to the halter classes, instead giving the fleece show a go this year. Then the difficult decisions on which fleece to choose, with so many good alpacas to pick from after much discussion and handling we narrowed it down to two whites. We had plenty of free time over the week end as the ground was covered with snow so no paddock cleaning possible, hoping to catch up today, but although the snow has now gone, the ground is too wet for working on. Roll on tomorrow, but for today it is cleaning out the barn and taking a trip to the tip.

Snow or No Snow ?

All the hatches are battened down, just in case !! We have finished the re-roofing of the field shelters and all the alpacas have their hay rations. It is very cold but so far no snow or rain. I have some spinning to keep me busy this afternoon.

To the New Year, and beyond

Hi, belated Happy New Year to you all. Lovely sunny day today, took some alpaca pictures for the blog. It is a joy to be out with them all when the weather is so amazing. Busy with knitting to orders, just finished some alpaca mittens took a photo which when I saw the picture it looks just like an alpaca face (if you screw your eyes up a bit !).

Alpaca face, what do you think ?

 

 

 

Islay for comparison

Our next picture is of our star alpaca of 2011, CWL Tangaroa, Supreme Champion at the Heart of England Fleece Show and then Reserve Champion at the Scottish Fleece Show. We have spent the holidays deciding who will be his first mating partner. We are also hoping that his dam is holding her pregnancy to CWL Woody which will bring similar genetics to the pairing, fingers crossed for an enjoyable summer of alpaca cria (babies).

Tango, our Supreme Champion