Our fiber has come back from the mill.  It really makes me wish that I had more. Its extremely fine and beautiful roving. Its listed in our Etsy store in very limited quantities. 

We are also working on collecting Vlad's fiber. I have a 15 gallon trash bag so far..Someday I'll de-dog it and possibly spin it up.

I'm headed out to Magical farms again next week to work with Roo on teaching students to dye and card with wonderful alpaca.  It should be tons of fibery fun.

The heat is here. Glad the alpacas have been sheared already. The heat, humidity, and flies are getting bad now. We found out that the boys really enjoy water. I have caught Thunder standing in the water bucket several times, so we gave him a kiddie pool one day and he loved splashing in it. He was the only one interested but I'm sure that as the heat wears on, the other boys will want to join him.

Its also time for the June Phat Fiber box.  This months theme is Sci Fi, so I made little alpaca aliens to send in as samples.  Full size aliens & coordinating sock yarn & roving will be in the shop soon.

Well we kept our "guardian" Vlad contained for 4 days. We thought that a 5' fence, and an underground fence surrounding it would contain our wandering guardian. WE WERE WRONG! At 4am I heard barking, which is normal for a great pyr, but the barking came around behind the house, where it should not have been. So we turned on the porch light and there was Vlad sitting on the porch.

We had introduced him to the alpacas last night and he tried playing with them and just acting downright goofy. From what we could figure out he climbed/dug under his gate to get in with the boys and then went under the main gate. His electric collar should have discouraged him politely first with a beep and then with a bit of a shock. Obviously he decided that the shock was worth it. When we got up for real this morning we shaved his neck to try and make a better contact, figuring he surely wasn't getting shocked and ignoring it. Turns out he was. Scott came home from work to a wet dog under the porch.

So now we are at a loss. We're going to try fencing the gaps a bit better to stop him from going under. Maybe a stronger system or a horse charger with a live wire at the bottom of the fence? You'd think he'd want to stay with his herd to protect them. He must think we need protecting more. Guess we'll just have to keep trying with him. I sure wish his natural instinct would kick in though. It wouldn't be so bad if he stayed around the house or wandered back and forth from the pasture to the house. Anyone have any other good ideas/deterrents, or a good pet psychic to convince him he should stay where he belongs??

On a good note though, we did halter up Trooper yesterday and trimmed his nails. We rewarded him by walking him to a pasture with real grass for a few nibbles. The other 3 were very jealous, so hopefully they remember the reward when we start working with them on lead.

Scott's by himself at the farm this weekend, so hopefully everything goes somewhat peacefully, Vlad escaping isn't a good start though, nor is the heavy rain we are forecasted for.

We will be posting more info about our shearing day (Sunday May 8) next week. We are planning on having a cookout, demos, visiting with Vlad (if he's in the yard where he is supposed to be), alpaca hugging and more. Let us know if you are interested in coming!!