Shearing day will be taking place April 28, 2012 around 10am. Roo of Moonwood Farm will be coming up to show us how its done. Most of the boys will be getting sheared this day except for Bill & Acrobat since they are going to be going to a few shows in May. Our farm store will be open on shearing day and there will be a build-a-batt station where you can make your own customized spinning/felting batts. Roo may even bring some of her famous Milk spinning braids and Big-ass-kicking art batts. There will be space for crafting & spinning and basic instruction in knitting, spinning, needlefelting and possibly crochet. So if you have ever wanted to learn a new hobby bring along some tools and we can get you started. There will be farm fresh alpaca for sale & if you are in need of some fertilizer, bring along a bucket to fill because we have plenty :O)

Light refreshements will be provided, and a map will be up on our contact page for directions. Bringing your own chair is encouraged because it sounds like we are going to have lots of people coming this time. 

We will also be attending the I-80 Alpacafest show in Princeton IL May 5&6. This will be our first show outing with the boys, and hope to take Acrobat & Bill along for a judging. Stop by & say hi and root us on in the show ring. 

Shearing day started out with rain the night before. We had the boys trapped in their shed because the number one rule in shearing is KEEP THEM DRY! Unfortunately the rain came in sideways so we woke up to moist animals. A fan blowing directly on them helped out some but luckily by noon the sun came out and we were able to turn them out to finish drying. We had lots of wonderful people show up for shearing day to join in the fun of alpacas. We learned that our boys will follow our blue feed scoop anywhere! Poor Mark didn't realize this when he went after the boys with feed.

The kids really enjoyed meeting the boys and giving them tons of treats..I think its pretty obvious that the alpacas like little kids.
When our shearer Kathy from Special K Alpacas came we enlisted the help of several of Scott's co-workers to hold down some feet and stand within spitting distance as we sheared the boys. Thankfully there was no spitting involved, and a big thanks to Mike, Laura and Cindy for helping us out. Kathy did a great job at shearing the boys fast with very minimal second cuts which is important because it means less waste. Lucky for the boys she decided their teeth were ok and there was no dentistry performed. So now we have approximately 6 pounds of good blanket fiber washed up and going out to Spinderlla's mill on Monday to be made into roving.

Our Etsy shop is up and running and I"ll be adding more to it as I get it made up. Keep an eye out for felted alpacas,  and bird nesting materials. Get your birds the finest in nest linings with our suet cages stuffed with alpaca fiber!!

Finally on the Vlad front, I think he is starting to get a clue that he's a guard dog. We caught him watching the chickens instead of chasing them the other day. But the fact that he is licking his lips does make me worry a bit.