Elizabeth, traveled to West Terre Haute this past Wednesday to help the nuns of St. Mary of the Woods College during their shearing day. From 8:00 in the morning to 7:00 or so at night they were able to shear 18 of the male alpaca herd. Another 40+ will be on the shearer's table over the next two days!

So onto our shearing day. We are shearing May 8, 2011. We are having a  professional shearer come in to do our alpacas for us. She thinks she will be here between 3-4pm, and shearing will probally take around a solid 1.5 hours. It will be very intense and fast. Prior to shearing we will have an open house starting at 12:00pm noon. We will be grilling out hotdogs probally & have alpaca cookies. You will be able to try a spinning wheel, or spin along with me.  I'm doing some card weaving, and some bamboo dyeing as well. We will also have a small felting project if you'd like to try to make an alpaca bracelet. I'd suggest bringing a chair to sit in if you'd like to watch, and wear older clothes if you are planning on helping out. You can sit & enjoy the alpacas, peacocks & guineas and the quiet country life. We can tell you all about raising alpacas & some of the things we have already learned. Please email us so we can have an idea as to how many to plan for.

We attended Shearing 101 at the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice on Saturday, where we learned about how a shearing is conducted and watched an alpaca go from fuzzy teddy bear to a naked giraffe. We also learned that the more helping hands that you have, the better.

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!!