So the winter is upon us, and unfortunatley we have seen a lot of rain not snow. Which means muddy pastures.  The boys are all looking for some snow to roll in, so hopefully it freezes up soon.  All the boys are putting on some amazing coats this year. Bill feels much more dense this year and will hopefully give us lots of soft fiber this spring.
I have updated our list of appearances & attendances for this year. So far we are vending at 2 fiber shows, and continuing to put lots of fun stuff in the shop.
We will be picking up our cria next month and are very excited to see him and see about possibly starting to show him this spring. So stay tuned to the events page as to where you might be able to see him.
We attended the IAA (Indiana alpaca association) meeting last month. A lot of good ideas came out of the meeting, with the focus being on use your fiber.  Elizabeth even managed to get herself on the board of directors as the fiber chairperson. So we are going to be very busy trying to promote the wonderfulness of Indiana alpaca fiber.  There is a lot of high quality animals in the state & I encourage you to visit your local farm and get to know where your alpaca comes from.  Help to support local Indiana agriculture!!
Thats it for now. We plan on shearing probally late April or early May so look for our open house dates closer to that time.

We haven't had a ton to talk about recently becuase the winter is when we are buckling down for winter.  We are having a lot of mud and not much snow but the boys enjoy it anyways.  So here is a happy kiss from Mr Speckles to brighten your holidays

We will be picking up our cria Spottedcirucs Amazing Acrobat in March and will be attending  The Great MIdwest Alpaca Fest in Madison WI in April, along with Bill.  So look for our boys there this spring.  It will be our first show ever so we are excited.
We will also be adding some new things to the store in the next few weeks. My mom was nice enough to sew up a few knitting project bags from some fabric I had bought, and there might be a few of her handmade quilts in the store also.

Have a happy holidays from Spottedcircus Alpacas & Llama

Well going to SAFF was quite the adventure. This fiber festival is one of the larger ones on the east coast, held in Asheville, NC in October yearly. I went along with Roo of Moonwood Farms to help in her booth and she graciously allowed me to set up a wall of my goodies. So I drove to Alabama to help Roo pack up the Uhaul, and van and then we left to drive to Asheville on Thursday afternoon. We got into Asheville around 7pm or so, which for Roo was early, but we stayed until 2:30am to set up the booth, and then returned Friday morning by 6:30am to finish the set up. Traffic was down quite a bit this year, but the loyal customers still sought out Roo's booth and hopefully fell in love with my stuff as well. We had a lot of fun vending, and although I managed to come back with a sinus infection it was fun. I learned to bring a space heater next year. I will hopefully be set up in the booth right next to Roo next year with a 8x10 space of my own :). We met lots of fun new friends, and made a server at the Chinese buffet we frequented a bit embarrassed but he left with a batt, slightly confused what to do with it, but it was all in good fun. The weekend came to a sad end with the wonderful kitty Uni that we had given to Roo a few months ago having seizures and having to be put down. Not exactly the way you want to end a fun weekend, but we both loved him to pieces, and enjoyed the time we were allowed with him.  

So on to the photos...

We attended the Magical Alpaca Farms Roaring 20's auction weekend this past week, and boy was it fun! There was a party Friday night, where we all got gussied up with wigs & fake eyelashes and listened to a speakeasy band play. Champagne was flowing and Al Capone was spotted watching the doorway. We also learned a lot at the seminars that the Magical provided and were able to spend some time with Tripp Forester to learn more about selecting a good alpacas. The auction was fun and there were several I wished we could buy, but maybe next year. I made up some mini-batts in conjuction with Roo of Moonwood farms from some of the offspring of Rolex, who was auctioned off that night. We then used the mini-batts in our spinners circle to spin up some yarn which was then woven into a beautiful shawl that was then presented to Libby Forester, who hopefully is enjoying it. We tried to educate other alpaca owners on the benefit of using their fiber, becuase there are still many people who do not utiliize what the alpacas give us each year. Hopefully we converted a few minds. Here are some photos from the party. More can be viewed on my facebook page at
www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2566384361730.142977.1317790985&type=1&l=ea25e13334

Also while we were at  Magical we were able to see our 2 week old cria, Amazing Acrobat. He was born September 12, 2011 and is out of Gathering Storm and our beautiful Obsidian girl MFI Violin Cierto. As of so far he is a spunky little guy. He spit at me twice and tried to kick Roo as he gleefully ran away from us. He looks like he is going to have dark brown to possibly maroon fiber and is super curly right now. We are hoping that's going to be a sign that he is going to have the same silky fiber that Violin has with the massive amounts of density that Gathering storm has. He also has a stunning head and profile. We are planning on showing him next spring, when he will be available for sale.

2 Tie-rods & 1 wheel bearing--$600
2 new tires & 3 lug nut posts--$180
Making it to your final destination in one piece to get kissed by a llama..PRICELESS

So we went to pick up Mr Speckles in Evans Georgia and ran into a few issues along the way. As we left Kentucky the car started shaking and acting all sorts of crazy, so we spent 5 hours at a Firestone getting the front end practically redone. On the way down we met up with our friends Roo & Vickie at the Tennessee state fair, where conveniently there was a fleece auction :) and spinning competition. While Roo competed in the spinning competition, we learned that to spin the most in the fastest amount of time we need wooly winders. It was fun to watch none the less. We then rampaged the fleece auction. It wasn't really an auction because there was prices listed on each, and supposedly in the past people would negotiate with each other if they wanted the same fleece.. HA! I grabbed up what I wanted & didn't take names! I ended up with a 2nd place black Romney fleece, a intersting cinnamon brown shetland, and a 1st place grey handspinners fleece. Around 15 pounds of fleece total. Prices were very reasonable, and there was lots of fleece available.

We then went and spent the night at Roo's house so that we could continue on our way the next morning. On our way to Georgia the noise started again!! Come to find out the last repair guys screwed up and our wheel was being held on with 2 lug nuts. So another hour and a half later we finally made it to our destination at 9pm. The next morning we got up bright and early to meet with Dorthe Peloquin of Peloquins Perch and her llama herd. She has some beautiful llamas, and made us fall in love with the suri alpaca. The fiber is so extremely soft. She showed us all the training Mr Speckles had received. He could jump up into a building, go over jumps, walk on a bridge, walk through tires, and go on a teeter totter. It was very impressive. After seeing the whole herd, we loaded Mr Speckles into the PT cruiser and took off for Alabama.

We stopped by Nina's store Fiber art work in Huntsville AL, and meet a nice little girl and scared an older one that was worried Mr Speckles might eat her. We overnighted at Roo's, where I examined her studio, discussed fleeces, and made friends with Jesse. Finally after a long trip we arrived home to rain and 4 alpacas that were convinced Mr Speckles was a new woman for them.

Overall a fun, tiring trip. At rest areas we caused quite the sensation when we unloaded Mr Speckles to stretch his legs.
So here a bunch of pictures of all the fun!

Well we are back from the Mid Ohio FIber Fair in Newark OH this past weekend. It was a good trial run for us on how to set up & deal with customers.  Not a super busy weekend, but it was the first year for this show.  There were lots of fun vendors though.  We were set up next to Dawning Dreams Dawn from the Phat Fiber box . That was fun becuase then we could discuss the world of fiber together. 

Booth set up and tear down went really quick which was nice and not very stressful.  So here are some photos of our booth

There were also several other "Rooites" there from the seminars at Magical. It was good to see other alpaca owners out there utilizing what their alpacas give them every year.  We saw Judy from Swisher Creek Farms & Loretta & Linda .
Also a photo of just how stuffed our car was..I'm thinking we need a van

So the main reason we have been so busy is we are getting ready to vend August 20 & 21 at the Mid Ohio Fiber Fair. We are going to be taking all sorts of fiberey braids, yarns, roving and batts to the fair in hopes of teaching a few more people about alpacas and hopefully make some money to pay the feed bills. Scott has been busy staining the shelving we are going to use at the show, which in the heat and humidity is no small task! Here are a few of our newest colorways. They can all been seen also on our Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spottedcircus-Alpacas-Llama/206910789330051

We are also now on Twitter as @SpottedCircus so look there for the latest news also

We will be having an open house September 24 & 25 2011 from 10-3pm. There will be spinning, alpaca and llama hugging, and a guess the number of speckles on Mr Speckles contest. Bring your chair and join us for a day of peaceful alpaca watching.  Learn more about raising and caring for alpacas also, and visit other local farms as they too host open houses this weekend.

Sorry about the long lag in posting. We have been pretty busy at the farm with different fiber events.  This past weekend though Vlad the Fox Impaler finally lived up to his name.  As Scott was sitting on the couch he saw Vlad perk up from his perch on the mulch pile.  Then he took off running and Scott soon discovered he was chasing a fox across the yard.  Unfortunatley for Vlad he did not catch it because he does run a bit slow, but he sure gave the fox something to remember about coming back to our place.  It only took 2 years but finally Vlad is a full fledged guard dog.

This past weekend was another fun weekend at Magical Alpacas with Roo and Nina and a ton of other alpaca fiber enthusiasts! I got to Magical on Thursday late afternoon, Roo and crew rolled in around 3:00am. The next morning we were up bright and early to start setting up the workshop area and the fiber buffet. We had a ton of fun dyeing some alpaca and working on carding it up to make products to sell in our shops. We took the usual tour of Magical & had fun with all the staff and enjoyed hearing some funny stories.

We all sat around & did some spinning/knitting/crocheting Saturday night & some wonderful new friends even did a late night cheesecake run for us.

We had an authentic Greek meal courtesy of Nina & feasted into the wee hours of the morning.

All in all it was a long weekend but jam packed full of fun & brain storming.!!

While at Magical I had the chance to meet an alpaca that I had bought her fleece from Roo at the Kentucky Sheep & fiber festival. Her name is MFI Violin Certo. She is a beautiful maroon color that occurs naturally in alpacas but is a very rare color and hard to get. After I washed her fleece up it literally felt like silk, so I knew I had to meet her on this trip.  Well wouldn't you know it, she was up for sale & already bred to have a cria in September. So after some negotiations the farm offered me a deal I would be stupid to refuse.  Luckily it involves her staying there till after she has 2 babies, and thus gives us time to build a female pasture & sell her first cria to help pay her off.  She is 3 years old & out of their herdsire Obsidian, a beautiful black alpaca, and is bred to Gathering Storm, a comical muscular boy. We are hoping for a dark rose grey female cria to be born near the end of September, and then we will re-breed her next spring. They have an 11month gestation so it will be a long wait for the second baby. We will get to see her at their annual auction in October that we are helping out with and are hoping that she has either had her baby by then or has it while we are there.That would be awesome. So without further ado...MFI Violin Certo

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.