Cliff House Alpacas

It’s All About the Hay

Posted on April 19, 2013 by cliffhousemom

As we near the end of winter, what we’ve been feeding the Alpacas is about to be put to the test. Shearing day is May 15, and the quality of our nutrition will easily be seen. With all of their beautiful fleeces sheared, body scores will be much easier to determine. Alpacas are scored from 1 to 10, a 10 being over weight and 5 being ideal.

Last week-end Jared and I picked up the last of this season’s hay from our supplier. We spent Saturday afternoon stacking 100 bales which will get us through until this year’s second cutting. Quality hay was hard to come by this past year, and the best hay was incredibly expensive.

Our vet, Dr.Balch, visited Cliff House for a healthy herd check last week, and she estimated our body scores to be 5 except for Tulip who is a 5- and CiCi who is an 8. Dr. Balch looked in the hay stall, laughed, and said “Well, you guys feed good hay.” Enough said.

Tulip 5- and CiCi 8

Posted in animals | Tagged alpaca, alpaca ranch, animals, hay, ranch life | 1 Comment

Noodle Heads

Posted on April 17, 2013 by aunt_geri

Hi – Aunt Geri here. I really don’t know where these ideas come from! We sell a lot of children’s hats so I am always thinking about new ideas. Also, I am so easily bored – this idea came to me about half way through knitting a rolled brim kid’s hat. Maybe I was thinking of Scythia’s yarn looking like spaghetti when it was wet? So goes the “noodle heads” hats – which I am perfecting because I used two different techniques on these.

They are just plain fun and are made with a super bulky single-ply alpaca yarn. This design has spawned a bunch of new ideas that I will also try – included but not limited to a mohican(mohawk)hat, a dragon hat, maybe a Denver Broncos horse mane hat………….. We’ll keep you posted!

Posted in fiber art | Tagged hat, knitting, yarn | 1 Comment

Is it Spring yet?

Posted on April 15, 2013 by cliffhousemom

April in Colorado is generally unsettled, and this year is no exception. Last week’s predicted 12 inches of snow did not come to fruition, but Sunday morning’s surprise snow storm delivered not only welcomed moisture but also sparkling beauty.

Walking out to the mailboxes to pick up the newspaper gave me, dad, an opportunity to take some pictures with the early morning light.

Posted in business | Tagged ranch life, snow | Leave a comment

Forever Yours-Forever Scarves

Posted on April 12, 2013 by cliffhousemom

I have been seeing them everywhere these days. When I finally had the time to knit a scarf for myself I chose to make one of these. I designed my forever scarf to match one of my dressy blouses, and the first time I wore it, much to my delight, I received several compliments.

A forever scarf has no end as it is stitched together in a circle. I used the last of our yarn from Archie, he’s a Suri, which Kirstin had spun. White crochet thread knit with Archie’s grey created a lovely contrast.

I knit the scarf on my green loom which is a fairly loose stitch for approximately 60 inches. I then whip stitched the two finished ends together. I like to think of the scarf as a long string of pearls that I wrap around my neck.

Posted in fiber art | Tagged Arts, craft, crochet, knitting, Knitting and Crochet, scarf, suri, yarn | Leave a comment

The Green Alpaca – part deaux

Posted on April 10, 2013 by aunt_geri

Hi – its Aunt Geri. Remember the green alpaca scarf? Here is the matching hat along with a child’s hat. Both of these are made from a wonderful baby alpaca chunky yarn in an ivy green. I have named them “Rain Forest” since we don’t get to see these lush green colors very often living in semi-arid states.

Posted in fiber art | Tagged alpaca yarn, hats, scarves | 2 Comments

Finished ponchette

Posted on April 8, 2013 by cliffhousealpacas

Finally! I finished the ponchette I’ve been working on for ages. I don’t think I could have done any better, given how unreliable the pattern was, but it still doesn’t look much like it was supposed to.

PonchettePic

To add the beads to the trim on the very bottom row, I pre-strung them on the yarn. Then I pulled the yarn through all the beads until I needed one. I brought it close to the hook, then did one chain before continuing with the shell. I tried more beads and less beads, but two small ones around a larger central bead felt the most natural.

Despite being a match to the pattern for measurements, it just came out too small. I’m sure there’s a life lesson in here somewhere about patience and learning, maybe even expectations, but I’m tired of thinking about this project. Let’s just say every hit can’t be a home run, and never speak of this person sized tea cozy again.

Posted in fiber art | Tagged bad patterns, beads, crochet, crochet ponchette, disaster projects, patience, ponchette, yarn | 8 Comments

The Green Alpaca

Posted on April 5, 2013 by aunt_geri

Hi – it’s Aunt Geri. Here is my latest creation (aside from the Chimayo yarn that I continue to pump out). This is a green “Magic” scarf made with baby alpaca and a variegated nylon ribbon. I think it’s the result of spring fever – even though this scarf is super warm and cuddly soft. I plan on knitting a matching hat similar to hats we saw in a high-end boutique in Santa Fe.

I never saw a green alpaca

I never hope to see one

But I can tell you anyhow

The green is just not seen!

All humor aside, we have had customers ask us if Cliff House “…has green alpacas…”. In a sense, we do – since alpacas rate among the world’s “greenest” creatures. Their padded feet are gentle on the soil and they don’t require a lot of “range”. They eat less food than horses or cows, and when grazing, no roots are pulled up (AH – the destructive wars between cattlemen and sheep herders in Wyoming!). Alpacas have lower incisor teeth and an upper dental pad with no teeth. They hold the grass between their lower teeth and upper pad and a simple turn of their head does the trick. A 3-compartment stomach efficiently converts grass and hay into energy.

Manure is deposited in only one or two spots by the herd, providing natural control of parasites. Alpaca manure may be applied directly to gardens because all the carbon material has been digested before elimination. Cliff House composts their Paca Poo, and calls it “Alpaca Gold”. Our alpaca manure is composted because it’s mixed in with horse manure and shavings: time breaks it down to create an organic fertilizer for plants.

To take “green” one step further, wear some alpaca, and turn down the thermostat.

Posted in animals | Tagged alpacas, handspun yarn, ranch life | 3 Comments

A Walk In The Fog

Posted on April 3, 2013 by cliffhousealpacas_dad

Daddy and I, Momma, walked out to the newspaper box this morning, and we thought everyone might enjoy seeing what Cliff House Ranch and our babes look like on a foggy, wet, dreamy morning. Colorado doesn’t see these kind of days very often, and our family is certain we share most ranchers delight at the promise of green pastures and an April with no wildfires.

What do the alpacas have to say about this kind of weather? Hard to know, but the dampness doesn’t seem to bother them since their fleece is almost ready for shearing.

Posted in animals | Tagged alpaca, alpaca ranch, ranch life | 1 Comment

There and back again, a mulch’s story

Posted on April 1, 2013 by cliffhousealpacas

Kirstin here, writing from the ranch at the tail end of lovely Easter weekend. The weather is teasing us with nice, sunny days and I’ve been getting out into the garden to prepare for spring. Since I was coming down for the holiday, I brought all my yard waste with me to add to the compost pile at the ranch. I packed three trash bags full of leaves and clippings into the back of my station wagon.

One of three loads of compostable material I brought down with me.

After we added my garden clippings to the pile, we decided I might as well take some of the well-cooked and ready-for-planting compost home with me! Dad fluffed up the pile with tractor, then we half-filled a few bags with “alpaca gold”. A friend of mine used our compost in his vegetable garden last year, and absolutely swears by the stuff, so I’m excited to see what it does for my flowers. He said his tomatoes were double their usual size.

It may seem strange that I carted a bunch of compost halfway across the state when I could have just left it on the curb for the trash company. Our local trash collectors actually have a seasonal compostable materials pickup, which is unusual in a small town like ours, but it doesn’t start until May. And I just couldn’t bring myself to send it to the landfill, where it would have decomposed underground, potentially leaching methane into the groundwater, when it could enrich our infertile Colorado soils as compost.

Posted in completely unrelated | Tagged compost, ranch life | 5 Comments

Round Three or it seemed like a good idea

Posted on March 29, 2013 by cliffhousealpacas_dad

Jan’s on today, I’m talking about a scarf I have started three times and completed once. This yarn is mill spun, sport weight, 100% alpaca, and it first started out as a scarf with Pandora beads knit into it. I don’t have a picture of the original, let’s just say the beads were too heavy for the yarn, and they weighed down the individual strands like a heavy weight in a fishing net. I knew the scarf wouldn’t sell when we go to market so I decided to remake it. I’ve set aside five scarves to remake this year, and I’m finished with two of the five.

I tore out the scarf, remember it’s a simple piece of string, and decided to knit a very thin strand of 50% superfine alpaca and 50% Tencel into the yarn. I used my purple loom, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was pretty sure the weight of the yarn would require a large peg spaced pretty far apart, I was wrong.

I tore out the scarf a second time, by now feeling a little silly, and began on my blue loom. This is the loom I use when I knit my shawls. The pegs are smaller and closer together producing a tighter and more tailored stitch. I hope you can see the difference. Third time’s a charm!

Posted in business, fiber art | Tagged alpaca fiber, alpaca yarn, fiber, knitting, scarves, yarn | Leave a comment