Tuscany trains for the circus

Posted on March 22, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Mom was treated to a most unusual act from Tuscany the other day. It seems the great white ninny is practicing his tricks.

The end cap for a gutter: hours of fun!

We feed the ‘pacas “crumbles”, a pellet food, mostly so that we know they are getting all the right nutrients. To keep them from eating too fast and choking (see here for a harrowing choking story), Dad created a long, narrow feed trough from a rain gutter.

The gutter is full of round river rocks, and the alpacas have to nudge the rocks out of the way to get to the food. Except for Merlin, of course. The first time we put the crumbles in the gutter he just stared at Dad like “You are kidding, right?”

"I don't eat out of rain gutters. You have hands, feed me."

There are caps on the ends of the gutter to keep everything in the trough, but they are removable so Mom can wipe out dust. Every morning, without fail, those end caps are on the ground. And now we know why.

Mom was cleaning the horse paddock and keeping an eye on the boys as she worked. Tuscany was playing with something on the ground, moving it around with his nose, picking it up and dropping it in the dust again. It was one of the white plastic end caps for the rain gutter. Then, as Mom watched astounded, Tuscany picked it up with his mouth, extended his neck, and balanced it on his nose like circus seal.

He stood there like that for a moment, face pointed towards the sky with the plastic end cap wobbling on his nose, then he dropped it, gave Mom a “I know you were watching me” look and went back to eating.

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Mom’s familiar

Posted on March 21, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

My eyes see through your skin, down to your very soul.

Familiar – noun, “An attendant spirit, often taking animal form.”

Squeaky, the larger of Mom’s two black cats (and the one with the tiny tuft of white on his chest), has become her shadow. He watches over her from the rafters while she does her barn chores. When she takes the horses out to the arena for a ride or exercise, Squeaky perches on one of the fence posts, his eyes following them around the arena.

The other day, Mom and I were talking on the phone, and the beagle started howling frantically in the background. She said to me, “Hang on, the dog is trying to eat my cat. Oh it’s Squeaky, he just heard my voice on the deck and wanted to get to his Mom.” Squeaky had gone on a sojourn around the house, into the yard and past the dog to find her. He was sitting calmly on the deck railing, watching her talk on the phone and completely ignoring the beagle howling at him from the ground. Mom firmly insists that Squeaky is a barn cat, so she picked him up and carried him back to the barn.

I give it two months before he’s in the house full time. 🙂 Wagers, anyone?

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Baa baa Brittany, have you any wool?

Posted on March 20, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Yes, sir. Yes, sir, one bag full!

From front to back: Loredo, Merlin, Brittany, Dianna (hidden), and Morocco.

Wait. Alpacas don’t go “baa”. “Mmm Mmm Brittany, have you any wool?” just doesn’t have the same ring though.

Mom and Dad sent over pictures of our roving this morning! We have five bags of roving just in from the mill, totalling almost 10 pounds of yummy un-spun fiber.

Morocco's slightly orange tinged white roving is a highlight.

I can’t wait to work with Morocco’s fiber! It is the softest and most brilliant of our alpacas’ fiber.

To get a feeling for how luminous a fiber is, bend a small amount around your finger in bright natural light.

Over the Easter holiday, I’ll head down to the ranch to pick up my share. My Aunt Geri, who has been spinning alpaca fiber, will also get some of the fiber. We have black, white, off-white, and grey to choose from; it’s going to be fun!

Looking at the bags lined up in a row reminded me of a nursery rhyme my Mom used to sing to me and my brother. My grandma used to sing it to my Mom, and her mom (my great grandma) taught it to her. It’s an old English nursery rhyme, originally printed in 1744, and it’s sung to the tune of “twinkle twinkle, little star”:

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Amazing how these things stick with you, eh? It was the “three bags full” line that got me. I called Mom and I was like, “Do you remember that…like rhyme or something…involving sheep and bags of fleece? I think one of the sheep was black.” And that was enough to jolt her memory. She recited the whole thing. And I wikipedia’d the background info 🙂

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Craft room, mill update

Posted on March 19, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Our fiber is back from the mill! Yay! As Mom pointed out, it’s time to break out the spinning wheel. Now I know I left it around here somewhere…

Ah! There it is. Now I only need to figure out where to set it up. I’m getting the hardwood floors in the rest of the house refinished, so pretty much everything I own is packed into the craft room. It is the only one with carpet. The mess and clutter would probably be driving me nuts, but the rest of the house is so minimalist-ly empty that it evens out.

Here are some before/mid-way-through pictures of the living room, since that’s all I’ve got for you this morning.

The furniture positions aren’t permanent in the after picture; I just needed them out of the way when I finished the other half of the room. The couch is blocking too much flow, and that horrendous fan has got to go, but I think the paint brightened up the room. Now the cute stove isn’t lost in a sea of red. It’ll be even better when the floors aren’t painted with maroon latex paint (shudder).

I promise I’ll get back to crafting soon…I very nearly did yesterday. But cleaning out a place to work got me distracted on other tasks.

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Happy Friday from Bravado

Posted on March 16, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

The work week is almost over, and it’s been a long one for poor Bravado…

It's stress eating, I swear! Working stresses me out. Well, I don't work, so it's more like thinking about you working stresses me out.

Throughout this whole weaning thing, he’s stuffed his face even more frantically than usual. When little Trip’s background humming annoys Bravado, he only stops chewing long enough to growl through his mouthful of food at the young ‘un.

We're working, can't you tell? It's very difficult, don't bother us.

The cats, on the other hand, don’t even let watching us work stress them out.

So now you're watching us, watch you work...I approve actually. I think you're getting the hang of this cat thing.

This weekend, I’m going to try the kitties’ way of life, instead of Bravado’s. None of them are actually getting anything done, but Whisper and Squeaky seem to be enjoying it a whole lot more. 🙂

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A few beginning knitting tips

Posted on March 15, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

I’ve talked before about the importance of crafting with friends, and I can’t say it enough: group knitting (or spinning) is the best way to get inspired to work on a project and have fun while you work. So when Mom told me that she and a couple of lady friends were getting together to have some “intro to the rake loom” time (with wine and food, of course), I was thrilled. Unfortunately, our camera shy ladies were not so thrilled with the idea of having their faces floating around the internet, so we have no evidence of the event to present. Boo, ladies, boo.

The ladies were all working with rake looms, but a few tips that might help beginning knitters and crocheters emerged from the afternoon:

  1. Choose the right yarn. Your first project will not be your best, so experiment with something cheap and resilient. You may be pulling out a lot of stitches. Art yarns often have a non-standard ply, which makes it difficult to tell what you should be picking up or dropping.
  2. Choose the right tools. I’d stay away from narrow needles, small crochet hooks, and rake looms with very close pegs. These all produce smaller stitches, and it can be harder to tell what’s going on with your yarn when it’s packed tightly together.
  3. Learn from someone, a real, living and breathing person. Now, I’m being hypocritical here, since I learned to spin from YouTube, but that’s definitely the hard way. An experienced crafter can show you how to avoid common pitfalls, and offer encouragement when your scarf ends up wider on one end than the other. The internet isn’t known for being super supportive.

That’s all I can think of, other than this: go for it! Creating something, whether it be yarn or scarf or hat, is very rewarding.

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Halter training and weaning gallery

Posted on March 14, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Before we could train or separate Tripoli, we had to catch him. Which is never easy with the rest of the herd getting in the way…

"Hey! What are you doing to him? Are you allowed to do that?"

A big bear hug is the usual way to catch an alpaca, in case you were wondering. My bro just takes it a little farther with the ear nibbling…

"Don't whisper sweet nothings in MY ear...this is still entirely undignified."

Then it was time for “training.” Dad used the fence as a barrier, and kind of herded Trip along, so that he’d get the idea that forward motion is the point of this whole exercise. Otherwise you just get a tug of war going.

"Wait now, what do you want me to do? I'm very uncomfortable with this situation."

After a few minutes of training, it was back to the paddock to explore his new surroundings. Which mostly consisted of staring at the girls through the fence.

"How did this happen? You are on the wrong side of the fence." "I don't know! It all happened so fast."

His mom Tulip was concerned, at first, about the whole situation. It only took her about a day to adjust to the idea though. After all, he’s only on the other side of the fence!

Tulip: "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with you living with bachelors at your age." Trip: "I'm not comfortable with it at all!" Marcello, in the background: "Look at this fence here. I wonder how long it's been here."

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Weaning little Tripoli

Posted on March 13, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Dad caught little Tripoli doing some very *ahem* big boy things…if you know what I mean…last week. Even though he’s kind of been doing such things (all in “play”, not productively, or rather, reproductively) since he was old enough to walk, Dad decided that was the last straw. It’s time to wean Trip, so he can join the big boys.

Tripoli

Trip was born on June 9th, 9 months ago. Many breeders wean at around 6 months, since pregnant females need the extra energy they’re using to make milk to cook babies instead. But our girls aren’t pregnant, so we let Trip hang out with the girls a little longer. Now that he’s getting his “manly urges” though, it’s time to grow up.

In the few days since he’s been moved to the boys paddock, he’s adjusted fairly well. He hums constantly, which his momma Tulip didn’t even hear after the first day. Merlin and Bravado have both had enough of the noise, though they handle it quite differently. Bravado gets in Trip’s face and growls at him whenever the little man has crossed the line. Merlin is much more gentle, but still insistent. Whenever Trip hums, Merlin takes his nose and very gently nudges Tripoli’s nose. Trip immediately stops humming, like “Oh right, that’s kind of a nervous twitch, thanks for reminding me.” The silence reigns for a few minutes, and when Trip starts again, Merlin nudges his nose again. Tripoli likes to kush next to the youngest boy, Morocco, since the old men are so opinionated.

Dad also decided that now would be a good time to do some halter training…updates on that later! We have pictures and I hear they are hilarious!

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Heidi the attack horse

Posted on March 12, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Sometimes wordpress loses all the text while posting…and I have to rewrite a post, and that makes me very angry…post is forthcoming, again.

Mom was tidying up the horse paddock after bringing Heidi and Boogie in from turnout when Whisper decided he had something very important to say to her.

Aww. Not a mean bone in her body, right? WRONG!

He marched right into the paddock, ignoring the horses, who were at the water trough. Whisper was so intent on yowling at Mom that he didn’t notice Heidi creeping up on him. Suddenly, before Mom could intervene, Heidi struck at Whisper, trying to hit him with one of her front hooves. Whisper dodged lightening fast, and though Mom though he’d been hit, he was none the worse for wear. In fact, he may even have learned something.

You know that old saying about dogs resembling their owners? It’s even more true for horses. Believe me, you don’t want to run into either Heidi or Mom when they are angry.

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Wait, you’re telling me “baby alpaca” yarn isn’t from babies?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by cliffhousealpacas

Well. Technically, baby alpaca fiber is just the finest (thinnest) grade of alpaca fiber. It has nothing to do with age, only the “micron count”, or width, of the individual hairs.

You're telling us we aren't "baby alpacas" because you haven't had our hair width measured? That's ridiculous, we aren't even going to dignify that with our attention.

A “micron” is a unit of measurement, actually a micrometer, used to characterize very small things (if you are a science nerd, you probably had to memorize the metric measurements, and you know that a micrometer is 1/10,000 of a centimeter). Generally, the smaller the number of microns, the softer the fiber. Alpaca fiber is sorted into grades according to the micron count, but the number of grades and their micron ranges differ from country to country and association to association.

1. Royal Baby Alpaca (<20 microns)
2. Baby Alpaca (20-22.9 microns)
3. Super Fine Alpaca (23-26.9 microns)
4. Adult (27-34 microns, sometimes broken into very fine and fine)

Baby alpaca yarn, while it does tend to come from younger animals, can be from an adult, if that adult has fine enough hair. Of course, there are other characteristics, besides the width of the hair, that determine softness. Sheep wool of the same micron count as alpaca wool will still feel coarser to the touch, because sheep hair has larger scales.  But generally, anything over 30 microns doesn’t feel good next to your skin.

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