When it isn't one thing, it's another.

It has been a tough week. I was supposed to be posting pictures of shorn alpacas and writing more about shearing and all the wonderful things I've been doing with the freshly shorn alpaca fiber.

And I wrote a little of that at the end of this post.

When I got up Tuesday morning, I noticed that one of our alpacas couldn't walk. His front legs were buckling every four steps or so. This is not a good situation.

I called Pam over and mentioned that I thought we had a problem. The alpaca walked carefully into the pen, then stumbled.

"Oh God!", gasped Pam, "I'm calling the vet."

The vet wasn't available. We took the alpaca's temperature because he always wants to know that, and checked some other things. Pam went back inside to wait for the vet to call. I tried to keep my mind on the task at hand and feed the other alpacas.

Eventually, Pam was able to talk with the vet. The vet was able to rule out brain parasites and fungal endophytes based on the symptoms and he determined that the injury didn't require immediate attention. So, we had a vet visit scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Waiting for the vet was excruciating. My stomach tightened into knots with every stumble -- not that my stomach ever really un-knotted after the first stumble.

That's how my week has been. I find it very hard to be productive when I'm worried sick about one of my babies. Being creative when my stomach is tied in knots is harder still!

At this writing, our injured alpaca is much improved -- probably why I am able to relax and write. We haven't seen him stumble in two days, he is standing straighter, and best of all, the vet says he'll probably heal just fine with two to three weeks of rest. We have him alone in a pasture -- generally not a good practice with animals as strongly herd-oriented as alpacas -- so he won't re-injure himself by playing or fighting. He shares a fence with two other pastures, so we're hoping he won't get too lonely over the next couple weeks.

On the fiber front, I have managed to make sure all the fleeces shorn Sunday are dry. They are all weighed and a couple have been skirted. I also found time to do some carding. The suri fiber I dyed several weeks back has finally been carded.


Here is an artsy shot of the drum carder with plain fawn suri.


Some of the orange suri fiber on the carder.


And because one drum carder picture is probably plenty, here is a third. This is fawn suri dyed with Easter Egg dye.

At some point this week, I did manage to take pictures of the newly shorn alpacas as well. Most of them weren't very good, but here are some of the better ones.


Here's Chloe in the sand pile. A week ago she was a puffy fluff-ball and looked like she was three times her actual size.


And Drake.


And Drake again. Drake is a gelding. He has good fiber and he is for sale.

Compare the pictures of Drake to those from March 1 -- look at the difference in fiber. I wish I had good pre-shearing pictures of all the alpacas because some of them probably had 25% more fiber at shearing than in the March 1 pictures.

I Survived Shearing Day

Shearing Day

Stress Stash Enhancement Shearing Day is over and we have survived.

For most alpaca breeders, shearing day is the most stressful day of the year. Sure, some wealthy breeders invite prospective clients to shearing day parties and entertain while hired help does the dirty work. Not so for most alpaca breeders. In general, shearing is a hands-on process for all available help. It can still be a social process, since breeders gather to help each other out on shearing day. By the end of the day, however, all involved are covered in a mixture of shearing oil and tufts of fiber.

Shearing is stressful because it's hard to find a good shearer. Then you have to schedule shearing and get the area ready. Invariably, it rains or threatens to rain so there is (potential) wet fiber to deal with. There are a million little details into planning for shearing, and that's before the first tuft of fiber is shorn.

Shearing is stressful for alpacas. These two-leggers catch them up, tie (or hold) them down, and a stranger with a very noisy and vibrating pair of clippers starts removing hair. It's got to be scary for the alpacas. If they struggle, the humans hold them harder, which can lead to bruises. Any sudden movement can result in shears cutting skin -- human or alpaca.

Shearing is stressful for alpaca breeders because their animals are stressed and because the slightest mistake in handling the animal can result in bloodletting or injury.

Alpacas, of course, can recognize a stressed human. Simply being around a stressed human -- particularly a stressed and familiar human -- can increase an alpaca's stress level.

This is our fourth year shearing. We're doing better. Shearing day wasn't as stressful this year as it has been in the past. It was still very stressful.

The Positive Side
There are two positive sides of shearing day. First, it's a social occasion. Alpaca-owning friends help us shear our alpacas and we help shear theirs. Much gossip is spread above the whine of the shears. It's also an excellent time to evaluate alpacas. There are few times of year when one can touch so many alpacas so intimately as shearing. Once can learn where the warts -- literally warts -- are on a given alpaca, as well as thoroughly evaluate the fiber and temperament of the animal.

For a fiber artist, the best part of shearing is when it's over. Shearing day is too chaotic and tiring -- did I mention how many times I bent or squatted to pick up fiber or hold an alpaca this weekend -- to appreciate fiber. The next day, however, one realizes that the stack of plastic bags in the living room is not a garbage dump, but a stash.

Yes. A new stash.

There are 29 bags of alpaca fiber in my living room that weren't there on Sunday morning. That's what I call a stash.

As a handspinner, my stash is part of how I measure the wealth in my life -- rather like the amount of firewood I have at the beginning of winter.

The task before me now, is to process this stash. Pictures of fiber and shorn alpacas are likely to follow later this week.

Nest Stuffer Video

Not five minutes after the previous post, we actually caught the female Bullock's Oriole on video taking alpaca fiber from the nest stuffer. Ten minutes later we caught her again. It has taken me five days to post the videos.

The videos are in WMV format -- sorry, but that's the technology we have.

For broadband users, the files are at:
Broadband 1
Broadband 2

For dial-up users, a single file is at:
Dial-Up

Open Barn Day is Saturday. Shearing is a week from Saturday. I'm going to be busy with fiber, but there won't be much time for blogging.

Nest Stuffer in Action

The birds continue to take alpaca fiber from our nest stuffer. Our most active visitor of late has been the female oriole -- I'm reasonably certain she's a Bullock's Oriole. She visits the nest stuffer, pulls out a beak full of fiber, sits on the branch, arranges the fiber, and then flies off. Usually, she makes two or three visits to the nest stuffer and then goes off to do something else. As of right now, the our video camera is aimed at the nest stuffer and turned on. Naturally, there are no birds on the nest stuffer at the moment. Unfortunately, we have very basic digital video equipment and lack the capability to control the camera from our computers or otherwise turn it on and off remotely.

Our house is a great room with some bedrooms off one side. We have set up our office in what is supposed to be the living room -- meaning we look up from our computers and look out the picture windows at the bird feeders. (This also means we have a fireplace insert in the office which is very handy on cold winter days.) As long as we have lived in this house, we have dreamed about setting up a video camera under the eaves with remote control so we can control it from our computer chairs -- or possibly from one of the computers. We have no such device yet, so the video camera we do own is sitting on the porch rail using battery to take pictures of a nest stuffer that is not currently populated by birds. I want that oriole to come back, but right now, I'd settle for a House Sparrow.

What does all this have to do with spinning and alpacas? Well, the nest stuffer is one of our handicrafts and it is filled with third-quality alpaca fiber. Just in case you don't want to create your own nest stuffer, we offer our nest stuffers for sale in our on-line store.

Finally Time for Fiber

I actually managed to make/take some time for fiber on Sunday. With everything else going on, it's amazing my fingers actually remember how to spin.

I spun up two balls of the coarse alpaca thirds I used in my knitted felt experiments back in March. I haven't decided what to do with it yet and I'm not to the point of attempting socks. Perhaps this yarn will also become knitted felt and eventually portions of new slippers should that project ever advance.

In addition to spinning, I accomplished some long-overdue yard and alpaca work this weekend. Open Barn Day is fast approaching and the place is a mess. The small lawnmower has died as have both weedwackers. The big lawnmower doesn't mow very close to landscaping or fences. Thus, I have much "mowing" to accomplish using a pair of hedge shears and some hand clippers. At least the lawnmower should be back this week. It's a good thing, too, since the grass is getting has gotten away from us.

Too much grass outside the pastures. Not enough grass inside the pastures -- except one pasture where the grass is growing faster than it's being eaten. (I'll elaborate one day, but for those of you unfamiliar with the topic, one of the challenges of raising pasture-fed livestock is dealing with seasonal variation in forage production -- grass grows fastest in the spring.) You would think, that with seven of our nine alpacas in overgrazed pastures, we could figure out some way to use some of the alpacas to mow this surplus outside the pasture fences. Like building fences and establishing rotational grazing, it's easier said than done. I'm sure someday we will learn how to manage alpacas and grazing such that they mow 95% of our lawn for us. We'll look back at our early days and laugh about how foolish we were to spend so much gas, money, and effort mowing the grass when the alpacas would eat it. In the meantime, we'll be doing the foolishly hard mowing and trimming work so we'll have something to look back on ten years from now.

One week after open barn day is shearing weekend. The junk hobby room is still full of last year's fiber as well as some from 2003. I have no idea where I'm going to store all this incoming fiber.

I haven't managed to card the Easter Egg dyed suri fiber yet. If I've had the time and energy for carding, rain has been threatening, and when it's been dry, I've been either too tired from my day job, or had higher priorities here. I'm starting to get in shape and the days are getting longer, meaning I'll have more evening daylight for carding. With other events fast approaching, I might not get the suri carded until after shearing -- and in my first in, first out fiber filing piling system this means it might be a while (read frantic preparation for BSG) before I find dyed suri fiber again.

If you are in the Roseburg or Glide area on May 14, I invite you to visit us on Open Barn Day. In the meantime, please peruse The Alpaca Merchant, our on-line store. If you are in the market for animals, we do have alpacas for sale on our herd page.