1. It was our second year as alpaca farmers.
2. I learned how to spin yarn. Hard to believe that happened this year! Feels like it was longer ago than that. I have many blog entries about spinning and knitting. I couldn't pick just one to link to.
3. We took ARF Our Peruvian Tucker to the Indiana Invitational in Ft. Wayne IN. He took 2nd place!! This was a level V show, so a very big show. Typically we would not take an older male to a show (they can be rambunctious and ideally they will prove themselves in a ring at a younger age). But, we got him when he was older, and he had never been shown. We wanted to know where he stood, and were very excited at how he placed. Sorry the picture is small. I tried to link from alpaca nation and it gave me a thumbnail picture.
4. We welcomed Spot, our great Pyrenees to our farm. We love Spot!!!
5. We had 3 cria born (pictures are their newborn pictures, more pictures are available on their web page, click on their name to see):
Snow Lily by Lord Stanley (Lily). Lily is a bright white alpaca, with incredible fiber. She has crimp, bundling and consistency. She is also very soft (fine). We are excited to see how she will do in the show ring this year.
OHVNA Pocahontas (Po) Po appeared to have been born a bit premature. We believe her dam ran out of room and delivered about a week earlier than would have been ideal. However, now you would never know she had an early start. She was plenty big, and has grown well all along. At first we could not tell what color she was. She had dark brown, but we wondered if she might be bay black. After her cria tips were shorn off, we discovered a dark rose grey!! Her fiber has the best bundling and consistent crimp I have ever seen. It is exactly like her sire, The Buccaneer, a several time color champion. She is incredible!
and OHVNA The Cavalier. Cavalier is a neat fading fawn color. He has nice consistent crimp, which I think will get even better as he gets older. His color is the type I love to spin because it makes a neat tweed mix of light and darker fawn. He is definitely soft.
Here are our 2009 cria when they were babies:
6. We started using our farm abbreviation: OHVNA for Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC.
7. Our 2008 Goldsmith girls both got BLUE RIBBONS!! This happened at the Michigan International Alpaca Fest (click on link for my blog entry about it) in September 2009. They have received other awards (click on their name for their web page that lists their ribbons). But the BLUE ribbons are truly the best!
Kateri's Tehya
Victoria's Shelby:
8. This year we were able to use two of our own males for breedings. (I don't know why these pictures are so small except for Smokey, you can click on their name to see their web page and see better pictures):
We bred GF Raphaella's Sancha to Apollo's Griffon
and Hana's Victoria to ARF Our Peruvian Tucker
9. Our other two breedings were outside breedings, Maddie (KSF Midnight Masquerade) to NL Smokey. Smokey is from Ashton Stone Alpacas:
and Kateri to Express's Accoyo Adonis. Adonis is from Autumn Alpacas, LLC.
10. Our farm now has 2 new breeding boys:
Our Peruvian Navigator a dark silver/rose grey male. I still haven't gotten my own pictures of him, but there are several on his web site from the farm we co-own him with. Navigator is a nice "fancy" grey male. We are excited to be able to use him this coming year for breeding.
and SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations. He is my dream male! I love his color, his head and top knot style, and his fiber is incredible. I'm excited to be able to spin his fiber after shearing, not to mention choosing who is the lucky girl who I will breed him too.
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