Friday, March 26, 2010

Getting Ready for the Indiana Alpaca Invitational

Only 6 days until our next show, the Indiana Alpaca Invitational! We leave on Thursday morning, for the show that takes place on Friday and Saturday (due to Easter being on Sunday, they are having the show on Fri/Sat when typically it is Sat/Sun).

This is our 3rd year going to this show. We attended 2 years ago but didn't show our own animals. We actually helped South Haven Alpacas show their animals (well, J helped show them, I'm a behind the scenes kind of person). It was a great learning experience to spend time with them. I am so sad they are no longer alpaca farmers, it's not the same going to shows without them. Since going to this show 3 years ago, we knew we wanted to return last year with our own animals. This is the show that last year we took Tucker to.

This year we are taking SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations (AKA "Greyt"). He is a 2 year old medium rose grey male. He has been in quite a few shows, but this will be the first one we are taking him to. I am excited to see how he does. I'm most eager to start his breeding career this year. He's so soft with amazing color. Here's a picture of him from this past winter:



After our experience last year with Tucker trying to climb the gates to get to girls, I hope we have a better experience with Greyt. I'm leery to take these older males to shows because they sometimes act up. I don't blame them, it's only natural for them. It's just that it can be a pain to deal with.

We are also taking our almost 2 year old white male, Sancha's White Lightning (AKA Lighting, or Lightning Bugs, or Bugs). Lightning has not been to a show yet this year, so we will see how he does now that he's a bit older. Here is a picture of him from this winter:



We are taking another male, our little eight month old OHVNA The Cavalier. I love how woolly and cute his face is:



He is woolly all over. Even the vet today commented on how fully covered he is:



We are taking 3 girls with us.

Kateri's Tehya will be 2 years old this summer. She is a fading fawn, who has placed either 1st or 2nd in every show she has been too! Unfortunately I had a hard time finding a good picture of her (we got a new computer in December, so our old pictures, including her ribbon pictures, are not on this computer).



We are eager to see how our OHVNA Pocahontas does at this show. At the Best of the US, she gave us a blue ribbon and our first color banner!! I would love a repeat of that! But, shows can be so unpredictable. While I think she has great fiber and conformation, her issue may be that she may not always show in the same color class. We believe she is a dark rose grey, but at Best of the US she color checked as Indefinite Dark. Actually, the people in color check didn't know what to call her so had us take her to the judges for color verification. I do think the lighting in that venue is darker than other places. We will see how she color checks for this show. The most important thing is for her to be in the right class so she is judged with similar color animals. I'm not stuck on her being in one class over another (sometimes people hope for one class thinking they will do better in that class). But, she could do worse in a class if she isn't quite in the right class (competition isn't quite even then). Here is Po with her winning ribbon, and with her on our farm this winter:




The youngest girl we are taking is Ashton Stones Little Miss Rosco. She is a seven month old true black female. This picture of her is from this past winter:



We are in the midst of our spring show season. I think we might look forward to this even more than when the cria are born. The odd thing is that it is out of character for me. I tend to be a homebody and am a very shy and quiet sort of person (unless you know me really well). You would think that shows would not appeal to me. I tend not to like a lot of people around (I do better one-on-one) and I don't like busy places (a place like Chuck-E-Cheese could put me over the edge). I can't put my finger on what it is about shows.

1 comment:

Mother Robinson said...

Good Luck this weekend! I can't wait to hear how everyone does!

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