Snowapocolypse 2011

Or snow-alpaca-lypse as it was on our farm.

Here is a picture I took Tuesday evening before the storm hit (I purposely cleared off the table so we could see the new snow accumulate):



Here is it after:





In order to get out to the patio, I had to go through the door:



Outside our garage:



My car wasn't getting out until the plow guy came, that is for sure! Our house sits back in the woods, deep in the snow (with a long private drive to the main road):



We didn't get near the snow that many places did, but we got more than enough. I measured 10.5 inches on our driveway (that is a ruler sticking out of the snow).



Others are telling me that isn't an accurate area because there is tree cover, they say we got closer to a foot. Either way, it was a lot of snow. While we have a plow guy who comes to plow our driveway (at .25 mile long, it's too long for us to shovel), I did have to get out our shovels to clear areas for the alpacas.

First Emma and I ventured up to the boy's barn. We trekked through the snow, with drifts up to my knees. Here are the tracks we left on the driveway:



That walk was a workout in itself. I decided to call it "cross training".

I cleared snow away from the gates, many of which I use when feeding grain. I like to separate out the heavy alpacas from the thin ones so that I can tailor their grain consumption to their needs. Some gates I had to clear just so I could get to the alpacas. I noticed, as I shoveled, how tall the piles were getting next to the fences. Suddenly our fences don't seem so tall.




The big boys hid in their barn all night. When they did venture out, the snow just outside their barn was deep:



Emma realized that the night before when she fed the little boys their grain, she had left their bowls outside. She had to dig through the snow to find the bowls. The little boys kept a close eye on her:



The girl's hay bin was almost buried in the snow:



They sure were glad when I got out there to clean it out and give them fresh hay. The snow and cold made them very hungry girls.

Snowy faces:





Snowy bodies:



Now today, while we didn't get any more snow, the cold has set in. It's -7*F at our farm this morning. I know those alpacas will be eating tons of hay to keep warm.

Bursting into Song

We acquired a new alpaca, Dodge City Miss Kitty. Being that one of my main theme songs has been Toby Keith's "Should've Been a Cowboy" (video here), I can't help but sing to Miss Kitty.

I bet you've never heard ole Marshall Dylan say
Miss Kitty have you ever thought of running away
Settling down would you marry me
If I ask you twice and beg you pretty please
She'd of said Yes in a New York minute
They never tied the knot
His heart wasn't in it
He just stole a kiss as he road away
He never hung his hat up, at Kitty's place

I shoulda been a cowboy
I shoulda learned to rope and ride
Wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony, on a cattle drive
Stealing young girl's hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs
Oh, I should've been a cowboy

I might of had a side kick with a funny name
Running wild through the hills chasing Jesse James
Ending up on the brink of danger
Riding shotgun for the Texas Rangers
Go west young man, haven't you been told
California's full of whiskey, women and gold
Sleeping out all night beneath the desert stars
With a dream in my eye, and a prayer in my heart

I shoulda been a Cowboy
I shoulda learned to rope and ride
Wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive
Stealing young girl's hearts
Just like Gene and Roy
Singing those campfire songs
Oh, I should've been a cowboy [x4]

Miss Kitty is a bit overweight, so she has come to our farm for a slimming diet. We hope to get her weight down. She is being fed a small amount of grain, while locked in a pen with Victoria and Lucy, our resident piggy girls. We will see how this works to help her lose weight. We have other ideas of how to get weight off her if this doesn't work.

The exciting part about Miss Kitty is that she has genetics from Snowmass, her pedigree is loaded with incredible names.


Adding:
I need to get some good recent pictures of Miss Kitty. The only one I've taken so far is a snow one:

Birth of our Alpacas by Year

Every so often I get curious how old a certain alpaca is. It doesn't take long and I am wondering who is older and who is younger and by how much. So I decided to make up a list, by year, of when each alpaca on our farm was born. It's such a handy list, I also made it into a separate page that can be viewed anytime, linked straight from this blog. It can be found on the left side, under the heading "Pages".


1998

February 3 ~ GF Raphaella's Sancha

2002

June 1 ~ Persnickety Miss (Snickers)

2003

August 15 ~ NL Smokey

2004

June 14 ~ Dodge City Miss Kitty

June 28 ~ Kateri

July 28 ~ Hana's Victoria

2005

May 21 ~ RPA Lucy

2006

June 26 ~ My Peruvian Georgio

July 19 ~ AFR Our Peruvian Tucker

October 13 ~ Apollo's Griffon

October 23 ~ Straightfork Vanilla Latte

2007

September 2 ~ KSF Midnight Masquerade (Maddie)

November 9 ~ SA Peruvian Greyt Exxpectations

2008

July 11 ~ Kateri's Tehya

2009

June 17 ~ OHVNA Pocahontas

July 24 ~ OHVNA Cavalier

August 23 ~ Ashton Stones Little Miss Rosco

2010

April 25 ~ Enlightenment's Rocky Rose

May 21 ~ Our Copper Canyon

June 21 ~ Smokey's Twilight

July 10 ~ OHVNA Chaska

July 16 ~ OHVNA The Challenger

September 29 ~ Eclipse's Ginger Ale

Alpaca Nation Update

We have done some work updating our Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC, AlpacaNation webpage.

We added pages for:

Straighfork Vanilla Latte



Eclipse's Ginger Ale



OHVNA The Challenger



and RPA Lucy

The links will take you to the page where there are more pictures, including fiber pictures.

We also updated pictures on other animals: OHVNA Pocahontas, Ashton Stones Little Miss Rosco, Smokey's Twilight, and Persickety Miss (Snickers).

OHVNA The Challenger

Here are some recent pictures of our favorite guy, OHVNA The Challenger.







and some fiber pictures:




When he was born I was worried if he had enough grey - that is no longer a worry! He is clearly a rose grey, even from a distance you can see the grey on him.

Our Female 2010 Cria

I know our little ones have been growing by leaps and bounds. Here are some updated pictures of them



While we only had one female cria born on our farm this past year, we aquired two other 2010 females.

Smokey's Twilight was born on our farm. She is out of our female, Midnight Masquerade, and a male we own half interest in, Smokey.



A nice picture of Twilight from last month:




Early on in 2010, we aquired Enlightenment's Rocky Rose. She did not want to cooperate for a picture today, this was the best I could do. Rose is a beautiful tuxedo rose grey.



Ginger came to our farm a couple days after she was born. We even had the chance to name her: Eclipse's Ginger Ale. While she was born later in the fall than we would typically bred for, she has done great, growing and thriving:



We are excited how these three girls are growing.

50 bales of hay

Today J and I set out to get hay. While we do both have full time jobs outside of our farm, we don't always work typical schedules. J works for a hospital and has to work off shifts and weekends sometimes. He worked all this past weekend, and had Monday off. I chose to flex around my work schedule this week so I could help him get hay. While he often does it on his own, I know it's a big job, and a lot easier with two people. It also gave us a chance to spend the day together, which often gets lost in the busy-ness of life.

The temp inside the boys barn this morning was 10*F. It was a lot colder outside. Not only does snow not stop us on our farm, neither does the cold.



J found a local farm that sells hay. We've been purchasing our hay there for about the last 6 months. The draw back is that they are down to only the hay in the upper loft, meaning we have to climb up there to get it. It looks like a tangled mess up there:



And here the light is coming in the big door to the outside. Right outside there is a story drop to the ground. I'm not generally scared of heights, but I wasn't too fond of getting close to that door with a bale of hay:



From the loft, we throw the bales down into a pile (this picture was taken looking down from the loft:



And a picture from down below:



It was just slippery enough that we couldn't get the trailer any closer to the barn, so we had to haul each bale that far. Then we come home to unload and stack the hay in our hay barn.

While this is a big chore, it always feels good to have it done and have plenty of hay on hand for our hungry alpacas.

Negative 14* F

That was our overnight temperature. By the time I got up and went outside to do farm chores, our thermometer read -8* F:



When it is this cold out, we make sure to put out extra hay. The alpacas will eat hay to keep warm, so it is essential that they have hay to eat. I would be upset if I got up on a cold morning and found their hay bins empty, I would worry someone was cold and couldn't find hay to eat. I make sure there are no empty bins by putting extra hay out.

I also check everyone over in the morning, paying special attention to the youngest and oldest, and any that are skinny. I checked Ginger, our youngest, to make sure she wasn't shivering:





I also noted that Twilight (another young one) wasn't shivering.



Both Twilight and Ginger appeared happy and healthy with no concerns noted. Our oldest, Sancha, also appeared fine, no shivering, and eating up grain just fine:



I did find it funny that you could tell which alpacas spent the night in the barn, and which ones decided to stay outside. Tehya had a layer of snow and frost on her back, showing she was out in the elements all night:



Kateri's back was snow free, though it had a little frost and lots of hay, she clearly stayed in the barn:



We don't force them to stay in the barn. We let them make their own choice about where to go. We have had some who choose to lay outside in a blizzard. They know if they are cold or not, they know when they need to seek shelter. And even those that do stay outside, they cush on hay piles that keep them warm. The hay underneath starts to compost, causing it to be warmer than the frozen ground. This warmth radiates up through the alpaca's belly as they are cushed on top of it. The snow and frost on their backs never makes it to their skin. They have that super warm wonderful fiber on their backs keeping them toasty warm. I wish I had such a warm coat!

Everyone appeared to be fine despite the cold temps. I was warm in my layers of clothing, but it was one of the only days I noticed the wind hitting the front of my legs. It sure is cold out there. I'm happy to report the sun is shining now, in an area that doesn't get a lot of sun shine this time of year, this is a welcome sight!

Spring Alpaca Shows

As the spring show season gets closer, we get more and more excited about it. We love show season, and spring is when the new cria get their first shot before a judge. It's always a wonder how they will do. Zack and I have been working on halter training our 2010 cria so that they are ready for the shows. J and I have been making plans of which shows we want to go to, and which shows we really can go to. We'd love to go to more, but we need to be realistic about time, money and energy. I know farms who only go to one spring show, and the big farms that go to many. As an average size alpaca farm, we try to go to a few spring shows, the average amount :)

I have been editing and revising our show schedule all along. I think we are almost to the point of having a final schedule completed. I have the shows listed on the left side of the blog under "Upcoming Events". Each show has a link to the show's web page where more information on the show can be found. Here is a sneak peak at the "Upcoming Events" section:

Upcoming Events

+ March 12 & 13 2011: Best of the US Alpaca Show in Columbus, Ohio

+ April 9 & 10 2011: Indiana Alpaca Invitational in Fort Wayne, Indiana

+ April 30 & May 1 2011: Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in Madison, Wisconsin

+ May 7 & 8 2011: Michigan Alpaca Breeders Show in Davisburg, Michigan


We have gone to each of these shows before, in some way at least. The Best of the US is a newer show, on it's third year. We have been to this one every year and love it. It's the first time our new cria get out into the public and in front of a judge. We have heard that the arena has new lighting, so we are eager to see how that looks. The Indiana Invitational is another one that we have gone to every year. In it's first year, we were there to help another farm show their animals, we did not have any ready to show (it was 2008, our first full year as alpaca farmers). We have gone to this show every year since. My complaint about this show is that our animals don't seem to do as well. The competition is fierce! But, we also get a good evaluation of our animals so that we are realistic in their quality. The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival is one that we went to for the first time last year. We had heard such great things about this show that we wanted to check it out. It is a really nice show. We absolutely loved the city of Madison (I lived there for a few years in my childhood and remembered it as a nice town, it was good to see my memory was accurate). Now the Michigan Alpaca Breeders Show is one that we have not actually attended ourselves. In past year we sent some of our animals with another farm, Ashton Stone Alpacas. We have taken their animals to some shows, and they have taken ours. This has been a great way for a mid-size farm to get more exposure yet limit expenses. This year we want to actually go to this show. We know it's the highlight for many Michigan breeders and we want to be a part of that.

More snow pictures

We had a snowstorm come through our area the beginning of this week. Our young girls(yearlings and maidens) spend most of their time in their shelter. They come out to eat grain and to poop, but otherwise pretty much spend their time under the shelter. It does amaze me how they end up with snow on their backs anyway.



The older girls, our dams, eat grain outside:



Even though they have hay in their shelter like the young girls, these older girls prefer to eat the hay in buckets outside. I hardly put any hay inside their shelter because they don't go there to eat it. In this picture you can tell the ones who spend more time outside have more snow on their backs.



Here you can really see the snow on his back:



Despite having that snow on their backs, they do not appear cold or bothered by it at all. That alpaca fiber is very warm and insulating.

I don't know what Spot in doing reaching into the snow:

No stopping for snow

In our climate, we have to keep on going even if there is a snow storm in process. On Monday the snow started falling with over an inch of fresh snow (on top of what we already had on the ground) by the time we began our afternoon chores.

Our alpaca, Snowstorm, always greets me:



Our barn cat, Fluffy, tends to be more aloof:



Despite the snow piling up outside, Zack and I set out to halter train our two little boys, to get them ready for the spring shows. Chaska is doing very well on the halter, he's almost ready for show season. While Copper isn't doing quite a well, he is improving each time we are out there. He'll get there yet.

Zack and Chaska:

Yarn Production Update

This past fall in an effort to increase our farm's yarn production, I made a goal to spin a skein of yarn a week. I knew, given that I have a full time job outside of the home, as does J, and we have two children (age 8 and 11), along with all our farm responsibilities, that goal was overly ambitious. But I also knew as I worked towards that goal, I was sure to spin up more yarn than I would without the goal. I truly hoped to spin about 3 skeins a month. That would be a significant increase from what I was doing.

Initially I kept track of the skeins in my head (I likely have some blog posts about how I was meeting this goal or not). Near the end of September I got the idea to keep a log of every skein I complete. What an awesome idea! I wish I had done this from the start of my yarn spinning career. I found a spiral notebook that I set aside for this log.

The log notes:
~ the date the skein was completed
~ the animal the fiber came from
~ the weight of the finished skein (though on many this is missing)
~ the length of the skein (in yards)

This is so handy to have! I not only can see how often I finish a skein but details about each skein.

My first entry is from 9/26/10 and the last one for 2010 was dated 12/28/10. In that time I spun up 13 skeins of yarn! I think that is great! While not exactly 1 skein a week, I think I a made a good stab at hitting that goal. I don't know how many skeins I completed for the entire month of September, I only have one listed for the 26th. Then in October I completed 2 skeins, 3 in November and a big finale of 7 in December. You can see I had a mad dash to complete some holiday products (gifts for people). What is even more impressive is that my skeins got bigger as the months went by. I started out with 8 ounces (two strands of 4 ounces) that by the time it is flicked and spun and washed, end up as a 6 to 7 ounce skein. I increased the amount of fiber I started with, and soon was working on skeins twice the size. The length of the skeins varied by how many ounces of fiber was used and how thick the yarn was spun. The shortest was 99 yards, the longest was 155 yards. (can you tell I like math :) I really could work out a statistical analysis for this).

I'm starting a new page in this log book for all skeins completed in 2011. I am very curious to see what an entire year of documenting this has to say.