Alpaca News

Jane Pauley did a segment on the Today Show this past week.

Here is a link to the video

and to an article

Spit Lip

I don't know if it was the warmer weather or the pregnancy hormones, because the other morning when I came out to feed the girls their morning grain, I could tell there had been a spit fight between Victoria and Kateri. Here is Kateri with her spit lip:



We find most of our alpacas can't (or won't) eat grain when they have spit lip. I suspect it may burn, being that spit lip is from stomach acid that has been brought up. More often they either don't eat anything until the spit lip has cleared, or they munch on hay. I think the hay helps sooth the burning. Victoria would be the exception this. She'll eat grain, spit lip and all:



It's actually our other two pregnant girls who are due pretty soon. Sancha has just over a month to go, and Maddie about six weeks to her due date. Sancha, being an experienced mom, is really starting to show. Look at her belly:



As the cria grows, that indentation behind her ribs grows. Sancha typically goes to about day 355 and has a 20+ pound cria.

Maddie is a maiden so we have no idea what her typical is. While due a week after Sancha, Maddie could easily deliever before Sancha. Typical due dates for alpacas are between 330 and 350 days. Sancha tends to go long. Maddie easily could be one who delivers earlier. Maddie is hardly showing her pregnancy:



Though from this angle you can see the baby bump:



With Sancha I have been able to see a lot of cria movement. I sometimes will stand there and watch her for a bit. The cria is most likely to move after they eat. I've seen some movement in Maddie, but it's harder to tell on her compared to Sancha.

Royal Fawn?

When we were at a show last weekend, we had someone ask if Tehya's sire is Royal Fawn. We were caught a bit off guard with this question and said that no, she is out of Goldsmith. But, Royal Fawn is further back on her dam's side. We had always assumed she looked like Goldsmith, never having compared her to Royal Fawn.

We decided to pull up a picture of Royal Fawn to see. I do think she has some resemblance, especially her top knot. Though, Royal Fawn clearly has a thicker neck than Tehya. The fading fawn color is similar too. But then looking at Goldsmith, it's hard to know who she does look most like.

This is Royal Fawn:






Here is Tehya:







I actually had a hard time finding a good picture of Goldsmith. I could only find a head shot:



This led me to thinking there are similarities between Royal Fawn and Goldsmith. Now that's something to ponder.

Sommerfield's Cria

We don't own Sommerfield anymore, but we are always curious to hear how any alpaca we have had on our farm is doing. Also, she was bred to our male, Apollo's Griffon. This is his first cria on the ground. He has also been bred to Sancha, who is due in late May. How good his cria are will determine if he is continued to be used as a herd sire.

We are excited to say that Sommerfield's cria, Peace Lilly, appears to be an incredible alpaca! This is what Vintage Alpacas says about her:

Peace Lilly is a novelty on my farm, with her light fawn color being very rare around this farm of grey and blacks! She sticks out like a sore thumb as does her dam, Sommerfield. Peace Lilly has a darker fawn line from her head down her spine to her tail, fading down the side to a very light fawn to beige. Friends of mine often send pictures of their tightly crimped little white crias with their eite fiber characteristics.. well , check this one out.. she fits right into this mold! Very dense.. it took 2 days for her dry! Long stockly legs, straight topline and proud attitude. Black eyeliner makes the eyes standout (right ladies??) .. her movement is so fluid and balanced. This is a very nice cria. Eye candy to anyone who sees her. Her topknot looks like a thick winter hat at just 2 weeks old! I have her listed on my special at this time, and I will board her for free until weaned. Price increases as she ages.

There are plenty of cria pictures of Peace Lilly (some including Sommerfield) on Vintage Alpacas website. (click on Peace Lilly for a direct route to her page with pictures). I'll try to post some here but this doesn't always work.











Now I am very excited to see what Sancha and Apollo's Griffon produce!

walked a mile with alpaca poop

Today was a beautiful day weather wise, so I decided to catch up on some chores. After being gone last weekend for a show, then this week the kids were off school for spring break, I haven't been spending that much time with the alpacas. J decided to finish the new girl's shelter, so he was busy painting.

I decided to clean up the boy's area. I usually try to clean up their poop every 2 or 3 days. This way it's 1 wheel barrow worth (at most). I have to haul their poop some distance, so it's easiest if it's only 1 wheel barrow full. And, I've read that for parasite control, it's best to scoop at least every three days. It has to do with the cycle of the parasite (if they have a parasite, the eggs won't hatch within 3 days time). There are times (like over the last week) when I don't meet my 2 to 3 day guideline. So, I ended up hauling 3 wheel barrows from the boy's area today. Part of that was because I cleaned up the old boys' area, where we plan to put the weanling boys. Still, it was 3 trips with the wheel barrow. The boys barn is .16 of a mile from our house (where our poop compost pile is), so a round trip is about 1/3 a mile, making the 3 trips that I took today a full mile. Not a hard workout, but I do think it is exercise.

I came back to our house and cleaned all the hay/straw off our patio. The hay was stored in our garage which opens onto the patio on the way to the girls' area. It seems I dropped quite a bit of hay/straw throughout the winter. I pulled it up with a pitch fork, then used a hose to clean the patio. It looks great out there now.

My next challenge was to clean out our garage. We have finally moved all the hay and grain into our hay shelter, clearing out our garage. It's wonderful to have the full garage space again! But I still hate cleaning the garage. We have too many odds and ends of things that don't have a specific spot to go. I had the kids help me with this chore and they actually were a big help.

My last chore for the day was poop by the girls' area. I actually do scoop poop in the girl's area daily. But today I cleaned out the area that used to be our garden (it will be the *new* girls' area). I had piled poop there over the winter thinking we will rototill it into the garden. Well, then we decided not to have a garden. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning that up (and I'm still not completely done with that chore).

I am beat! I hold onto my theory that people in the olden days did not have to *work out*, they were getting a constant work out just keeping up on chores. I'm a huge advocate of an active lifestyle, for many reasons. And I much preferred my activities of today than the run I took yesterday. I imagine I got more exercise today just by living than I did yesterday by exercising.

The 2010 AOBA National Show and Auction

We are working out details to attend Nationals this year!

We have never gone to a show this big (estimate of 2500 halter animals will be there and another 2000 fleece entries). This is a level V show (most of the alpaca shows we attend are level IV, for reference, the Best of the US that we attended in early March had 663 alpacas entered, The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival that we are going to in late April estimates 550 halter animals and 50 fleece entries). Nationals is huge, and animals come from all over the country.

The National show changes venue each year. This year it is being held in Fort Wayne, Indiana (the same place we were just at this past weekend). This is likely as close as it will ever be for us. We are planning to only take 2 of our own animals. While exciting to show off our best girls, we are also going for a chance to get our hands on other animals and to see this amazing alpaca show.

Alpaca Article

I always love articles about alpacas. Here's one from The Country Today.

If looks could kill

I believe alpacas must have a very good sense of time. It's almost like our girls can check their watch and know that I am late giving them their grain. They start gathering by the gate, giving me a snarly look (the look of "grain or death"):



I've found when I do feed them later than usual, they will stand by the gate for awhile, then give up and go eat some hay, then later gather around again. Often on the weekend I am quite late feeding them their a.m. meal. They survive. But this time I actually am going to start changing their evening meal time. All because of:



and



Those are our indoor dogs, Dottie and Quinn. While they look sweet, it seems when I go out to feed the girls and Spot, Dottie and Quinn run to the sliding glass door:



That is where they bark and bark and bark. At this same time, J is trying to sleep (being that he works 3rd shift). I actually thought I had this great system all worked out. This was the first year both of the kids are in full day school (Zack had 1/2 day K last year). I arranged my schedule so that I could leave work at 3 p.m. and pick the kids up from school. This eliminated any need for after school care. And I was home by 3:30, I could feed the alpacas right upon arriving home. I would be in the house by 4 p.m. with all my chores done for the day. All winter I did it this way and it worked great. I loved being inside before darkness fell, and with it being cold, it's nice to spend the night snuggled inside.

(Forewarning: this paragraph is a bit of rant, so only read it if you want, you can skip this paragraph and enjoy the rest of the post). The first thing that fell apart with this arrangement is that I was under the impression it was a luxury to pick your kids up from school. I know not everyone can do that. What I didn't realize is that you might not *want* to do it. I tend to be a pretty calm and quiet person, one you'd hardly notice was in the room. But, there are a few topics out there that get to me. One of those topics is how people drive in a school zone. If I ever get into a fist fight with someone, it will either be because they pulled out in front of me on icy roads and I couldn't help but hit them, at which point I'd get out of the car and want to beat them up, or, it will be because they were driving ridiculously crazy in a school zone. You would not believe the things people do in a school zone (like drive across some one's lawn because they didn't want to stop for a bus). I know getting in a fight in front of the school would be the worst thing I could do, but that is really how upset I get about it. At least once a week someone passes me recklessly (and illegally) in the school zone. The kids know this is a hot button for me, they usually mutter "oh no!" I give the passing driving a very snarly look (just like the lady alpacas give me when their dinner is late). I'm not saying I never speed, I do. I drive a lot for work and I by no means follow every driving rule. But, a school zone is different. What you are risking by driving recklessly could be a child's life. I don't take that lightly at all. Also, keep in mind I learned to drive in the Chicago area, road rage was part of the driver's training course. So I can't help but be a defensive and irate driver. Getting back to our school thing, I also am very ticked at the lady in the white car who parks where there isn't a parking space, and blocks the parking lot so no one else can get in. Who does she think she is that she gets to do that? It's so rude. And she does it every day. The kids and I call her the "rude white car lady." One day I will give her a piece of my mind. So yeah, this isn't the highlight of my day and isn't a luxury by any means. I'm thinking the bus is the better way to go. I've seen the bus area. All the buses line up in neat rows, and the kids march out to their bus all happy. It's all neat and orderly. Everyone is happy and it all works smoothly. That's out back of the school. In the front of school is chaos, where the crazy parents, half of which drive recklessly, fight over parking spots, and the kids are running around out of control. I admit, I might be the craziest parent out there, it really bothers me how some parents are. Unfortunately, we don't have the option of using the bus because we live in a different district. So, I will go on pretending that picking the kids up from school is this great luxury.

It's a good thing I do have the farm to come home to. I need that time out in the barn to unwind from the chaos of the school pick up (see my past post on poop scooping, I get a lot of that done while unwinding). Which brings me back to the topic of the alpacas. I need to change the girls' feeding time until after J is awake from his days' sleep. He usually gets up around 5 p.m. and starts making dinner. I'll either feed the girls then, or wait until after he leaves for work (he leaves around 6 p.m.). Then when our dogs gather by the sliding glass door, they can bark and not wake anyone. It should work out fine since we've had the time change, it is lighter until later now too.

If you stand in our backyard, you can see the dogs to the right:



and the alpacas on the left:



The alpacas could care less about our house dogs. They hardly ever pay them any attention. Occasionally the alpacas will sniff at our dogs through the fence, but mostly they ignore them. The house dogs on the other hand, keep very close eye on the alpacas. They are most upset when I am with the alpacas. I think they are actually trying to protect me. Dottie also hates Spot. Spot is so sweet and has never done anything to Dottie. But Dottie is old and set in her ways. And as far as she is concerned, Spot has invaded her territory. The one time Dottie got into the area with Spot, she ran over and bit him! We are careful to make sure they stay separated.

After the girls are done eating their grain, Spot comes and picks up any bit they missed. Alpaca grain must be very tasty because Spot will do anything for even the littlest bit of it. Here he is cleaning up:



By then, the girls have moved onto the new hay I put out:

Thoughts

Now, looking over what I've written in the last post, it might seem inconsistent that we were happy with Cav's 4th place but disappointed with Greyt's 4th. This has more to do with our own expectations than the actual number. When an animal places where we expect them too, or better than we expect, we feel like we know what we are doing. When they place lower than we think they should have, we need to seek reasons for why. We want to know what we need to do to improve them.

I'd love to get 1st out of all our animals, but I know that not every one of them is up to that challenge. It would be near impossible to have every baby ever born on your farm be 1st place quality. Even the big ribbon winning champs who produce incredible cria sometimes have a dud. The big farms take maybe 10% of their animals to a show. They can expect 1st out of that %. Many of the big farms don't take animals they don't think can get 1st. If we took 10% of our animals, we'd be taking 1 animal. I know our best one right now is Pocahontas. If we took just her, we'd be getting 100% 1st place :) Instead of taking just 10% of our animals, we take all the show age ones (juvi's, yearlings and the occasional 2+ male, such as taking Greyt this year, and Tucker last year).

We not only use shows to place in ribbons, but also to hear the judges reasoning for the placement. We take the judges comments into account in assessing our animals. We constantly evaluate our animals at our farm. We ask alpaca owners we know to come and see our animals and give an honest evaluation. We've had some say we might not want them in our pen because they will be honest. We explain that we want them to be honest. We need to hear the good and the bad so we know what we are doing well and what we aren't. We also need to know any faults a specific animal may have so that we can address those in breeding, so we aren't repeating the problem in the next generation. When we look at our animals, we try to evaluate where they could place in a show. We examine their faults, they all have them, and assess what we think is possible in the show ring. We take into account what other alpaca owners have said and what feedback we have gotten at previous shows from judges. This gives us an idea of what we can expect out of an animal at the show.

When we were standing in the ring for Produce of Dam for Victoria and then for Get of Sire for Smokey, we found ourselves shaking our head yes to everything the judge was saying. We have already had those thoughts. It helps to have them confirmed, it makes us think we know something about what we are doing :) This industry can be difficult in that there is always something new to learn. If you aren't learning something new, your program might be stalling out. A farm that does well at shows is always progressing. We use feedback we get at a show (through what the judge says and what fellow alpaca breeders say) to give us a sense of our animals. When a judge and fellow alpaca owners say what we have already thought on an animal, it helps us know that we are doing well in our own assessment of that animal. If they say something we haven't already heard or thought about, we take time to assess that new information. I don't agree with everything I have ever heard about all of our animals, but I do take all comments into account.

I would say at every show we go to, I find there is something pretty big we learn. At the Ohio show, one thing we learned is that we are shearing our cria too early (as noted in the previous post). Another thing that really struck me was the advancement in grey alpacas. When we first got into the industry alpaca breeders would jump for joy when they had a grey alpaca born. Just having one was a thrill! And there were so few of them, you could take them to a show and get 1st and 2nds. In the beginning the grey fiber didn't even really have crimp, but they could still do well in the show ring. I remember one breeder saying that their grey really wasn't that good, but was getting 1st and 2nds because this animal was often the only one in it's class. Thankfully they knew that this animal wasn't that good and did not plan on using it has a herd sire. Sure now it's still a thrill to have a grey born (especially if you are breeding for grey), but the greys now need to have good fiber. Greys not only have crimp and bundling now, but we noticed this newer group of greys are adding fineness, with less guard hair than they used to have. In just the short time we've been in the industry greys have advanced a lot. What used to pass for a good grey is now outdated.

I haven't had time to sort out my thoughts from the Indiana show, so I can't verbalize what specifically we learned there. It usually takes me a few days to soak in everything we experienced at the show.

Show Wrap-Up

The second day of showing brought some surprises. Cavalier was our first one to show. Cav has some wonderful attributes, but one thing that holds him back is that we had his cria tips shorn too early. To back up a bit, when we are at the Ohio show a few weeks ago we discovered that we have been shearing our cria too early. I think most of ours we had shorn when they were about 2 weeks old. The problem with this is that it isn't getting off all the tui tips. So the animal still has the velcro tips that everything sticks too, and worse than that, the fleece has a hard time having good structure (crimp and bundle structure). When you look at the length of the fleece, the structure falls out as it goes into the tui tips. We have learned the hard way that we need to wait at least 4 weeks before having our cria shorn. Cav's fiber is nice by his skin, but through the length of it, the structure starts to fall out. I've said all along that I was leery to even take him to shows this spring. I think we should have waited until fall after he's had a good full shearing. I think his fleece is going to come back in very nice. With all this in mind, we were prepared that Cav might get the gate at this show. This is a tough show and he was in a fairly big class. We were happy to have him get 4th! I still think his fleece is going to come in even better after he's shorn, but it was great to see him do well now.

The next one to show was our Pocahontas. Pocahontas again got 1st place! At this show they even combined light and dark indefinites, so she was up against lighter animals, and she still held her own and took 1st! We are very excited about our 1st place girl :) There wasn't a color championship at this show because there were not enough animals in the indefinite classes. We are sad that she didn't have a chance at this, but that is not that uncommon to have happen in this color class.

After Po, Lightning was up to show. We have been struggling with trying to decide if Lightning is herd sire material. We were going to pay very close attention to the judge's comments on Lightning to see what direction we should go with him. If he is herd sire quality, then what sort of females should be breed to him? Unfortunately, Lightning got the gate so we will never know the judges thoughts. It leaves us with even more questions on what to do with him.

Greyt was the last to show. Because there were not many 2+ years old grey males, they put them all in one class, all the silver greys and rose greys. This was to Greyt's disadvantage because he's dark. It's easier for the lighter colors to be finer and have better fleece structure. 2 in his class were light tuxedo greys, giving them a distinct advantage. We were disappointed when Greyt got 4th in this class. We did go and look at all the ones who beat him. I don't want to critique someone else's animal so I won't give a detailed description. I will say the one who got 1st was a tuxedo grey and he did have amazing fleece. The others I was less convinced were better than Greyt. What the judge did say about Greyt is that he is very dense and has very consistent fiber. The judge claimed that Greyt's fleece was less fine. Without a histogram to compare, I have a hard time taking one person's word for fineness. It can be very hard to feel. But I am happy to have confirmed that he is dense and consistent. I'm still excited to start breeding with him this year, and even more excited to see his cria next year.

I do want to say that just like every other show we have gone to, it is amazing what you learn seeing and getting your hands on other animals. It's also neat to meet other alpaca farmers, and catch up with people we've met throughout the years. It usually takes me a few days to process everything that happens at a show. We love going and look forward to our next show.

That wraps up our second spring 2010 show. In three weeks we go to The Great Midwest Alpaca Festival. What I keep forgetting to mention is that we are having 2 of our animals go with Ashton Stone Alpacas to The Michigan Alpaca Breeders Show and Fiber Fair. This takes place on May 1 & 2 in Davisburg, MI. It is a level II show. Despite it being in Michigan, we have never actually attended this show. Part of it has to do with scheduling. J is required to work some weekends, and with being gone for other shows, at some point he does need to squeeze in a weekend at work. We do wish it were bigger than a level II show, as we try to go to mostly level IV shows. We may go for one day, being as close as it is. Lightning and Rosco will be going to this show.

Indiana Show Update

If you are looking at the posting time on this then you'll see that I'm up in the middle of the night. I have horrible heart burn and can't sleep. So, I figured I might as well blog. No sense laying in bed in pain. It's my own fault. For some reason I have felt like eating a lot of Mexican food lately, and the last two nights with supper I've had a margarita. I rarely drink and this is part of the reason, it gives me heartburn. Though, honestly, a lot of things give me heartburn. I must be getting old.

For my blog this time I thought I'd get some pictures of the venue. I often forget to do this. And, once J learned about the fact our animals do better in the ring when I don't have my camera on me, well, we won't have any pictures of them in the ring ever again.

At every show I always notice upon arrival on show morning the scene in the parking lot. You know you are at a show when there are all these trailers:





I remember when we were first getting into the business we visited a farm where they were saying how different farms can be in how they do things. Some go all out and spend a lot on these big trailers, while others drive up in an old beat up horse trailer. I thought this pictured really showed the difference between a smaller cargo type trailer and a big horse trailer:



Somehow, we all manage to get to the show, no matter what our method of transport is.

This is the entrance to the building at this show:



Then inside, the animals are kept in pens. Each show determines the number of animals per pen (it depend on the size of the pen for that venue). Sometimes farms share pens, and some farms have several pens. It's very hard to get a picture of what this looks like because I can't get the magnitude of all the pens, but this is sort of what it looks like inside:



Looking down this isle you can see the banners and stuff farms put up. Some farms put up ribbons, other's don't. Many post the animals ARI certificate (so you can see their genetic history).



We don't put up every ribbon our animals have ever won. We certainly put up any they win at the show we are currently at. And, we will put up any from this particular season (any spring 2010 ribbon goes up). We also will put up some past ribbons, especially if they did really well. Here is our stall, with boys in the pen on the corner and girls in the pen next to them:



More of a close up of the girl's pen:



Then there are the rings. At this show there are 3 rings. Ring #1 is for suri's. Ring #2 is for female huacaya and ring #3 is for the males. This picture shows where you line up for the rings and the length of the 3 rings:



Close up of one ring:



Our animals do pretty well in the pens. Here are the girls lounging about:



Cavalier resting:



The big boys, Greyt and Lightning:



Our first day of the show was a bit rough. I sort of had a feeling when I was getting ready that things might not be good. My hair was not curling like it usually does, it was very lifeless and almost straight. I'm not sure how much my hair is like alpaca fiber, but I was worried if my hair was like that, what if their fiber is limp and lifeless? When we got to the coliseum, as I feared, their fiber was dry, without good bundles or shine or much crimp. This was not a good start to the day.

I don't know exactly why, but both last year and this year we have found this show to be more competitive than other shows. It was the toughest show we attended last year. And like last year, we are finding it harder than the Ohio show we just attended 3 weeks ago. It's not even that there are that many big farms here. It just seems like people bring out the quality here.

This show starts with the production classes (get of sire, produce of dam and so forth). It was almost noon before the blacks started showing.

Rosco showed, but did not get placed (she "got the gate"). We know she lacks density, and if you add on that she was hot and her crimp was falling out, she really didn't look that good today. She's one that we wanted because we feel we can build on her. Bred to a dense bundled male, she'll produce some great cria.

After Rosco we had a long break before our next ones in line to show, Cavalier or Tehya. We weren't sure they would even show on the first day. As it ended up, Tehya did show, but Cav did not.

When looking at Tehya, we noticed that her fiber is starting to web. From what I can tell this happens when an animal is very fine. So that is a good thing, she's fine. But, it means she doesn't have the bundles in her fiber that the judges want to see also. It's such a hard balance! Last year at this show she got 2nd place, now this year, she got 4th. We are a bit disappointed. Upon thinking about it, we can see how she placed where she did. We really didn't notice this webbing until recently, so we hadn't really processed how it would affect her showing. The challenge now will be to find the right male to breed her to, so that her cria will have nice bundles, but still hold onto her fineness.

Now for day 2 (which it is already but the show doesn't start for another 5 hours), we will have Cav to show first thing in the morning, then Lightning, Greyt and Pocahontas. We still have 4 of our 6 to show. Who knows what day 2 will bring. I should figure out a way to get a bit more sleep before then, and I do hope I wake up with curls in my hair :)

New Girls' Shelter

After putting up the hay shelter last week, J started building a new shelter for our maiden girls. We've found that having the older pregnant girls with the younger girls can at times be a pain. One issue we've had is trouble weaning the young ones. This year we had our little ones go to Ashton Stones Alpacas for a couple weeks to help with weaning. They did wean, but we had problems even after that with Lily clinging to her mom. Another problem we've run into is that we want to make sure our pregnant moms keep their weight up. Especially Sancha can get very thin through birth and nursing her baby, so she needs plenty of food. But if we leave extra food out for her, then the younger ones (like Cafe) eat it and they put on too much weight. We think having a separate area for the pregnant moms and the young girls would help these issues. Plus, we are looking to the future when we will need that much room to hold all our girls.

We found with the shelter we put up for the girls last year that they almost never use it. Unless it's pouring rain, they hang out in the pasture or paddock. So we decided if they hardly use the shelter anyway, we don't need to go all out for one.

This is the area before:



Then the frame:





Almost done (it still needs to have trim and paint):





From our experience with the other shelters, I really think they will like this one the best. I predict they will all cush right in the entry way, chewing their cud.

My hay shelter is working out great! Even with a load of hay in there I have plenty of room:



I do still want to move all our grain inside here so that I can free up our garage. I also want to put the wagon and the wheelbarrow in there. Getting all that in order is a chore waiting for me after show season.

Balancing Act

Often times alpaca farming means doing a good job of balancing different aspects of life. Some farms are able to do alpaca farming as their full time job, and that would require a lot less juggling. But I'd say most alpaca farmers count on some form of stable consistent income from a regular day job. J and I both hold a job outside of the home. We also have 2 children, ages 7 and 10. Before we had our alpaca farm, even with our normal life of work and kids, I actually found there were a lot of times I was bored. That was one of the reasons we became alpaca farmers. We do like the alpaca lifestyle, so many aspects of it work well for us. For the most part I think we do a good job of balancing things. We meet our farm needs, but also our family's needs. Like for the last 12 weeks the kids have been taking swimming lessons. Well, those 2 hours I'm at the pool each Saturday morning watching their lessons, makes a great time to get some knitting done.

I've been working on knitting these baby booties out of yarn I spun from Sommerfield and Shelby (the white is Sommer's and the variation is a twist of Shelby and Sommer). I started knitting these on our trip to a show a couple weeks ago. I wasn't able to finish them on our trip, so I brought them to the kids' swimming lessons last week. I finished knitting them at swimming lessons last week; however, I didn't quite like how they turned out. This week when I was looking at them, I realized instantly how I needed to change them. I was able to finish them this week during the kids swimming lessons.

Baby Booties:



I think they turned out pretty neat! I tweaked the pattern so much it isn't even like the original, so that is even better. My own home spun yarn, my own knitting, and my own pattern creation.

I started making a matching baby hat:



At home this weekend I started spinning some of Victoria's fiber:



Since we started our farm about 2.5 years ago, I think the one thing that I have let slip a bit is exercising. I used to run a lot. Since we started our farm, I've had times I tried to keep up with my running, but it's been very inconsistent. I know I do a lot of work on the farm, that is exercise. I've often argued that in the olden days we did not need to exercise, life kept us busy enough that people were healthy. But, I've been starting to worry that I'm not getting enough of a cardio workout. So on Sunday I set out to jog. I was sad that my constant running companion, Dottie, has gotten too old to go running with me. Her back hips are really bad (due to a car accident when she was young). She is now 12 years old, and not doing well. I felt bad leaving her at home, but it would have been painful for her to go. Quinn was more than willing to run with me. I usually run up and down our driveway:



It's 1/3 of a mile if you go down the private drive to the main road and back, so 3 laps = 1 mile. The main road is off in the distance on that picture (down that last hill), past where you can see. Several laps makes for a good workout. I like it because I'm outside, but still close enough to the house if the kids need me. I was worried I was quite out of shape and this might be a miserable thing to do. I've had some problems with one of my knees and wondered if I should even try to exercise on it. But I was feeling good, so I gave it a go. While I admit I am a bit out of shape, and I've gotten more flabby than I'd like, it wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be. Turns out hauling water and hay and scooping poop really does keep one in decent shape. This was a great workout. I'm going to make a point to start running regularly again.

While passing in front of our house I noticed one of my favorite things about spring:




Poor Spot looked like he wanted to join me (doesn't he look so sweet and small here?):



I've read that you aren't supposed to take guardian dogs out of their area because that will confuse them on what they are supposed to do. So I haven't take Spot running with me. I would be curious to hear other people's experience on this.