Becky and Al attended the Suri Network Summer Symposium in Estes Park. It was a very enjoyable and educational meeting. It certainly brought us up to date on where the organization is and the direction in which it is headed. The future of the Suri Alpaca industry in the US certainly has a bright future with the leaders and visionaries in evidence at that meeting. We would certainly encourage other Suri alpaca owners to try to attend the meeting next year.

Beside, Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park so you could go a few days earlier and get in some hiking and sightseeing in the beautiful Rockies..

Getting settled into the new office/fiber plant.  We re-assembled Becky’s rug loom. There was some worry that it might have gotten damaged during its long period of storage but it’s made of good old New England hard maple and withstood storage just fine! Now all she has to do is find time to start weaving rugs again.

Well after a long wait we’ve finally moved out to the farm. Our new house is just a few steps from the barn –which certainly makes caring for the animals immensely easier for Becky. She no longer has to get up and drive for 20 minutes “to get to work”. On the other hand, now Al has to get up earlier and drive for 20 minutes to get to his job –a trip that used to take less than 5 minutes.

The inconvenience is more than made up for when we sit on the deck in peaceful quiet at the end of the day (no noisy neighbors, cars, motorcycles), or sit by the greenhouse with a glass of wine enjoying the view of our alpacas and garden. Or wake up to the sound of birds chirping, roosters crowing, geese flying overhead. It’s a kick to drive up the driveway after work and see the deer in the fields (outside the biosecurity fence –but oh I wish they wouldn’t nibble on our corn crop!), wave at the horses in their pasture, and scatter the free-ranging roosters who are constantly trying to get back into the chicken pen with the hens!

Construction is finally starting to wind down. It has been a long and trying year and a half, during which time we’ve gone from this:

Barn Site Before

to this:

State of the Art Barn

And from this:

Pasture View Before

to this:

Pastures After

There is still much work to be done -to the fields, the pastures, the fence lines, the gates, and other structures. There is a lot of construction debris to be cleaned up, landscaping to finish, grass, hay and other fields to plant. And in between all that the alpacas and llamas need constant care. Slowly and surely we are getting there. Someday soon we hope to be able to enjoy our evenings, sitting on the deck with a glass of wine and simply watch our critters in the fields.

Fortunately we have Sabrina, one of our most loyal farm hands. She is always ready to keep watch over the construction and lend a paw as needed.

Sabrina on Guard!

No, no, the nails are too short, they won't hold!

Okay- who took my keys?

We recently had an inquiry from someone who had met Becky and Jaime at a show asking where they had purchased the lovely necklaces they were wearing. The answer was that they hadn’t!

No they hadn’t stolen them. Both Becky and Jaime have been making jewelry (mostly necklaces and bracelets) for years now. They scour gem shows and antique shops to find their materials, and then make up the objects as the spirit guides them. When they lived in South Carolina they would offer their work for sale at various craftsmen shows and fairs. They have an extensive collection of necklaces. And they are all one of a kind, individual pieces.

Here are some examples of their work:

Since moving back to Ohio and working hard at constructing and establishing the new farm they’ve not had much time to indulge their creativity. But hopefully as the construction winds down and the routine work on the farm settles down they’ll begin creating again. Ultimately some of their creations will be offered for sale in the farm shop and online. (They claim they won’t sell the illustrated pieces -but then everyone and everything ultimate has a price!!) Until then, if any reader has an interest in any of their pieces, or would like to commission a special piece, please go ahead and contact us. We’ll have one of them call or write you according to your preference.

Becky and Al visited southern California last week. We decided that it might be worthwhile to consider adding some West Coast alpacas to our herd in order to expand and diversify our gene pool. While studying the pedigrees of our own (mostly Midwest) animals we noticed that East Coast animals, Mid West animals, and West Coast animals always tend to be bred with animals in their own regions. Thus the gene pools become localized with little opportunity for nature to select out the best genes. We’ve already acquired some East Coast animals (Belle and Electra). Now we are looking at the West Coast.

We visited several farms (The Alpacas at Windy Hill, Dry Creek Alpacas ) from San Diego to North of Los Angeles. There are some very nice animals there, particularly Monteggio of PVA at Dry Creek Alpacas. It struck me that the alpacas of Southern California live under some rather hash circumstances -dry, hot, brown, sandy, generally flat, and very little grass if any. Thus I would think that nature would have weeded out the weaker, less adaptable animals and what is left there must be strong, environmentally adaptable animals who would do well on our verdant, hilly farm with a variable climate more similar to what their ancestors were used to in South America.

While in California we were introduced to the controversy among Alpaca owners concerning the elitists who think only a Peruvian animal is top quality and Bolivian or Chilean animals are something less. I was not aware of this difference of opinion. And I don’t quite understand why it should be so. After all it only depends on “what side of the mountain” the animals lived. I don’t suppose the wild animals (before the Peruvians started their ranches) respected the various countries’ borders and only mated with alpacas on their side of the border! Furthermore, as I understand it, there was an active smuggling enterprise taking animals from Peru to Bolivia and Chile for sale during the period when Peru stopped exporting animals.

If any readers can educate me on the arguments from either side I would certainly appreciate hearing from them.

Construction on the Office/Plant and barn proceeds -may actually be progressing towards completion! We had a wonderful video of the Sonrise Construction crew and many of the sub-contractors singing some beautiful hymns (many of them are members of the Antrim Mennonite Choral Group, here is a link to their CD on Amazon) in the beautiful reception area of the office/plant but unfortunately the camera containing the video was lost before I could transfer the video to my computer.

In the meanwhile Becky and Shane continue to get to know our animals up close and personally. They are in close contact on a daily basis while they clean the barn, (i.e., pick up alpaca beans (otherwise known as “poop”) and run the boys and girls out to and back from the pastures. The animals love the green grass and being outdoors, but Becky and Shane still don’t feel comfortable leaving them out all night.

Becky is getting to know their personalities:

• Jetta: is “such a b—-” at times, and so vocal, and yet when offered a piece of apple will ever so gently, gingerly, and sweetly take it from Becky as though she’s afraid of hurting her!

• Bridget: is not really into apples, but wants desperately to see what is going on when the others are being given pieces of apples.”What are you guys doing” she seems to say as she runs across the barn to see what all the excitement is about. She’s still attached to her mom Briana. If we ever sell one we’ll have to sell the other too so they can stay together. It would be cruel to separate them.

• Chase: is starting to become as curious as Dundee. Midori and Remedy are also curious ones. They will sidle up to Becky as she uses the rake and broom to clean up the barn and watch her intently as though they would like to learn and maybe help.

• Remedy: “Remy” for short. She should probably be called “REM Sleep” because it never quite seems like she is “there”. She’s looking but we’re not sure she’s receiving! Could she be a blond? She does have some light fleece. (My apologies to my blond -male and female- readers!) We sometimes wonder If anyone is in there? And yet she’s not stupid. And she also comes from a superb blood line with great genetics. Maybe she’s just too much of an aristocrat. We think she’s going to have to have a “date” with Princeton -another aristocrat with great blood lines.

• Maddy: is growing up fast! Her baby “pinkness” is fading and her hair is starting to grow over her eyes. (Kind of reminds you of some of those sultry vamps like Heda Lamarr seen in the movies in the 1940′s.)

• Chase & Dundee: have become bosom buddies. They go everywhere together, play together, and both seem to be in love with Bridget and Briana. Chase keeps trying to mount Briana. (He knows he should but is too young to know why!) She just ignores him. I don’t think I’m going to look forward to their teen years!

The Alpacas of Spring Acres ranch had its origin in Becky’s mind many years ago when she first read about llamas and decided that she might like to own some.  Reality began to take shape in late 2007 with a visit to Alpaca Jack’s Suri Farm in Findlay, Ohio. There our gracious hosts, Jack and Miriam Donaldson, showed us around their farm. We even got to see a cria (baby alpaca) being born. (I don’t know how they managed to arrange that for us! Clever people, those Donaldsons!)) After that Becky, her daughter Jamie, and Jamie’s fiancé Shane Morgan visited Sea Ayre Suris, an alpaca farm in South Carolina. That sold us.  Plans for The Alpacas of Spring Acres began to take shape.

In short order we hired a designer to develop a plan for a barn and new office building/fiber processing plant for Cervello from which we could coordinate the family partnership activities, manage Spring Acres Farm and the Alpaca ranch, and carryout the fiber processing and product manufacturing that we planned to develop. We studied topographical and aerial view maps to plan location of buildings and a series of interconnected fields through the woods. We developed a business plan which helped us obtain financing from The Community Bank in Zanesville, interviewed contractors, hired Sonrise Construction LLC out of Antrim, Oh. Construction began finally in spring 2008 after our hired hand JP, Al, Shane, Becky ,and Jaime spent months cutting  timber and clearing the construction site. We hired independent contractors to build a mile long 6 foot high biosecurity fence and the internal fencing needed to prepare separate pastures. Shane, my good friend Jim Leach, Dave Rogers and Harley worked through the summer and fall to build entrance gates, build shelters in the pastures, help with additional land clearing and road building, additional fencing, repairs to older structures, and a new greenhouse.

In the meanwhile we expanded our knowledge about these incredible animals by attending seminars on “Alpaca Herd Management” sponsored by Alpaca Jack’s, and “Advanced Herd Health” by Pam Walker DVM and an OSU Vet school instructor. We attended various lectures on animal health and management delivered at the various Alpaca shows we attended. In March 2008 AJC attended the 2008 International Health Conference for Veterinarians, a week long course on camelid medicine, surgery, nutrition and reproduction, sponsored by the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine. In order to make our farm safe and productive for our animals we walked the fields and woods with OSU Extension/USDA agents to plan our fields and eliminate dangers, developed management plans, and  attended various OSU Extension and USDA sponsored course such as Management Intensive Grazing, Grazing Management Workshop, Farm Pond Management, Woodland Stewardship programs, and others. To help make our ranch financially sound and develop products for sale Becky attended marketing and farm product development seminars by Ellie Winslow. We both attended the 2008 Paca to Product conference.

We joined the Alpaca Registry Inc, AOBA (Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association, OABA (Ohio Alpaca Breeders Association), Suri Network, and the ILR (International Lama Registry) from all of which we gained knowledge and always friendly help. We joined the Farm Bureau -another source of lectures and helpful information on Farm Safety and productivity.

And oh yes, we purchased our first animals from Alpaca Jack’s. (They were “agisted”, i.e., “boarded”, there until our barn were ready in Dec 2008.) Becky had her first show experience in the ring with an immature Aerosmith at the OABA show in 2008.

We discovered that Alpaca owners are a diverse, friendly, knowledgeable, family-oriented crowd who exemplify the hard working, entrepreneurial spirit that built this country and made it great!

Yes, we have been very busy!

Dundee

ARI# 31217705

I’m tempted to rename Dundee to “Curious George”. Dundee always has to be first to investigate anyone who comes into the pen He’ll come right up to a stranger with a quizzical look on his face and cock his head slightly  as if to ask “Now just who are you?” A quick sniff is likely to follow.

Dundee also has well known parents. His father is Sitka Scout and his mother is our own Jax Denali. He’s still very young, but growing fast. We expect him to be real show stopper.

Sea Ayre’s Jax Remedy:

ARI #30872103

Remedy is a beautiful White female offspring of both a champion sire, Sitka Scout, and a champion dam, Raggedy Anne. Her own offspring will undoubtedly be champions in their own right and should produce the highest quality fleece.