Legend gets his first Histogram

Just a bit of background most of you might know. We bought our Alpaca named Pepper Fire from a small ranch in Virginia last February (2006). The seller wanted the baby she was carrying, and in fact, this being unusual might be the reason someone else had not snagged her up. But she was close to her due date and therefore not a big deal to us, and we got a good price on a nice black female. The seller wanted to keep the baby because she had gotten a very nice breeding to a very well known male, the Aga Khan. Pepper stayed at the sellers ranch until the baby was weaned (nearing 6 months old).


Well shortly after that Legend (the baby) went to his first show and he took every award in a landslide win. The seller (Dawn) immediately called saying the value of our girl had just easily doubled and we had better take her off the market before someone buys her at a too low price due to our inexperience. Well this was all very exciting, and since then he has won everything at the next show he went to. Everyone has been congratulating Dawn telling her she "just won the lottery". She now has a multi-hundred thousand dollar alpaca on her ranch (and our girl is the mom ;-) We decided to leave her at that ranch until the next baby is born (any moment now) and then breed her back to the Aga Khan and keep our finger crossed for a repeat performance. So here we are a year later owning an alpaca we have never even seen! (but with excellent potential).

Anyhow, Legend has just been shorn for this year and gotten his fleece sample back. For those who knows what this means his stats are as follows:

Fiber diameter is 14.4 microns,
Standard Deviation is 3.2 microns,
Coefficient of Variation is 22.2% and
Fibers greater than 30 microns is 0.3%.

For those of you that don't know, this is VERY GOOD. Congratulations to Dawn, and Mada Vemi Alpacas! We are so excited for you and happy to be a part of this.

April means moving

Last week Kelsey and Sara came up to Wyoming for spring break and to say goodbye. They both like Wyoming, so (really for all of us) this move accompanies many emotions. While they were here we didn't do very much, relaxed, read, played with the puppies, who now weigh 75 pounds! And on their last day here we picked up the horses from where they were boarded for the winter.

Then, Tuesday Mike loaded the horses and another 1/2 trailer full of our household and headed down to CO. We left the horses at my sister, Monica's, horse ranch. Luckily she is only a couple hours away and can help out. Hopefully, we will be able to plan some stuff with them, although with their blossoming Dog Kennel and horse businesses they don't have much spare time either. (See Sun Pony Ranch blog link at right). But they will be able to come down in a couple weeks and help us unload the moving truck and see the place.. not to mention keeping the horses, which helps tremendously.

Just as the alpaca business seems to be full of logistics, this move with all the animals etc, seems full of logistics. The previous owners moved out last weekend, so Mike wanted to check on the condition of the house before we moved. So after dropping the horses he went on down to our house and spent a day getting a good look at what needs to be done, and found a LOT of work ahead for us. The Carpet cleaners the seller hired hadn't done an exemplary job, so we got them back out to finish up, and the house was very dirty, even after they hired someone to come in to clean. Mike spent some time washing walls, light fixtures, cobwebs, etc, so that when we arrive with our furniture on the 19th the house should be ready. He also met with a water company to discuss what we need to get to fix our water. It has a very strong Sulpher smell. Not sure why the previous owners didn't fix that, but that is first on our to do list. The house needs a lot of updating and painting, plus we want to modify the plan some, so we are anxious to decide what we are doing with that. Luckily the animals can move right in. They will be the last thing we bring on May 1.