Another busy month

In attempt to be brief (ha!) here's the highlights:

April 20 - Rented the big truck and moved all our household to the new ranch. We stopped at Monica's for the night and they came down with us the next day to help unload. Thank goodness, couldn't have done it without them.

April 25 - Pepperfire (the girl in VA) had a baby boy. Phoenix is his name. Our first of 9 babies due in 2007.April 27 - Alpaca show in Coeur D'Alene. One of my BBQ buddies, Londa Palmer (willow River Ranch) went on the roadtrip with us, nearly 10 hour drive. She brought 2 boys, we had 4. Her alpacas did well. Our not so well, except Ramon, the boy we got with the ranch. Because of his heritage we can't use him as a herdsire, but he's looking like he'll be the best alpaca on the ranch! While in Coeur D'Alene we had dinner with longtime family friends Joy & Ken Crandall and they visited the show and learned a bit about alpacas.
May 1 - Moved the animals and the last of our belongings to Canon City. We left Jack and Ko-chise to the people who bought our house in Wyoming. They had wanted alpacas for a long time, these two make great pets and a good introduction into the business.

May 3 - Took 3 boys up to the show in Denver. This show is huge, second only to Nationals, so it's great to go be involved in that. 1200 alpacas were in attendance. Londa and her husband joined us again but we all felt like we were running the entire weekend. Kelsey and Sara came up to join us too, Kelsey took Ramon into the showring. And they both showed in a performance class to test handling skills and that was good experience. As far as the animals went it was an exact repeat performance of the prior week.
May 5 - Our girl Serena who was boarding at a ranch for breeding died. She had a parasite that is difficult to diagnose (E-mac, a coccidia like parasite). At least that's what "I" think she had. The vet's found nothing. By the time we figured on E-mac and were treating it, it was too late and she died a week later. By that time she was losing 3 pounds per day and losing the will to live. Luckily she was insured and had given us Olympia, a beautiful little girl. Just could have used two more just like that.
May 6 - Drove the girls back to Albuquerque after the show. Because they hadn't been there we took a detour by the ranch. We were glad we did because we found a pipe had burst sometime that weekend and two the utility room/office and garage were flooded with 3/4 inch of water. And of course much of what we owned was in cardboard boxes sitting in that water. We cleaned up the best we could but when Mike got home Monday evening he had to tear out the flooring and gyp board up the walls. Since we plan on remodelling that area anyway, perhaps it is not devestating, but just didn't need the extra activity right now. While we were at the house in one of the barns, we found a nest of Mice, so we had another delay "saving" the mice. (we need some cats!) The girls decided the ranch is "full of adventure"!

May 7 - While we went to NM, Mike stayed behind at the show for another day. He took a shearing clinic the next day in the neighborhood. The entent was to get exposure to shearing not to learn to shear our own animals. He sheared two of our animals and got lots of practice. In the end he really enjoyed it, and might consider shearing our animals.. very interesting!

So this week I'm in Albuquerque, trying to work. Mike's at home, fixing the house after the flood! We are both trying to recover a bit before heading out on the next adventure next week. We are driving out to Kentucky for the National convention and then going to North Carolina to visit my Aunt Cordie and Uncle Charlie, then to Georgia to pick up some animals, to Virginia to visit the ranch we have that girl at there, and to Ohio to pick up more animals, then home by June 1... Oh, actually just in time to pick up my Foreign exchange student from Brazil (Valeria) who will be visiting for a few days...

Then June is going to be BORING! (we hope).

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.

Land Owners in Colorado

Yep, two weeks ago I drove up from Albuquerque to our new house in Canon City (6 hours). Mike drove down from Wyoming bringing one load, which included about half of our household. We closed on the new ranch without incident.

While I was in Albuquerque, our neighbors (in Wyoming) sent someone they know over to see our house. We were excited at the prospect of selling our house without even putting an ad in the paper. After the guy came by Mike felt like he wasn't that interested, life goes on, I buy signs to put up in Albuquerque and we take them home and put them up a week later. That evening (after we had put up the signs) the guy (Scott) came by, nervous to see the sign. He told us to please hold on for a few more days because he had been wracking his brain, unable to sleep at night, trying to figure out how to get his house sold and make an offer on ours. He asked us to wait one more week cause he was expecting a raise and he'd have more information. Well last Thursday he came by to discuss terms and we came to an agreement. We are just waiting on the final contract! Unbelieveable. We sold our house without even posting an ad anywhere! Sort of like we bought the house in Colorado without them having to place an ad anywhere except the Yahoo group we belong to. This whole move has been pretty surreal!

We'll be moving in April and going to alpaca shows at the end of April and beginning of May. Our phone numbers have already changed. Please note the following new address and phone:

167 Cactus Dr. W.
Canon City, CO 81212

719-371-7124 (Phyllis)
719-371-7125 (Mike)
The girls number stays the same.

A Trip to the Alpaca Mall

Well, what should you do when you buy a bigger ranch? Well, buy more alpacas, of course! As soon as our contract was signed we started looking for more animals. And when you look, be careful, you will find. Ohio has more alpaca ranches than any other state, so no suprise when we picked out a few animals there. Three were at one ranch and after initial email negotiations we decided it prudent to visit Ohio and see them first hand (In fact we consider that we buy so many without seeing them as rather risky and luckily have not been burned yet). So I tagged the trip to Ohio, which I now like to refer to as the alpaca mall, on to the front end of one of my Albuquerque trips. I visited three ranches, hosted and guided by one of them, and went home with agreements on 5 animals and a decision on 3 in Georgia. This rounds out our herd with 22 alpacas now. We need to shift our focus to selling so we can buy more ;-)

This week I have been in Albuquerque, finalizing negotiations, and arranging our trip out east in May to pick all the new kidlets up. 4000 mile road trip ahead!

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Las Vegas

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Well, the Big new of the week is we have a contract on the new property in Colorado. The sellershave pick their new place in OK and want to close by March 12. Then it looks like we will be moving May 1, between two shows and a baby due! Everything is falling into place.

So my girls and I went to Las Vegas to celebrate! OK.. we had the plans before the house deal happened, but it all helped the celebratory mood anyway!

Kelsey and Sara had never been to Vegas before, and when the newest Cirque du Soleil called "Love" featuring music from the Beatles, opened this summer and Kelsey announced that "someday she would see it and I would go with her" I figured it was high time! So we waited for a good deal on airfares and went.

In the meantime my college buddy, Amy Poore, and her daughter, Anastasia, decided to join us from Los Angeles. Amy's sister lives in Vegas and joined us some as well. So it was definately a girls weekend!

We went non-stop from Friday evening to Sunday noon, in the city that never sleeps. So non-stop that I came home with a cold! Spent most of our time on the strip and the show was fabulous! I'm sure it was a memory we will cherish!

Don't Blink - Cause Everything Changes

When I last left you we were heading into December with two new babies on the ranch and one in Denver. Shortly after that we bought another girl (Barbara) who had a baby the beginning of December. Mid-December found us taking the two born here and their Mama's to Denver to be bred, and picking up Kobria and her baby (Quemado) to come home. On our way home we picked up my girls (the human kind) and brought them home for the holidays.

We had a nice relaxing holiday, although Mike was gone to Salt Lake for most of it finishing the job at his sisters house. He did make it home for Christmas day + 3 days, and his being in Salt Lake afforded him the chance to see his boys (Josh and Dan, and Jed who already lives there, and Rachel, Josh's girlfriend) who were in town visiting their mother. The girls and I were in Wyoming taking care of the alpacas, playing with the puppies, and watching lots of movies.

Anyhow our alpaca count is now 13, and luckily the most we have had here at one time is 6. But pressure to get out and find the new ranch was mounting, so we scheduled a trip to Spokane/Coeur D'Alene for mid-January as well as I had taken two separate trips ot the Durango area in Colorado and had pretty well ruled that area out. We were down to Spokane almost exclusively.

On New Years Eve I took Kelsey & Sara to the airport in Salt Lake and decided to stick around and visit Mike for a week. On New Years Day someone posted an add on the Yahoo Group, Alpaca Classifieds, listing their ranch for sale outside of Canon (pronounced Canyon) City, Colorado. It sounded pretty nice and the price seemed right. We asked a few questions and liked the answers. Since we were in Salt Lake, near an airport, and Southwest now has Salt Lake/Denver flights... AND I could get a ding fare for less that $170 round trip for the two of us, we decided to go have a look. So Friday we flew to Denver drove through the storm of the century to Canon City. They met us at the end of their drive in their Hummer, cause our little rental car could go no further... Hmmm. Although they assured us it NEVER snows more than 6 inches there. This 18 inches was very odd! They described the mountain just outside their back door (since the snow prevented us from seeing 10 feet in front of our faces). They promoted the virtues of Canon City, the Wal-mart (how exciting to us, with the nearest Supermarket 1 hour away), the home depot (1.5 hours from us here), and the state prisons, which everyone in the country whose heard of Canon City knows about except us... But Oh, the unibomber is right there in Canon City.. but don't worry, He is 12 miles away, so we are really safe!

So we spent the afternoon with them, and the best part is that they are alpaca breeders so they have 2 wonderful barns, a heated double garage, and another storage building (where he keeps his helicopter). And all the fencing that we need is done! The house needs work but when I pointed out to Mike that ANY house we would buy would need work because we are who we are.. I think that sealed the deal for him. We called them two days later with a full price offer.

Besides the out structures, the property includes 35 acres and a separate 35 acre lot with a well and septic on it. The house is 2600 sf/3 bed/2 bath and well sited on the property. We were a bit hesitant because it is a little drier than we'd like to be, in the Pinons and Junipers, but at 10 miles West of Canon City it is in the foothills, and 10 miles further to the forest the big mountains. Oh and did I mention there is a Super Wal-mart 12 miles from the house! It is a 6 hour drive from Albuquerque, so I'd drive back to see the girls, but could fly if I wanted to. Right now it takes me 6 hours and that is if there are no airport delays etc, and if I want to go down for the weekend (or they ome up) we can. I think we'll like that. It is 1 hour South of Colorado Springs, and 2 hours to Downtown Denver, so again, I think we'll enjoy the location. Being central in the country we will have more access to alpaca shows either way from us.. In Spokane we might have felt bound to the West Coast Shows.


So I wanted to write right away, but have been holding my breathe, waiting for a contract. The sellers were "feeling out the market". They had no idea that their house would be sold within a week of their first thoughts about selling. They are a bit overwhelmed. They want to move to Oklahoma.. I think they really do.. But before they set closing and moving dates with us, they want to make sure they have a place to move to. They will soon be taking a trip to Oklahoma to look at a few places. Soon as the weather clears up! They keep delaying, but I understand why. And I think they really do want to do this, we just need to give them time. So.. we wait. I'm sure patience will show their earnestness, so we need to just wait.

In the meantime, I'm drawing house plans, Mike is picking floortile, we are coordinating our animal births with a plan that will move us into the new place in May, between the show in Denver May 6 and Nationals in Louisville on May 17! Ha! (Of course I have a week in Albuquerque in the middle there!) Life is never dull for too long!

More news

Well the fun around here never stops! We had a new baby alpaca (cria) this morning (sorry those of you trying for the $100, keep watching, better luck next time!) Serena had a girl with colorig of her dad and beautiful grey striped eyes. After our difficulties naming the puppies, and the last cria I hesitate to tell you that her name is Olympia... By the way, not sure I mentioned it here, but the last one is named Carmel. Anyhow, I mentioned to Mike that we are getting "quite the ranch" going. He replied, "Yeah, all we need now is the ranch!"

Puppies

Well, we really didn't think we would get guard dogs, but a couple (or up to 8 of them if we wanted them) of great pyranees/Akbash puppies fell into our laps, at a great price, and it opened up the discussion of how we plan protect the valuable assets in the field. We decided it would be prudent to get a couple, and sooner is better than later, because it could take up to two years to learn their job and take it seriously.

So while the girls were here for Thanksgiving weekend we picked up these 10 week old puppies, and built them a spot in the shelter. Kelsey is holding Luke and Sara is hoding Asher (I think!)


I set up an additional camera so we could continue to see the entire girls pen (for baby watch) and keep an eye on the puppies too. So far all is well. The puppies and the alpacas have a respectful fear of each other still, but things are warming up.

Barncam

We have gotten our Barn Cam up and running. It is a very cool way to keep track of the animals without running out to the barn every hour, while we are waiting on the next baby to be born. It will help when I go tomorrow pick up Kelsey and Sara from the Salt Lake Airport to Ogden to spend Thanksgiving with Mike's family.


Find the link to the Camera through our Web page at http://www.aardwolfalpacas.com.

In the meantime HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING. Hope everyone has plenty to be thankful for, I know I do!

Sophia's Baby

Sophia had her baby Monday, Nov 6. The birth was uneventful (luckily since I don't have pre-natal training until this coming weekend). I was in Albuquerque. Mike did the morning animal chores at 8:30, then we talked and he reported no indications of labor. About 9:30 he looked outside and noticed she looked a little funny, so he went out to check and found the little girl on the ground, still wet, but completely healthy. No decision on her name yet, but current leaning is Allie (after one change so far, this one MAY stick). Mike says she is bouncing around and just as cute as can be!

Everyone is curious!

Momma and Baby

October

This month Mike is finishing his sister's basement in Salt Lake and as we don't want to be away because the alpacas are due to have babies any moment, he is coming home when I'm in Albuquerque and going to Salt Lake when I am home.. It works out except we are not together much and I am missing him terribly! I'm usually not home alone, and it is darned quiet around here! Makes me feel sad that I leave him here alone so much. He hopes to finish Debbie's basement by Thanksgiving.

Mike did come home last Thursday bringing our newest herd addition (Token) home, since the ranch we bought her from (in Boise) called last week to say they could bring her to Salt Lake. So since Thursday we have been watching the herd dynamics, which is pretty interesting. Token is a very nice looking animal with great genetics and she will fit right in with our other girls. So now when we look out of the window, there are five!

Soon we will have our barncam up and running. We have bought it and set it up, but it turns out we buried the wrong kind of cable (remember that 7' trench) so we re figuring that out now. Well let you know.

Neither Kelsey nor Sara are interested in trick or treating this year so I guess we'll all be home (me in Wyoming then they in New Mexico) giving out candy and watching scary movies! Hope you have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Balloon Fiesta 2006

More progress

I find this hard to keep up with... Two major items that I wanted to share have happened since I last posted.

1) MIKE FINISHED THE EXTERIOR OF OUR HOUSE. He finished the Garage and finished the porch and painted everything and replaced the roofing. I wanted to post a photo.


We also came up with the idea to change the shelter to open to the South. It was genius on Mike's part and he is almost done with that conversion. He is installing the garage doors he got off another house, then we have to figure out how to insulate and install the heater. Then we will be read for the new babies to come in the next month.


2) WE ENTERED JACK IN OUR FIRST ALPACA SHOW IN CASTLE ROCK, CO. That was last weekend. He didn't due exceptionally well, but we bought him and went to the show mainly for the experience anyway. He did get two second place ribbons, which will look good in the barn, until you look up and find out in both cases it was second out of two in that class... Of course he didn't HAVE to be awarded anything, the judge could have not awarded a second place if she didn't feel he was worthy, which she did in numerous occasions. It did confirm our suspitions that this is not our herdsire.

The biggest excitement was when Ko-chise, along as a companion (whom we didn't realize was quite so bonded to Jack) leapt out of the pen and was free in the barn searching for us in the showring. The neighbors said it was a thing of beauty, and that he didn't even touch the panel! Ko-chise proceeded to scold Jack not to leave him again, and Jack was a wreck the rest of the time.. Couldn't have helped his placing in the ring any.

A side benefit of going to the show was that it motivated us to finish our banner, flyers, web site etc. Check it out at http://www.aardwolfalpacas.com.

Anyhow, now we are learning/developing quaranteen proceedures. We took the opportunity while in Denver to visit our new cria, Quemado. Here's the new addition.

We had a boy!

This morning the alpaca we bought last month (Not sure I even mentioned her here) in Denver, had a baby boy. Both momma and cria and doing great. They will stay in Denver until she is rebred.

Kobria & Quemado

Most Popular ranch job #2 - DITCHES

Well with our decision to stay in Star Valley until May, we have to winterize our shelter which means getting water out to it, and bury the electrical, that all last winter we had provided by a long extension cord. Mike set out to do that two weekends ago while I was in Albuquerque.

He got help from our neighbor again with the use of his tractor with a backhoe on it. Well, both of these boys knew better than to dig without marking utilities, but didn't take the time to do that. Then, as I heard the discussion, there was talk about how deep was required, my vote was 4', like the footings. But someone said 5'. And in the end, because with the tractor it is so easy, we got 7'deep (in some areas) trenches.

This, in it self, is not big deal. However, they managed to cut the phone line, tear into the septic drain field line, and clip the main power, yanking the meter off the wall and knocking out the main power to our house and the neighbor's (not the one helping us) on a Sunday afternoon (the power guys LOVE that at double time).

This of course caused Mike a lot of extra work last week, but we finally got the job done and trench filled in, and even got in a wire for our not-yet purchased barn-cam.


Oh yeah, did I mention, also while I was in Albuquerque he painted our house, so it is no longer "the blue house"? I picked a color that I thought was a grey/tan color, matching one of our neighbors.. But when he painted it has most definately a pink hue! Now we live in "THE PINK HOUSE"
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That was the fun last weekend... This weekend I am at the "Women in Faith" Conference in Denver, CO, with my mother and sister, Nancy. Which I might add, is turning out to be great fun, dispite the fact that me Gilbane contract has a big deadline delayed for two months until THIS weekend and so I am working until the wee hours.

Then Sunday my sister, Monica will drive back to Wyoming with me (for more information read HER blog at http://sunponyranch.blogspot.com/2006/09/so-brokeback.html). Then in two weeks Mike and I come back to Denver for an alpaca show.. More about that next time.

A Visit from Mike's Parents

Well it feels like a month since I wrote although it has only been half. Since the girls left at the beginning of August I have been to Boise for almost a week, Las Vegas for a few days and last weekend I was supposed to go to Providence, RI, next week to Denver and then on to Albuquerque. The trip to Providence was cancelled at the last minute, but Mike had made plans to pick his parents up and have them spend the weekend up in Wyoming (Picking them up and dropping them off while giving me rides to the airport each way). So we drove to Ogden anyway, and his parents did come up for a visit to beautiful Star Valley, and we were able to be in Ogden for Mike's sister, Vicky's, birthday party. We still a great weekend (better for me than going all the way across country), we just need to slow the adventure down! (How many times have I said that in life?!) We did manage a horse back ride or three and a couple outings fishing, but not nearl enough for the summer we have.

Seems three of the contracts I am working on now have deadlines in the next week, so work has been ver hectic for me. I am loving the new work situation, I just need to spead it out a little more too. Mike's work has slowed down a bit and he has made lots of progress on our house. We'll be ready to send photos soon.

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We had a blow in our business plan last week. The Alpaca with the broken toe, who was still recovering in Denver and trying to get rebred (but not having any success), had a heart attack and died. Her recovery seemed to be going so well but I guess all the stresses took their toll. Stress in the number one killer of alpacas and she had certainly had her share of late! She was insured for the purchase price although she still cost us a lot for her surgery, breeding, transportation from GA, etc. On the other hand, I think something may just not have been right in her, perhaps it's best we can move on.

Just two days before that we mailed the check out on another girl at a friends ranch in Boise, so we still have six alpaca. This is Token. She is nursing a little one and won't be coming home until Thanksgiving or so.

Summer is over...

... or at least for all the school kids in Albuquerque. July was very busy, with travel and extra-curricular activities, so to get in enough hours was tough. After the Spokane trip, the following weekend the girls and I went to San Jose and visited my brother Keith's family and I went to a friend's wedding. This was a friend I had worked with at Washington Group (Steve Pham). Since he's Vietnamese and his wife is Chinese I felt very "white". The kids had a great time "hanging out" with their cousins (whom they have been getting very close to through instant messaging this summer). The cousins had a swim meet and a vacation they were getting ready for, so the weekend was very relaxing.

The next weekend Mike went to Alaska fishing. The trip turned out to be sort of a bust as most years the King Salmon limit on the Kenai river is 6 per day, but the run was so small this year that it was 3.. Then the day they arrived it went to 1, so twenty minutes later, when Mike caught his one.... Well, finally the next day they closed the season all together, so Mike got to catch one Salmon! The next few days they did some Deep Sea Halibut fishing, which Mike found interesting but requiring more muscle than skill. All in all he was not thrilled with the trip but it was beautiful and restful.

While he was Alaska, the girls went for a daylong trail ride on the horses while I sat in the car and worked. They had a great ride to Bailey Lake. That is beautiful too. Mike and I will have to go this fall.

In the last few days of July, I was not doing anything but work, the girls were sewing, sleeping, riding, and relaxing. If I was awake, I was trying to get billable hours in. But now it is August (the month starts fresh!).. I dropped the girls at the airport Thursday to go back to Albuquerque since school starts next week for them. Then I took off to work a few days in Boise (through the weekend.. again BILLABLE HOURS!) and next week I'm going to a conference in Las Vegas.

Visit from Mom & Dad, Shearing Day, and House Hunting

Boy, haven't written much lately due to extreme back-to-back action around here. Mom and Dad came up for a visit on the weekend before the 4th. We had Shearing Day scheduled for July 1 but nothing else much was going on so we spent a day in Jackson, which totally wore us out, and so spent the rest of the weekend around home. I guess since we move so often the parents felt the need to see our place before we go. So it was great they could come and combine it with a trip through my sister, Monica's, place in Denver coming and going and enjoy the 4th there.

While they were here we sheared the two girls. That was a big event, yet pretty straightforward. The whole thing took about 15 minutes per alpaca. The boys had already been sheared this year so they did not need it. The shearer came up from Salt Lake, Mike and I were his pawns. Mom and Dad took photos and video and Kelsey and Sara collected the fleece. Here are the before and after shots.

We were concerned about leaving the Alpacas while we went to Coeur D'Alene for a week, and a week before we left my sister, Nancy was telling me how her friend from Richland, WA, wanted to vacation in Yellowstone this summer but had no reservations yet, when we conceived of the idea that she could Alpaca sit for us while we were gone. Keep in mind this idea came less than a week before we left! So we presented it to her as a long shot, and 5 days later she jumped in her car with her two children and parents in tow, and drove 12 hours to our house for what to her was "A week at the ranch" within an hour of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was really a fabulous win-win situation.

So we headed out way early on the 3rd for Boise, where we picked up a friend of Kelsey's at the airport and dropped the two of them off at Girl Scout camp in McCall Idaho for a week. Then Sara, Mike, and I headed on for Coeur D'Alene to house hunt. We stayed in our camper in the yard of friends from Los Alamos days, (wonderful place they have there too), but beat the streets every day with a couple of realtors, one keeping us out for 14 hours on Thursday. We love living in Star Valley and would love to stay there, but simply cannot afford to buy the size place we need for the Alpaca business. So we have enlarged our search to include Boise, Denver, and Coeur D'Alene. We found out we are going to have trouble buying something in Coeur D'Alene too. Friday we ventured over to Washington, the Spokane area, and although that had not been our original plan, were pleased with what Spokane had to offer. That is where we found the only house we were interested in and although it was still over our limit, we made a low offer. In the end that didn't go anywhere but the trip was an eye opener, and now we need to re-evaluate.