LR Dolly Madison

Dolly is one of our best girls, and being at least 3/4ths Peruvian, she has some very commendable bloodlines. She is the offspring of Betsy Ross of Lost River and Lacota's Constantino. On her sire's side we have 4Peruvian Lanarks Lacota and Peruvian Andrajo. Her dam is the offspring of NWA, Ltd Accoyo's Barreda.

This first picture is her as a tui. She has such density and total coverage, we have to give her frequent haircuts so she can see.


Here she is basking in the warm sun we had earlier this week. She did not want to be disturbed.

Dolly will be ready to breed in the spring, and we offer her for sale for $20,000.

This is Champ

This is Lost River's Champ. Isn't he handsome? When my husband named him, I was apprehensive. What if he wasn't a champ and we were embarrassed in the show ring? Well, I didn't need to worry. We do not show very much, and only in Washington State, but as you can see in the next picture, he has not been a dud.
Champ is the son of our foundation male, VCA Shaquille Oneal who we sold this spring. Boy, do we miss him. As mellow as they come, but we had used him as much as we could, so someone else is benefitting from his terrific genes now. Champ acquired the mellow attitude from both Shaq and his mother, June Allyson. And they pass this attitude on to their offspring. If you want to add friendly, easy to handle genes to your herd, this is your man.

Champ's usual breeding fee is $1500, but due to the tough times we are all facing, we are offering him at $900. A Driveby breeding could be done in Whatcom or Skagit County at no additional cost. Any other areas, we'd like some gas money, please.


Is Champ for sale? Unfortunately, yes. We have too many of his genes in our herd, and he needs a good job.

Price: $10,000.00.

Eve Struggles On

Eve is holding steady, but not making any improvement. She starts each morning at just about 103 degrees, then after Banamine, the fever goes down to about 101.3. Her eardrum ruptured and she has all kinds of pus coming out of the ear. She should start improving now, but I don't know. A normal temp for an alpaca is aroun 99, so really, this is a low grade fever she's running. I'm just used to these alpacas responding so quickly to antibiotics. You usually see a difference in just 24 hours, but not with Eve. DH is taking such good care of her. She is his baby, and he doesn't want me interfereing too much. That's okay, I did it all for 7 years, this is good for him.

Eve is Sick Again

The ear infection has returned. Poor little Eve. The vet was out yesterday and gave her the super 7 day antibiotic shot and packed her ears again. Today her fever is up to 102.9. I gave her some Banamine (animal aspirin) and that will hopefully pull the fever down. The vet thinks that when her ear healed, it sealed in some bacteria that just grew slowly, and has now sped up and it will take the bursting of her eardrum and the draining of the icky putrid pus to turn her around. We are hoping this isn't a chronic condition, but if it is, she will have to have surgery. Then it will be time to decide how far to go with this.

Betsy Ross of Lost River

I have decided to feature one of my alpacas each day for awhile. Today we are going to meet Betsy Ross. Betsy was born on June 30, 2006. We were having my son's future in laws for our 4th of July celebration, so we decided to make naming her a patriotic, family affair. After an entire day of thinking about it, Lori, my DIL mother, suggested Betsy Ross. It fit her well, and so she was named.

She is shown here with her two daughters. Dolly Madison is the beige one on the right. She is a bit over a year now, and a real beauty. She is Pippi Longstocking's big sister, and the two of them "hang out" together frequently. At night, the three of them settle in together, unless Dolly is on a sleep over with Abigail.

When Pippi was born, I had picked another patriotic name for her, but when DH suggested Pippi Longstockings, I could see how perfect it was for her, so we had to break the trend.

Betsy is doing a tremendous job for us and has two of the best quality girls on our farm.

FARM STORE

I have a small store on my farm where I sell products made from our alpaca fiber. We have yarn made from our individual alpacas. We carry socks, hats, scarves, shawls, sweaters, just to name a few.
I have added a link to my sidebar that will take you to a listing of my products on Alpacanation.
I'm just getting started, so come back often!

Casa Ecologica Cusco

When in Peru, you will find hundreds of markets like this one, with vendors selling all kinds of products, but especially those made of "Baby Alpaca". Buyer beware! Everything is made of alpaca, even acrylic!!

We were told by our friends and guides that the best place to buy real handmade items was at Casa Ecologica Cusco. The demonstration farm is located near the town of Chinchero. So let's get going.




Along the way you see many sites like this. If you take a picture, you will be expected to pay for it. This is the only picture I paid for. I liked the lady, her animals, and the setting. She wasn't surrounded by vendors hawking their wares.

Here is the dying room. I dye my yarns in crock pots. This fellow uses the wood burning stove and real crockery to dye his.

He was thrilled to know that we had alpacas and joined us for pictures. He also gave me a small bag of Cochineal, which makes a bright fuchsia color. Hmmm, can you tell the Americans in this picture?

Here is a display of all of the vegetation used for creating natural dyes. They use lime juice to change the colors.

You might think that the people only dress like this in tourist areas, but not true. In the countryside and often in town, you will see them dressed in their traditional garments. This is a single girl, so her head dress is quite ornate. Once she is married, she won't need all of the flamboyant decorations on her hat. She has been spinning on a drop spindle, and is now rolling the yarn into a ball. She makes such fine yarn. I do fine on a spinning wheel, but have yet to master the drop spindle.



Along the way, our driver spotted this cactus and stopped to show us where the chochineal comes from. It is a bug that lives on the cactus. You can see them covered in a grayish dust. When you squish the bug, a brilliant scarlet color appears, so incredibly vibrant.

At the center they have some Vicuna.

And some alpacas. Poor guy, I put him in sideways and can't figure out how to straighten him out. He was a sweetie, with incredibly fine fiber.

Here are more of the alpacas, being fed fresh alfalfa. It's unlike the alfalfa we raise here. The docent told me the secret to their fine fiber was their diet which consists of this alfalfa and the scrub grass seen all over the hills. In fact, it looks very much like a grass we all use in landscaping. These alpacas look a bit grungy, but I'll tell you, their fiber was maybe 16 microns at the most. Incredible. I handled all of them.

Here is a proud llama. They do not cross breed llamas and alpacas in South America. And they consider the llamas to be of only two kinds. The basic short haired packer, Qara Pelada and the Chaku o Lanuda, with the longer fiber.

Flash back to Macchu Picchu. I walked into a house to take this picture.

Imagine my surprise when I found this gal, helping herself to the feed. I'm not sure if this stuff was meant for the llamas, but she was sure enjoying herself!