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Club for Former Alpaca Breeders? 

Galadriel and her daughter Francesca



My friends from Wildwood Alpacas in Woodford Virginia were good enough to send me pictures of my old girl Galadriel's new female cria, Francesca out of their herdsire, Marcel. Fran, as they call her has already been praised by the shearer as having one of the softest fleeces she's ever seen. Good girl Galadriel!. I always knew that my Gladdie would make a good alpaca mom for some lucky farm. She's always been very motherly and she's also a nice sturdy girl. I don't like alpacas that are rickety-looking.




newborn Francesca with her dam, Glad



Meanwhile, Glad's son, Jake just won a championship at the Blue Ridge Classic Alpaca Show and was praised by the judge there. What a stud muffin!




Glad's con Jake - alpaca stud boy



Also, winning for the Wildwood Alpacas gals was Spice, the granddaughter of my girl, Latte. The Spice girl took a 1st and a reserve champion. She has her grand dam's crazy hairdo and also her queenly bearing.



Latte's granddaughter, Spice


Thank you Sue and Judy, for always sending me photos of the babies and grand-babies ( alpacas) - I love seeing what the girls have produced and how they are doing. They're lucky to have such a happy home.



Meanwhile, my friend Kathleen Gridley and I have formed what may just be the world's most exclusive club; ex-Maryland alpaca breeders, hand spinning and knitting fanatics, named Kathleen, who were members of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival Committee and appeared in the the National Geographic Channel's alpaca episode and now live in Florida.

We're kind of wasting all that alpaca hand spinning talent - except for those lucky friends and relatives up North who get the hand made, alpaca Christmas gifts from us. Kathleen and I still get together now and then and send each other photos by e-mail, but we no longer sit together in the dirt watching our alpacas have - ahem - 'relations' with one another, making jokes about whether we should provide music and/or wine. We really miss those days. Here we are at the famous Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida.


Kate Perez and Kathleen Gridley at Bok Tower Gardens

If you're thinking that the other Kathleen is both skinnier AND more well-endowed than me, Yeah, I know! It's not easy being friends with someone like that.


Bok Tower Gardens is located on the highest spot in peninsular Florida, but Kathleen and I both agreed that the climb from our houses on our farms in Maryland, to our own barns was steeper. Still, it was 'high-ish' for Florida and we did get some amazing photos there. And we had a good time seeing each other again. One photo that I just couldn't resist taking was this one,






Who knew Princess Leia's hairdo was invented by old Dutch ladies? This was Bok's grandmother I think. I'm wondering if Kathleen and I should go back in October for the 1st annual BOKTOBERFEST. Free admission and a plant sale, now if they only had alpacas there.....



Speaking of fibery things, the 'Magic Ball Yarn Swap' is the female bonding ritual du jour for knitters lately. I finally got in on one of these in my knitting club, the Knead to Knit gang at the Sunrise Bread Company in Titusville, Florida. I decided to use alpaca - wool blend, Imaginiation, hand-painted yarn from Knit Picks in the coloway, 'munchkin' for my magic ball recipient because she mentioned liking greens and oranges.








I put in a vintage pin, a stitch marker, a needle end holder, soap, a pretty coffee cup coaster for the car, a hidden little ball of bunny fur yarn and other treasures. I have to say though, I was totally outclassed by the magic ball that I received from Amy the nurse - thank you Amy! She remembered me mentioning some hand-knit socks that were snatched off of me by my best friend. I was only too happy to make sure that my friend had hand knit socks but I really loved that yarn (superwash Merino, Felici self striping sock yarn from Knit Picks in the coloway 'Martinique') so Amy found the same yarn to use in my magic ball! Then she added a huge bunch of cute little things.





My favorites were the mini-crochet hook keyring (for emergency stitch picking up) and the personalized stitch markers.





Cute little surprise presents and yarn! What's not to love about this. We all had a blast.







I have only managed to spin one bobbin of my wonderful Huacaya/Suri alpaca blend roving from the Florida Alpaca Show and I'm bummed about that. I really love the way the yarn is turning out. However, I had to be a good Mom and finish my daughter's hand knit birthday socks in the Harry Potter, Opal yarn. Despite the 'help' of a friend's evil little schnoodle dog that I foolishly agreed to puppy-sit



evil, yarn-eating Schnoodle


I did finish the socks. Doing socks for people with tiny, fairy feet, who also only want anklets is really quick! I still have more than half of the skein left (after re-winding the mess the evil schnoodle made.) My daughter loves them. Now if she could put them in the laundry instead of balling them up under her bed.






If you, or anyone else you know, is an ex-Alpaca breeder from Maryland, now living in Florida, please think about joining our exclusive club. There are no dues or rules, except you must be a hand spinner and knitter, crocheter, felter or weaver. We'll waive the part about having to be named Kathleen and being a former member of the MDS&WF Committee. Llama breeders are also welcome!

Because once you've had alpaca, you can never really go backa! It's a part of you that lasts forever.





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Sock knitting and square needles 




Well the dreaded Monkey Socks (mentioned in This Post ) from the pattern by Cookie A. are done and, I have to say, they hurt my hands but I kinda love them! Now I am wondering how this pattern would look in hand spun alpaca and that's NOT A GOOD THING!, because I live in Florida now. Sore hands and hot but pretty feet?



Suri / Huacaya alpaca blend hand spun



Meanwhile, I have already started on some socks for my daughter's 17th birthday and she desperately wanted socks made with Opal brand's imported-from-Germany Harry Potter series. The color pattern she wanted was named 'Tonks' after the character in the Potter series who is the only female auror. So I had to go crawling back to Devil Girl (mentioned in the previous post) to get this yarn which may not even be available here in the U.S. Devil Girl just got back from a wicked yarn-buying binge in Germany.



Harry Potter themed yarn from Germany



That's just the kind of super-cool Mom I am. The, humpf, boyfriend, tried to get in on the action and ordered Harry Potter Dark Mark socks (pattern available on Ravelry.com) but I just laughed cruelly at this silly, little boy! In the list of people who are all hinting around for hand-knit socks and may or may not get some, the daughter's boyfriend appears just above serial killers and well below my best friend in Maryland's NEW best friend.

He, Scott, might get a pair of socks eventually but I plan to use Imagination's hand painted alpaca-wool blend in the 'Wicked Witch' colorway for him. He's a 'friend of Dorothy', which I am totally fine with, but he did STEAL my BF! He'll probably LOVE the Wicked Witch theme though. They are kind of Fabulous.



But, look what I am starting my daughter's Harry Potter socks on:




knit in the round with square sock needles!


Square sock needles! My friend Roseann, the UberKnitter sent me these square sock needles and they are super comfortable. I never would have imagined that going square could make your knitting needles feel better in your hands but they do. She also sent me a sample of Tofutti sock yarn. I know she isn't a big fan of it, but I kind of like it. Thanks Roseann!









Tofutti, soy silk sock yarn




Well, I was feeling very sorry for myself because for the first time in millions of years, I was not at the MD Sheep & Wool Festival. Apparently my kids are expected to avoid long road trips and actually attend high school here in Florida. How ridiculous is that?


Luckily, my amazingly wonderful friend Toni sent me not one but TWO MDS&WF t-shirts! I'm feeling very grateful now and I love the design winner from this year's MDS&WF! So funny.



MD Sheep & Wool Festival tshirt 2009




child's MD Sheep & Wool Festival tshirt 2009




I did cruise over to the blogs of two fiber friends who I knew would be at the Festival, Roseann, and her friend Patrick. I looked at their stashes from MDS&WF just to torture myself and it worked. I felt desperately jealous.


But, I do have new knitting friends here in Florida and they are introducing me to some pretty fun stuff. My cell phone now has a custom 'ring tone' and it plays the Knitta Please rap song. My favorite line from which is,

'You really call this your softest fleece? Knitta Please!'



You can download the entire song from the link below but - BE WARNED! - it does have some bad words in it like when it says,

'Don't take no #$%p from the Crochet B$#%es.' OK, it is a little juvenile but it makes me laugh.


Knitta Please rap:


Scroll a little over halfway down the page and look for the link to the mp3 file on the right side.



It was due to my desire to find the song online that I came across the Knitta Please terrorist knitting group and their nefarious plan to cover public property with knitting, without the proper permit, or even so much as a Mother May I?. Here is a bus they covered in Mexico City. Who says knitting is for old ladies?



bus covered with knitting in Mexico City




Soon people like me will be way too old and uncool to be allowed into knitting groups. I might have to pierce something or at least get a tatoo. Does a skin cancer removal scar count as facial art? Probably not.

In between all too infrequent knitting jags, I am writing a thrice weekly online column for the Miami Examiner about 'Alternative Religions.' The newspaper, as a media outlet, is pretty much dead so I figure that I might as well get paid to write about my obsessions from now on.



It is really not my wish to shock or offend so, if you are a fundamentalist Christian, Jew or Muslim, you will want to avoid my new blog. If you want to read my alternative religion blog, you can find it here:


Kate's Miami Examiner Blog


It's turning out to be a lot more work than I thought to come up with at least 3 columns a week so all my fiber arts crafts have suffered, but I did manage to finally, finish hand spinning the teal colored Merino roving I bought last year at the MD Sheep & Wool Festival.






No, that was not a typo! It only took me 1 whole year to get around to it. The good news is that I am now free to move on to the Huacaya / Suri alpaca blend roving that I bought at the Florida Alpaca

Breeders Show mentioned in this post.Florida Alpaca Breeders Show







This is spinning up perfectly! The combination of Suri and Huacaya gives it the strength of silk but with a halo of fluffier huacaya all around the core. I can't wait to finish this skein up! And, it's giving me a chance to use my Kiwi wheel's lace whorl again. Now that I'm in Florida, I may just keep the lace whorl on the wheel for good.



To all my pals at the MD Sheep & Wool Festival, I really miss you but I'll be back when the brats graduate from high school (Goddess willing.)


Below: Random Youtube video of a Rock Band's video with animated knitting background. I just HAD to share this one!



Machine Knit, Music Video:happyface;:happyface;






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It's Monkey Sock, Not Sock Monkey! 



1**



I hate sock monkeys. Yeah, I had one as a kid but I found it sinister and

frightening and yet, not at all believable as a monkey either. It's just a

scary sock. The Monkey Sock, on the other hand, is far more sinister! This

is a serious addiction and one from which I recommend total abstinence

unless you wish to find yourself unable to concentrate on anything else

until the dreaded Monkey Socks are done.



Sock pattern diva, Cookie A. (that's her name,) created the monkey socks

because she felt that she HAD to. She recognized immediately that they were

a monkey on her back and, in her own words, "There was no other way to get

them off my back than to knit them." In this pattern, which is FREE ON

Knitty.com,


Monkey Sock Pattern on Knitty



Cookie A. has included a photo of herself lying on the floor with a

high-heeled monkey-sock-wearing foot on her back. So my question is,

Cookie A., genius sock pattern designer ....... or anti-Christ?


Did I mention that the ribbing is knit through the back and I'm using size 0

needles? If you are a knitter, you know what I mean by that. You've heard

of Instant Karma? Well this is Instant Carpal Tunnel. So almost all of my

knitting group friends have already knit at least one pair of the Monkey

Socks and now they are having a Monkey Sock Knit-a-long. I've already

succumbed to the dark side. Save yourselves!





Kate's Monkey sock - Trekking XXL yarn provided by Devil Girl(see photo below)




Meanwhile, back in that other train-wreck-in-the-carpal-tunnel universe,

ie: computer drone world, every time I plan to update my own website,

MountAiryAlpacas.com, someone

offers me a job to do THEIR website. We all like money;

it buys more yarn, but I'm starting to feel embarrassed that my old, old,

website looks so dowdy and run down at the heels, while everyone else has

spruced up theirs with the newest tricks and stylistic thrills. As my mother

would say,


"The cobbler's children always go barefoot." Or was that the sock knitter's

children wear flip flops? Something like that.



So, if you are thinking of hiring me for your website job, please be aware

that I do, in fact, know how to write the style codes in the external CSS

file and remove any style attributes from my HTML or XHTML code. I can make

my code validate with the best of them - I swear! I just haven't had time

to do it.


If you are not a computer nerd, just ignore the preceding paragraph. It

was not about yarn or fiber or alpacas. It's sad, but not all of us can

make a living as knitters, spinners and fiber freaks. We have to do actual

work to support our habits.


Despite its 1999 look, my website still generates a ton of e-mails with

questions such as, "Do you want to buy my 200 lbs. of un-sorted, alpaca

fleece from my Ebay auction?" That was an actual inquiry folks, not something

I made up!


Then there is, "How can I sell my fleeces?" I get that practically every

week. And also, "Why don't you have more information on your website about

how to spin alpaca fleece?"



My answer is: I have not given very much specific advice on how to spin

alpaca fleece because I didn't realize that that was MY job. I was waiting

for someone else to do it. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that in

a snarky, sarcastic way! I really don't consider myself the big expert on

that, but rather, one alpaca spinner among many. However, it does make one

wonder why there isn't more information about how to spin alpaca on the

websites of all of the people who, unlike me, still breed alpacas.



As for the how-do-I-sell-my-fleece people. Please, PLEASE read the cranky

article on my website entitled, Alpaca Fleece Reality Check.

Please! I love you all but I would rather not answer each of you

individually.


Not all of my website readers are people with alpaca fleece problems. I

actually had a guy call me from Minnesota last month wanting to tell me how

much he enjoyed my website! He said he could have e-mailed but he felt he

should call. How cute is that!? This is that niceness for which

Mid-Westerners are ever so famous. I was very touched. I stammered and

blushed like a school girl.



But, back to knitting. Some of you apparently read my article in the recent

issue of Camelid Quarterly about joining Ravelry, the online community for

knitters. Some even took my advice and "friended" me on Ravelry. Thank

you. For those who didn't get that issue of Camelid Quarterly, you should

have! Because, if you are not a member of Ravelry but you are in the alpaca

fleece business, then you are very silly and missing a huge opportunity.

Here is a link where you can subscribe to Camelid Quarterly:



Camelid Quarterly Subscriptions



One of the things that Ravelry offers is a place to post online photos and

descriptions of your yarn "stash." Here are a few photos from my

stash, and they represent just the sock yarn part of my stash!






Knitpicks "cochineal" Felici sock yarn





Esprit's "Sock it to Me" sock yarn




Knitpick's "Suri Dream" yarn





Regia's wool sock yarn




Imagination "Damsel" sock yarn




Imagination "Munchkin" sock yarn




Imagination "Unicorn" sock yarn



I thought that, when I had bought all of the yarns in the Fairytale series

of Imagination's, hand painted alpaca/wool blend sock yarns, my sock yarn

addiction might have run it's course. Hah! That's when IT happened, or

rather, HER!


A person shows up at another person's knitting club, appearing to be just

another knitter and then, as always happens, someone mentions a certain

yarn. Oh look!, innocent newcomer just happens to have THAT VERY YARN(!)

with her. She tosses it over in that devil-may-care (Yes! this turn of

phrase WAS intentional) way. A few minutes later, another yarn topic and,

Quelle surprise!, she has THAT yarn with her too. What the heck?!


It begins to dawn on the rest of us that Little Miss New Knitter has 2 entire

tubs of yarn beside her chair and they are all for sale! But, alas, it is

TOO LATE. We fall upon the tubs of yarn like jackals. Chilling music plays

in the background....



New knitting girl is named Kathleen, but I like to call her Devil Girl. She

works for a knitting store in Ormand Beach, Florida. She knits and she

enables the knitting habits of others. She probably has a sock monkey in

her car!



Friends, Don't let this person come to YOUR knitting group! Did I

mention that it was HER idea to start the Monkey Sock knit-a-long?

Coincidence? I don't think so! She is already on Ravelry of course. Her

ID is "Knits Well With Others," and here is her avatar:



(horns and tail added by me but, believe me, they ARE there!)




Get your torches and double-pointed, aluminum needles ready, because she's

coming to YOUR knitting club .....and Cookie A. may be with her!



1**photo of sock monkey brazenly stolen from the KnitPicks sock monkey

knit-a-long web page here:


http://community.knitpicks.com/group/mr ... yknitalong





Do NOT Click!:scaredface:



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Florida Alpaca Breeder's Show Part II 




When we last left our intrepid heroine (me,) I was at the Florida Alpaca

Breeders Show in Jacksonville and I was on the prowl for a few nice alpaca

rovings or alpaca fleeces to add to my personal stash. I was dumbfounded to

learn that there was no fleece show in conjunction with this large halter

show! Apparently this group has a separate fleece show -in August! - in Florida!

- not even going to say more on that point.


I saw 1 person who was selling "roving" that was not blanket quality (in my
opinion,) far too many alpaca "BREEDERS" who had no fleece or roving to show or sell and 1 person who had many luscious rovings and yarns on display but he/ she was never around to sell one, and I checked,


a LOT of times!





Marathon Alpacas rovings for sale? - a cruel hoax!




So I started wah wah wah-ing to various people that there were no rovings /

fleeces and poor, already overworked, Jamie Flores - one of the show's

organizers - told me that she HAD rovings there but had been too busy to

bring them out and sell them. Dunh dunh dunh (melodramatic climactic plot

moment music.)


Well, of course I wanted to see all of them and Jamie

obligingly brought some over. They were GORGEOUS! And, are you reading

this alpaca BREEDERS?!, as soon as I started pawing through them, fleece

buyers appeared in my litte booth area as if by magic. "Are you buying this

one?" "Do you want ALL of that?" I fought the urge to drive the jackals off

of my fresh fleece kill for Jamie's sake, but it wasn't easy to quell my

inner fleece demon.



I ended up buying around 3 lbs. of a Suri / Huacaya mix with beautiful sheen, excellent hand and great length. This roving was spectacular and.....MINE!





Suri alpaca roving




I forced myselt not to buy a superfine caramel colored huacaya fleece but it

was bought by the women who had the vendor booth next to mine. Then there

was the pretty gray fleece ....




If YOU, dear reader are needing some of these rovings, here is the contact

info. for Jamie. Happy fleece hunting. Tell her Kate sent you.


Jamie Flores Sh'iloh Alpacas



Jamie's Website



But, speaking of the lady whose booth was next to mine, her name is Lorie,
and her business is called A Fuzzy Farm. She was selling those PVC Babe Wheels and had the largest Babe wheel I've ever seen, with a HUGE bobbin and an attached skein winder. Pretty cool!, but I can't warm up to the plastic wheels for some reason.




Babe spinning wheel with skein winder



She also had a triangle loom and people were pretty interested in watching

her weave on it. She had a good crowd watching her warp the loom.




triangle shawl loom




So, after we bought some of Jamie's rovings, Lorie and I weighed and sold

the rest of them right there in front of our booths. See Florida people;

That's how you sell fleece!, right next to the people who are weighing it and

spinning it. Here's Lorie and I weighing a fleece for a customer:





selling alpaca fleece




And here I am spinning on my lucky, alpaca-themed Kiwi spinning wheel. Note

that I am wearing a red vest made of ? That's right, NOT polartec but

alpaca in the above photo and an alpaca cardigan in the photo below. OK the

blue jean jacket is not alpaca but it truly WAS colder than I thought inside

of this building.




me handspinning on alpaca wheel





There were many vendors at this show but this is the one that impressed

me the most:




needle felting goddess






Neotique felted art by Andrea Wilhite. Andrea does not have a website but I

can link to her felting photo gallery on MySpace - You don't have to be a

member of MySpace to see this.


Andrea's felting on MySpace



If this gal was living in Vermont or somewhere more "Felty", she'd be so busy

giving classes and winning prizes that she'd have no time to even BE on

MySpace! Here's a photo of some of the artistic felted objects she brought

to the show:





needle felted objets d'art - awesome!





Hey, Andrea, if I had met you while I still lived in Maryland, I'd have told

you to mail me one of these babies to enter in the Maryland Sheep and Wool

Festival's Fine Arts contest. Don't you know someone arty in MD or VA or DC

who could enter these?


:happyface;


Also sharing the hallway with us was a new alpaca social networking website

called, appropriately, "AlpacaSocial."



Alpaca Social Website




They were signing up new members at the show and also live blogging. Yay! Others of my own kind to interact with. It's so tiresome to hang out with people who hate their computers and think Facebook is the reason children can't spell or have no manners or whatever. Of course I joined right up and then I started my own group in Alpaca Social for alpaca people who also belong to Ravelry.


If you've never heard of Ravelry, get the March copy of Camelid

Quarterly. I"ll have an article in there explaining Ravelry, which is like

Facebook or MySpace for knitters and fiber-arts people.





alpaca social signups at FABA show





Every now and again, I'd get tired of hand spinning and blabbing about our alpaca care DVD, and I'd take a stroll into the show ring area to check things out inside. One of the biggest surprises at this alpaca show in Florida was that I saw a bunch of people I knew from the Eastern Alpaca Jubilee in Pennsylvania including this group of heavy hitters from Ohio and New Jersey. Ask anyone who's been in the alpaca biz for more than 6 months, and they'll recognize this group.





the usual suspects






They were good sports about participating in some kind of skit, but I didn't

watch it. I hate skits! I know it's wrong, and bad, and I hate cartoons

too. I usually try to keep these shameful facts to myself.

Skits aside, I was SO impressed with this show and how well run it was.


They had an excellent live auction. I was not tempted to buy a new alpaca

but there was one creature at the auction that I desperately wanted to bid on.


"Crimson Tide" was donated by alpacamagicusa.com. Is there someone reading this who DOESN'T want a mini donkey?! Because look how cute it is!





mini donkey that should have been mine




And, it came right over for me to scratch it on the back and neck! This

little guy would EASILY fit inside the Suburban - no trailer needed. But,

then he might get lonely out in the field all by himself. So I would need

to give him someone to hang out with. Like, this little guy - who's had

enough of the alpaca show and just wants to go home to my backyard.





tired alpaca baby at show





or This guy because he's so teddy bear-ish.





alpaca teddy fleeced





But, then I remember that Florida is pretty hot for Huacayas so maybe this alpaca, with the fleece that's almost lilac colored - for heaven's sake!!! - should go home with me. For the donkey Crimson Tide's sake, NOT for any selfish reasons of my own!





lilac colored suri alpaca






I swear! I did not alter this photo! That's the real color. I'd love to buy a roving from THAT fleece!


In between my bouts of animal coveting, I stared at the clothing of the

others inside the equestrian center. This is a terrible habit that I

believe to be a shameful side effect of too much hand spinning and knitting.



You start to wonder what someone else's sweater is made from, then you're

sidling over to get a closer look and, - slippery slope folks! - next thing

you know, you're reaching out to touch some stranger's clothing. Unluckily

for me, or luckily, as the case may be, there was very little hand made

clothing at this show, but here is one man that I stalked for several minutes,





alpaca hat stalking





When I took the above photo, all I was seeing was the hat but, after taking

it off my camera card to Photoshop it, I suddenly saw the strange fleece on

the alpaca standing to hat guy's left. It is me, or is there something very

unnatural about that fleece!?



Either the alpaca's been coated or the blanket has been shorn pretty recently, like, right before the show?



In an effort not to identify, and/or offend anyone, I did Photoshop out the people who were showing this animal, but I did nothing to alter the look or color of the alpacas in this photo! Look at the back legs.




When hat guy caught me staring at him, I finally just admitted that it was

the hat I wanted to examine. Better to be thought of as a fiber junkie than

a "cougar" I always say. If you don't know that term (cougar) it's like

dirty old man but refers to women and younger guys. Not that this guy was

THAT much younger than me, and he was cute but the hat was all I could see.

Really!





crocheted alpaca hat





2 colors of hand spun alpaca and it's crocheted! I have never thought to crochet an alpaca hat but I loved the way the stitches looked on the hat.

I just may have to make one myself.


Bret Jesse (hat owner) not only (graciously) allowed me to photograph his

hat, he offered me a seat at his table and we had a glass of wine together.


He WAS sort of cute in that hat!


However, it turns out that his WIFE has the same name as my daughter.

So Bret and Cassandra Jesse of Moontide Alpacas in Clermont, Florida, if you had a website, I would have linked to it just now!



Then, as if it was not bad enough to be wandering around in a frenzy of desire -

wanting every animal I saw, there was also a really good silent auction

at this show, with everything from alpaca socks to computer printers and

weekend getaways and, of course, alpaca care DVDs.


All of these items were donated as a fundraiser for the show. So, doing my

part, I bid on a few items, and got the only 2 things that I desperately

wanted, alpaca and horse jewelry!





hand made, glass alpaca charm w/ earrings






hand made, glass horse charm




These are hand made by Holly Hartman Williams at Lardworks Studio in

Georgia. She is a lamp worker. Apparently "lamp working" is what you call winding glass objects with a torch instead of blowing glass. Holly is also into alpaca felting - a girl after my own heart!

I kind of want both of these beautiful charms, but I will be good and give

the horse to my niece (also a horsey-lovin' girl) for her 16th birthday in

May. Shhhhhhhh - don't tell her!


Ever feel like you've been blathering on and on and your kids are going to

expect something for dinner soon? Yeah, I have to stop gushing about the

Florida Alpaca Breeders show, but I still have a few more photos. Hey, wait,

what's that saying about a photo being worth.....something or other?







Another combo of my favorite things - Star Trek & alpacas!!!







very professional apres-showring photo set up at the show







small brown Suri with my name on it







furry alpaca faces are one thing I miss very much



2 of my favorite entries in the "What do you make with your alpaca?" contest at the show.





woven alpaca throw





alpaca lace shawl




Whew! I HAVE to stop now, BUT.... I know I never finished a previous

post about my old neighbor in MD and her pregnant Icelandic horse and that's

been bugging me for awhile so, if anyone out there in blog land wondered,

here is the baby:




icelandic horse baby










To all of the organizers and workers who put on the Florida Alpaca Breeders

Show 2009 - thank you! You did a super job.





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