Wow where did the summer go! As you can see from my extensive amount of posts since shearing day back in the spring we’ve been busy all summer. Well, we were busy, but it wasn’t all alpaca stuff.
We are going to be at East Berlin Colonial Day on September 11, 2010. We’ll be in our usual location behind the East Berlin post office and food vendors.
We hope to see you there.
East Berlin Colonial Days
Right on the tail of PAOBA Breeder’s Showcase 2010 we had shearing day. We again went to Paso Ligero for shearing. Kim from Paso Ligero is wonderful. Since we don’t have a trailer she again this year came and got all of our animals and transported them to her place for shearing. We couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.
It was a long day. We started shortly after 7:00 AM since we had almost 50 alpacas to shear and the guys doing the shearing were going to another neighboring farm to shear after we were done. Ian from Big Mount Alpacas had enough animals at his farm this year to have them coming there, instead of him bringing all his alpacas to Kim’s place.
We got lots of great fiber off some wonderful animals. The shearers did a good job again this year. I don’t think I’ve seen him yet knick an animal. I can’t say that for myself, I hit some blood on a couple toenails, but not many.
We now have 12 more blankets and 12 more seconds bags of wonderful alpaca fiber here to work with. If you are interested we could still use some more hand spinners for spinning the fiber.
All of our short cuts, leg fiber and other waste is being sent to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf. Isn’t alpaca fiber wonderful!
We had a good turnout for the open house.? We hope everyone had a good time.? We enjoyed meeting everyone, and sharing the alpacas with them.? Everyone, including us, had a good time talking to and seeing the demo of the The Sock Lady.
The bourbon red turkeys were also a big hit.
Bourbon Red Tom Turkey, a heritage breed turkey
I just received word today that we will also have someone here on the 7th and the 15th to demonstrate spinning alpaca fiber on a spinning wheel and a drop spindle. I’ll post more information as I get more.
Open House
November 7, 8 & 14, 15 2009
12:00 Noon to 5:00 PM
The first weekend of our open house is rapidly approaching. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate nicely. Hope you’re able to come! Call if you have any questions about the open house.
Our annual open house will be November 7,8 & 14,15, 2009 from 12:00 Noon to 5:00 PM.? We have several new things for visitors to see.? There is of course the alpacas and this year we have our most exciting array of alpacas to view with the addition of Silver Ray and the fall crias to the herd.? An additional animal that we’ve added that you will be able to see are four Bourbon Red turkeys (2 toms and 2 hens).
We’ll also have a wide selection of alpaca products and apparel available for your Christmas shopping.
And we are very excited to announce that at this year’s open house (all except Nov14) we will be having “The Sock Lady” from Appalachian Sock Company here to demonstrate the use of a hand cranked sock knitting machine.? She will also have some of her specialty hand-dyed yarns available for sale.
She and her husband restore these wonderful machines to working condition.? This is how our fore-fathers got their socks, they couldn’t just run to the discount store and pick up a pack of 6 socks.
We can’t wait to see what she does with some of our 100% suri alpaca yarn.? We have an entire cone of it to use.? I’d like to keep some of for when I get a loom, but I can always get more if we turn it all into socks or something.? Actually she said the 100% suri alpaca wouldn’t be the best for socks so it will get made into something else.? You’ll just have to come to the open house to see.
We’re also hoping to get some spinners and/or weavers lined up to demonstrate those activities.
We have a similar schedule this fall as we’ve had in the past.
We are again looking forward to being at East Berlin’s Colonial Day again this year. We should be at our usual spot or close to it, behind the food vendors and the post office. The time is from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. We’re hoping for nice weather.
The Mannings Annual Spinning Seminar
The Mannings Annual Spinning Seminar day on June 13, 2009 was a wonderful day.? The weather cooperated and didn’t rain, but on top of that it wasn’t terribly hot nor was it too cold.? When we arrived we found that we were placed under a nice shade tree across the road near the creek.? Across the open green space there were groups of people spinning and weaving.
It took Cimarron and Silver Ray a little to settle in to the routine of being handled and petted, but they did splendidly.? And Josh, but especially Jake, did a great job of handling them and telling the people about the alpacas.? We had several people comment to us about them and we really appreciated those comments.
We spoke to many people, some were familar with alpaca fiber and the difference between suri and huacaya fiber, but we were able to show many people the differences.? We also had several different stages of processed fiber for people to see, including roving, yarn and sheets of felt.? For those of you that were interested in purchasing some of the fiber, by all means, give us a call or drop us an email so we can make arrangements to get you some of the finest natural fiber in the world.? You can call 1(888)544-SURI (7874) or send an email to ‘info @ bigrockalpacafarm.com’ [without the spaces around the '@' sign].
All in all is was a great day and we got to meet so many nice people.? If any of you would like to visit the farm, please feel free to contact us to schedule a visit, there’s no need to wait for the open house.
I know in my previous post I had said Gaston would still be in full fleece, but as we’re not sure when we would have gotten to shearing him we had it done at the AOBA Nationals Show.? He’s currently not feeling real well after his big weekend so we might not bring him to The Mannings Annual Spinning Seminar.
We are hoping for a break in the rainy weather for Saturday June 13 and it looks like it’s going to cooperate.