Joules, Dillon & Sapphire

After Thorn we had Joules, Dillon & Sapphire. When we are naming our alpacas we tend to try & go with a theme so we can hopefully remember their names easily. So Joules mum Paula Rego has cria named after clothing labels last year she had MacKenzie & Joules this year. Dillon is Tansy's first cria so we have gone with Magic Roundabout!!!! hence Dillon. Sapphire is also Diamond's first cria so we have gone with gem stones. A completely mad system I know but it does work.

2010 Cria

We have had 21 cria this year. I really need to keep my blog up to date so I am really going to try over the next couple of months.

Back in May we were getting ready for the National Show at Newark at which we received a lovely handful of rosettes & were really proud of our show team.

1st for Comet & Lex

3rd for Ani, Fergus & Murphy

4th for Dragonfly

An update on Thorn he has turned into a beautiful boy with cute markings on his face, always one of the first at the gate to see whose coming. Celeste is also lovely about to be weaned.

Here's a photo of some of the cria back in June - Persia, Nell, Dillon, Sapphire, Hope & in the background Ruby Tuesday.

Thorn

Our next birth was unexpected as well! We were at Newark showground on the Thursday before the show when we got an emergency phone call from Martin's mum to say she had found a cria in the paddock. She had run for towels & done everything right but the wind was icy cold. We dashed home put him & his mum Coco in the shed with the lamp, he didn't look good, prem but only 3 days before 11 months. Called the vet who said we had done everything we could & we just needed to get his temperature higher to give him a chance, so we fed him bottle colostrum, warmed him further & had to leave him 4 hours later in mum in laws care so we could go & finish the penning for the show! Fed him until midnight & really didn't think he would make it through the night but he's still going strong & is a real character as you can see from his photo.

Found him today in the paddock with the yearling boys, happily bouncing around, still not sure how he got there, he always sits the other side the gate to them & not with his mum!

My Beautiful Prem - Celeste

Celeste an hour ago
Celeste just after birth

It's been quite a while since I blogged, as the day after lambing for 3 weeks, 2 days at the Heart of England Fiesta & a day shearing 26 alpacas, we found ourselves the organisers of the National Show at Newark. But I think I need to blog in order so I will go back to 11th April when we had an unexpected arrival.

Celeste was a little too early & found herself being born in the wrong paddock. We had been meaning to move her mum Cosmic for a few days & she was definitely going to be moved that afternoon but Celeste decided to arrive in the morning at 319 days. We didn't see her for probably an hour & there was a very cold wind, so we had a cold but large cria & an upset mum. Cosmic did not settle when moved into the barn & we ended up with her in another barn with a lamp & fed Celeste from a bottle until midnight. Next morning all was well, Cosmic calm & Celeste feeding from her mum, a very happy ending.

Cosmic herself was a prem she was born at 307 days a very small cria but she had a strong will & was very clever. Martin milked her mum Plum & fed her every hour for the first 24 with a syringe. We fed her from the bottle pretending it was one of her mum's teats so she had to look for the milk in the right place & after 6 days she moved off the bottle on to her mum. Today she's a lovely big strong girl you'd never believe she was a prem.

Heart of England Spring Alpaca Fiesta

We attended the Spring Alpaca Fiesta last weekend. As well as showing the alpacas we took scarves, shrugs & cardigans to show what can be made from our gorgeous alpaca fleeces.

There were some lovely alpacas in the ring & I am very happy to say that Ani our beautiful junior black girl came 4th & also won a Best of British rosette for having 2 British parents, Skylark her mum & R2D2 her dad. Comet had moved up classes from the last time he was in the ring in Thirsk & is now an Intermediate black male, he came away with a 2nd rosette, very pleased with him as he's such a handsome alpaca with a lovely nature.

We also sheared 26 alpacas yesterday so now I have lots of fleeces to clean to take to the mill for this years colours.

My 4th Designer

My 4th designer is Nicole Feller-Johnson, her website is www.notwosnoflakes.etsy.com & we are just about to start to knit one of her beautiful patterns Katrina Ballerina Lace Layering Cardigan. It is going to knitted in Lana who is light fawn & this will make it a lovely very versatile soft coloured cardigan.

Very busy here at the moment lambing still going on, will have more photos of the lambs & our other very special arrival later in the week

Lambs in hiding

Just a quick blog tonight, been busy all week lambing & another in labour at the moment. Thought I'd share this photo with you. Last week we only had 5 mums with their lambs in the nursery shed, I checked on them just as it was getting dark, counting them 2 were missing so I went into the shed to search & there they were in the middle of the feed ring fast asleep!

Goldie & her beautiful lamb Imogen

Goldie is one of my favourite sheep, she was so tiny when she was born we didn't think she would survive. I got to hold her while an emergency pen with a light was rigged up for her & her mum Ruby. She was small all her first year but has now caught up with the rest of the girls & produced her first lovely lamb Imogen who is a carbon copy of Ruby & Goldie.

Mrs Sheep's Easter Lamb

Our last Lincoln Longwool lamb of the year was born this morning, his mother is affectionately known as Mrs Sheep, she is large, pretty & always the one to watch when herding as she'll be going the other way! Our sheep all have Pedigree names & birth certificates & when we bought our first sheep we had an Eve & Eva, so Eva became Mrs Sheep. Our new lamb is just under a month later than Imogen who we expected to be last. All our lambs & their mothers are out in the fields now except Goldie & Imogen, Daphne, Inaya & her brother who have been keeping Mrs Sheep company.

Our Suffolk cross mums are now in their shed awaiting the arrival of their lambs who are due from Thursday onwards, busy couple of weeks I think.

My 3rd Designer

My third designer is Siobhan from www.stitchology.co.uk. Last year we decided that we would like to have something a little different & I found Siobhan's gorgeous gloves. They are so different, quite holey but of course being alpaca amazingly warm. I have 2 pairs, 1 in Skylark of course & 1 in Logan who is black, wore the Logan ones to most of my events last year, when everyone else was complaining of cold hands I was warm. We decided to knit along & a short version, the long ones are the ones above, both sizes come in Logan, Lana, Kasper & Bond but we can of course knit them in any of the colours.

We also have a lovely shrug from Siobhan which is so light & pretty to wear & of course warm.

I have managed to get a place in the Etsy Showcase today & my featured items are the shrug above in Kasper & Lana & gloves in Logan.

My Designers part 2

Here's a little about my second designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer or Jackie E-S as she is known. Last summer we decided to branch out from our usual dk to some beautiful thin 2ply wool. We picked 2 fleeces Leo who is light fawn and Bliss who is black for this process. Then with ideas of lovely lacy scarves, all we needed were some gorgeous patterns & after scouring the internet we found www.heartstringsfibrearts.com & Jackie E-S. Her patterns are beautiful just what we were looking for & we have knitted Riverene & Reversible Lace Ladder in Leo & Riverene in Bliss, we will have to wait for a photo of the Bliss scarf as it's in the next photo shoot in 2 weeks time.

Stamford High School Craft & Gift Fair

Off to Stamford tomorrow for their Craft & Gift Fair, hoping the rain is going to stop. Really looking forward to it.

My Designers

I have realised that I have not blogged about my designers & seeing as this year I have 3 more thought it about time I did.

The first designer I approached when we set out on turning our beautiful yarn into scarves was Joanne Seiff. This amazingly was just 2 years ago. I saw her Boa scarf & loved it so much asked if we could knit them with her permission. This was granted & we have knitted them in every colour, my favourite is Skylark as she is my first alpaca, I wear this to every event & it was lovely & warm in the snowy weather we have had this year. Joanne has since had 2 books published Fibre Gathering & Knit Green, I have a copy of both of course.

Isla

This is Isla, she was the tiny triplet, the third out, first unfortunately didn't make it out alive, second Isla's brother was twice her size & then little Isla. She was ok to start with until her mother Ellie developed mastitis, her big brother is doing well but Isla began to look at little thin so we started to bottle feed her last week. It has taken all week but now when we go into the shed & hold up the bottle she comes running instead of us running round & round the shed trying to catch her! She even came up to Martin today looking for her bottle when he went in to fill up the trough with creep feed.

Our new additions

We have been to Melton Market today & bought some more sheep! Not Lincoln Longwools this time. We have bought 36 'in lamb sheep' due to give birth after 8th April. Thought we had finished lambing for this year but now we have more lambs to look forward to & probably more sleepless nights! Here is a photo of them all eating their way around their new field.

A Butterfly in the snow

Been meaning to post this photo of Butterfly all week, it was taken last Sunday in the snow. She is so sweet, her nickname is squeaky, when she was born & her mum Orch hummed to her she didn't hum back she made little squeaky noises & sometimes still does.

Lex's Fleece Rosette

Just come back from an afternoon at the British Alpaca Futurity Show. We are quite used to showing alpacas or rather Martin, James & Jess are but we have never shown a fleece before. This year we decided to have a go & show Lex's fleece. Absolutely delighted to see that we had been given a 2nd Rosette.

First alpaca show of the season & it's great to see all the alpacas in the ring again, can't wait for the Heart of England Alpaca Fiesta at the end of April, when we will be showing.

Isabelle

There will be no stopping me now I have learnt how to post photos on my blog. After spending an hour the other night pressing the image button & nothing happening I asked on the craftsforum for help. Everyone on there is so helpful so we tried again & it worked, think the computer was on a go slow.

Above is a photo of Isabelle, our prettiest & whitest lamb, she gets her looks from her mother Acacia who is adorable, we did expect at least twin lambs as Acacia was huge (think it's all fleece) but instead we have this beautiful litttle poppet.

My Lincoln Longwool lambs

Oh dear how long is it since I bloggged.

Been so busy with the lambs just didn't get round to it, so here's an update of what we had & some photos.

This year the longwool herd letter is I.

Nell, Grace, Snowdrop,Ruby, Indigo1, Fulmeania, Daphne2 & Nikki all had single ram lambs, Indigo2, Gigi & Alder had twin boys. Alder had twin boys she's my favourite, so friendly always comes to be fussed, they're beautiful & in the photo above snuggled up to their mum.

Eve had Iona, Ellie had Isla & a boy, Edith had Iola & a boy, Gwyneth did so well & had 2 beautiful girls Isadora & Imelda & proved to be the perfect first time mum ever. Acacia had the prettiest girl Isabelle, Flocci had Ianthe, Daphne had Inaya & a boy & last but not least Goldie who we fought to keep alive 2 years ago had a beautiful girl Imogen, twice the size she was.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

Today our shed is ready for some new arrivals & tomorrow our Lincoln Longwool sheep are coming back to the yard for lambing. Very excited about this, Nell is due on Monday, she is the first of 22 sheep we have this year to lamb. It snowed today so I can't wait to get the girls in the dry & warm. Some late nights over the next few weeks I think, sheep are not as considerate as alpacas & normally find the most inconvenient time to lamb! Nell has had 2 ram lambs Gideon & Frederick so I'm really hoping for a girl or twin girls would be even better. The Lincoln Longwool prefix letter is I for this year & we have a few names for consideration.