This weekend is our last alpaca show of the season. Ron is in Syracuse with three alpacas, including Snowshoe Aristides, our white male color champion. We’re hoping for another good showing for Ari!
Back at the farm, it’s time to clean up and prepare for winter. We’ve been working on the gardens and trying to get them cleaned up and mulched before winter. The sprinklers and hoses have been pulled from all the pastures. I’ve been collecting bottles of liquids from the barns to return to the house – all those miscellaneous things that can’t be left out to freeze. And we have a list of herd health tasks to take care of before winter. All the alpacas need their toenails trimmed. All need updated weights since the digital monitor on the scale doesn’t work well in the cold. A few need treatment for skin conditions or their topknots trimmed so they can see. Odds and ends that are easier done when one’s fingers aren’t freezing!
And, as usual, I have loads of fiber to skirt. That’s a chore that really doesn’t work well in the cold. I can’t work in gloves and I like to keep the mess in the barn. So I’ll be skirting like crazy for the next few weeks whenever we have a mild day. And the fiber will go off to the mill to be spun into yarn. I hope to have my “fiber room” (more like most of our old barn) cleaned up and ready to restock with fiber when we shear in April.