Tuesday 29 July 2008

Looking at the rain


Without a camera the blog is not going to be very well illustrated but I'll try and put something interesting in from time to time - even if it is not relevant to the day's story.


Rob at Wellground Alpaca Stud has send round a notice that Ice Cool Lad is back on his stud farm. We bid for a mating with him through the British Futurity in 2006 but by the time we had a suitable female to be covered he had been sent to Kent to stay with his co-owner. Unfortunately we have missed the boat again because my white girls are either still pregnant from last year's matings or have been mated this year already. Ardene is the only light coloured female available so I am going to take her up to Wellground next week. She is dark fawn but hopefully the Ice Cool blood will be beneficial in passing on finer fleece to her progeny.


As you know we like the coloured alpacas which provide superb wool to be made into our hand knitted aran sweaters. We also like to have some white for the traditional Arans. My personal favourite is the mahogony brown and luckily we have a number of alpacas (including a champion male) who carry this colour. He also has a very fine dense fleece.


It is really raining hard this morning - hence I have no excuse not to be in the office, although we had planned to do spit offs and matings this morning. It is forecast to be unsettled all week so we will have to hope that there are a few windows of finer weather we can use.


As mentioned in a previous blog entry, we are going away on the 7th August for two weeks leaving the farm in the hands of the family whilst we are away. We are very lucky living where we do as all our friends and family love to visit and enjoy the lovely views of the Devon countryside. We are also very close to the seaside which is an added bonus.

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