Yeah! The last cria of the year is here for us to enjoy! Drum roll please! Introducing Mickey's soft, oh so darn soft, baby girl! As is always the case here we are toying with different names, so jump on in and help us choose if you would. Remember the name must contain the name of an herb to be in keeping with our self imposed herb theme this year.
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Imagine my delight when he came riding up, yes, I did say riding, like on a horse, to my home to ask if he could pasture his cows on my lower field for a few days. It was almost like winning the lottery, okay a little lottery.

Well the babies are here, a couple less than we thought we were having, but everyone a joy. Brooklyn and her mom Trina decided even though they were pregnant in the Fall, confirmed by ultrasound, that they were not pregnant come spring. The doctor told us this is not uncommon especially after the unusually cold winter. “It isn’t uncommon. The pregnancy is just reabsorbed.” I am not sure what I think of this but…


Orcas Moon Summer Thyme

On Fathers Day, the first day of summer and, coincidentally our son Luke’s first communion came our first girl Orcas Moon’s Summer Thyme. Manhattan didn’t look like anything was happening when we all trundled off to church at 12:30. By the time we made it back less than two hours later here was our new cria, dried off, running in the sun with the herd. Manhattan is a fantastic mother. Being a maiden we were concerned but she knocked our socks off by knowing exactly what to do.



Orcas Moon’s Rocky Cilantro

Tinkerbelle our dreamer gave birth next to our bundle of joy, Orcas Moon’s Rocky Cilantro on June 30th. Tink was a champ during delivery but, Rocky’s temperature was low when we checked it. We decided he needed a warm up with the blow dryer and a couple heating pads. This worked and he was good to go. Once we took him away from Tinkerbelle to warm up she wasn’t so sure she wanted him back. It took a little convincing and a lot of holding her still for Rocky to nurse but they are now never apart.

Orcas Moon’s Sage Prince

My family has a tradition of going to the new Harry Potter movies always on the first release date. This was not going to change unless well, unless there was a baby coming. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince opened here on July 15th in Friday Harbor, just a short ferry ride away. We decided we would go to the 3:30 show. Ember showed no signs of labor all day and when we left to catch the ferry at 2:35 I thought no problem, no baby today. Alpaca usually have their babies in the morning or early afternoon at the latest unless there is a problem. Ember is a very expexperienced mom and has never had any difficulty with delivery.
Apparently Ember didn’t have any difficulty because when we came back around 7:00pm there was another perfect cria up and running around with her uber-protective mom Ember.


Now we are just waiting for one more, Mickey is due later this month and we have expectations for another beautiful cria. I’ll keep you posted.
Why don’t you come on out and see us.

The Colonel - RIP

The Colonel, our beloved or for some feared, Buff Orpington has passed on.
Henny Penny has also passed on. She was taken by an eagle the day before the second grade field trip. We were hard pressed to explain the feathers all over the yard.

On the brighter side of things in the poultry world.


Polly (aka Polly the pullet) is a pullet no more and what is even better is that she went broody and hatched us out two lovely chicks. They are currently nameless. I call them one and two. I will try to get a picture of them and you will understand their names better.

What is interesting about Polly and her broodiness is that she sat in her nest box day after day after day. Unfortunately, she was in every hens favorite nest box. All the other hens would get in and lay their eggs on top of Polly. One night I went in and removed 28 eggs from under her, leaving and even dozen for hatching. We are fairly sure that these chicks are not hers- they look very much like a perfect combination between the Colonel and Quetzel.

We couldn’t have a proper hen house without a rooster. We were on a rooster hunt. After living with our less than kind Colonel we wanted a friendly guy.

Meet Frank! We found him on Craig's List. He brought along his favorite hen who we have called Henrietta.

Okay to tell the truth -- they were in months ago, and... I haven’t shared them with you yet! Here we go:

Alpacapalooza

To determine the Champion of a color group the judge takes the top two animals from each class and judges them against each other regardless of age. It is highly unusual for both the color champion and the reserve color champion to come from the same class (like it did in Channel’s case).

Kahana did show in the performance class, which involved him taking Orcas Moon’s Autumn Diva through an agility course. He won a 3^rd place, some cash and a promise from me that I will never make him do agility again. He will stick to halter showing.

Northwest Alpaca Showcase

Orcas Moon’s Autumn Diva took a beautiful 3^rd place ribbon in a class of 9 medium brown juvenile females. In her group was the Brown Color Champion. Nice going Autumn! Orcas Moon’s Channel again knocked our socks off with a 6^th place ribbon in a class of 14. The Reserve Champion was again in her class.

Kahana in addition to showing in the main halter rings participated in a junior showmanship competition where he took a fourth place ribbon. It involved handling and knowledge questions about alpaca.

Columbia Alpaca Breeders Association (CABA)

Orcas Moon’s Autumn Diva took a 5^th place in a class of 14 medium brown females. The Brown Color champion was in her class, tough competition. Orcas Moon’s Channel did great with a 4^th place in a group of 8.

Okay, so admittedly I have been "missing-in-action" from the blog site. We have been so darn busy here -- I will try over the next little while to catch you all up. The high points include:

• show results
• baby updates
• chicken updates
• visitors
• pasture explosion
• hot hot hot weather
• breeding, yes it is that time again
• trailer search

Thanks for sticking with me!

We had a big surprise a couple of nights ago while taking the dogs out. Two big cows were in our driveway. Our neighbors are in the process of re-fencing their pastures and well I guess they have more work to do. Why yes the are the same ones who lost the llama too!

A note to those paying attention...these are not the actual cows that were on my lawn.

We have been working hard here on the farm. The other night after a long day of pasture repair and renewal I went out to feed the herd. But what to my wondering eyes should appear but a big black llama running down the road! After the initial shock of thinking that one of ours escaped, Jeff and I were off and running down the street. Herding a single animal in a wide open space is difficult if the animal knows you but even more so if they don't.

We ran him up our neighbor's driveway and into the open arms of his owners across the street. It seems the gate was left open and Nero decided to take a little walk-about. Kind of a fun chase, though!

Alpaca shows all follow the same type of schedule, more or less. Here is a typical day:

6:00am wake up call then off to the barn for feeding, watering and clean-up by 7:00. There is then a required exhibitors meeting where the judges are introduced and the order of the show is distributed.

For all of the shows we went to this year there were three halter show rings. The schedule for each ring includes the order of classes of competition and the order of entry into the ring for each animal. Animals enter the ring in order of age, oldest to youngest.


The exhibitor wearing black and white, also wears the animals entry number. This number includes the animals age and last shear date. Each animal is walked diagonally across the ring and then across the front. The judge is looking at gate, and proper confirmation of the animal. Once all of the animals are in the ring they all face the judge head on for inspection, then profile and finally rear view.


Each animal is then given a hand on inspection by the judge. Some of what they are looking for are proper bite, confirmation, and fleece characteristics such as, uniformity of color and crimp, softness, handle, density and length. This is the most time consuming part of your time in the show ring.

The judge then looks again at all of the animals and often pulls one or two out to look at again. Different judges have different routines. Then six are chosen as ribbon winners and everyone else gets what is known as ‘the gate’.


Next is the most interesting and educational part of the show ring experience is the judges reasoning. The judge must explain his/her reasoning for the order of ribbon winners. Why is the blue ribbon winner better than the red ribbon winner and so on.

This is a representative day at the show. In between showing I enjoy talking to other owners and meeting their animals, browsing the vendors’ wares and going to seminars on alpaca topics.

And The Are Off!