The alpacas are Micha, Rio, Smudge and Speed Bump and the two donkeys are Miss Sophie and Jasper. We got the donkeys about two and half years ago and the alpacas have been on the farm two years and one day. Although none of them are terrible time consuming to take care of, they do dictate a schedule to our lives as we feed and water them twice a day.
The other part of running a fiber farm that takes up a great deal of my time is handling the alpacas fleece. We shear in early May every year and from our four boys get about 25 pounds of fiber that is turned in to everything from dyer balls to yarn. After sending out our first fleece to a mill to be processed, we found that it is more cost effective (and satisfying) for a small farm like ours to process it ourselves. It has been a learning process but I think we are finally getting our routine down.
One of the most enjoyable parts of working with the fiber is spinning. Below are two yarns I spun earlier this year:
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| Schist - a 50/50 mix of Rio and Speed Bump |
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| Jade - dyed Rio |
This is day #4 of the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge. I hope to be able to get in the studio tomorrow and quilt some before our big storm arrives this weekend (they are saying we might get up to a foot of snow and I have limited heat in the studio - so I might be doing a lot of spinning and knitting in the house starting Sunday!)
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