Purely Alpaca Blog News, Updates, Specials, Sales, History and Humor

Purely Alpaca Blog News, Updates, Specials, Sales, History and Humor

Back after the crash

I had a computer crash, but now I am back online again. I had no idea how much I depend on my computer. I am still catching up and I just wanted to let you know.

By the way, there were the most beautiful orb spider webs dripping with dew this morning. Camp fires...they are a perfect ending to a busy day.
Alpaca Lady

Friendship, my thoughts

Very recently, a friend got upset with me. It really was for no reason and yet I still feel the upset inside. Part of my problem is that I often feel someone is a friend that really has not thought of me as one. Part of the problem is that when I consider someone a friend, I feel a closeness and devotion to the relationship that few people today ever experience. Maybe being a friend is old fashion, maybe it take too much effort in this high tech busy world. What ever, I am grateful to this forum that lets me vent when I need to.

Camp Na-Wa-Kwa

I am just taking it easy this weekend. After having a very busy week of water buckets, wading pools and just general dealing with the heat, I pulled a muscle in my upper back. I took a quick trip to the emergency room to confirm it was not a collapsed lung, as it was making it hard for me to take a deep breath. I am really much better, but my husband is doing the chores for a couple days so I can give the back a rest.
The weather has cooled some and although we turned the air on this afternoon, the windows are able to be open at least part of the day.
We are planning a day camp at the farm next year, so I have been working on the plans for that. It is really very exciting, as I am an old Girl Scout camper and I long to share with kids that knowledge and fun I had. I attended Camp Na-WA-Kwa in Poland Indiana for over 5 years. I think that part of me is still in the Pioneer Unit.

Every summer it was a total emergence into the natural world. It was wonderful and I do think those years had a great deal to do with the person I am today. I am an environmentalist, activist, a constant student of nature and sustainable living. Today, many young kids never get to experience the outdoors and all of its wonders.

Fresh Air

It is a beautiful, overcast morning. There is a cool breeze flowing through the screens, along with the locust humming and the peacefulness of the country. I have a relaxation within and my body is soaking up the energy it lost in the triple digit heat. I think how the weather affects me...Not just me, but the life cycle of all living beings.

In the last week I have found that two friends have and are going through breast cancer therapy. I set up my mamagram appointment. I feel so sorry and overwhelmed with this new knowledge. That is all I can say.

I need to get moving...Onward and with a new attitude. Is George Bush still president? Damn, somethings never change!

It is too hot

This is such a hot day. The alpacas, cats, and wildlife are wilted from the heat. Most of all I worry about our pregnant dam. She looks so unhappy.
I remember hot days like these back in the fifties. We didn't have air-conditioning so we played in the cool basement. That is where we played dolls. We had great fun in our little house down there under the big house. I guess I am aging, I delight in the memories I have of growing up. It is funny how I remember the good things with very little thought and the not so good things only if I really think about them. The bad things seem so much worse as I aged and was wiser.

The County Fair

There are some things that you do from your childhood and you continue to enjoy them, they make you smile and they make you feel like a kid inside. Last night we went to the county fair. It was a warm summer night, with smells of the barns, vapors of fair food and sounds of the animals, and people of all ages having fun. The Boone County Fair was very nice. It had the cleanest Midway and the "Carneys" were all in clean, yellow shirts. They certainly were a different caliber of people than we had at the Coles County Fair back home. I grew up in Charleston, Coles County, Illinois. We made potholders to raise funds for when the fair came to town. My Mom entered many items in the arts and craft part of the fair. As a kid, I won many ribbons on the projects she helped me enter. The fair was a major part of our summer. While I loved the animals, people, arts and crafts and the homemade lemonade, there were a few things missing that I have in my memories about the fair. There was no Black Walnut Taffy, no Bingo, no sulki horse races, no cows and no Vinegar French Fries. Everything else was great. If you know of a fair with the missing elements, please email me!

The Day is Great

It is a really nice start this morning, the birds are singing after a morning gentle shower. It is so nice when a gentle shower starts the day. I slept with air conditioning last night, awoke and immediately opened the windows. Country fresh, clean air!
I had planned a road trip that got canceled. That is like a gift of time when that happens. You have been planning and working to start the trip and a change takes place. Suddenly you are thrown off track and you have that gift of time. Now I am going to work on the summer day camp we are planning for next year. I need to research summer alpaca day camps. More to be added

Complaining Lady

It is to hot to write a post...more later!

Rain

We have had so much rain the last couple days. The wheel barrel is full, our lagoon is full and I am tired of it. Last night lightening struck and ignited a row of hay near our farm. Smoldering hay is so rancid and hangs in the air. It really bothers cria Royal Sigmund's lungs. After all he is only a month old. Though nothing is more miserable than a drought, rain can still bring you down. Rain in July means HUMIDITY in Missouri. That is such a difficult time for our animals. The air conditioning has been on several days and that makes all of us grumpy. I have a sister that is having a hard time right now. She is my baby sister and I just want to swoop her into my arms and make things right for her. I know I can't, so instead I sat down and wrote my kids an email about how special they are to me. I hope they really read what I wrote them. Too often we fail to let the ones we love know how much they mean to us. My eldest sister died in a car accident in 1981. I will never forget the morning she died and for no real reason I hugged her and told her much I loved her and how happy I was that she was my sister. That is the last memory I have of her. Sorry this is such a downer of an entry...Maybe the sun will shine tomorrow!

After the Fourth

It is always fun to have family and friends around to celebrate the holidays. Working up to the event is fun, as well. We ran in the fields with the alpacas, a new experience for our friends. Our friends and some family ate and shot off fireworks together. The teens and elders were all the same age for those few hours as they duc taped the plastic army men to the bottle rockets. They loved the danger of it all. We spectators were on a"high" from our friends as we sang patriotic songs and danced with sparklers to the sound of the the recorder played so well that one would have thought it was James Galway in our mists. We laughed, reminisced and entertained each other under the bounty of moonlight that filled the pastures. What fun...What a memory we created to be recovered on another Fourth of July!

Cranbrook Institute Summer 1969

I am not sure why, but I can't quit thinking about the summer of 1969 when I attended "The Adventure in Creativity" at the Cranbrook Institute in Bloomfield Hills Michigan. It was the pivotal point in my life. I am wondering what has happened to Lynne Greene, Duncan Harp, Kathy Shomstein, Jackie Robinson, and so many others. It was the summer of Woodstock, the moon landing and Viet Nam. I was seventeen and full of anxiety and creativity. The instructors...Ron and Diane Chudley, the Liptons and Peter Salvia to name a few were fantastic. We experienced film, drawing, creative writing, theater, dance, photography, costuming and much more. We baled out the infirmary on the fourth of July and sand bagged the doors of the gym. If this reaches anyone else that was there, I would love to hear from you!

It is so nice to be a Grandma!!!

It is so nice to have my granddaughter, Elsa, visit. This is the first time she has stayed more than a day or two. I had forgotten how tired a nearly four year old can make you. She makes me smile. I am so proud of her father for teaching her many of the values I taught him. She has a love of life. She is inquisitive and has her father's imagination. When she smiles, I see that she has my smile...My best feature. Elsa loves the alpacas and she is so proud of being our "farmer girl." It is something to watch her help in the barn. She is now leading our alpaca Lady Morningstar. I think they think of each other as equals. She watched a dung beetle burrow under the gravel in the barn. She was fascinated when I showed her the newly emerged locust drying its wings. The neatest thing is watching what I must have been like as a child. Like her grandmother and her father, her mind is so full of ideas and she never tires of tell what she is thinking. I worked on the computer with her, where she investigated letters in different fonts and made some greeting cards. We swam, checked the gardens, sorted through some boxes that are full of items needing a place in our home. We colored, went to the library, read books, picked out fabric and played paper dolls. How I would have hated to miss knowing this fantastic child. I look forward to when her brother will be old enough to come and spend special time with grandma and grandpa. How did I ever deserve to have these children in my life?

Elsa at the Opera

A couple of pictures!
Elsa got to try on a special hat!

Sunshine

Yesterday was full of heavy rain and wind. I really enjoy a good storm, but I had to be out working in it. I was working with the vets in the barn and catching animals in the downpour. We needed the rain, so once I had my warm shower and clean clothes I could appreciate the storm. I had spent the morning weeding the gardens, so the timing was just right for my plants. I haven't been to town all week. For many this would be awful, for me it is wonderful. Although I get the news when I want it, I can choose to enjoy the PEACE Sycamore Creek Farm offers. When I read the paper at night, I feel as if I live in a different world. I have a hard time understanding hate, prejudice and bigotry. They have no place in my world. I have the time on the farm to observe nature in a way that so many never have, or do. Here the deer freely run through the woods, frogs sing, owls hoot and it all fits together like a beautiful orchestrated symphony. Even I fit in, something I don't always so so well in a crowd. There is a feeling of being part of the big picture, part of the natural order of things.

Hansel and Gretel...The Opera!

This has been such a busy week with all types of activities. Last weekend we took our granddaughter to see the opera Hansel and Gretel. It was an opera staged especially for children. Elsa was awed and frightened at the same time. She always covers her hears at loud noises and that was a bit of a problem for her. We had a beautiful picnic before the production. There was time to wander around the gardens and fountains. A big bear roamed among the children. Elsa's eyes were big and excited with the awe of it all. Once the production began she enjoyed the theater as well as the show. "Why are they doing that?" "What is that for?" "Look at the lights on the steps!" As the story progressed fear of the woods, the characters she did not understand enveloped her, but she listened as I read the words gently into her ear as the singers sang. Then the angels were on stage and the wonderful animals..."Elsa, look!!!" Too late, she was sound asleep and neither her father nor I could awaken her. When the house lights came on for intermission she awoke with no idea of what she had missed. She loved the second act with the "Candy House." It was a joy to experience Hansel and Gretel with a three year old. My daughter was the Assistant Stage Director, unfortunately she did not get to stay for the run. All of us were so proud of her. Now, Elsa is working on her own opera and she wants me to make all the costumes. I am a costume designer, so this might be fun. Her opera is abut birds. Her father tells me she has been composing the songs. Perhaps, at almost 4 she has found her calling.

How do you transport an alpaca?

When we need to transport our alpacas we put them in the back of our Windstar and off we go. I really love moving them around like this. They like to look ut the windows, watch traffic and rest their head on my head. It is easy to control the temperature. I carry water for them. If I can manage to get this picture to load it is of my son and Cocoa coming home from an outside breeding.

A Beautiful Day!

As yesterday could have been a better day, I feel great starting this off as a beautiful day. Yesterday was my 35 Anniversary and my husband tried so hard to make it a special day...But I had forgotten some medicine and my day turned around once I took that. It is terrible to need medicine, but it is wonderful that it can turn a bad day into a great day. Oh well, life over fifty can still be fun! This Morning I awoke at 4:30 AM. It is great to get up that early, but my side was hurting and I would have rather slept. I am not sure why the old body hurts so much. For me it is just a fact of life. I need to keep busy and my mind off the pains. I went to the barn early and weighed the girls. They are so good for me. Danika was a bit onery, but she was walking on lead for the first time in about a week. Lady walked great. She was named appropriately.
The barn is having issues with horse flies. I have some things to hang in the barn that I hope will help. Over the weekend Rich put up a hanging basket of red petunias under the shed overhang. It looks so nice next to the red shed. The farm is really looking nice. Rich put a white fence around our box gardens. The farm is starting to match the mental picture I had in my head. The new fence really dressed the place up. I have been sorting fiber to go to the mill. This will be the first time I have sent any fiber off to be processed...it is really very exciting! It won't be returned until December.
I better get to work, as it is I need about ten extra hours everyday!

The Spinning Guy

The Spinning Guy I really enjoy this blog. Waiting on crias can be so loooooong!

A tired start

Good Morning...

Waking up to a wet muggy morning is not my favorite. Although we needed the rain, I must say the mud outside does not look inviting. It has been a long couple of weeks with trips to Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis x-2 and this afternoon to Mexico, MO. My daughter was working in St. Louis, I went to the very hot Indy 500, my son and many more in my family live in the Chicago area and today I need to pick up an alpaca that was bred on a farm in Mexico.

Alpacas are my passion and my sanity. It took a long time to figure what I wanted to be when I grew up ...now at the age of over 50 I know the answer. I just want to be me, with interests in the world I live in. I want to be a caretaker. I am the caretaker for so many things...my husband, my kids, family history and stories, plants, animals, and memories. I am now the caretaker of the beautiful Sycamore Creek Farm Huacaya Alpaca Herd.

All my life I have tripped into the things that interest me. It was the same with the alpacas. As a personal property appraiser I found alpacas when I was at a small farm show learning about used tractors. Long story short...we now have 8 animals.

If you have never touched alpaca fiber, well...find some and touch it. That touch changed my life, and I am so happy it did.

First Post

Hi out there! This is my first post on Blogger. More to come!