Peyton Place Blog

Birdie!

2010-05-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

I just had to include this little antedote (did I spell that right?). While getting our place ready to be able to host events, including weddings, we found we needed to do some landscaping. So, a couple of overgrown bushes needed to go. They were completely hiding this neat stone staircase. Marshall looked first to make sure there weren't any birds in their nests then chopped them down. Oops. He did find a nest with 2 baby robins inside. He picked the babies up, with gloved hands, and brought them over to John and I (who were making some wine) and he had a sad look on his face. My man's so sensitive! We thought maybe since no human had actually touched them, and if we could find the nest, that maybe mom would come back and take care of them. Marshall found the nest, took one of our spare birdhouses ( I do have a few), and placed it where the bush had been. Not long after that the mom robin came back and she went inside and fed her babies! Isn't that sweet?

Crushing it!

2010-05-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

With the help of friends, and child labor, we took the chilean grapes and got them ready to be made into wine. Who knew you needed so many different things & chemicals to do this. Thats whats showing in the first pic. That big bag has some expensive french oak chips. They really add depth to the wine. The next pic, if they load in this order, is all of the baskets of grapes that we crushed. In the next photo you'll notice we 'employ' child labor. Hey, it's free and they said they had fun! The husband, Marshall, is in the next one dumping some of the Merlot grapes in and the next pic is how happy this is making him! The next pic shows what the inside of the bin in the de-stemmer/crusher looks like. What a great piece of machinery! The next pic may look like polka-dots but what you're looking at is the bottom of the de-stemmer (the white rectangular thing) at the top of the pic, which drains the de-stemmed and crushed grapes into the white tub. The stems go out the back end of course. And the final pic is of yours truly tasting a Merlot grape. They taste great on their own but have alot of seeds inside. The next blog will be the continuing saga of winemaking and drinking lots of grapejuice!

What a 'grape' trip!!

2010-05-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

So this was the day the grapes came home. Often times, when a winery can't grow a certain kind of grape due to the zone they'll order grapes from somewhere else. That's what we did! We ordered 5 different kinds of grapes that should produce around 300-350 bottles of red wine. I'm thinking we're gonna have a fun winter!! The 5 types we brought home are Merlot, Cabernet, Marebec, Carmenere, and Syrah and they're all from Chile! The first pic is our winemaker John with some of the grapes. The containers they come in are wonderful. It keeps them from getting mushy. Thats winery jargon. The next pic is Marshall, my fabulous hubby, with our oh-so-friendly dogs Spice Girl and Sarge. The last one is most of the grapes, on the left, a big container, and just above and behind that container is the magic machine. It's also called a de-stemmer and crusher. Surely this was invented by a winemaker who got tired of doing the de-stemming by hand. Can you imagine? Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of all of us making the wine. You won't believe what goes into it!!

Shearing day 2010

2010-05-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

So shearing day finally arrived. I anticipate this day with trepidation and excitement. Excited because I spend all day at the barn with my alpacas and because it's a sort of herd health day too as we do toenails and check out their skin underneath all that fleece. The trepidation comes from the fact that it's labor intensive and the alpacas absolutely hate it. There are wonderful farms that like to make it a PR event but I just can't do that since I know that will stress the animals out even more with more noise and strangers. So anyway, we're done, it's the next day and of course there's no sunshine and it's chilly. I did put a coat on my smallest guy Pender. So here are the pictures. If you check yesterday's blog you'll see the befores. The first & second pics are of my first girl Lady. Don't her eyes look like she's terrified? She actually wimpers. The 3rd pic is my youngest baby Pender. It's his first time. The 4th is our man Skye. He's very laid back. The 5th one is my 'crankee yankee' Mikey. He's always the first and always has a funny look on his face afterwards. The 6th pic is of 3 of the boys, Mikey,Tripper, and Skye checking out the girls all done up! The next one, the 7th, is too funny. It looks like Tripper is laughing at Concord's new doo! The last 2 are the girls and 2 babies all done! They all look so much younger huh? Wish that was the same for us humans!!

Before shots

2010-05-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's the day before shearing and I wanted to post some 'before shots.' I took them today, in fact about 2 hours ago. Of course what happens is the day of or the day after shearing, the weather turns cold and blustery. I think this time it might actually be nice. Woohoo. Last year, the day of shearing was great, weather wise, but the day after was cold, rainy, and windy. They stayed in the barn all day huddled close together. We only have 9 to shear but that will still take awhile as we only have 4 of us and we like to chat! A friend of mine sheared 70 in one day!!! Thats with a ton of help and being extremely well organized. I still don't know how they did it though. Of course today they're not moving at all, their bodies are on a 'day of rest!' A well deserved one. Anyway, here are the photos from today and I'll post the 'afters' tomorrow or the next day depending on how much wine I need tomorrow night. :) The most dramatic differences in before and after will be Queenie(5th pic), Skye(6th pic), The babies(3rd & 4th pics), Tripper(last pic), and Mikey(1st pic in back).

A haircut!

2010-05-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago I went in to my usual place to get my hair trimmed. I paid no attention to the fact that my hairdresser was stressed because her 16 year old son, on foreign exchange, had to have an emergency appendectomy surgery in Mexico!! Wouldn't every mother just absolutely freak out?!! I love Bethany, my hairdresser, who always does a great job. Actually this time she cut my hair just fine except that it was shorter than I wanted. So I went home and played with it alittle then realized that I didn't know what to do with it since it was so short. The only time I've had my hair short was the year my husband Marshall met me. He loves my hair this short and that was 25 years ago! So then I start thinking that my alpacas are getting a 'haircut' this week, except we call it shearing. It will take us all day for 4 of us to shear 9 alpacas and we'll be ready for a glass of wine afterwards. So my alpacas will have that 'what do I do with my hair now?' feeling that I just had. I know exactly how they feel. When the first one gets done, and thats always my 'crankee yankee' Mikey (we always go light to dark, and Mikeys' white), he'll go back in with the other boys and he'll feel like he's the only naked alpaca in the bunch. Which he is. Of course the day after I get my haircut I only see women with long perfect hair. Oh well, my hair will grow back and so will the alpacas'. Patience! And BTW, no pictures of my me and my new haircut!

Anyone for a swim?

2010-04-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

You're probably thinking, 'I didn't know alpacas could swim!' Well, as far as I know they can't however they will take a dip now and then to cool off on the really hot days. In the 2 previous years I have waited too long to purchase a kiddie pool for my animals. So this year we bought early and guess what? It's going to be 82 degrees on Saturday and all of my 'pacas are in full fleece!! Heat stroke anyone? So I put them out today so they'd be used to seeing them. Of course today was a very windy day so I had to put a few big rocks/small boulders in each one. We have no shortage of those here in the granite state. So they're out in the pasture and tomorrow we'll fill them with water so they'll be ready for Saturday. Alpacas, by the way, cool themselves thru their bellies, so what they do is step in and lay down one at a time. The pools are not very attractive so sometime in the next few years we'll arrange something alittle different. Something like a spray mat. They do like to get hosed down on the really hot days. The 'paca in the picture is Pendragon.

New vines!

2010-04-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Marshall and I planted 60 new grape vines. Right now they don't look like much, as you can see from the picture, but in 4 years they'll produce bunches of blue grapes. The variety is called 'Aurora' and yes you read right, it'll take 4 years for them to mature. There's a saying among 'grapes for wine' growers that goes like this: You grow a vineyard and develop a winery for your grandkids, not yourself! It takes a good long time to see some profit in this so you have to either love it, have money to spare, and/or alot of patience! One of the other pictures is a man named Bill Lord. He's the one pruning a grapevine at Zorvino Vineyards and he is the grape guru! Marshall and I attended a seminar there about pest control and pruning. It's always fun to see what other people are doing with their vines and winerys.

Of course the cutest picture, even though it looks like she's dead, is of our maroon/bay black mega producer female Andromeda, or 'Drama' for short. She's sunbathing and rolling in the dirt. No sunscreen needed here!

Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

2010-04-17T16:21:00.000-07:00

So sometimes it's allittle difficult for me, the blonde, to move around these pictures just where I want them. The top shot is of this crazy man who takes down trees, a limb at a time, for a living! Anyone afraid of heights? We have, or had, alot of big trees along the roadside of our property. While they were beautiful (and I loved them) they also took the sun and water away from some of our grapevines. So, they had to go. The bottom shot ( or the one with no tree in the middle as I'm not sure where the pictures are going to end up) is what it looked like after he took down that one tree. He did it w/o any limbs blocking the road and none of our grapevines smashed. The grapevines are very close to the treeline. Amazing! You want to know another cool thing? This man, Courtney, is trading his services for my husbands service of post-pounding!! I love living here! It won't quite be an even trade but we won't owe him near as much. How cool is that? I'll try and get the placement of the pictures better next time.

The day we 'hit the bottle.'

2010-04-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

Thats our first bottle of wine at Camelot Winery! It's a Seyval from our own 2009 crop. Thats me, Sunny, in the picture along with my husband, Marshall, on the left and our winemaker John Jude on the left. We had a great time. After bottling Ellie, who will be our caterer when we start hosting events, brought out appetizers. Actually she brought out dinner! It was fantastic!You can see more pictures of the evening on the Camelot Winery facebook page. That page has lots of pictures of our property including our georgous alpacas. So the 5 of us, John's daughter Clare was there also, spent the next couple of hours eating, drinking (yum!) and planning. A super evening! Thanks John and Ellie!

Down Duck

2010-04-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Poor little Gracie. She's in jail. Gracie is one of our gray moscovi female ducks. We think she was either stepped on or maybe has an infection in her right foot. So, for the past 8 days we've had her in our dogs crate. This way she won't be stepped on and can heal (if she did get stepped on), and we can control her drinking water. We've been giving her penicillan thru her water just in case it's an infection. So she's sort of in solitary. Although she's in the barn w/everyone else. I've also included more pictures of the front porch going on.

A front porch!!

2010-04-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not what you would call a control freak. However, I do like order. You know, the rest of the world is chaos so my world needs to have some kind of order. However, Marshall is not all about order. He just drops things wherever. I don't mind that because he's usually dropping something on the way to doing his 'honeydew list.' He's great about that. Now though, my driveway and front yard are nothing but chaos. There's lumber, wheelbarrows, tools, trucks, and people all over the place. I don't mind this either. We're on the way to having a front porch! I didn't know I missed it until the decking went on. It's a wrap around porch. The house, as you can see from the top photo, looks kind of naked w/o a porch. It's like a Mr. Potato Head that someone forgot to put a nose on. What happened? He's not finished! So anyway, I'll keep uploading pictures as we go. I just can't wait.

Weaning. Day 2/3

2010-04-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

So this morning I went up to the barn as I always do to feed and clean up after everyone. I noticed that Merlin, my newly weaned baby with the white face, was starting to do his usual thing when I'm in the same pen with him. That is, to stare at me and watch what I do. The significant thing about that is that it means he's already getting used to his new situation. Whew. Pender, on the other hand (isn't there always an 'other hand?'), is still humming like crazy. He is a month younger. However, this changing up of the herd has really changed the whole herd's dynamics. Lady is still wanting her baby, Drama and Queenie (the other 2 females in the same pen) are fine, but the male that I put in the pen with the babies is missing HIS buddy! Tripper will stand and just stare at Skye, his buddy, and then go over to the gate where he hopes I'll let him thru. Skye, does the same. They are too funny. So today I felt bad about that! So.................I let Tripper back out into the pen with Skye. You should have seen those two!!!! You'd think one of them just came back from the warfront!!! They jumped at each other, ran around, chased each other, then came to a screeching halt when they noticed I was watching! Were they embarassed? Thinking that I wouldn't think they were macho? Hmmmmm. Do alpacas get embarassed? BTW, I didn't have my camera with me so the pictures are from earlier this year. Skye is the darker one.

Weaning. Day 1

2010-04-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was time to wean my 2 babies, Merlin and Pendragon. I've had to do this before with my other babies but this time just seemed very sad. Merlin is Lady's first cria and she seemed to really miss him. She would look for him then look at me. I hope she forgives me. Drama, Pender's mom, just layed out in the sun. This is not her first baby. So for most of the day both babies tried to be as close to their moms as was possible. Can you imagine going thru the 'empty nest' syndrome after just 6 months?!' They grow up so fast.',' We're so proud of him.', 'Remember the day he was born?' I feel so mean to have seperated them. I keep telling the babies that every alpaca goes thru this. That it's a necessary part of life. That they'll get thru it. But will I get thru it? Marshall and I went up to the barn last night around 9pm just to check on them and make sure they were okay. They were. I haven't had any nightmares yet, but we are just beginning. More tomorrow. We'll try and have a good one here.

Goat doings

2010-04-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

So I tell everyone that I bought my 3 Nigerian Dwarf goats purely for entertainment. It certainly wasn't a practical purchase. I named them the 3 stooges, Larry (the leader), Curly (for one curly horn and he's the friendliest), and Moe (the fiesty, stand-off-ish one). I've only had them for a year but they have fulfilled their purpose here! Yesterday, for instance, I just happened to look up towards the barn from the house. At that exact moment Larry, Moe, then Curly, one after the other, come flying around the corner of a gate heading toward the barn as if in flight from a predator. The predators, and I use this term in the absolute loosest way, were 2 of my male alpacas!! Right after Curly comes Tripper, then Skye. Right on their heels. Then they all screeched to a halt in their pen. This was all just for fun! Just for me! Then there was the time when Moe had jumped over a stall gate and walked out the front door of the barn. As soon as he saw me coming he ran back in the barn. The closer I got the more he paced as if to say, 'Moms coming, I'm in big trouble!' Then he just up and jumped over the stall gate and looked up at me as if I'd been seeing things! They just make me laugh. Anyway, if you have goats you laugh more.

No whining! Only wining.

2010-03-31T16:15:00.000-07:00

We finally have our first 'batch' of wine from our own grapes!! Woohoo! We tasted a bit of it, not too much or we'll just want to keep sampling, and loved it. It's so great to know that the wine is from the grapes on our own property! These grapes were planted 4 years ago and they're called Seyval grapes, a white grape. We'll bottle them this weekend with some friends of ours. We should get around 30 bottles. We can have alot of fun with that!! In the mean time Marshall is working on fixing up the winery which will be in our former 3 car garage.I'll upload some pictures soon. In the meantime heres what those Seyval grapevines looked like when we first planted them.

Spring Cleaning!

2010-03-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

As much as I love the winters here in New England I'm always excited to clean out the alpacas pens when the temps warm up. After 4 months or so of piling on new bedding, cleaning out the poop, and the ducks and goats wondering around, if you know what I mean, they really all need cleaning out. So a couple of days ago Marshall and I spring cleaned! Woohoo! We cleaned the entire barn! While Marshall was hauling out the old bedding and bringing more sand and dirt in I was busy cleaning the water buckets, cleaning out the smaller parts of the pen that our tractor, and Marshall, can't get to, sweeping, and putting things where they belong. Can I tell you how good it feels to know its done?! I mean, I know it'll get dirty again, but at least for a couple of days when I go up to the barn it's all in order. Ahhhhhhh. Know what I mean? I decided to put my skirting table in a part of my store so I can clean last years fleece. Yep, I still need to do that. More on that on another day.

Joy!

2009-12-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

At this time of year you're probably thinking that my title refers to Christmas. Well, not this time. It's roughly 25 degrees outside with a bit of a wind chill. I've just come in from the barn and my joy is a sarcastic response to 'popping poopsicles.' For those of you who don't know what this is, poopsicles are frozen poop 'jellybeans' from my alpacas. Some think that sarcasm comes from sad, mad people and that they use it to express their unhappiness. With me, I do it because I think its funny. So I'm in the barn this morning trying to rake in the poop and its just not working. So, for the first time this winter season I need to get out our potatoe rake! Its fantastic for picking or 'popping' out frozen poop. As I was popping I was actually composing this blog. Go figure.

Oh Spit!

2009-11-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

So I've been feeling guilty lately. Guilty of not spending enough bonding time with my alpacas. Granted, working full time plus extra hours does take quite a bit of my time, as does keeping both websites current, and general upkeep of the house and the barn, but I do have down time. Some of it is spent on the internet, some spent knitting, and some spent watching movies with Marshall. I could spend just a few minutes every day with my alpacas just touching, hugging, and halter training couldn't I? So I did. Most of them were trying to figure out what was going on. I had fun, I bonded with them, but my first clue that they weren't enjoying it was when Mikey, my crankee yankee, looked at me with his big dark eyes........and SPIT at me!! Full on!! Spit happens.

A Day of Beauty

2009-10-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we had what we like to call our "Day of Beauty" in the barn. The alpacas probably think of it as the "Day of Terror," right up there with shearing day and shots day. The "Day of Beauty" is the day we do topknots and toenails and then weigh them before winter sets in and they're full fleece. Its hard to tell in February if your alpaca has lost weight. Their fleece really can be deceiving and if you have a female who's making a baby and nursing one as well, then the weight loss can be dangerous. As for the topknots some of them get to looking alittle sloppy and some just plain get in the way. Two of our boys, Skye and Concord, are nearly blinded by the fleece just flopping over their eyes. Poor boys. You can walk right up to them and they act so surprised when they finally realize it's you and not another alpaca!! Aren't they just fun? The last thing is the clipping of the toenails. In case you didn't know, alpacas have 2 toenails on each foot. They curve just alittle. If they get too long they curve too much. Have you ever seen one of those women who have fingernails that are many inches long and they curve alot? Its sort of like that! Of course we don't let it get that bad. Even when it's just alittle long it gets uncomfortable for them to walk. We had a successful day until it came to my crankee yankee Mikey. He just plain doesn't want to be bothered so we didn't bother him! His topknot is actually good and his toenails are good. Probably from running from us or running after Concord!

Come on over and chat!

2009-10-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

We often have visitors to our farm. Either to see our alpacas, the 400 grapevines(yes, for winemaking), or our house(the author of Peyton Place, Grace Metallious, used to live here). I remember when we were first thinking about starting our alpaca business and we visited alot of farms. On our first couple of visits we didn't know what to do. Should we just go up to the barn? Should we knock on their front door? It was usually so quiet that we even wondered if anyone was home! Then, when we finally ventured out of our car, someone would just appear from their barn or their house and act like this was perfectly normal. Usually if a stranger pulls up in your driveway you pull the chainlock across, or encourage the dog to bark, or you pretend you're not home. At a farm though, its different. I've learned that people who run farms are used to people just stopping by and some, like us, encourage it. It's always a good idea to call first, but sometimes you might just happen to run across an interesting looking farm or animal (alpacas anyone?), and you just have to stop. It's usually okay with the owner as they/we love to talk about how wonderful their animals or crops are. So, if you've ever wanted to see an alpaca, or check out our grapevines, or locate the "Peyton Place house", stop by, we'd love to chat!

Visit

2009-10-07T15:55:00.001-07:00

Conversations?

2009-10-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

You know how you're having a 'conversation' with someone and as soon as you open your mouth to speak they talk right over you? It's one of my pet peeves. I confess that I have been guilty of it too. However, when I go up to my barn, we all take turns. The goats are always the first to say 'hi', and when they're finished I say 'hi' back, usually in the form of 'baaaaaaaahhh.' We take turns. Hmmmmmm. Thats my alpacas saying 'hi.' To them I use their names and I watch their ears perk up. My ducks think I'm the most wonderful person in the world. Thats because I feed them. Anyway, we all get along because we take turns. Just my thought today. I'm off to the Big E today to volunteer.

August

2009-09-30T14:19:00.001-07:00

I realize I'm alittle backwards with this. It's nearly October and here I am just now telling you about our month of August! Anyway, August was a fantastic month! I'm calling it our 'August of additions.' On August 6th we welcomed our first 2009 alpaca baby. I almost named him Lancelot but once I took a good look at him I just thought he was magical, so we named him Merlin. Thats in keeping with our Camelot theme. He weighed in at 17lbs. and hasn't stopped running since. This boy is wired! The next birth is my great niece Alexis Joy, or Lexie for short. I don't have pictures of her yet, they're still on my phone. She came 3 weeks early and weighed in at around 5 1/2 lbs. She is perfect and beautiful. I was able to have layovers in the area she lives in so I was able to see her 4 times. She changed alot each time. The next birth was 11 Moscovy ducklings! All 11 eggs hatched. It was alot of fun to watch and it took no time at all for them to be up and walking all over the farm. They're much bigger now of course. Another fun event in the same month was the visit of a couple from Sweden who wanted to visit some NH alpaca farms and we were lucky enough to be one of them. They were very nice and alot of fun. The picture shows them holding Merlin. September has had 1 birth and I'll tell you about that in my next entry. TTFN.

Quiet or just Noise?

2009-09-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the National Alpaca Farm Days event. We participated in it and had some wonderful and varied visitors. I spent more time this weekend up in the barn with my alpacas than I would normally. What I noticed, in between visitors, is that the alpacas thrive in the quiet. When it gets noisy with people you can just tell that they're 'on guard.' They don't worry about the world and whats happening where. They don't care about television, newspapers, and other media. They don't see themselves as too fat, or too poor. They just are. The events they are concerned with are 'where's my baby?', 'let's go eat some grass', 'I need to stretch my legs', 'woohoo it's naptime.' Their quiet is not the quiet of alot of people. These people actually hear the noise of quiet. Alpacas actually enjoy it. This is something I'm having to learn to enjoy. I admit that I love having television on for background noise. At first the quiet this weekend was alittle unnerving. Now it's becoming soothing. This is a no caffeine permitted kind of quiet. At least until Mikey, my cranky yankee alpaca, starts picking on someone and they start screeching.

Mothering

2009-09-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

I have this small 'herd' of moscovy ducks. 2 beautiful gray ones and the more traditional black and white. One of my gray ones, Gracie, had babies this past August. More on the month of August in another post. So I'm watching her be a first time mother to her cute little ducklings. She really is amazing. She's also mean and protective. Mean in a mama bear kind of way. She'll hang on to the wing feathers of one of the other ducks, they'll run away and she still hangs on! She'll snap and bite at anyone or anything that comes close to her babies. I've also noticed that she's not just a 'do as I do' mother. I have seen her take her babies to 4 out of 5 of our pastures just to show them around the farm. Just a little duck stroll. I've also seen her introduce them to our big, loud, dogs! She only brought them to within sight range of our dogs, but it was enough for them to run for the hills and for our dogs to want to play catch with them. Thankfully they didn't meet each other. It's funny that even though they can get their chick feed anytime they go inside the barn, they always come in when I'm feeding the alpacas. So now that I've bored you with my duck news I'll get off here and check facebook. Enjoy the fall!

Peace

2009-09-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm on a layover reading some women's mags. I read the cooking stuff, the decorating stuff, and I feel okay. A little anxious actually. Like there's no way my house will ever live up to the magazine's ideal or even though I rip out recipes I know they'll get lost in the pile. Then I pick up an alpaca magazine and peace descends on me. There is just something right about what I'm doing with my life. My life that is not my job. My other life. Even though every trip to the barn is uphill (in the winter this is so much fun!), as soon as I'm inside I can't help but smile. I'm striving to do the best I can with my animals but all they really expect is some grain and hay. Honestly I wish humans were this easy to please! My husband says I spoil them. Yes, I probably do, but they are my kids you know! Anyway, back to peaceful, when I get home from work feeling just a bit drained by lots and lots of human contact, I just head uphill to the barn where it's okay if it's alittle messy, and feed my 'kids' some grain(this involoves just pouring pellets in a bowl) and we have achieved nirvana, heaven, peace.

Fencing

2009-06-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Guess what I did last night? On a beautiful (but buggy)June evening Marshall and I went down to what will be our new field (deemed the 'Ingall's' field) and put up fencing! Marshall had already pounded the posts in the ground so we just (just?) needed to get the wire fencing up and stretched. We do have the correct equipment so that made it easier. We stretched one sooooo tight that a post broke!!! Marshall made adjustments and on we went. We'd go out today but the it's rainy and muddy. Argh! Someday soon I'll have to show everyone (?) pictures of the 3 stooges that we bought. TTFN.

May 2009

2009-06-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

As usual it's been awhile. So busy. Especially this month. I had the grand opening of my farm store on Memorial Day weekend, had a booth at the Hopkinton Sheep & Wool Festival, and had my animals shorn. Whew. June will be much easier. Everything went really well. The weather for the festival was just what you'd like it to be-----sunshine, temps. in the 60's, and a breeze. Except for Saturday night when a very windy and wet thunderstorm came thru. We were told of it's coming so be basically all took down our booths (oh what fun that was) then put them back up the next day. We had friends of ours at Foss Mountain Alpaca Farm come down to shear our animals for us. It was done on a table. I'm not sure if doing it on the floor is better or worse, the animals just plain don't like it! It's soooo funny after the first alpaca is done (in our case it was Mikey as we go from light to dark). He just kinda looks like we would if we were the only one naked in a room full of clothed people! Lately Skye, who is 2 1/2 years old, is definitely hitting puberty! As of late he's been challenging Mikey and doing alot of screeching. It gets just alittle noisy! Well I'm off to my garden to do some weeding!

Mud Season

2008-12-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is a recognized season here in New England! The only issue I have with it is that normally it comes in April or May. Last week it was in the single digits----like 6 or 3. Yesterday it was around 50 and today around 40. While that may sound cold to some of you, it's warm for here and the snow is a meltin'. Hence, mud season. It's messy and ugly. Today was the first day that I put the halter on Tripper, the new alpaca baby. I didn't completely put it on but held the nose piece on him then took it off. I did this quite a few times. Baby steps. Do you remember Michael Vick and his fighting dogs? Last night on Nat. Geo. they showed 'dogtown', a vet clinic/kennel, that is rehabilitating his dogs. What a great thing!! All of the dogs had trust issues. Duh!? Anyway, I'll sign off as I have to get ready for my trip tomorrow. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

King Arthur

2008-12-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

Finally! King Arthur arrived on Oct. 14th. I had been off from work for about a week but when I finally went back to work that's the day he decided to arrive. I called home to remind Marshall to check on Drama (the mama) and to look for the signs of imminent birth. We had just hung up when he called me back and said 'the babie's coming!' I was away from home for 2 more days. I couldn't wait to get home and see him! Since our farm name is Camelot we just had to name our first boy King Arthur. Alot of breeders of any animal have very fancy names for them and then have a short nickname. So King Arthur's nickname is Tripper since he has born while I was on a trip! He is a handsome boy. Since he's the only baby he gets alittle lonely for someone to play with. Sometimes it's myself or Marhsall and other times it's one of our other alpacas that he annoys enough to finally play with him. By the way, the peruvian word for baby is Cria. Baby alpacas are called crias. Hopefully I'll write again sooner than March!

Baby coming

2008-10-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

Hi,

It's been awhile and alot has happened since I wrote last. It's now October and we're not so patiently waiting for 'Drama' to have her baby. Drama, a female alpaca, is due around October 20th give or take a week. It was perfect last year when Queenie was born---the sun was out and it was a typical New England fall day. I'm hoping it will be the same this year. We just celebrated the 2nd National Alpaca Farm Day on Sep. 27th/28th. The weather was awful and the crowd was not there but I had fun anyway. My store finally got set up so I enjoyed knitting ,needle felting and some rug hooking with my alpaca yarn. Those are my favorite things to do with my alpaca yarn. I'm also going to do some dyeing. One of these days I'll get around to putting some pictures on here. If you haven't arrived here via my website then here it is: www.camelotalpacafarm.com.

See you next time,
Sunny
A fiber faerie

Good Book

2008-07-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon,

I'm getting ready to go to work but first I wanted to share a quote.

"The yarn forms the stitches, the knitting forges the friendships, the craft links the generations."
Karen Alfke

I got this from a book a finished a couple of weeks ago. The book is 'The Shop on Blossom Street." by Debbie Macomber. I loved it. I'd recommend it if you like to knit and want an easy read. It also includes a baby blanket pattern. Very cool.

Have a great day!
Sunny

Paso Robles

2008-07-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

After having an article written about us in a local paper Marshall and I received an email from a complete stranger who was in NH visiting her grandma. She wanted to come by and see our alpaca farm and yarn as well as our grapevines. Especially our grapevines. The reason? For one she's a knitter (and yes she did buy some yarn) and the other? She and her family have a vineyard out in California! They started it 6 years ago and are selling now. And you want to hear something really wild? Her farm is in Paso Robles, Ca. The wild thing is that that was where I was born!! It's also where my mom grew up and where my dad first fell for my mom! What a funny coincedence huh? Marshall and I are now planning on going out there to help them harvest so we can learn something.

Why Peyton Place?

2008-07-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

I named this blog Peyton Place because of my house. It's not that there's alot of drama. It's because the author of the book, Grace Metallious, used to live in the house that I now live in. It's a very cool house. It was first built in the 1750's. That's before the Revolution!!! I believe Gracie bought this house in 1956 and added on alot. It was basically a small cape and now it's a very long house that has 5 fireplaces, 4 bedrooms, a solarium, a butler's pantry (but no butler) and a 3 car garage. It has loads of character. We even think it's still haunted! The spirits seem to like us though. One of our neighbors knew Gracie really well and tells us lots of stories about her. Apparently she was a very smart woman. Her book wasn't well received here in Gilmanton because the townspeople thought she was writing about them. Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn't. I wasn't around but I love hearing about her. I did read the book and I really enjoyed it except for the part about the men in the cellar. I liked her writing style. You read the first line and you instantly feel the season. If you haven't read it you really should. It's tame by today's standards but good writing. I'll write more on the next blog, maybe even a picture!:)

Rainy Day

2008-06-29T17:03:00.001-07:00

Blah blah blahhhhhhhhhh

May 30 in California

2008-05-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Good morning!

This is the day I've finally set up my blog. I'm sitting here in my hotel lobby (free wi-fi) on my layover. Woohoo! It's kind of like a snow day to be able to get things done while I'm here. Anyway, thought I'd tell you about a spinner I found at the Hopkinton Sheep & Wool Festival this month. His name is Jan (pronounced yahn). He spins thick,bumpy yarn and then dyes it these fabulous bright colors. I bought one of his skeins in alpaca of course. I've been too busy yet to knit with it though I'm itching to. Its in fabulous shades of purple. I've asked him to come to our farm on the 2nd Annual National Alpaca weekend on Sep. 27/28. He happens to have the weekend free so he'll be spinning and maybe even dyeing at my barn on the 27th and then on the 28th he'll be at my friend Jessie's farm (Simply Alpacas) also in Gilmanton. I can't wait.
Please feel free to join me on my new blog. I would love to hear from you about anything fiber, alpaca, spinning, knitting, farm life, etc.
Heres to more blogging and sharing at Camelot!
Sunny