Sundrop Alpacas has been very quiet on our blog for a while, but quite busy on the farm. This year marks the completion of our third year in business.  We are finding that running a business is HARD WORK! But, rewarding as well.  We have built a network of lovely friends that we never would have met if it had not been for this adventure. Thank you ALL for taking the time to get to know us. We hope our presence has brightened your days.

What has happened this year?

First – Baby alpacas! We had the pleasure of welcoming two new alpacas to the farm much to our amazement and delight, both were girls.  This is good because we can keep them with their moms and do not have to worry about weaning little boy alpacas into a pasture full of grown males.

Who are our new additions? Jumping for Joy came first, in mid-May. She is a quiet and bashful little girl whose parents are Lots of Love’s Amazing Grace and Salt Creek’s Bonecrusher. She is Grace’s third baby and Crusher’s first.  She is a pretty shimmering golden brown and has her mama’s dark eyelashes. We cannot wait to turn her fleece into heavenly yarn and are so happy to have her on the farm! Second, in mid-June we welcomed Blinded by the Light, but we call her Calypso.  Calypso’s mom is NPA Peruvian Ishsha and her dad is Accoyo America Road Warrior.  She is Ishsha’s 4th baby and RW has too many to count. Calypso is all white, outgoing, sure of herself, and an absolute stinker. Again, we love her like you wouldn’t believe. We particular enjoy seeing the two new cria running around the pasture playing and learning about proper alpaca etiquette from their aunties.  These two certainly give the aunties a hard time!

Second – our show season. We attended the RailSplitter Alpaca show in Springfield, Illinois and also sent fleece to the National Alpaca Fleece Conference and the Midwest Alpaca Fleece Show.  Our alpacas did fantastic! At Railsplitter the children led Leo, Besame-Mucho and Topher in showmanship. They showed improvement over their last participation and earned 2nd, 5th and 6th place. Leo, Besame-Mucho and Luna all took blue ribbons and Topher took a second against a nice multi-champion male. The National Alpaca Fleece Conference show brought us additional ribbons (all blue actually!) and between those two shows Leo, Elani, Zanna Du, Besame-Mucho, and Hagrid all earned their first blue ribbons.  On top of that HAGRID went on to win the highest scoring brown in cottage fleece and spin-off at the National contest. We are so proud of that silly alpaca, he has used his awards to convince us that he deserves even more treats.  Finally, at the Midwest Alpaca Fleece show we entered our first full-fleece entries, mostly for the learning experience. We did learn! We learned that even if you are right behind the white color champion and reserve, you still get a 3rd and 4th place. But, that is how we learn.

Farm Truck is coming along, our 1956 (?) Willy’s Truck. We have new tires, new front and rear glass, valid plates and registration and can be seen driving around on occasion. I think once we get it painted you will be seeing lots more photos. Such a cool truck!

And finally, our store seems to be gaining in popularity. We are seeing repeat customers and new customers that have been referred by friends. How cool is that? We are constantly working on new products and the crew here on the farm is making more intricate hats, nicer yarn and learning how to make felted items.

We are wishing all of you a fantastic rest of 2017 and an even better 2018!

Sincerely,

Your friends at Sundrop Alpacas

Our summer is going well here at Sundrop Alpacas.

We have made progress on our Farm Truck and hope to participate in some parades next year.

Baby Alpacas!

We LOVE baby alpacas (crias) and have two of them this year. Both are absolutely adorable.

Grace gave us a baby girl on May 11th. She came in at a whopping 20 pounds. She is growing like crazy and has us completely in love. Her name is Jumping for Joy! And that is exactly how we feel about her.

Later in the summer, on June 10th, Ishsha had her fourth baby girl.  This little girl is white, just like her sisters and has a very outgoing personality. We call her Calypso but her official registered name will be Blinded by the Light.  I think we love her more every day.

Come and see us sometime. We’d love to introduce all the alpacas and let you enjoy the farm.

Oh yes, we are not kidding, come visit us on Sunday, April 2nd from 2-4:30 PM and YOU can paint an alpaca!

Now for the fine print:

This is a special event by Canvas and Corks. Creativity is highly encouraged, however painting (as in applying paint to one of our alpacas), is highly discouraged.

We look forward to seeing you here!

Golly, how about that weather we are having?  While it is great for people like me because I usually dread February, it is bad for business, when your business is selling things to keep you warm!  With that being the case, we have cut back on the hours we’ll have our store open.  Now, since we still want to be available for you when its time to buy that unique item you can only find here, we will be able to open the store when it is convenient for you!  Yep, try getting this kind of service at a chain store, it will not happen.  So, how do we know when you want to shop?  Easy, either send us a message via email, on our Facebook page, or call us to schedule your shopping experience.  It’s that easy.  As always, there is never any pressure to buy anything, but you may want to give our alpacas some treats while you’re here.  Our store includes not only hats, gloves, mittens, scarves and other accessories, but also stuffed alpaca fur teddy bears and other novelty items.

For those of you following Farm Truck, you may be wondering, “What is the delay?”
Well, Farm Truck came to us in pieces. Lots and lots of pieces.
And not all of those pieces lined up.
So after the initial fitting of pieces together, we’ve reached the point of BIG pieces.
Farm Truck is destined to be a nifty product display and parade truck. But in order to meet the mission, Wiley’s (the name of Farm Truck) has to have a custom drive-shaft fabricated. This is a little intimidating and expensive. But, we’re nearly ready to have this MAJOR step initiated.
Then progress will restart at a reasonable rate.
Goal is for Wiley’s to be driveable by spring 2017 and to be used as a product display feature for farm days 2018. Then in PARADES for 2018.

Veva Bell is 368 days pregnant and showing no signs of delivering any time soon. We are beginning to question whether she is pregnant or not. Her slim figure does not indicate a heavily pregnant and overdue alpaca. However, she was confirmed pregnant by ultrasound at 3 months. Only time will tell!

B Greyble, at 338 days is as big as a house and completely miserable. We often wonder if she is just relaxing due to the effects of the oppressive heat or if she may be in labor. So far, she is just miserable in the heat.

Two more days of 90+ temperatures and then we see a cooling trend.  I’m thinking Tuesday would be a great day for both Veva Bell and B Greyble to give birth.