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