Wednesday, September 22, 2010

New socks

Just arrived: A brand new sock order! We have a new supplier for thermal socks, hiking socks, cable dress socks and ever so cute kids socks. All 80% alpaca.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Open Farm Day - another success

Open farm day 2010 was another great success. Thankfully we had the help of three wonderful volunteers to manage parking, run the shop and oversee the over 200 visitors to the farm leaving us to chat and provide informative talks.

Members of the Atlantic Spinners & Handweavers did spinning & weaving demos, also a great addition to the fun.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Live At 5

The CTV crew and the NS Department of Agriculture was here today to do an interview and promotion for Open Farm Day, featuring non-traditional farm products. We had a great time tapeing, interviewing and getting up close and personal with the alpacas. We all had a great time and I think alpacas have wiggled their way into some new hearts.

Check Live At 5 to see the results!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Home from Fredericton


What a weekend at the "FREX"! We caught up with old friends and certainly made some new ones too. Typically about 15,000 march through the doors of the Ex over the course of a week, and by the end of the day on Saturday it felt like we had spoken to them all.

We sold alpaca product, gave away magazines and of course participated in the first ever New Brunswick Alpaca Show.

The four we took to show Oreo, Toblerone, Blizzard and Anuone all took First in Class. The show was not large enough for colour Champions.


Monday, September 6, 2010

We need to make room in the barn

With seven females bred for the 2011 season, we need to make some room in the barn.

Check our website for specially priced alpaca packages.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

We Survived!!

All the Alpacas are well and Hurricane Earl did little to our farm besides a few broken branches.

Power went out abruptly at noon and the storm pretty much ended by 5pm for us. We even had some sun about 4pm. A few downed or broken branches but otherwise all is fine. It even got so humid again that Caroline and I went into town and found the local cinema's had power. So 'The American' with George Cloney. A good classic style spy like movie. None of the flash bang of the movies today. Very enjoyable. Caroline also enjoyed it as the movie played on the expression and the tension that was always present.

On the way home we kept looking for the next yard light as we turned each corner. We were feeling pretty good when there were lights on Georgefield Rd. So yes we have power after only 8 or 9 hours without.

We are thankful.

Alpaca Canada Days Sept 25 and Sept 26

This year we are participating in Alpaca Canada Days which is on Sept 25th and Sept 26th. Come visit us between 10 am and 4 pm. This is a also a good time to visit us if you could not make it out on Sept 19th.

Come learn about alpacas and have the opportunity to feel how soft they are. We will also have our farm store set up so you can get an early jump on christmas or winter shopping. Besides yarn, scarves, socks, and other alpaca items we will have jams, jellies, and some farm produce for sale.

Additionally we do have some of our Alpacas for sale as we need to rotate a few bloodlines.

If you cannot make it this weekend we always accept visitors by appointment.

Hope to see you here.

Hurricane Earl

Hurricane Earl is now battering our Alpaca farm with steady heavy rain for over an hour now. The winds are increasing but so far so good. Earl did hold off long enough this morning we were able to get the alpaca chores done. While we still have power we expect to loose it at some point today. Fingers crossed it is for a short period.

Nova Scotia Farm Day Sept 19th

This year we are participating in Nova Scotia's Open Farm Day which is on Sunday Sept 19th. Come visit us between 10 am and 4 pm. Last year we had over 160 people visit.

Come learn about alpacas and have the opportunity to feel how soft they are. We will also have our farm store set up so you can get an early jump on christmas or winter shopping. Besides yarn, scarves, socks, and other alpaca items we will have jams, jellies, artisan breads and some farm produce for sale.

Hope to see you here.

Fredricton Alpaca Show

Next week we are off to Fredricton for the NB Alpaca Show. This a composite show which we have never competed in. So it will be interesting. We are taking Aztec Artic Blizzard, Toblerone Ben, Anuone Ben and our black Oreo Ben.

As the show is part of the Agriculture exhibition we are also bringing a bunch of product to sell.

Hurricane Earl arriving 9 am

So far so good. The outer bands have reached us with some wind and intermittant rain. The alpacas are currently out in the pasture probably enjoying being cooler after being over 30 degrees celcius for the past week.

Hurrican Earl did shift to the east from last night which means Nova Scotia will get hit harder as the eye should move right up the province. But should have less intensity by the time it reaches up.

Will keep posted as long as we have power.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Earl

Hurricane Earl is due to arrive in Nova Scotia tomorrow morning.

This of course means that anything loose must be secured or brought in under cover. Chances are high that we will be without power for some period of time, which also means the well doesn't pump, so no water.

The alpaca pools are filled to the brim, they like that, also meaning if necessary there is water available. Clean water is drawn for them to drink, and stashed away. Pots and buckets of household water are stored, the yard secured and all the glads now reside in a vase on the table.

Hopefully the corn, tomatoes and the rest of the garden make it.

The alpacas will have free access to the barn but won't be locked in. If our old barn becomes unstable they will be better off outside.

Wish us luck.

Gym Membership not required

We have a neighbour who cuts firewood for a living. With fall approaching (although you wouldn't guess it by the 34c temperature today), he has been very busy.

We had previously asked him if we could have the wood chips for alpaca bedding, and he was glad to get rid of them.

Today he delivered 5 loads of shavings to the barn.

The first load I had him drop outside the barn, but on the second load I got smart, and asked him to unload the rest inside the barn.

I shovelled 2 loads into the shavings crib for storage, pouring sweat the whole time. By the time he brought the rest of the loads, it was just too hot to continue.

I will sleep like a baby tonight.

Pool felt

We had a wonderful volunteer at the farm who was up for all my crazy ideas.

It was a very hot day, and we were both eyeing the alpaca pools with envy. Suddenly it came to me, lets dump 2 bags of scrap fibre into one of the pools, add the soap and squish around in it barefoot. Surely we can make a big felt this way.

In we get to slip and slide around with the alpacas looking on curiously. After a while it became apparent that this method will make a lot of small felts but not one large felt. Probabaly we should have used carded fibre.

A fun learning experience and we did get to cool off.

Must be jelly 'cause jam don't shake like that!

We took the apples from our "Summer apple" tree to the Annapolis Valley to have them pressed into soft cider. This cider is not pasteurized and has a limited shelf life. I came home with 96 liters of apple juice. We are fermenting some for hard cider, sold some, froze some and still had lots leftover.

The only remaining option was to make jelly! Six cases later, we have apple jelly, apple ginger jelly, apple lovage jelly, apple basil jelly, spiced apple jelly, apple red pepper jelly, apple lemon balm jelly....you get my drift.

Get 'em now at 4.50 each.