As the year draws to a close we send our friendship and seasons greetings to all in the alpaca business wherever you may be. We have made hundreds of friends over the last four years and we value each and everyone of you.

Thank you for making 2007 such a special year we look forward to seeing you next year.

Adrian and Jo Stewart

The end of the year is almost upon us and life in the alpaca business is slowing down. Everything on the farm is fine and we have been busy completing the last few ARI registrations and sending out Thank You cards.

My eldest son Jamie is back from his travels in Australia and Asia and has been helping out on the farm before starting his business degree on January 7th.

Okay a few people have asked for more details on the rose parade. So here is some further information from the task force.... and no just because this information is up here doesn't mean that I endorse or oppose the project. Each breeder has to make his or her own decision on this one.

The Rose Parade will be broadcast on ABC, NBC, Univision, HGTV,
Travel Channel, Discovery HD as well as KWHY and KTLA in the Los
Angeles area. The Parade is also seen in more than 150 international
territories.

Who is the Tournament of Roses audience?
Approximately 40 million Americans watch the Rose Parade on TV, as
well as millions of international viewers in 150 territories around
the world. The combined total HH ratings for the live and the various
rebroadcasts of the 2006 Rose Parade was 15 or approximately 16.5
million households.
The Pasadena Police Department annually estimates that approximately
one million people attend the Rose Parade each year.
Over the past three years, an average of 70,000 people visited the
Post Parade Float Viewing in the 2½ days following the Rose Parade.
It is going to cost a lot so where are we gonna get all this money?!?
The first thing we did was ask people to contribute some monetary
amount when they renew their annual AOBA membership. If everyone
contributed $100, we would already have $400,000. We won't know for a
while how well that does for us. We had some big ideas fall through
due to legal things, like a national raffle, or a raffle at ABOA
Nationals. so we will have to go to one of our biggest assets as an
organization, our affiliates to ask for your assistance. The
affiliates will be hearing from the Rose Parade Task Force in an
official request for help in early 2008.

This is a quote from a Task Force Member

"I want you ALL to know that whenever the AC came up I strongly
opposed requiring an affiliate to contribute a certain amount or even
requiring them to participate.

There will be no strong arming here. This is not a political hot
potato or a "spitting" contest if you know what I mean. It's all
about a new way to make alpacas and their fiber a household word.
That opens up new markets for alpaca products and the more mainstream
we are the less we will have to fight the "emu" argument and the more
respect we will get as a livestock industry. The goal is one of unity.

The whole Rose Parade Project is completely intended to be a win-win
event for all alpacas and everyone involved with alpacas and their
products. Look for a letter from the Rose Parade Task Force very soon
with more."

There is a task force of alpaca breeders working on getting a float in the 2009 Rose Bowl Parade here is some back ground on that project from a member of the task force

The idea came about to have an alpaca float in the Rose Bowl Parade as a
way to give alpacas more recognition, to bring more awareness of
alpacas, the alpaca industry, and alpaca breeders in North America.
Kim deVos took this to the AOBA Board. They okay-ed it if we can raise
the money ourselves. From a financial perspective, we cannot
use "AOBA" funds for this. We (the Task force) have to raise all the
money for the float. If we cannot raise the money, it will not
happen. It is up to us and the members to make this a reality. The
project belongs to everyone. There will be no "big" sponsorships! No
one will get to pay for it all and get their name written on the side
of the float. It has to be a grass roots effort with everyone feeling
a part of it. We are hoping that each alpaca lover will do something,
big or small, to support the float.

The snow has been falling gently for most of the day and the alpacas are grazing about looking for some grass to eat despite having easy access to good dry hay. Hence the old saying the grass is always greener.......



It is very cold today so I am staying inside and completing a set of purchase contracts and an ARI registration document. I have been planning some breedings for early next year and I have just discovered that one of the alpaca studs I was planning to use has sadly passed away.... I guess that is something we will have to become increasingly accustomed to as time passes by and the alpaca population ages.

Boxing Day, December 26th is a holiday of particularly British origin, but in many other countries worldwide. In most years December 26th falls on the same day as the St. Stephen's Day.

The children had their wish and it was indeed a white Christmas......

Some of the very best images of Snow Crystals and information about snow crystals can be found at the Snow Crystal web site.

SnowCrystals.com was created by Kenneth G. Libbrecht, Caltech.

Well the shortest day of the year is now behind us and if you didn't know Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II is now the oldest monarch in histroy having just overtaken Queen Victoria.

Christmas is almost upon us and Macario has taken a few days off so I am once again in complete control of the alpaca ranch....

At this time of year we keep chores to an absolute minimum and that really means just feeding and cleaning out the alpacas. Of course with all the problems we have been having with freezing pipes I also keep a close eye on drinking water as well.

Well thats about all for the alpaca farm this side of Christmas.

Yesterday you will recall that I was struggling with frozen pipes....so it was great to receive some sound advice from a fellow farmer which I have included here. read the advice and check out his website and some amazing looking llamas.


Frozen pipes, I assume you are talking about the spigots themselves or the hose bib connections above ground. If so, most any store that sells plumbing supplies will have 'self-siphoning' yard hydrants. They are specifically designed with a back flow drain valve that prevents water from being in the vertical rise part of the pipe which means it never can freeze and burst. they are no cheap, but not all that expensive. the key is to make certain the main feed lines of course is below frost line which I imagine is a couple of feet minimum in Ashland. the bottom of the vertical rise of the hydrant is buried at least 1/2 way with rough rock to allow the water to drain then have about a foot or two of the hydrant above ground.
we have one in the girls pastures and even with temperatures into the teens, that particular water spigot has never frozen.

Gary
Roads End Llamas
Olympia WA

It didn't feel very cold last night but it obviously was because as the sun rose and brought up the temperature, then two wonderful geysers appeared in the pastures where pipe fixtures had broken with the pressure of the ice....oh joy.

Fortunately the main water troughs are heated and the others are all easily disconnected and replaced so its more of an inconvenience than anything else.

We have tried insulation the pipes but the alpacas and the birds just eat the stuff like its popcorn. Even if I clad it in a hard plastic sheath like those used to protect saplings...then they somehow work it lose and nibble away at the expanded foam insulation. Its a complete pain and drives me to despair at times.

What I need is a new solution. My last trick was to spray the insulation with deer repellent and that worked for a while but of course it eventually wears off and then the birds are in. If anyone has any useful suggestions please send them my way sometime.....I would be extremely grateful.

PS Please don't just suggest heated troughs the cost of laying the cable alone would buy a very nice breeding female huacaya.

Today I had a farm visit from a local lady who knew we had alpacas but wanted to get up close and see what they were like. Much as I still love working with alpacas it is always amazing to see the effect they have on people at that first meeting. When words like "beautiful" "adorable" and "mystical" flow so readily.....

As we were leaving the pasture where the female alpacas hang out Santo one of only two intact males on the farm reared up on his hing legs like some stallion in a John Wayne movie....



It was a wonderful finale and couldn't have been better timed by Disney himself.....

We have not been lucky this week even the weather has conspired against us. Jo flew down to Arizona yesterday and then couldn't get home when the local airport here closed due to a severe weather warning..... So she flew to San Fransisco got a few hours sleep then hired a car and headed north....only to get stuck on the Californian side of the pass without any snow chains..well you get the idea..... suffice to say she eventually made it home at 11am.

On the farm we spent the morning raking leaves and picking up some small branches that had come down in the high winds we experienced earlier in the week.

The alpacas are all looking well and I think its fair to say they are enjoying the mild winter we have had so far. In fact it has been so mild that Mt Ashland only opened for skiing today. Which is much later than usual.

Crazy day for a whole variety of reasons so really only have time to share a picture.

For some years now, one staple of futurological speculation has been the quest for authenticity in what seems like an anonymous and artificial world.

A new twist on all this, says Reinier Evers of the Amsterdam firm Trendwatching.com, is the sprouting of internet-based ventures that purvey handmade and highly traditional fare. In Switzerland, for example, Netgranny (netgranny.ch) is a collective comprised of 15 cheerful-looking grannies who knit socks on demand and sell them online. Customers can choose their favourite granny by picture, pick the colour of their socks, or opt for a granny "surprise" design. It takes two weeks for a granny to knit a pair of socks; at €26 ($38) a piece, including delivery, they make an excellent idea for a Christmas gift.

Something very similar is being touted by the Danish company Mormor.nu, which sells traditional handmade baby and children's wear online. Mormor.nu is Danish for "Grandma.now". All its products are handmade from pure wool, alpaca or cotton. Old knitting and crochet techniques and patterns have been revived, while the colours and materials have been updated. For a dash of extra authenticity, the company's workers are as steeped in tradition as its products; the youngest member of staff is 68.

Likewise, Etsy (etsy.com) is an online marketplace for handmade goods that features more than 26,000 vendors from across the world and sells everything from scented soy candles to a tennis-ball chair. It is only two years old, but so far more than 1m items have been sold and 300,000 people have joined as members.

If you are new to my Blog ...welcome

Alpaca farming is a great lifestyle for the whole family and for many of us the move from the corporate world into Alpaca Farming was the realisation of a long held dream. Of course like many other areas of agriculture alpaca farming is not a get rich scheme. Indeed just like on many other farms one partner often has to work in order for the family to live on the alpaca farm. Which if you think about it is one measure of just how enjoyable this lifestyle must be.

Now if you are relatively new to the alpaca industry then you may well have received a good many e-mails since you started to express an interest in alpacas, this was your first clue that a great deal of alpaca business is transacted over the internet , so get used to it!



This parody of a well known drawing sums it up for me....we dream of the outdoor lifestyle and existing somewhere between the proud hunter gatherer and the agricultural farmer with his rake. But the reality is that as an alpaca farmer you have to exist in many different roles.

And some of that time you will be bent over a computer screen, just like you are doing now....except it will be you writing the Blog, or sending out the e-mails or updating records on the ARI database. Of course some days you will sell alpacas and then it will be you sending out the invoices which has to be done if you want to get paid.

I guess if it wasn't for the few hours I spend on the PC each day, then the hours I spend outside with the alpacas wouldn't be quite so relaxing and rewarding....life is all about contrasts I guess.

To end on a practical note. What does this mean? Well if you want to be a successful alpaca farmer you will need a web site, and ability to send and receive e-mails as an absolute minimum. I will go into more detail tomorrow for those that are interested.