September 2016
At the beginning of August, we exhibited our products at the Burwarton show, a very popular agricultural event which really pulls in the visitors. The show was celebrating its 125th year, which is quite impressive.
It was a lovely sunny Thursday and lots of people turned up. There had been an early morning shower which encouraged local farmers to attend as they couldn’t do any harvesting.
Burwarton is a very popular agricultural show and people come from far and wide to show their prize cattle and sheep. I didn’t take my alpacas on this occasion, but there were some alpacas present, along with some racing camels which came from deepest Wales.
Camel racing is a popular sport in Australia and the Middle East, and camels can run at speeds of up to 40 mph in short bursts. Alpacas, llamas and camels are closely related and all are classed as camelids.
On August 5th we went along to Shrewsbury’s produce market which is held in the market square. It was another hot sunny day which again drew the crowds.
Then on August 10th I invited the Walking for Health group (which I help with on Wednesday mornings at Mayfair) to attend a coffee morning at my house and see the alpacas. It was a great morning as we managed to have our coffee and cake outside in the garden after looking at the alpacas and going for a short walk.
Everyone loved the animals who were very well behaved. Manot my stud male was particularly obliging and let people stroke him.
I’m pleased to report that all the alpacas are very healthy, and the cria are growing so quickly, some are nearly catching up with their mums! We were surprised to find out that one of our older females, Sprite, is pregnant after all. She was scanned as ‘not pregnant’ but it looks as though she was fooling us! We will see her ‘secret baby’ arrive within the month. I do hope there’s some Autumn sunshine in store for our late arrival. We will keep you posted.
Looking forward to September, we will be acquiring lots of colourful alpaca socks for the Autumn and Winter. They will be in the shop by the end of September and make nice Christmas presents.
I’ve just sent this year’s fleeces off to Border Mill for processing into yarn which should be ready by mid- September. As well as our alpaca yarn we will be stocking some lovely warm chunky yarns which are ideal for quick projects if you like to see your knitting grow speedily.
Workshops will be start again in October so will keep you posted on that as well.
Jane
Isabel & Isabel enjoying the sun Sprite meeting Indra 1st time
