In remembrance of Millie Murray

•  Blue Moon Ranch is honored to have been chosen as a memorial place for Millie Murray of Nova Scotia.  Millie loved the alpaca cam, and she used to knit things with yarn from our herd. Her internet friends let me know that she passed away on June 22 this year and they chose a lovely scripted rock to be placed at the ranch. I had decided to place it at the “park”, a beautiful, peaceful and quiet place across the stream.  But as I was on my way to do that I got a very clear message that the rock should be placed to view all the alpacas. And I know it’s now in the spot Millie would have approved of.  We are hoping for a baby girl cria to arrive soon and her name will be Millie!

This is where Millie’s stone has found a home.

This is the view standing next to Millie’s stone.

Do you think alpacas can read?

September 8 updated information!  We have a new cria and her name is Millie!   Beautiful light fawn girl who at 26.6 pounds also set the record for the biggest baby ever born here!

We think she is just perfect and are thrilled to have her here with us.

This is the real Millie Murray. Thanks to her son Denis for sharing this photo.

Check out my Slide Show!

I managed to capture Lola giving birth on July 7. It was slightly concerning that the nose did not appear first, or right along with the toes, but I could see that the nose was right behind the opening. The whole event took less than 30 minutes and the last photo of the baby is when she was barely 30 minutes old.

never say never

My personal family life is something I don’t often share in my ranch blog,  but sometimes I can’t resist!  So to all the people I said I’d never do this,  my apologies.  Never say never!

Our brand new grandson Mesa made his first visit to the ranch over Memorial day weekend.  He wasn’t overly impressed with the alpacas but they were very interested in him … or was it the big pink and blue umbrella his daddy held to cover him from the bright sun?

Mesa's first ranch visit

I have dreams of him some day halter training some of the babies with me and learning to work with fleece.  Growing up around animals can help teach compassion and responsibility and we are so excited to be able to share our ranch life with this  new little person.

Mesa's bridge

Yes, he even has a bridge named after him!

yeah, I guess we're just a little happy!

One more touching photo and then we’ll be back to the business of blogging about alpacas, but I absolutely love this photo of Mesa and his Grampa.  Can you say “awwwwww” 

And the winner is….

So who but a stressed out out new gramma would make her blog private during a contest to attract more readers?  Sheesh.   In trying to help my daughter create a private blog for family members to see our new grandbaby I inadvertently made my own blog private!  thanks to @internationalfleeces on Twitter for helping me discover that in time for the last day of the contest !

Anyway, even with my screwing things up a little bit,we had a very respectable 95 entries and after cutting up 95 little numbers, we put them in a cookie jar and the new grandpa pulled out number 59 which belonged to Laura in Maine.

Congratulations Laura. I’m sure you will love working with this fleece!  And thank you so much to all who entered, I wish I could send a fleece to each of you.

African Fiber Arts!

“So what shall we do today?” asked my dear daughter in law.   I knew that Burkina Faso (the country in West Africa where we spent a week) grew cotton, and therefor there must be fiber work going on somewhere and I told her that was what I’d really love to see.  Not with fleece of course, but fiber is fiber!  She thought there might be a cotton weaving cooperative some where nearby so off we went on another adventure. 

The sights along the way – donkeys pulling heavy loads, women carrying loads of everything from bananas to bundles of wood on their heads ( that will be my next blog post) getting their daily water from nearby wells,  continued to amaze me.

woman carries fruit

Some of my photos are blurry because I was in the car bouncing along and trying to be discreet about taking  photos! (not easy)  But I will share them anyway.

Ohh! I think we found it!!   There were no other visitors there so my daughter in law asked if it was all right that we were there.  One very gracious woman said they were happy to have us.  I probably missed a bit of the communication since I speak no French or Mooré but fortunately my daughter in law knows enough to communicate in either language.

color color everywhere!

These women were winding yarn from what looked like swifts on to the larger “winder”. Their babies were tied to their backs or left to sleep in the shade of the tree.

the weavers

Turning around we saw the weavers!  Using chunks of concrete or rocks to hold their work securely, they quietly wove their cotton fibers and created beautifully colored cloth.  Did they enjoy their work?  I think they were happy that they had work, as so many do not, but I did not sense the joy of creating or working with fiber that I see in women I know in the US.  Perhaps because they were not creating, but rather following a set pattern and just putting in a day of work.  ??

How old might this weaver be?  Did she enjoy her work?

weavers weaving

 More photos of the african weavers…

 

yarn winder and wheel

Then finally I saw it!! A smile!! 

It certainly could have been that her smile had nothing to do with her weaving, but I was happy to see it none the less.

day care for weavers babies

Our hostess then showed us a “boutique” where the women sold their woven cloth and of course I had room in my suitcase for that!  It was one way I knew I could tell them I appreciated their work and I am enjoying my African weavings back in Utah as much as I thought I would.

hand spun cotton from Africa

The handspun cotton above is probably my favorite treasure from the day we spent at the weavers co-op.  I am winding some of  it into skeins and will eventually use it.  For now I’m happy that it is woven in my memories of the day.

Win a Whole Alpaca Fleece!

Squished between tales of Africa we are having a fleece giveaway!  The fleece I have chosen for the giveaway is from Paris, a sweet brown baby girl with one of the nicest baby fleeces this year.  There will undoubtedly be some vegetation, but at this point she has one of the cleanest fleeces of all the babies. This is Paris!

BMR Paris

You can see from the size of her neck  in this photo that she has a very nice staple length and you might notice there is not much vegetation on her either.

Why am I doing this? To get more traffic to my Etsy site! I am starting to create alpaca batts with my new Big Tom electric drum carder. I am blending alpaca with silk, bamboo and merino to create one of a kind batts.  I’m using organic dyes, blending colors and fibers to create batts that I personally would love to spin. (and sometimes I do!) I decided the best way to attract spinners would be to give away something that a spinner would love!  The only problem with my grand plan is that I have not had as much time as I need to create more batts, but the contest goes on and I’ll get the store filled up as I can!

But what if you don’t spin? No problem! Several options.  You might want to learn to spin! It is an ancient art that is relaxing as well as productive and there are classes offered in most areas. Or you can send it to a processor to have roving or yarn made. Our favorite processor is Spinderellas.  Read more about them here. Fleeces do not have expiration dates if stored properly, so you can take your time to decide what to do if you win the fleece.

 OK, so How do I enter?  You can enter as many times*or ways as you like. Each method of entry = 1 entry into the contest. Here’s how:

1. Visit our Etsy shop, then come back to this blog page and leave a comment telling me about something you like in the shop.

2. Leave a tweet on Twitter about this giveaway. You must however link to this blog.  Leave a comment that you tweeted with a direct link to your tweet. *Limit of 4 tweets per day.

3. Write a post on your own blog about our giveaway. You can write whatever you want, just link back to this post. Leave a comment that you did this with a direct link to your post.

Use the “leave a comment” box at the bottom of this page. Each comment gets an entry number.  You may enter as many ways or times as you like!

 When and how will you choose a winner?  Winner will be chosen at random as we put all the numbers in a hat on May 1, 2010 and will be announced on our web site.  Last entry accepted on April 30 at midnight MST.   The more times you enter, the more chances you have to win.  Shearing is scheduled for June 7 ,2010  , you will be sent your fleece within a week of shearing. 

Entries welcome from outside the USA, but we will ask you to pay shipping only.

a pretty darn cute alpaca I 'd say

 Have fun, play nice and enter often!

Now I better go card some more batts.

Ever been chased by an elephant?

Well now I can say I have.. twice!  

time to move on!

Africa???      Why??      Are there alpacas there???   

We recently returned from the trip of a life time because of a very generous gift from our son (who works for the US embassy) and daughter in law who currently live in Burkina Faso in West Africa.   No alpacas – they’d cook in the heat here.  (109 degrees the day we landed)  

We decided to make a quick stop in Paris on the way to Africa and saw the sights there, really wishing we had taken a few French lesson before arriving!  The cultures and architecture of our two destinations provided enough contrast to boggle my mind – even before the elephant experience!  

Notre Dame Cathedral Paris France

typical family dwelling in Burkina Faso

 

A bit of difference, no?  Paris was delightful – and we found that the French people were amazingly helpful and friendly even though we spoke virtually no French.   But since we spent most of our time in Africa and I know you have seen plenty of photos of the Eiffel Tower, I’ll share more of Africa with you.

On our first day in Africa we got to visit a sacred lake filled with more than 100 crocodiles.  Our guide brought a few chickens to entice the crocs out of the water and let me tell you they move fast when they want to.

Did someone say chicken?

The guide always had one eye on the crocs and one eye on us to be sure we didn’t have too close of an encounter.  He said (in French, but now our kids were translating for us) they all have different personalities and he would let us come and touch the “nicer” ones.  Just how “nice” do you think a nice croc might be???

Ed gets to grab the crocodile by the tail!

I decided my job for the day would be photographing , not touching crocs, but the guide insisted and I did touch one big dude who had just eaten a chicken so I figured he might not be as interested in my toes (I wore flip flops)

What people look like before they are eaten by crocs!

The really great thing about this crocodile lake is that the man who had the idea to attract tourists here used the money he collected to build a well for the nearby villagers.   On our way back home, the sights out the car window amazed me almost as much as the crocodiles.

view from inside car

I want to share some of my impressions of the beautiful people of  West Africa, my visit to a cotton spinning and weaving co-op and our amazing encounters with elephants but those post will follow this one.  My head still has not recovered from jet lag so my posts will be paced accordingly.

Did I really touch this guy???

wolf moon

full wolf moon

I could not resist sharing this photo of the Full Moon taken early in the morning on January 30 as the moon was setting and appeared to touch the mountains east of the ranch.

No need to ramble on about it – just enjoy the photo.

Cabin Fever Cure

My Big Tom drum carder

January is notorious for making people do crazy things. I bought a motorized drum carder. What is a motorized drum carder you ask? It is a fabulous device that aligns fibers for spinning by means of a zillion “teeth” on the carding cloth that pull the fibers in and gets them all going in the same direction.  It also allows me to blend fibers together , creating one of a kind textures and color combinations of fiber that I can take to the spinning wheel.  Now tell me, doesn’t that sound like the perfect thing to do in January??

organic red alpaca fibers

I was imagining a very bright red and used Greener Shades organic dyes to get this super bright shade. (use sunglasses before enlarging that photo!) It was exactly what I wanted. I blended it on the drum carder with white alpaca, red merino and white silk fibers.  Oh yeah, I also added some angelina which adds a magical sparkle to the finished product.

finished batt ready for spinning

The plan was to list the batt for sale in my esty shop, but I simply could not resist and had to spin it myself.  When I started spinning years ago,  I wanted my yarn to look as nice as the stuff that came from the mill.  But as I continued to spin and look at yarns that appealed to me, I gave up perfection and now love the really hand-spun look. 

hand spun valentine yarn

It is in the store now, but might easily be knitted into a one of a kind valentine scarf if someone doesn’t buy it soon! 

I do love this carder, it came from Ron Anderson of Fancy-Kitty.com .  He makes a great product and believes in customer service the way it should be.   Will I now be able to process all my own fleeces???  Heavens, no!!  Spinderella will still get the bulk of my fiber processing business, but for those one of a kind projects that creep into my imagination at 2 a.m. I can blend those fibers and colors and let the creative side of my brain have a real play day! I now have the tool that allows me to take  fleece right from the animal to a finished product all right here at Blue Moon Ranch.   And that is a very good thing.

Farmer Cave

Earlier this week, my friend Katy asked on Twitter “How do you pamper yourself?”   And I thought of wonderful spa treatments I have had but the most relaxing thing I do for myself almost every day is to take a few quiet minutes to sit in in my “Farmer Cave”.

farmer cave

Herbal wraps, massages and spa treatments in general are awesome. I am a licensed massage therapist & used to work at a world class spa so of course I see the great benefits of that kind of relaxation. But  the best unwinding is something you can do every day.  

My farmer cave is actually our second hay barn which used to be a horse shelter before we arrived here with the alpacas.  The lovely green door to the cave is one I rescued from the original Kamas Valley Feed Cooperative.  I still remember the look on Ed’s face when I told him we needed to go immediately to the co-op to save the door that was about to be demolished the next morning. 

It wasn’t easy but we did mange to get it in the truck and the door to my cave couldn’t be any more perfect.

outside the farmer cave

Right under the tree that is behind the barn runs our year round stream that makes the most delightful sound as it tumbles over the rocks and tree roots. Even under snow and ice and with our cold winter tempertures, the stream is moving enough to keep the sound alive.

stream behind farmer cave

The roof behind the barn hangs over the stream and grabs the sound to bring it into the cave and it really is a peaceful but alive little hideaway.  A bale of hay is a perfect seat, and other than an occasional barn cat wandering through, I am alone with my thoughts…or sometimes with no thoughts at all which is even nicer.

Yes the lifestyle we love here IS probably more relaxing than most, but for the self employed farmer, there is no time off, there is no such thing as a paid holiday and everything that happens or doesn’t happen is because of what we do or don’t do.  So to take 5 minutes a day and sit with a quiet mind in a farmer cave is a good and healthy habit I don’t intend to give up.

inside the farmer cave

I hope you have a place where you can take a few minutes for yourself every day.  If you want to try my cave,  just let me know and I’m happy to share it.