Alpacas of Lewis

Bring on the Wind!

2011-09-02T14:15:00.015+01:00

We had good intentions of sending off our alpaca fibre for spinning at the start of the summer but have only recently got round to it. We should get it back in the next couple of weeks ready to be knitted up. All our other wool that we had has been made into products and we are just considering whether to sell it on-line or in some of the local tourist shops or perhaps both. Anyway, here are a few of the items we have but are still experimenting with some other patterns.

As we hadn't had a summer holiday for the last few years we decided to treat the kids (and ourselves) to a week at Disneyland Paris. It was fab and brought a lot of memories back for Anne who worked there for 2 years in what was supposed to be a summer job while at Uni. It was a lot of walking and of course a lot of €'s but worth it. Anne's already looking at brochures for next years holiday!

We've had loads of enquires about how our C&F Green Energy CF11 wind turbine is doing. We discovered early on that there was an issue with high voltage on our grid supply which was being caused by the transformer we were connected to. C&F worked out and configured us to run at 50% (6kW max) without pushing the voltage too high until SSE replaced the transformer. Despite this, in our first 3 months we still generated about 4000kWh (would have been 8000kWh had we not had the 50% restriction). I'm happy to say now that SSE have upgraded the transformer and we are back on track to achieving our expected generation or maybe even exceeding it. We'll have a better idea after the winter.

Newest addition to the croft

2011-07-01T15:01:00.004+01:00

This week, at long last, we got our turbine up and running. Even although there's hardly any wind its still generating and in the short time it's been running has slashed our domestic meter readings by about 70%.

Its typical that when our turbine went up the wind dropped but as anyone who has visited Lewis will know it wont stay that way for long. The installers arrived with the turbine at 5pm on Monday and were away by 9am the following morning.

Our new CF11 turbine on a 15m mast

We've also made some progress with our alpaca wool and have recruited some new knitters. We have given out all our remaining wool from 2 years ago and we're already seeing the fruits of their labour so we're going to push ahead and send of the last 2 years fibre to be processed. Once we have a selection of products we'll post some pictures here.

Full House!

2011-06-07T10:11:00.004+01:00

We're delighted to announce that all our females that we bred have now had their cria with the final 2 being born last week. 3 females and 1 male for the year.

Jasmine (with her new hair doo!) with her cria Jemima

Tara with her wee boy, Tobermory

There was no time to sit back as we were scheduled for Mr Clipper's arrival at the weekend and the weather couldn't have been better. Thanks to the guys for fitting us in again on their UK tour.

I think BB actually enjoyed it - not a whimper from him unlike some of the girls!

The results.

It's been a pretty amazing few weeks in our little alpaca world!

It's another girl!

2011-05-25T10:19:00.007+01:00

Yesterday, despite the horrendous weather, Nicholette decided it was time to give birth to her second Lewis born cria. Anther girl and proof that our stud was up to the job last year - we never doubted you for a moment BB King! Her last cria, Rose, was quite a difficult birth and required some assistance but she had no problems this time managing on her own.

We are hoping for 2 more cria in the coming week so more photos to follow.

We've also made some progress on the wind turbine front with the foundations now complete. The turbine will follow in about a month.

Baby News!

2011-05-06T20:06:00.006+01:00

We are over the moon to announce that last night at 6pm Nichole gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl. As it was late it was a difficult birth, but thanks to our friends and neighbours Dina and Calum - she was delivered safely.

Despite the constant "cria watch" over the last two weeks, with excitement over the slightest yawning, rolling, head rubbing, Iain and I were absent for the birth. Typical! I was training on the mainland and Iain was in hospital for 6 hours while he had some minor Day Surgery. Of course, Nichole chose this as the perfect time to go into labour. Luckily, Iain's mum was on alert and called in Dina and Calum who are expert sheep farmers.

In the end there was only one name that would do for the christening of our new herd member - Dinah - of course! Mum and daughter spent last night snuggled up in the barn - but today Dinah has been testing her legs and running rings round the rest of the herd! She is just perfect!

Long overdue update

2011-04-29T14:35:00.009+01:00

It’s been quite a while since our last post partly because our camera packed in but also because both Anne and I have been very busy. Anne has taken on a new consultancy job in addition to her teaching which means she is away a lot on the mainland. I have also made a bit of a return into the IT scene by doing some remote software packaging work.

With the announcement of the renewable heat incentive (RHI) due last year we were keen to push ahead with our plans for a ground source heat pump (GSHP). In February we finally got it installed and it has made a huge difference in terms of running cost and the manual effort that came with running a solid fuel range cooker / boiler. We’ve replaced this with an all electric range cooker which has just been great. No more complaints from Anne about the Rayburn not being hot enough for dinner because I’ve left it to late to stoke it!

Trench work for the 450m of pipe required for GSHP

Also, last year we were granted planning permission for our own wind turbine and things have been progressing with the foundation kit arriving the other day. We're scheduled to have the foundations installed in the next couple of weeks so I'd better get a hole dug fairly soon. The turbine will follow at some point in the summer.

Wind turbine foundation kit

Our alpacas are due any day now - No hurry girls, but the suspense is killing us. Although Rose was born here, this year will hopefully mark our first successful home breeding.

Swan taking a few day break on our croft before she continues her migration to the Arctic for breeding season.

Will blog more soon.

3 hogs, a dog and some veg

2010-09-10T21:48:00.005+01:00

Our first litter of 3 African Pygmy Hedgehogs is now 3 weeks old so there is no risk of mum eating the litter if we handle them. They are so cute and soft to hold. See our blog Hebhogs for more pics.

Harris with one of the hoglets

Shiela and JF from Scalpay Linen paid us a visit to catch up and also collect this years' Hebridean wool. As a thank you they kindly gifted us with a cute little dog made out of their own Hebridean Harris Tweed which actually contains some wool from our own flock.

Today we popped along to our local farmers' market and picked up some much needed fresh produce so we have no excuses for not getting our 5-a-day. Everything is grown locally by neighbouring crofters, even the grapes! Bet you didn't know you could grow grapes in the Western Isles.

Back to School

2010-08-25T18:14:00.004+01:00

Well, the summer holidays are over now and it’s back to the usual routine of getting the kids (and Anne) ready for school and nursery. This is actually welcome news for me as it gives me a little more time during the day where I can work on something with out interruption from the kids (or Anne!). Anne has only been given 2 days a week in school this year but over the summer has successfully managed to secure consultancy work delivering teacher training to schools in Scotland. She spent weeks developing her presentation and delivered it for the first time last week to 50 teachers at a school in Edinburgh. She already has about a dozen more dates booked before xmas so its looking very promising. Although this means she will be away a few nights a month it will mean she has less workload and more time at home than before.

Because of the wet summer we were quite late in getting our sheep sheared however we finally got there at the beginning of August. With all the lambs ear tagged and more independent from their mothers we sold 5 ewes and 10 lambs as a starter flock to a couple down near Carloway. This brings our numbers back down to a more manageable flock size of 25.

In our last blog we mentioned our new enterprise - breeding African Pygmy Hedgehogs. We had a mixed week last week with one of the older hogs dying. We agreed to take her on along with the breeding hogs as she was kept as a pet by the previous owner as she had cataracts in both eyes and was barely able to see. It’s a real shame as she was so easy to handle. However on a brighter point we heard our first squeaks coming from the nest of one of the hogs we have mated so we should have a few baby hogs for sale if all goes well over the next month or so. We’re itching to check in the nest but to disturb them at this stage may result in the mum eating her babies. Here’s a photo of my DIY hog house.... more photos to follow when the hoglets are out and about in a couple of weeks.

Not much news on the alpaca front although we bumped into a couple of distant relatives up at Eoropie the other week. Peter and his 2 lovely llamas have moved to the Ness area and now run a llama trekking business - http://lewisislandllamatrekking.blogspot.com We had a long natter about everything camelid and wish Peter every success with the trekking.

The girls coming for their evening feed

After many weeks spent stacking, bagging and collecting this year’s peat I finally brought down the last load today and this time I didn’t sink the 4x4 in the moor like last year! (http://alpacasoflewis.blogspot.com/2009/10/wind-what-wind.html) Here is what 500 bags of peat looks like. I just need to clear out the garage to get it all in now!

Hedgehogs of Lewis

2010-07-17T11:41:00.003+01:00

We've now returned from our holidays on the mainland and brought back with us new additions to our ever expanding croft family. These are the much sought after exotic pet..... African Pygmy Hedgehogs.

Sonic (Named by our 4yr old son)

Tinsel

Anne has had her eyes on these for a couple of years now and (after much persuading) we are now proud owners of 14! They're settling well into their new surroundings and are providing hours of amusement (and cleaning out duties!). See our sister blog site - www.hebhogs.co.uk for more information and photos of the rest of our herd.

Alpaca Shearing

2010-06-24T13:32:00.007+01:00

This week we had "Mr Clipper" from the US visit us to shear all our alpacas. He has been touring round Europe and is finishing his season in Scotland. When we bought our alpacas a year ago they were already shorn so this event was a first for us. Luckily the rain held off till we were packing up. Thanks to our neighbour Roddy, we managed to get a few pictures of the process.

Putting a noose around each leg, then pull!

She's going no-where!

All our alpacas made this noise throughout except our stud who simply relaxed and closed his eyes. I think he enjoyed it!

Nearly done, anything for the weekend?

Nice work Mr Clipper

It was back to peat stacking the next day!

Here come the girls

2010-06-08T19:08:00.007+01:00

BBKing giving the girls the eye! Follow the leader

Our focus shifted back to breeding the alpacas last week and it seems BBKing has the hang of it now - he has covered all of our adult girls. We will repeat the process in the next week or 2 to check for spitt off's. (Female alpacas are good at knowing if they are pregnant and will be quick to tell the stud!)

final tally

2010-05-25T18:44:00.008+01:00

Our 16 ewes have now all lambed so lamb watch is finally over! We have had 24 lambs in total, (17 girls and 7 boys). Everything was going so well until ewe number 13 lambed and showed no interest in her wee boy. After keeping her in the barn for a week with her lamb and holding her to allow the lamb to feed there was still no signs of them bonding so, "Oliver" is now on the bottle 4 times a day. He follows me everywhere even when I feed the alpacas in another field - he is really attached to my black wellies. 14 and 15 lambed no problem and this morning our last, number 16, had twins - a big boy and a tiny girl. The girl is too weak to feed, even from a bottle so we tube fed her colostrum and will feed her until she is strong enough to fed from her mum.

Harris with Oliver

16 with her twins - you can't really tell but the lamb in front is so small, hopefully she will gain her strength to feed for herself.

Although we've been busy with the sheep we have managed to try and start breeding the alpacas. A couple of times I had put our stud (BBKing) in a small paddock with the girls with out much success and then one day when moving some of our early lambers to another field BBking sneaked through an open gate and got amongst the girls and did his thing. Just shows you can lead a horse... Anyway, we will continue to give him opportunities over the coming weeks so hopefully he will have worked his way round the girls otherwise we will start penning him in and playing our "orgling" cd to get them the mood. (Orgle - the noise the male makes while mating -http://www.intrepidalpacas.com/Sounds/orgle.wav)

more twins.....

2010-05-07T19:42:00.007+01:00

7 of our 16 ewes have now lambed - all but one has been twins so far! The girls are winning 9 to 4 boys.

It's a hard life

Enjoying the sun

The alpacas are fascinated by the new arrivals

Who's the Daddy?

2010-05-02T15:05:00.008+01:00

Congratulations Mr Four Horned Ram from Scalpay Linen - you're a daddy!!

Our first lambs were born today around midday - twins - a boy and a girl! So now Lamb Watch begins in earnest as the rest of the flock look ready to follow suit at any time. By the looks of the bellies...the twins are going to have plenty of company!

And the proud foster parents...Farmer Iain....

...and Croft Wife Anne!

Even BB King dropped by to see the new arrivals and pass on his warmest congratulations to Mum!

Spring at last

2010-04-15T13:55:00.010+01:00

It's been a while since our last post and although we've been very busy there has been no real news on the alpaca front.

A few weeks ago we decided to return Karl to the original breeder on the mainland as the 2 boys were constantly fighting. They had been kept in a field out of sight of any females prior to arriving here so I guess their hormones went a bit crazy once there were girls on the scene.

Anne has had some prototype garments knitted.....I'll let her blog on that when she gets a chance.

Now that spring has arrived we will soon be starting to breed the alpacas. We decided to give the girls a winter break… it seems such a long time ago since Rose was born. It will be another year before any new cria arrive but I know the wait will be worth it.

Our hebrideans are due their lambs in the next couple of weeks and as we haven’t scanned them it will be interesting to see how many there will be. We have 16 ewes so I expect we will average 1 per ewe with some not producing and some with twins. Cute photos to follow soon.

I’m afraid the batteries have been flat in my camera for a while, I’ll get them charged and promise some new photos in the next blog. Here are a couple I took back in February (click to enlarge).

We have SNOW!

2010-02-21T11:40:00.008Z

Well we know most of you have been suffering the snow for a while now - but here at Black Sheep Croft we have been missing out! Apart from the occasional dusting there has been hardly any snow to speak of - not even enough for a snowball.

However, on Saturday the children were delighted to wake up to a snow covered garden! Cue sledging, snowballs and a snowman...

And even a snow-alpaca...!

The alpacas however, don't seem as enthusiastic about the change...

I have had a long weekend off school and have been catching up with all things alpaca. We have recruited an enthusiastic, talented and dedicated local knitter who is going to produce our first proper knitted items from Jasmine's wool!!! We can't wait to see the results!

Also, we have been contacted by The Heb which is a glossy, annual magazine and pictorial as they want to do a small feature about us and the alpacas.

I have eventually got round to felting with some of Jasmine's left over bits. The bag is wonderfully soft and such a lovely mixture of colours...BUT although it looks ok in the picture there isn't actually a proper handle and it didn't felt as well on the inside - so it's back to the drawing board!

Finally, I have been chained to the computer developing our new website, complete with shopping cart, however in keeping up with the current trend...it is a secret and you'll have to wait for the grand unveiling!

The boys are in town

2010-02-01T18:53:00.004Z

After a 600 mile round trip and 2 ferries at the weekend I arrived back with our stud, BBKing, and his pal Karl. Alpacas don’t like to be on their own so we thought it only fair to bring Karl along for the journey and to be his field buddy. They are best pals and have worked together in the past on fox duty for other sheep farmers.

BBKing admiring the girls!

BBking (left) and Karl

To a Mouse...

2010-01-29T14:49:00.007Z

Belated Happy New Year!

Sorry I’ve not posted for a while, we’ve been very busy over the holidays with visitors and then getting back to the usual routine with school, nursery etc.

We’ve been very fortunate with the weather compared to the rest of the UK although our kids don’t think so. This [pic above] is the worst we had of any snow and it was gone within a day. Stornoway and other parts of Lewis did get it quite a bit more but I think since we are a few hundred yards from the shore then the sea air has an effect.

Anne did get a chance to experiment with felting, not sure if we will put this into production just yet! Neddle Felted Guinea Pig and Needle Felted Mouse (using merino wool and glass eyes)

Felted Rose Necklace (wet felted and needle felted with sewn on seed beads)

I’ve been working hard on the fencing so that this weekend I can pop over and pick up BB King, our stud from Campsie Camelids.

Another new addition

2009-12-07T11:42:00.000Z

Not an alpaca this time but a 4 horn Hebridean ram. We took a trip down to see Scalpay Linen at the weekend who have very kindly let us borrow him. A big thank you to Shiela and J.F. He certainly is persistent although I haven't witnessed him actually getting very near any of our girls yet.

Since this is an alpaca blog here are some alpaca pics we took during the sunny spell before the storm closed in on Sunday.

Jasmine with a sticky face from the lick

New girl, Nichole, has been pestering Jasmine all morning, guess she is showing who is the new top dog!

Family Reunion

2009-11-30T17:57:00.000Z

Last week, despite the weather, we managed to get across the Minch and back in one piece. I'm usually very ill if the crossing is rough however I had taken a couple of SeaLegs and was fine. Although the winds were touching 40mph, the crossing wasn't actually too bad (a few big hits but not too much rolling about) so I'm not sure how effective the pills were but I'll be sure to keep them handy for next time. We all (kids included) had a lovely break at a hotel in Ballachulish and had time for swimming and a visit to the sea life centre near Oban. Anyway, the main purpose of our trip was to pick up 2 new breeding alpacas, Nichole and her cria Nadia - both light brown and lovely additions to our herd. Anne is over the moon and has spent hours out photographing them!

Nichole is also mum to Nicholette who has her own cria Rose. It's great to see Nadia and Rose who are Aunty and Niece instantly getting along and playing together.

New girls, Nichole and Nadia in foreground

Nichole and Nadia

Rose, Nichole and Nadia Nadia and Nichole

Nadia

Alpaca Alarm

2009-11-14T15:36:00.000Z

A few days ago we had a missing dog in the village and despite a coordinated search party the light quickly faded and we had to give up. The following morning as I was about to take our dog out I heard the alpacas doing their alarm call (http://www.gentlespiritllamas.com/html/alpsounds/alarmcall.htm) , something I have rarely heard since they came here. (They had never seen a sheep before and, in the first few weeks, anytime a sheep came close to the fence they would do their alarm). Anyway, I quickly nipped outside to see where they were looking and right enough there was the missing collie rounding up some sheep in the field across the road. To everyone’s relief the collie was well and hadn’t strayed too far, she was eventually captured later that day.

With Rose being the only cria produced we have been in discussion with our breeder who has very kindly offered us a discount on 2 more females – Nichole (Nicholette’s mum) and her cria from this year, Nadia, who is sister to Nicholette and aunty to Rose. This will be great for Rose since she is constantly pestering the others to play and although Jasmine tries she can’t keep up. Nadia is a little older than Rose but I’m sure they will keep each other amused - can't wait to see them running around the fields togethter.

Progress on the fencing has increased by 300% - 3 strainers now in place!

My parents were up visiting at halloween so we had our bonfire early. Here are a couple of photos.

I’ll post some pictures of the new alpacas when we pick them up in a couple of weeks.

Post at last!

2009-10-28T15:25:00.000Z

No, not the Royal mail, just meant blogger post.

Rose

Although we haven’t had a visit from the vet yet it looks like Rose will be our only cria this year as Jasmine and Tara are nearly at 390 days. They are bigger than Nicolette but we now think that that is just because she has lost weight since having her cria making Jasmine and Tara big in comparison. Even Anne who had been convinced that they were pregnant has conceded that it is now very unlikely and that they have probably just put on a little weight since arriving here.

Jasmine and Tara

Rose and Auntie Tara

In other croft news we decided it was time we had use of our barn back from our peacock, peahen, chickens and the 200 starlings that sneak in at night. After placing an advert in the local papers our barn was soon silent although in need of a good mucking out….another job added to the list!

I’ve finally started erecting some fencing that will split our main field which is about 4 acres into smaller paddocks of about 1 acre. This is so we can rotate the alpacas providing them with clean pasture every few weeks and also separate them from our stud who we will get next year.

Admittedly, I’ve not got very far with the fencing!

Will they ever come?

2009-10-09T12:05:00.000+01:00

Ok, we are now at 369 days since both Jasmine and Tara were last mated, and with the normal gestation period being 315 to 370 days, we are concerned that either one or both of them won’t produce. We have compared photos of them when they arrived here back in July and they are definitely bigger around the middle but maybe they are just fatter. I have booked a visit from the vet who will hopefully determine if we are to expect anything.

Has anyone else ever hit or gone past 370 days? Here are a few pictures take recently.

Jasmine looking rounded but is it just a tummy full of grass?

What about you Tara, do you have anyone in there?

Our 1st cria and what a cutie, wee Rose at 1 month.

Wind? What wind?

2009-10-03T20:56:00.001+01:00

As you can see from the photo below our alpacas aren’t phased by the 70mph plus winds preferring to be out and about. Only very heavy rain sees them return to their shelter in our barn. Both Tara and Jasmine (middle and right) are now at 363 days so we are expecting that they can’t go much longer without bursting. I guess they have been holding out for a calm sunny day but there’s not much hope of that for a while.

View from the beach in front of our croft

The storm having calmed a bit has left its mark.

A journalist from Fios (the local paper here) popped round for a visit last week and very kindly put an article about us. Thanks Hamish. If you click on the below picture you should be able to read it.

In other news from the croft I finally got that last load of peat off the moor but not without a struggle. As I drove onto the now soaking moor in our 4x4 the risk of getting stuck was very high and indeed was realised. Even with both centre and rear diff locks engaged the car just sunk right onto its belly. After spending several hours with a spade and trying to jack up the car to put stones under the wheels I realised I was getting nowhere fast and in fact lifting one side of the car only made the other go deeper into the muck. A call to a neighbouring farmer was required and he very kindly pulled me out with his tractor. Thanks to David from South Galson Farm however my problems were not over. After numerous times going forward and reversing it was apparent that the rear diff lock would not disengage meaning that I had to drop the car off at garage and was not to get it back for most of the week. As Anne needed our other car for work and not wanting our son to miss out on nursery I decided to get my bike out and attached a child trailer we have. Nursery was only 4 miles away and I thought the usual 5 min drive would be a breeze to cycle... how wrong could I be! I soon realised that not only would I have to cycle the 4 miles there and back but would have to repeat the feat again to pick our son up…. 16 miles and 2hrs of cycling in total and mostly uphill in both directions or so it felt! I managed this for a couple of days but with the wind and rain the following day I was glad of the excuse to keep Harris off. Thankfully we got the car back later that day and with Harris at nursery again I took the opportunity to return to the peat although this time I parked at the roadside. The last 18 bags were 200m away and again I misjudged the effort involved in carrying them across boggy ground. Anyway, after 2hrs trudging back and forward all the peat is now down and next year, I'll be sure to have it all done before the end of the Summer.

Quick update

2009-09-23T15:01:00.001+01:00

No signs of our other 2 cria yet, Jasmine and Tara are now 4 days overdue so hopefully something will happen very soon.

Sheila from Scalpay Linen called the other day to let us know she had left our alpaca wool that she had spun in our porch ... we didn’t even notice it was there. I’ve never seen Anne move so fast when she got off the phone. Sorry we weren’t in Sheila, hope you didn’t come all that way just to see us. We have seen and felt plenty alpaca wool during our visits to other alpaca farms and we were not disappointed with ours…… thank you so much Sheila for doing a fantastic job. Here is a picture of her hard work.

In between watching out for any new cria I have been busy bagging and bringing all our peat off the moor and finally finished bagging with just a few more runs to collect it. Think I’ll celebrate with a couple of beers tonight before I think about embarking on my next mini project. I have 300m of fencing which needs done before we get our stud alpaca.

I noticed our hit counter jumped about 11,000 overnight. I’m guessing our blog isn’t that popular so there must be a glitch with it. Anyone else experience this?

On your marks, get set....Rose!

2009-09-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

1 day old

2009-09-05T16:38:00.000+01:00

Here are a couple of pictures of "Rose" who now seems to be feeding well and certainly has plenty of energy. I weighted her in at 21lbs which is at the top end of the scale for a cria.

So far so good

2009-09-04T21:35:00.000+01:00

Well, I always said the cria countdown was fairly accurate..... today at 4:15pm Nicolette was in labour and after a little assistance gave birth to a rather large female cria. I'm not surprised she got a little stuck on the way out. So far she is doing well, up on her feet and following mum everywhere. She's still not to sure where to find her milk and its quite amusing watching her suckle at every part of Nicolette except where she is supposed to. We’ve given her some colostrum for now and I'm sure she will get the hang of it soon. Anyway, here is a pic and more blogs to follow.

Busy times

2009-09-03T14:51:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the lack of blogs recently, Anne has started back at School and is up to her eyes so has asked me to post an update.

The alpacas are all fine... not showing any signs of giving birth soon. Technically their due dates are somewhere between 5th and 16th Sept so don't expect the cria when the countdown reaches zero. Nicolette (at the back) is definitely the biggest and we expect she will be first. Picture is of them in the garden when someone (clue: teacher) left the side gate open!

Sheila from Scalpay Linen called the other day to say she had nearly finished spinning Jasmine’s (middle) fleece. Anne has a few ideas of what products to make with the wool…. I’m just hoping they don’t involve me learning to knit!

Two new additions to the croft last week… a couple of black bantam chicks. Could be more on the way as another of our chickens has been hogging her eggs for several weeks now meaning we have a bit of a shortage in eggs.

Closest I’ve managed to get to our resident Sammy seal

We saw what looked like penguins through the binoculars but on closer inspection proved just to be cormorants. The fact they flew off before I got anywhere near them was a clue that the weren’t penguins (and also the fact that we don’t live in the south pole or the zoo!)

Anyway, I had better go as I've just had 400 rubble sacks delivered so I now have no excuses not to get the peat bagged and off the moor before it gets too marshy for the 4x4.

Fibre of the Gods

2009-08-08T20:22:00.000+01:00

Well, now I really know why alpaca is known as "the fibre of the gods"!

Sheila from Scalpay Linen came to visit today to show me the fibre samples she had spun for us. Wow! I just can't stop touching it - it is unbelieveably soft and looks amazing! Thank you Sheila!!

Jasmine's fleece is the small, golden - caramel coloured sample (Maybe it could be called "Highland Toffee" - remember those chewy bars you used to get at school?)

The skein underneath came from only a handful of Tara's blanket (the best part which is shorn from the alpaca's back), and it is a beautiful, creamy white colour. (Crowdie and Cream??)

A few alpaca fibre facts:

Alpaca fibre is incredibly soft, fine and lustrous and although it is less well known than cashmere, alpaca has all the same qualities that makes cashmere a sought after luxury
It is lighter, warmer and three times stronger than sheep wool
It is one of the strongest natural fibres, second only to silk
The fibre grows continuously, and an alpaca will produce 2-3 kilos per year on shearing
There are 22 natural shades of alpaca, from white through shades of grey to black, and from cream through shades of fawn and chestnut to chocolate brown
Alpaca fibre doesn't contain any lanolin so is suitable for those who have allergies to sheep wool

Sheila has taken Jasmine's blanket away to handspin into yarn - now I need to get my thinking cap on to come up with some super designs and patterns to do Jasmine and Sheila justice!

Just one teeny, weeny problem...I can't knit!

Alpacas at Sunset

2009-08-06T22:26:00.000+01:00

Spent half an hour taking photographs of the girls tonight...here are a few. Can't wait until I have some babies to photograph too...only about 29 more days to wait! (see the Cria Countdown at the bottom of the page!)

A Walk on the Wild Side

2009-08-04T18:37:00.000+01:00

Well, we had a couple of wildlife encounters today...unfortunately the first one resulted in a death...

Iain was feeding the rabbits in the barn when he stepped on something...a little baby hedgehog. Now I know we are trying to eradicate hedgehogs in the islands, but it is supposed to be through capture and rehoming to the mainland. Poor little thing.

Our resident buzzard appeared today, but despite Iain's best Simon King impression he only managed to get the picture below.

Meanwhile, now that our alpacas have settled in we have increased their field size, so they had a wander round to exlore their "extension". Took some more photos...also took some of our poor flock of hebridean sheep - think they are feeling a little neglected!

Feeding time on the croft!

2009-08-02T15:15:00.000+01:00

Still getting to grips with how the technology works here...am going to try to upload a video...fingers crossed!

Jasmine

2009-08-01T16:27:00.000+01:00

Little Croft on the Prairie

2009-08-01T16:15:00.000+01:00

Well, I still can't quite believe that my begging has finally paid off. But the picture above is proof that, two years after falling for my first gorgeous alpaca, we have the beginnings of our own little herd, on our own little croft.

We brought Jasmine, Tara and Nicholette back from the mainland two weeks ago, and they have settled into their new life very quickly! However, I seem to spend a little too much time gazing at them from the bathroom window...

Anyway, welcome home Jasmine, Tara and Nicholette - we hope you will enjoy a happy and pampered life here at Black Sheep Croft.