Is Alpaca the New Luxury Textile?

The Fashion Foot

Alpaca is considerably the new cashmere. The luxury wool is especially a trending commodity among fashion designers because it is inexpensive to produce and it is environmentally friendly. Many consumers are positively responding to this new fiber as the Peruvian Trade Commission and Company Agenda seek to create global awareness of the Peruvian textile industry. Due to the enormous potential alpaca has to be a leading textile, the Peruvian Trade Commission and Company Agenda sent five designers to Peru in December 2013 to observe the entire alpaca production process under the agreement of featuring alpaca-based garments with their collections at New York Fashion Week in February 2014. Among the designers were Antonio Azzuolo, Charles Harbison, Caitlin Wiman of Rachel Comey, and Timo Weiland and Donna Kang, head designers for Timo Weiland. They were able to culturally submerge themselves into Peruvian customs and witness the economic impact of alpaca textile production.

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New Website

I almost forgot.  I have our first website up and running.  I just got finished but it will be a work in progress, still trying to figure everything out.

check it out!!

http://www.peapodacres.com

Springtime

Hey it was spring here yesterday, temp was 50.  Sweatshirt weather for sure!!  Picked up a load of hay, 42 bales is about all I want to carry on my truck.  Thanks to Mark who helped me load the hay and put a few extra pounds of air in the tires I made it home safely.  Too bad Mark wasn’t here to help unload it, carry it into the barn and restack it.  I was about done after all of that!!  It will hopefully be enough to get us through until the grass starts growing again.  The alpacas seem pretty happy with it, that’s all I can ask for.

We have started looking at the seed catalogs for this years garden planting.  There sure are alot of choices when it comes to veggies.  I like to plant what we like, even if we put it into the farm market for sale.  Some varieties are better suited to sell, they look great but aren’t necessarily  the best tasting.  We are going to try a new sweet corn this year, it is supposed to last longer on the stalk with less starch conversion.  That means it should stay sweet longer and last in the fridge for a few extra days if needed.  Always a good thing. Less waste, better taste!!

Lets pray for Spring, it’s snowing here again…..darn groundhog!!!

Winter’s wrath

Peapod Acres Farm Life

Well we have made it through two versions of the Polar Vortex this winter and so far everyone is doing okay.  We had about 6 inches of snow overnight but it’s not too bad, they were calling for 8-12 inches.  Mother Nature spared us a little and I will take it.  Hopefully the really cold weather is over, 20 degrees is a walk in the park after the minus 10 and 15 degree days.  All of the alpaca are doing well. 

Mr Casino our little cria was weighed yesterday and is up to 30 pounds.  It’s a little light for a 4 month old but I think he has turned the corner and will be getting healthier from here on out.  We are still bottle feeding him twice a day because his Mom’s milk never really came in.  He looks forward to his feedings and so do we.  He is…

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Winter’s wrath

Well we have made it through two versions of the Polar Vortex this winter and so far everyone is doing okay.  We had about 6 inches of snow overnight but it’s not too bad, they were calling for 8-12 inches.  Mother Nature spared us a little and I will take it.  Hopefully the really cold weather is over, 20 degrees is a walk in the park after the minus 10 and 15 degree days.  All of the alpaca are doing well. 

Mr Casino our little cria was weighed yesterday and is up to 30 pounds.  It’s a little light for a 4 month old but I think he has turned the corner and will be getting healthier from here on out.  We are still bottle feeding him twice a day because his Mom’s milk never really came in.  He looks forward to his feedings and so do we.  He is a good little guy.  If he can survive through this winter he can make it through anything.  Still keeping our finger crossed on him, don’t want to jinx him…

It’s been a little busy around here and that’s the reason for the lack of posts.  My intention is to be here every couple of days and more often if time permits.  With cold weather prep it was a little tough to keep up with both the farm and work but things are settling out some now.

I am going to a hops growing  seminar next week.  Thinking about doing production hops here on the farm.  What do you think?  We are supposed to cover the actual growing along with marketing and selling the crop.  I think it will be interesting to learn whether we end up trying it here or not.  Knowledge is a good thing.

Gotta go, time to bottle feed Mr Casino…maybe I can take a pic or video of him….we will see.

Santa was here

Well Santa Claus made a surprise appearance at the farm on Christmas day.  Well not Santa himself but three of his trusted elves came by to deliver the two new alpacas that Santa thought we should have.  The elves also known as Bob and Candie Rush and their friend Judy, showed up in the driveway with a horse trailer and a note from the jolly old guy himself.  So we would like to welcome Glowing Ember and her young male cria Doogie to the farm.  We had looked at Ember when we were at a friends farm and were waiting on a positive pregnancy result before we decided if we wanted to buy her or not.  By the time we made a decision she was already sold, apparently to Santa……well we got her anyway…..

They are getting along with the other girls and cria pretty well, took them a couple of days to get acclimated but everything seems to be working out now.

Now if there was just some magical way to clean up the “alpaca beans”……especially when they are frozen to the ground…

Busy weekend

Well it was a busy weekend here at the farm. I took a couple of days off to get a few things done and to celebrate my birthday and was moderately successful at both. It seems like no matter how much time you have you never get as much done as you hope or plan, but you get done what you get done…we had the underside of the barn floor covered with spray foam over the weekend. Hopefully that will cut down on the drafts for Angie’s office upstairs at the Wellness Center. The electrical work on the new building is slowly coming along, seems like I spend more time buying material than I do installing it. I just wonder if anyone else feels the same way about their projects?
We did have a nice visit with Holly at Hidden Hilltop Alpacas on Saturday. They had an open house and we went to see what was going on. She had a ton of handcrafted items for sale, most of them made from alpaca fiber. The snow was falling and it was a nice drive in the country to get there.

More looose chickens, a.k.a. a funny story

So last night when I got home my sweet bride had a funny story to tell me.  The day before she had let the chickens loose for the day but didn’t think about closing up the fence when they were back in the coop.  Yesterday when I went out to feed them I went about my usual routine.  First I take some chicken scratch (mixed grains) and spread it out in the outdoor coop, then fill the feeders and water containers.  The chickens follow me like a pied piper until I feed them the scratch, if I walked in circles they would line up in a circle behind me so naturally they just are all close behind and not outside the feeding area.  Anyway, when I fed them I didn’t notice the open fence flap and just went and finished the things I needed to do.  I left for work and so did Angie.  She was home about an hour before me, but after dark and noticed a lone chicken running around in the yard trying to get in the door to the chicken coop.  A closed door, and not the one she came out of, but the one she could see her sisters through.  She was not a happy chicken!!  So Angie and her friend Cindy decided to try to rustle the chicken and get her back in the coop.  Sure wish I could have seen it!!  Two grown women trying to catch a lone chicken in the backyard!!  Eventually Angie was able to sneak up behind her and pick her up and back into the coop she went.  Mission accomplished and the day was saved.  Later when I get home she asks me “did you notice any of the chickens out this morning? I don’t think I closed the flap yesterday…”.  Too Funny!!

Chickens on the loose

Our chickens are being allowed to do a little free ranging for their first time. Usually a chicken will live up to it’s name and not venture too far at first but these girls ran out like they were getting out of prison! Two hours later all the grass in this picture was gone…
They sure do make tasty eggs though….

Good morning world!

Mexico our weanling alpaca just wanted to say hi.