Pendle Alpacas

Summer is coming to an end (yay!) and we've been busy creating new spooky ornaments to celebrate one of our favorite times of the year! From our alpacas' fiber we've made some cute/creepy bats, spiders, and pumpkins, and Mister Bilbo has contributed some fiber of his own to make Booooo Bunnies! A Spooky Spider! A Booo Bunny! A Baby Bat! We have them all available on our etsy store as well as the shows and markets we will be vending at this fall. A precious little pumpkin!

Well, mostly complete (nothing on this farm ever 100% complete.) After months of planning and carting chickens to and from their enclosure in the garage and their outside runs, our feathered friends have finally moved into their permanent home.  The boys and girls checking out the ramps to their new house. At first we thought they would live up at the alpaca barn, but because of the slope of the hill that the barn sits on and concerns about cold winter weather, we decided that they would be better suited at the old hay barn. Smidge, Sage, and Agatha. Their coop sits inside the barn and their run is a new structure we built onto the barn. They should be toasty warm this winter with all the alpaca hay in the loft above them! The Fort Knox of chicken coops - no raccoons will find their way in here!

Last weekend during our studio tour at our farm, Jennifer was demonstrating how we prepare our fiber for spinning. We use a Brother drum carder to batt up our fiber. This process further helps rid vegetative debris (our boys do love to roll around in their hay) and aligns the fiber for smoother spinning. This time, she decided to blend Speed Bump and J-dub, our vet's light fawn alpaca. J-dub is very similar in color and softness to Rio, and together he and Speed made a beautiful set of batts. We name all our yarn after rocks and minerals, in homage to Adrienne's geology degree. We decided this one reminds us of the metamorphic rock, schist, with its dynamic striations of color. There was a bit of a battle between Adrienne and Jennifer on who would get to spin this one (Jennifer won, but Adrienne will spin a combination of Speed Bump and Micah next!) This skein and others like it are available on our etsy store !

Back in April, our farm population doubled in size with the addition of thirteen baby chicks! In keeping with our farm's aesthetic, we chose breeds of chickens that are extra fluffy and feather-footed. We have seven mottled cochins, two black silkies, two mille fleur bearded d'uccles, one buff brahma bantam, and one porcelain Belgian bearded d'uccle. They were straight run, mail-ordered chicks, so we had no idea what ratio of males to female we would receive. Now at seven weeks, we have a pretty good idea: 5 roosters and 8 hens. One of our mottled cochins just a few days old! We've had a great time watching them grow and coming up with names for each one. Tiny babies! There were difficult to tell apart when they were little, but the mottled cochin with the black beak is Gareth, the lightest colored mottled cochin is Emerson, the black silkie standing is  Kylo Hen, and the black silkie sitting is Rosebud. The roosters are:        ...

Last Wednesday, our alpacas had their "favorite" day of the year: shearing day. Alpacas are only sheared once a year in the spring, and while it can be a little stressful, for their health it is a necessity. Especially since it got up to 87 degrees the day after shearing: we know they wouldn't want to be wearing their heavy winter coats for that! Micah Before Shearing Micah After Shearing Smudge Before Shearing Smudge After Shearing. Rio's a little confused. Our boys each had about 4 inches of fleece on them. It's amazing how much they change when it all comes off! Even the alpacas can't recognize each other at first. Rio Before Shearing Rio After Shearing and feeling a little sorry for himself Speed Bump Before Shearing Speed Bump After Shearing We have processed most of our fleece from 2017, but now we have a whole new mountain ...

Pendle Alpacas will be at several events in North Carolina and Virginia in the coming months. Check out our events page for more details on locations and times. We hope to see you at one of these events!

One of the projects on our ever growing to-do list has been to put up a feeder in our donkey's stall. Not that they are particularly finicky about eating anywhere, but it will help keep their stall a bit cleaner. Of course they were very helpful during the installation. You have to keep on eye on your tools or Jasper will walk off with them! And Sophie is always looking over your shoulder; she's the best project forewoman. We wondered how they'd take to the finished feeder, but as you can see it was no problem at all.