Alpacas Swimming and Fleece Cleaning

Yes, summer finally came to the Palouse--slow as spring! It's been an unusually cool and wet summer with few days in the 90s. That's good for the alpacas though, since they seem to have a harder time with heat here on the Palouse than they do with the winters. I'm assuming that this is because their homes in South American are at higher, and therefore cooler, elevations.

So we make sure the alpacas have a swimming pool in each pen!  Some of the alpacas just stand in the pools or use their front feet to splash water up at their bellies, but there are "swimmers" who take a full dip and sit down. To each his own!  This is BMCA Jenna taking her first dip of the year.

While the alpacas enjoy the summer grass and their swimming pools, I'm busy skirting fiber. What do I do with it then? I have several options--all of which I use.

Some of it gets sent off to small mills. I used a new mill this year in Lebanon, Oregon--Creekside Fiber Mills. Sent some fiber off this spring and got back about nine pounds of luscious alpaca/mohair/silk from four of my medium brown alpacas (Leroy, Miguel, Dominga and Jane Wagner).  It looks grey on my screen, but it's a great shade of medium brown. I'm selling it on my Etsy site (Alpacaknitter) and at the Yarn Underground in Moscow. 

I like what they did so much, I sent more fiber their way. I'm also trying out a mill in Pennsylvania--Lazy Meadows.

I take some of my alpaca after skirting and wash it myself. I'm lucky enough to have traded my crew's skills at trimming alpaca toes for a used top loading washing machine I keep in the garage. I fill it with hot water using a hose from my laundry room near the garage door. The fleece goes in with some dishwashing liquid and soaks and then gets spun out. I may soak an extra dirty fleece a second time, and rinse it. The usual method of drying is to set the fleece in the sun on screens or the skirting table--that can take a day or two, turning the fleece, rescuing it from bursts of wind, etc.

But this year, I had a great idea! The story goes back about 9 or ten years ago when I accompanied my brother Brad up to an appliance store in Spokane where he was talking/pricing range tops. I got bored with the discussion and wandered around the store. "Brad, come look at this!" It was a "drying system," a "two-story" appliance with a "regular" dryer on the bottom and a second story of shelves and racks for drying/airing stuff. I had never seen anything like it before!

I should have known better than to wax eloquent over anything, because when Brad went up to Spokane a few weeks later to pick up his new range tops, he drove back with the "system" for me! Funny thing was, it wouldn't fit into the house where I was living at the time. So, it's been sitting in Brad's (now my) garage for years, unused!

Lightbulb appearing over my head!! Could I set fleece on the shelves instead of sweaters??? YES!!!! A trial run and it worked! Takes less than an hour to dry fleece. Wonderful!

So now, I can sell washed fleece---so much better than the fleece straight off the alpaca. No matter how hard we try to clean them beforehand, using a shop vac even, there's always dust left! I don't wash the fleece that gets sent to mills, but this skirted, washed fleece is wonderful for spinners!

So I tried something else this year. An inveterate Ravelry-er, I asked if there were spinners who were comfortable with suri and made an offer--I'll send you clean fleece; you spin; you send me half and keep the other half!  I've had quite a few takers.

My first "return" came this week from Raveler Tara from Tennessee--she combined my suri with cormo (wool) and you'll have to take a look at the result on her flikr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23492466@N00/5954262657
I'm so happy with it!  Looking forward to seeing what I get from "my" other spinners!

Ellie's Leroy

This is Leroy, one of the first alpacas to be born at Big Meadow Creek Alpacas. His dam Yolinda was one of the first imports to this country and was purchased by my brother from Andrea Applegate. His sire was Black Knight. When he was born in August 2002, he was such a big cria that he could nurse from his mother from a sitting position! That's why he was named for a rock--Rock Hudson--whose real name was Leroy Scherer.

In the fall of 2008, Leroy was on the losing side of a herdsire dispute! Ungelded male alpacas, like other males, sometimes need to prove how macho they are! Leroy had to take a trip to WSU to get stitches in his ear after one of these wrestling matches. To make sure his ear was healed before he went back with the other herdsires, Leroy was put into a temporary pen close to the house.

That's where Ellie first saw him. She was visiting me in Idaho for the first time. Four years old, Ellie was fascinated by Leroy. She immediately went for her crayons and paper, sat down near the pen and began drawing. This is one of her first of many pictures of Leroy.

One day, one of the crew that works at BMCA put a special bandana on Leroy. When Ellie saw it, she asked her dad what it said. "For Sale," Mike said. "Can I buy him?" Ellie asked. "You'll need to ask Grandma Judy."

She came to me and asked and I responded, "Well, Ellie, you would have to pay $1.35 to buy him." She went to her dad, held out her hand and asked, "Please." With the money in her fist, she came to me and I said, "Sold!"

Ellie ran into the house and after a few whispered questions into Mike's ear, came out with a piece of paper and taped it to the pen: "Ellie bought Leroy. Not for sale."

I understand from my son that after she got home again, she excitedly told her pre-school class about Leroy and his stitches!

I haven't billed Ellie for hay, shots for worming and vaccinations, or for shearing, let alone boarding "her" alpaca. But then again, I've kept the fiber and used it for the second skein of yarn that I spun (see my entry for Oct. 2). It's a wonderful shade and so very soft and lustrous. I'm planning to knit a Christmas gift for Ellie with the yarn I've made.

Leroy was gelded last summer and isn't getting into those macho disputes any more. He's a curious, friendly and gentle alpaca. Now if he really had a rainbow neck, I wouldn't have to learn how to dye alpaca fiber!