Jessie loves the new crias, and at the moment we have a 3 week premmie female cria. As you can see, he just loves the babies, and is beside ELyses side with the crias.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Selling Alpaca Yarn...on the Internet through Ravely
https://www.ravelry.com/account/login
Are you Raveling yet?
by Kate Perez
first printed in the March 2009 issue of Camelid Quarterly
Wondering what’s the one thing that knitters and fiber-arts people can’t live without in 2009? It’s not self-striping sock yarn, Hello Kitty© stitch markers or the latest book by the “Yarn Harlot. “ It’s Ravelry of course! Ravelry.com has been called a social networking website, an online community and MySpace for knitters, but it’s so much more!
Ravelry gives each user an online area for storing fiber-arts projects with their photos, descriptions, patterns, yarns, needles or hooks used, and a rating scale for how the profile owner liked the yarn or pattern. There is also a heart icon which other members of the Ravelry community can click to “favorite” and store the project in their own profiles. Ravelry also contains databases of knitting and crocheting patterns, books, yarns, and contact information for those who sell those same products.
some of my projects in the Ravelry database in Jan. 2009
When a project owner types in the name or maker of a yarn, for example, Ravelry will look at the words and provide names of similar yarns stored in its yarn database. If a match is found, the yarn in the project is linked back into the database. Another member of the community can do a search on that yarn and find this project along with all of the Ravelry projects that were made using that yarn. The projects will include photos, descriptions and ratings for the yarn and the patterns used.
a search on alpaca yarns inside of Ravelry (shown above) By the way, that same user can also see how many other “Ravelrers” have that yarn stored in the “stash” tab of their profiles and whether they are willing to sell or trade it. Often the photos of various yarns provided by the members of Ravelry are of better quality than those found on the websites and catalogs that sell those same yarns. And, seeing the yarn rated and knit up in many different colors and into many different projects, really helps fiber artists decide which yarn to use for what project.
my yarn " stash " photos in Jan. 2009
What serious fiber artist or fiber arts business wouldn’t be?
Ever wonder about the future of the fiber arts in an increasingly electronic world? Way back on January 17th, 2008 when Ravelry only had 72,879 users, they did a survey of their members and found that the median age was 35. As of January 6, 2009 there were 253,955 registered users and 2,417 more on the waiting list. The average wait time was listed as 2 days, meaning that Ravelry is adding well over 1,000 new users each day. Did I mention that it’s free? No article could ever describe all of the amazing and intriguing features of Ravelry, so why not discover the rest for yourself? When you do join, don’t forget to “friend” me, Alpacagal.
- “Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.” – taken from http://www.etsy.com/about.php
- “RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works” – taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
Friday, April 1, 2011
I do not want Autumn to go
With hardly a summer to talk about, finally the past three weeks have been delightful. An average of 22 degrees, and just beautiful, calm, sunny days.
The sun gives you a joy
i have never seen so many beautiful and colourful butterflies in my life, we are seeing hundred’s every day, they are absolutely beautiful. All are so colourful, and we have seen some as big as my hand…although I do not have a large hand, it is big for a butterfly.
It has placed a little bit of joy in my life currently.
Hoping for good luck with some Feng Sui
I am dealing with a lot of Chinese at the moment.
i thought maybe some good Feng Sui may help me through.
Miniature Alpacas
I just received a phone call today with an enquiry for Miniature Alpacas.
I was disturbed when the lady told m she has been told that you can buy Miniature alpacas.
There may be breeders who dispute this statement I am about to make, and which I told this lady.
There are no Miniature alpacas.
Any miniature alpaca is usually due to Failure to Thrive, and or a heart complaint.
It is my advice not to pursue either selling or purchasing miniature alpacas, as they will bring heartbreak to the new owners.
Failure to thrive can affect any species, there is no cure or remedy.
The cria usually develops ok until they have just been weaned, and then they just do not thrive. Again, it usually is because of a heart defect, and this animal will always die young.
The heart will only be able to pump enough blood until the cria is so big, and then it cannot pump enough for it to grow any more.
It is heart breaking for the owner of the cria, who has put a lot of effort, and love into the cria.
Although the cria will have quality of life, in my opinion, it is unwise to sell any smallish alpaca, unless it has been checked out by a vet first to confirm that the cria is totally healthy.
Benefits of living on a Hill
After recent floods, it is more evident the advantages of your farm being on higher land.
Although we always said, if we flooded i would hate to be on lowland.
The last thing we thought of was that we could flood on top of a hill.
Well yes, our hill was a waterfall, and all the water funnelling into our laneways and driveway, which made a gushing river, flowing so fast.
Where the laneways met from a couple of directions, this caused an even stronger effect on the water, almost like you see water being expelled from the dam wall.
On the lower end of our road, dam walls were bursting, and so the effect of all the water from the hills and the dam, this caused the road into a torrent of water.
This I know is only small compared to those who suffered up north, and one who has not experienced the flooding we saw, it is hard to understand.
The after effects of a flood, is what people do not think about.
On a farm, it is the first thing you think about.
After the waters disappear, yes you have a clean up, you have to monitor all animals, as stress levels can be delayed on different animals, after experiences they have gone through.
Eumonia, young cria, any late pregnant female under this stress can abort, or deliver a very prem cria.
Monitoring every animal, is essential, not just the initial days after.
Then the water disperses, and it makes it’s own way through properties.
Along with it, any faeces, worms (parasites), run off from neighbouring farms.
This runoff, you do not know.
Weeds, plants, pests (insects), and diseases which will establish themselves in new areas.
Top soil has washed itself downstream, along with plant, and animal matter from miles away.
This is an ideal way for biosecurity threats including plant, pests, diseases and weeds to spread.
This is the time to be vigilant and adhere to basic hygiene principles.
The water lying around is perfect environment for mosquitos, and they carry so many deadly diseases.
When we visited Mildura recently, the radio said that Ross River fever spread by mosquitos, was spreading with hundreds of people affected within the first few weeks.
There are many arbovirus diseases spread by mosquitos, that effect our farm animals and wildlife.
Luckily for our farm, this is more in the warmer zones than down here, although i have heard up north NSW, disease zones have now moved south because of the flood waters.
Back to the topic of this Blog.
Our farm became an island, although our laneways and driveway did become a raging river, for many hours, the water did disperse down to the lower lands of farms lower than us.
Being on the highland, importantly we did not get that wash, loss of topsoil, or diseases, animal matter and weed seeds run onto our property.
We have always lived on a hill….hence Mariah Hill, even though we were attracted to hills.
Q Alpaca, also was developed so that farms could recognize biosecurity threats, and have plans in action for this.
Living on top of a hill has huge advantages.
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