Alpacas Are Absolutely Awesome

2008-06-28T04:36:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go? It's been more than a year -- and about 25 cria later -- since last I posted. I'm committed to be more regular. So much happens from day to day, and I am no techno genius for sure. But it can't be that difficult to keep a running dialog with more than one entry a year! :-) Wilson has graduated from high school, our two ranches are running strong, and I am hand-skeining boxes of beautiful spun fiber from our animals for our line of yarns, Natural Echoes™. Our multi-faceted garden is growing beautifully, and Wilson and I laid sod ten days ago in the back yard. Now where are all those great alpaca photos . . . .

2007-06-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

This cute little guy is the newest cria out of our stellar 1/4 Accoyo herdsire, Equinox Eternix, a multi-champion light rose grey out of Pperuvian Camillio.

La Buena Vida's Monolith was born on March 10, ARI number 30678828. Congratulations to Bruce and Jeri Beatty on this excellent breeding!

Equinox Eternix has an outstanding show record, never placing below 2nd in some very difficult classes under a number of judges between 2000 and 2004:

2000 North American Livestock Show 2nd place fleece
2000 North American Livestock Show 1st place shorn male
2001 Western Ohio Triple Crown (double show) Double 1st place
2001 Western Ohio Triple Crown Double Color Champion
2001 MAPACA 2nd place fleece
2002 Western Ohio Triple Crown (double show) 2nd place 2-yr huacaya male
2002 Western Ohio Triple Crown Double Reserve Color Champion
2002 MAPACA 2nd place adult huacaya male
2004 Houston Livestock Show 1st place adult grey male
2004 Houston Livestock Show Color Champion
2004 TxOLAN Spectacular 2nd place adult grey huacaya male
2004 MOPACA Invitational 2nd place adult grey huacaya male

This photo was taken of Eternix a couple of summers ago. His gorgeous rose grey color is very even with just a few dark spots. Look at that fiber coverage on his legs! He is an impressive herdsire with perfect conformation, wonderful crimp and show winners of his own on the ground, including:

Cloud Dancer's All That Jazz (1st place Light Juvenile Male and Light Male Reserve Color Champ at the 2004 Southwest Regional Show; 1st place Juvenile Beige Male at the Great Western Alpaca Show in Denver, May 2004; 3rd place Yearling Beige Male at the 2004 AOBA National Show). He was recently sold by Cloud Dancer Alpacas in Flagstaff, AZ.
Diamond Spectrum (1st place and Color Champion at the 2005 Houston Livestock Show) was purchased by Fuzzy Acres Alpaca Ranch and has continued to win ribbons.
Ekaterina de LaCroix is another very dark beautiful girl out of Eternix, who resides at LaCroix Alpacas and Llamas in western Pennsylvania.

Watch for more about Eternix crias in future issues of our quarterly newsletter, The Diamond Digest. If you'd like to be put on the mailing list, just drop us a note via email.

2007-05-31T19:00:00.001-07:00

Well, I posted some notes on what I thought was the new, improved, updated version of this blog, but now it appears I did something wrong or incorrectly. So some information entered the past few months has been lost forever. :-( But we're moving on. Getting better. Smarter. More tech-savvy. And while I have lost a few posts, we'll just forge ahead!

Our book CAVERN OF BABEL, published by Diamond Triple C Ranch, is really going places. This weekend it will be featured at Book Expo in New York City, and later this month it will be promoted at the American Library Association in Washington, DC. Author Albert Packard will join me there, and we'd love for you to stop by the Independent Book Publishers Association booth and visit us.

The wonderful huacaya and suri alpacas featured in the book were drawn by Shawn Boyles, a talented video game character designer. Visit the website for the book, www. buttersby.com, for more information on Buttersby and Meander. You can also join Buttersby's fan club, play some games, order books or T-shirts . . . it's a great site! And it changes all the time.

The Virginia Ranch now has alpacas again! They've been back for a couple of weeks now. We have a wonderful caretaker, Vanessa, and a property manager, Fred, who have gotten the place into shape and are doing a terrific job there. The alpacas have all been shorn so they don't look quite so cuddly, but it is a good thing. Our weather is hot and hotter! So "cool" is the order of the day for our animals!

2006-08-28T15:23:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go? Summer is all but over, kids are going back to school, and our alpacas have all moved to Oklahoma. Yes, sad but true . . . but only temporary! Our Virginia managers have had serious health issues, and we all decided it was advisable for them to address those issues and take care of their family first and foremost. We wish them all the best. We are keeping the Virginia property (Echo Valley) but will reopen it next year as a fiber-only alpaca ranch to house all types of fiber arts. Our new line of limited-edition yarns from our own animals (Natural Echoes TM) in their gorgeous natural colors will be available there and at our farm stores, Echo Valley Fruit & Fiber. In the meantime, if any of you need to contact us about breedings, alpacas for sale, and the like, you can reach us at the Oklahoma ranch!

Everyone has been asking what my wonderful Treehouse is like. You know, Treehouses are the "in" thing for relaxing and connecting to nature. We decided to post a few pictures so you could see what a creative space the Alpaca Treehouse has become for me!

2006-07-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Good morning! It will be a record-breaking week for heat in Pennsylvania -- but you can't argue with the blue sky and lovely breeze! I'm writing from my Treehouse where I do all my sorting, carding and spinning of alpaca fiber -- plus the record-keeping -- and it couldn't be nicer!

Thought you would enjoy a couple of pictures of the newest member of our animal family. Gable is a purebred Ragdoll cat whom we got from Rebecca Wixom at RaggleDazzle Ragdolls in Clearwater, FL (www.raggledazzle.com).

These pictures were taken by a superb professional cat photographer, Helmi Flick, in Dallas, TX (www.helmiflick.com). She is amazing! It was really incredible to watch these professionals capture Gable's quick movements on film. Gable is tons of fun . . . and if you ever doubted that we like furry creatures, this ought to cement it!

We have six of our premiere alpaca girls in four different auctions this fall. We will be profiling each of them over the next few weeks, so be sure to watch for them. They are:

Diamond Princess Divinity (huacaya)at the Eastern Extreme Auction in WV (www.easternextremeauction.com);
Dark Knight's Duvessa (huacaya) at the Breeders Edge Auction in VA (www.breedersedge.info);
Diamond Houdini's Princess Aurora (suri) and
Diamond Peruvian Forever Summer (suri) at the Private Collection Auction in OH (http://www.alpacajack.com/resources/private-collection.aspx);
Diamond Houdini's Magic Penny (suri) and
Diamond FlashFire's Kristeen (suri) at the Peruvian Auction, also in OH

These girls are hand-selected and spectacular! Check back so you can find out all about them and their superlative genetics. In the meantime, if you'd like us to send you detailed information and a fiber sample, please email me.

2006-07-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Happy July 1st! We have a new article on our website that appeared on the Virginia Ranch in the May issue of BARC Electric's publication, COOPERATIVE LIVING. Take a look at it by clicking on the following link:

www.diamondtriplecranch.com/frames/media.htm

There are some good photos of the Trevinos, our ranch managers, and Lumiere as a cria and then as an adult! Enjoy!

2006-06-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it finally stopped raining! Pennsylvania, as has most of the northeast, has been totally inundated with rain for days! It even rained more last night, though the weatherpeople had predicted otherwise. Our headquarters office in Yardley was safe and dry, though we can't say as much for downtown Yardley. Those poor businesses are under water, as are many homes. But the town really pulls together at times like these, and they are working at getting things back to normal. The Delaware crested at 2pm yesterday and is supposed to begin receeding late today. The humidity is lower today, which always helps.

We got our fiber numbers back from Whittick and were very pleased with the results. Highest numbers from Diamond Monjeau's Lady Hermione - a gorgeous huacaya with a micron count of 16.1 and a comfort factor of 100%! Close behind were Zephyrus' Diamond Zeppelin with 17 and Diamond Cimarron at 17.5, both with 100% comfort factors.

Our rising suri multicolored herdsire sire, GLA Peruvian Alexander had a 17.9 and 99.6 comfort factor. Other high numbers were posted by our multi-ribboned Smoke Signal, Diamond Sir Gawain and Diamond Midnight Majesty.

Many breeders were super interested in Baron's Lumiere, the suri winner who has such tremendous density. His micron count was 20.5 and comfort factor of 99.6. He is starting now to breed at our VA Ranch, and what a package: density-PLUS and now this great micron count! Our stellar huacaya herdsire GLA Peruvian Sensation, a Royal Fawn grandson and champion in his own right, got a micron of 23 and comfort factor of 91.4. He, too, is accepting breedings in VA.

Will let you know more numbers later!

2006-06-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Many people don't even know what an alpaca is. They've never heard of them -- let alone seen a real alpaca. At Diamond Triple C Ranch we have more than 90 alpacas on our two ranch properties and are expecting 30 new ones within the next 10 months. We'll try to give you a few alpaca facts every day that will enhance your knowledge of these unique animals. For starters, alpacas come in more than 22 natural colors. This picture of our new cria and the moms who are interested in her gives you an idea of the variety in color. Jane (Annie's mom) is the one on the left. She is considered to be a light fawn color. Next to her is American Beauty (dark rose grey), Evening Primrose (light rose grey) and Stella (true black). These girls were all shorn (an annual ritual) just a month ago, which is why they look a little fiber-less. All the pregnant girls take serious interest in the new cria. Alpacas are very social, and you would never want to keep a lone alpaca. Even when we take them to shows or to the vet or wherever -- every alpaca has to have a buddy or they will be extremely distressed.

2006-06-15T18:43:00.000-07:00

We had a beautiful full Accoyo cria at our Virginia Ranch location. We named her Diamond Accoyo Annie-Get-Your-Gun, as she was out of Calamity Jane and Jedi Accoyo of the USA. What a gorgeous little girl! So curly!

Here you can see Annie pronking (alpaca-speak for playing) with her friends, Diamond Black Magic and Diamond Magic Penny. Penny is a suri (pronounced "sir-ee"), while Magic and Annie are both huacaya (pronounced "wha-kai-a"). Huacayas have a much more dense, curly fiber, while suris have a fiber that is longer and appears to fall in long, pencilled locks. We have both types of alpacas on our ranch in Virginia, as well as our Oklahoma ranch.