Bataclan Rises: CCNF at the 2020 AOA National Fleece Show
So I’d love to be sitting here writing about the great long weekend Jen and I just spent 10 days ago, wandering the live music venues in Nashville but, you know…2020. For the past couple of years, our July sojourn in Music City had become a mid-summer tradition of sorts, attending the AOA Natural Fiber Extravaganza by day, and then happily immersing ourselves into downtown Nashville culture by night. Understandably, it was not to be this time around though.
Given the lack of other shows or competitions of any sort throughout the industry since March, I think many alpaca folks were extremely grateful to AOA when it was announced that though they were cancelling the fiber conference itself for health and safety reasons, that they would nonetheless be able to hold the fleece show. This was done without any spectators and instead just brought the Show Supers, Judges, and volunteers (without whom, none of this would have been possible, thank you!) into the fairgrounds in Lebanon, TN and had all exhibitors ship their fleeces to the show ahead of time.
The first part of that challenge, we’d already dealt with in the past, as it was always logistically easier — to say nothing of less expensive — to ship the 40 to 50 fleeces Jen prepared for the National show via FedEx and then fly out to meet them in Tennessee, than it would have been to cram them into duffels and bring them along ourselves. What changed for us specifically this year though, was 1. needing to have the fleeces into the shipping pipeline a bit earlier; 2. some really horrendous straw bedding from 2019 (which our entire herd had bedded on since last fall) that made Jen’s skirting and preparation decidedly more laborious and time consuming; and 3. last but certainly not least, the June maternity ward action at the CCNF Arena being filled with, well, let’s just say “drama,” and leave it at that.
In the end you can’t keep a good fleece nerd down though. With an assist to the audio book versions of The Count of Monte Cristo and Don Quixote, keeping my better half from losing her mind completely, the last of 9 22″ x 22″ boxes filled with 50+ show fleeces skirted and noodled went to our local FedEx shipping center just under the gun, in order to arrive where it needed to be no later than Friday, July 3rd.
CCNF Electra 
CCNF Gregarious 
CCNF Kalani 
CCNF Gibraltar 
CCNF Trillium 
CCNF Veracity
What happened from there at the show itself in terms of results, we honestly didn’t know at first, other than some broken audio from the completely well-meaning but garbled awards feed from the show facility on Saturday, 7/11. It really wasn’t until several days later, when AOA posted the PDF of the official results on their website, that we got confirmation of what we suspected had been a successful show for our animals and a big payoff for Jennifer’s hours of labor. The obvious screaming headline for us is that CCNF Bataclan (CCNF Daliance x CCNF Elixir) has quickly risen to become the current lead Herdsire in our breeding program with good cause. His kids (all juveniles at shearing as these were his first crop – that’s six of them in the gallery above) had originally been slated to be over 30% of the 40+ member show team we were going to take with us to Futurity back in April for a reason. It may be that we were on to something?
We do always appreciate too when our animals do well in fleece shows, as win lose or draw, the results are the results, are the results. Though we have enjoyed showing our animals in the halter rings over the years as well, there can be no insinuation from a fleece show result that the placings had anything to do with who might or might not have been on the end of a lead line. The fleeces are judged blind with the judges having no idea which alpaca’s fleece they are looking at, so the consistent results on both the male and the female sides of the show (with 3 different judges) in Tennessee last week were particularly gratifying. Anyway, yay! I do also want to make a particular shout-out to our partners at Kendall Creek Farms who prepared and entered the fleece of our young co owned Herdsire, CCNF Dominion (CCNF Delilah x Snowmass Matrix Majesty)! When we dropped Dom off at the Works’ farm last winter, embarrassingly for us his fleece already looked like a skirting nightmare in the making, having apparently attracted nearly every straw seed head it possibly could have. It sure wasn’t pretty, and that was after we had attempted to clean him up too. Kudos to Chris and Lori Works for quite frankly working a genuine fleece show miracle of sorts and in so doing, sparing my wife probably several hundred more grey hairs in the process. All good! Ok, results below…
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2020 AOA National Fleece Show, Lebanon, TN – CCNF Championships, 1st Place Winners, & Specialty Awards
Cas-Cad-Nac Farm LLC – 2020 AOA Heirloom Breeder Cup, Huacaya Fleece
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Judges’ Choice Female Huacaya Fleece
CCNF Gregarious (CCNF Flirtatious x CCNF Bataclan) – Judges’ Choice Male Huacaya Fleece
CCNF Gimlet (CCNF Amore x CCNF Elixir) – Spirit of the Fiber Industry Award, Huacaya Female
CCNF Priam (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – Spirit of the Fiber Industry Award, Huacaya Male
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Huacaya Best Brightness
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Huacaya Best Crimp
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Huacaya Best Handle
Snowmass Matrix Majesty (Snowmass Simply Scrumptious x Snowmass Matrix) – 1st Place, Huacaya Get of Sire
CCNF Dominion (CCNF Delilah x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – Champion Brown Huacaya Male
CCNF Maid Marian (CCNF Jasmine x CCNF Moonraker) – Champion Fawn Huacaya Female
CCNF Kalani (Gemstate’s Kashmira x CCNF Bataclan) – Champion Light Huacaya Female
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – Champion White Huacaya Female
CCNF Gibraltar (CCNF Gimlet x CCNF Bataclan) – Champion White Huacaya Male
CCNF Lyricist (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – Champion Multicolor Huacaya
CCNF Eternal Revel (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Dreadnought) – Reserve Champion Fawn Huacaya Male
CCNF Lyanna (CCNF Dorianna x CCNF Matrix Majesty) – Reserve Champion Fawn Huacaya Female
CCNF Trillium (CCNF Tessora x CCNF Bataclan) – Reserve Champion Light Huacaya Female
CCNF Veracity (CCNF Reyna x CCNF Bataclan) – Reserve Champion Light Huacaya Male
CCNF Priam (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – Reserve Champion White Huacaya Male
CCNF Dominion (CCNF Delilah x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, Yearling Brown Huacaya Males
CCNF Juneaux (CCNF Margaux x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Juvenile Dark Fawn Huacaya Females
CCNF Nymeria (CCNF Luna Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Yearling Dark Fawn Huacaya Females
CCNF Triumvirate (CCNF Luna Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Juvenile Dark Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Maid Marian (CCNF Jasmine x CCNF Moonraker) – 1st Place, Juvenile Medium Fawn Huacaya Females
CCNF Resilience (CCNF Couture x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Juvenile Medium Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Dreadnought’s Andromeda (CCNF Aurora x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Yearling Medium Fawn Huacaya Females
CCNF Eternal Revel (CCNF Eternal Rose x CCNF Dreadnought) – 1st Place, Yearling Medium Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Dark Storm (CCNF Love Dove x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, 2 Year Old Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Lyanna (CCNF Dorianna x CCNF Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, 2 Year Old Fawn Female Huacayas
CCNF Dreadnought (CCNF Prima Majesty x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Adult Medium Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Bonafide (CCNF Belle of the Ball x CCNF Sucrose) – 1st Place, Juvenile Light Fawn Huacaya Males
CCNF Vesuvia (CCNF Venise x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Juvenile Light Fawn Huacaya Females
CCNF Kalani (Gemstate’s Kashmira x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Juvenile Beige Huacaya Females
CCNF Bifrost (CCNF Mechlin x CCNF Centurion) – 1st Place, Yearling Beige Huacaya Males
CCNF Priya (CCNF Prestige x MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – 1st Place, Yearling Beige Huacaya Females
CCNF Amalthea (CCNF Capella x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, 2 Year Old Light Huacaya Females
CCNF Delilah (CCNF Lilah x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Adult Light Huacaya Females
CCNF Electra (CCNF Elicia x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Juvenile White Huacaya Females
CCNF Prescience (CCNF Prestige x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Juvenile White Huacaya Females
CCNF Gibraltar (CCNF Gimlet x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Juvenile White Huacaya Males
CCNF Khiara (CCNF Khione x CCNF Sucrose) – 1st Place, Yearling White Huacaya Females
CCNF Tessarina (CCNF Tessora x MFI’s & KVR’s Mint Mo Money) – 1st Place, 2 Year Old White Huacaya Females
CCNF Carrera (CCNF Panamera x CCNF Centurion) – 1st Place, Adult White Huacaya Females
CCNF Priam (CCNF Pristine x Snowmass Matrix Majesty) – 1st Place, Adult White Huacaya Males
CCNF Gimlet (CCNF Amore x CCNF Elixir) – 1st Place, Mature White Huacaya Females
CCNF Lyricist (CCNF Lyrica x CCNF Bataclan) – 1st Place, Juvenile Multicolor Huacayas
