Getting ready for Green Mountain
So here we are less than 48 hours away from loading up the trailer and heading not quite 100 miles north to the Green Mountain Alpaca Fall Spectacular in Essex, VT! As an aside, I’m quite certain that that is hands-down the longest name of any alpaca show in all of North America. In any case, it is the only show held here in our diminutive home state and we have always been proud to support it both as sponsors as well as by entering considerably more alpacas into the show itself then any reasonable or sane person should. Safe to say that moderation has never really been this family’s dominant trait.
The past week has been spent working the final kinks out of the new crop of rookie show animals, for the most part with success. Yes, there are still a couple of the youngsters that retain a quirk or two but for the most part if we had to walk into the show ring right this second, I think they’d all do ok. Jennifer, having finished round-penning and doing the rough cut on the last of the rooks earlier this week, has been mired for the past several days in the Arena’s fleece room skirting like a mad woman in preparation for the GMAFS fleece show as well. Tomorrow will be trailer packing day though, so hopefully by Friday morning all of the preparation will be behind us and we can just go and enjoy ourselves this weekend, fully in the knowledge that we’ve left no (ok, most) stone unturned in our preparations. Time will tell.
We also have a new handler joining us this time around in the form of our son, Max! Though Maxy has come with us to shows off and on literally since he was baby — Jen nursed him as a 3 week old at the Mapaca Jubilee — this is the first time, believe it or not, that he will actually be going into the show ring solo with animals. While Max has been a tried and true member of the team, helping us to care for the show animals while on the road for the past several years, for a kid that generally shies away from the limelight, this is kind of a big step. Of course it obviously helps that he’s a little bigger now. Even two years ago, the wildest of the juveniles might have been able to toss him around a bit when it would come time to hold animals for the judges. Though we will keep him away from the bigger and more hormonal of our yearlings just to be safe, we’re confident that he’ll be able to do the job now with little trouble.
All of which brings me to a thought that crept into my head while walking the entire show string (there are 28 of them total, including 12 rookies…stupid, I know) over the past 10 days or so. It occurred to me that training juveniles can at times feel like working with slightly bratty 6 and 7 year old humans: even if they are difficult and throw the odd tantrum in the beginning, they are ultimately fairly compliant so long as you are calm and consistent in your limits and instructions. Whereas as I can relate working with our already experienced yearlings (after a summer off of just being alpacas with none of this walk-on-a-slack-lead show ring silliness) to taking on a group of young hormonal teenagers, who at times seem to have decided that they have only a limited interest in our agenda. Though even they can be quickly brought back around with a little firmness and patience. It’s just always interesting to see the personalities of these animals change as they mature. Particularly those males that were relatively docile last April as 8 and 9 month old juvis, have in many cases had a switch thrown by now. Let’s just say that walking those boys by the female pens at the Main Barn sometimes requires a firmer grip on the lead line!
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