Peaking at the right time

Somehow the grass looked even greener this morning when I drove up to the Arena to do cria check at 6AM. I’m not sure if the farm missed us while we were away this weekend but we definitely missed it. Of all the hotels we’ve stayed at in Syracuse over the years — first while attending the Empire show in Octobers past, then over the last couple of days for the Expo — we actually were probably in the most comfortable one we’ve ever found. Like Dorothy said though, there’s no place like home.

It’s not that we didn’t have fun at the Expo, mind you. We had lots of our friends at the show, which is quite frankly one of the primary reasons we enjoy that whole walking-in-circles shindig at this point anyway. Amongst the many were Pat Badger, Ring-walker extraordinaire, there to help us show our females (see crystalline helmet at left), 3/4s of the Munro clan (sans Tilly) were present, as well as our buddies Wayne and Sue Robinson. The show was of course run by the ever reliable (and yes, even lovable) junta of Kevin O’Leary and Scott Young with the perpetually efficient Melissa Young-Crozet as their show super. I strongly suspect that that crew could run a small alpaca show in their sleep at this point. One slightly out of body experience for me was listening to them all (Kevin/Scott/Melissa) discuss judging assignments for the 2012 North American show next spring. That’s a discussion Jen and I would have had a say in had it been any time during the past 10 years. This time around I just stood (ok, sat) idly by listening, happily noshing on way too many Pringles, and drinking my beer. That works for me.

As for our results at the Expo, we were thrilled! Perhaps the biggest surprise was Magnus, the Royal Rose/LG cross that we co own with the Youngs coming out of “retirement” to win the brown male championship. Mags hadn’t been shown in over a year and we had decided to give him a run out just to see how he’d match up with the younger set just one month shy of his 3rd birthday. I guess he did ok.

Magnus’ maternal line was not done stamping its presence on the results sheet though. First his little brother Magnanimous took a 2nd in his juvi class. Then shortly after that their yearling sister, Lilah, won her championship in the fawn females. As Jen and I were taken up with the larger male side of our show string though, Lilah was a little bit off of our radar screen. As a result we didn’t have any big expectations for her other than her being competitive (she’s previously won 2 RCs) in her color group. Having not really looked at her fleece critically myself in over three weeks since we left the NAAS, I didn’t realize just how great she was looking this time around. So it was that Magdalena’s 3rd cria gave us the best surprise of all at the end of the weekend’s festivities. We may have been pretty spent by Sunday afternoon but there’s no denying that that red banner made the drive home a little easier. Full credit must also go to our friends and partners at Tripping Gnome Farm (Lilah is also a Snowmass Royal Challenger daughter) for their help in making our now retired Champion. I think we might even go back to that genetic well at some point though first mother and daughter (oh, the kink!) have an upcoming date with some Majesty fellow.

So now we are home and have 72 48 hours to prep for the shearing of 219 alpacas over the course of four days (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday). Tough but by no means insurmountable. We are fortunate to have a veteran shearing crew here on the farm so that no one is really even getting all that hopped up or stressed out about the week ahead. Alas, the forecast is not all that fleece-friendly with possible rain in one form or another for every day between now and Friday. No matter. To deal with this twist we have the industrial-sized fan order (numbers of fans, not their size) which arrived just in time last week. So long as we’re not actually planning on being able to hear each other, the barns are a perfectly dry and pleasant place to hang out at the moment. The weatherman gave us lemons and we shall make lemonade.