Spring Happenings: Thou Shalt Get Naked and Eat Green Grass!

For the better part of the past 2 months now, we have had the company of not just our college-aged sons but also their respective girlfriends. Though the grocery bills from feeding a household of 6 people that includes 4 20-somethings have been occasionally eye watering, it has actually been really nice having the extra company in this time of relative isolation (“girl energy,” as my Mom would say) and there’s little doubt that the kids themselves have all taken some solace from the social bubble that having three other contemporaries in the household has provided. Jen and I are, after all, relatively old and boring by comparison! And while the humans on the farm here continue to live a somewhat subdued existence courtesy of Covid-19 (cloth face masks, exam gloves, Lysol wipes, etc…in tow whenever we venture out), the seasonal rhythms of the farm slow down for nobody.

The shearing Take-Down Crew selfie with the author and @pilotsammy. You can tell it was early on day #1, A. ’cause we were still acting silly between animals, and B. in spite of the physical exertions, we were both wearing watch caps as it was only in the high 30s that morning. Warm, sore, and tired (not necessarily in that order) would come later.

From April 28th to May 1st all-around good guy Matt Best was here to shear the herd. Though our youngest was still caught up in the tail end of his (now) online spring semester, his older brother Sam, who nowadays towers over us all, had just finished his school year and along with yours truly, spent all four days as one half of the primary alpaca take-down crew. If the animals knew how to lead, then they were often walked over to one of the two alternating shearing stations we had set up in the middle of the CCNF Arena, if not…we carried them. Oh, the incomparable joys of a non-leading, 250+ lb. bred female, who doesn’t particularly like being touched in the first place. Hilarity ensued often, as you can imagine. Though shearing every year is a bit like one’s first ski day every winter — as in you rediscover muscle groups you had forgotten from the previous year — the fact that the two of us managed to handle 230+ animals without anyone suffering any major strains or pulls, means that we were doing something right, I guess? With Matt and his head-man, Jordan, having come up the east coast, south to north, shearing since late February or early March — just as the pandemic was getting warmed up — we also took the extra precaution of equipping our entire staff with the infamous N95 masks throughout, as well as practicing protocols for meal and break times designed to minimize risk and exposure. Needless to say, having spent over 40+ hours wearing one of those things, I now have even more respect for front-line medical folks who are routinely wearing them for 12+ hours every time they work a shift. I will happily stick with alpaca farming, thank you very much. Sure would be nice to shear next year sans the N95s but we’re not the ones that will get to make that decision…

Some time in mid to late April, the pastures on the farm go from looking like dead, brown moonscapes — having been grazed down quite aggressively the previous fall — to suddenly exploding into emerald green. Every year we play this game of “when-do-you-let-the-animals-out?” The trick being for the pastures to have enough growth to sustain several days (if not weeks) of a given feed group’s grazing, without having so much growth that we need to mow in order to keep the grasses from heading out and becoming less palatable. It’s a dance and of course the beauty of it is that it’s really Mother Nature and the mix of rain, sun, and average daily temperature that determine the correct answer to that question every year. Though we did finally open up the paddocks off the south side of the Arena several days ago for the first time, it feels anecdotally like we’re maybe a little behind on the calendar relative to recent years. Of course it’s been generally dry over the past couple of weeks (the farm’s solar array’s numbers back this up), so in the end, it’s no real surprise.

The crias have started to fly in earnest, with 3 out of 14 from that first birthing group arriving in pretty quick succession. There are some exciting debuts in the offing, including the first crias ever born here sired by CCNF Priam, CCNF Sovereign-Legacy, CCNF Declan, and Irish Meadow’s Elite Max! Also several first time dams (though thinking of Amalthea and Lucretia), from vital maternal lines in our program that are also retired members of our show teams from the past couple of years. Fingers crossed for all…

Last but not least, a final plug for something new and fun we got to do last month while living the Quarantine Dream. Though he’d been batting the idea around for a while as a concept, our good friend Ole Erik Sjøli at Alpacajoy of Norway, decided that since he too was stuck on his farm for several months, that he would bring The Alpaca Podcast to life. His inaugural episode was an interview with a couple of veteran alpaca nerds from Vermont. Future episodes should be coming soon and the link below will take you to the Pod’s home page on PodBean, where you can stream them directly. Check it out!

Follow me on Twitter @CCNFalpacas and on Instagram at ccnfalpacas