Taking stock
With our return home this past Sunday evening from the Vermont show, we concluded four straight weekends of alpaca events. Though fun throughout, the last three weekends have involved Jen and I being away from home three days of each week and sleeping in hotel beds of variable quality. At least Sam and Max were also able to join us at the show this past weekend, as well as the week before in Syracuse, which from a purely selfish point of view was great: we got to tend to business (with real help from the boys both looking after the critters and showing) and we got to have our kids with us. Nonetheless, we’re all looking forward to waking up together this coming Saturday morning in the comfy confines of our own house. All further walking in circles — or as Sammy pointed out, walking in one circle and then standing there like a nit wit for 15 minutes might be more accurate — has been put off for now until next April at the North American show.
Our show results in Syracuse and Essex were pretty much as we would have hoped for with no real surprises to speak of, or at least not any bad ones. As it was this past weekend alone produced over 10 Championships between the halter and fleece shows, after nearly equivalent halter results the weekend before at Empire. Safe to say we had nothing to complain about.
Other random tidbits from the past couple of weeks:
Congratulations to our good friends Alan and Susan Monat of Happy Hearts Alpaca Farm on winning the Precocious breeding that Magical Farms and CCNF had donated to benefit the UMass Camelid Studies Program! Unlike many silent stud service auctions, the one at Green Mountain actually got kind of hot near the end and it took a bid of $3,200 for the Monats to come out on top. They got a great breeding to one of our most important Herdsires at more than 50% off its regular price and the CSP got some badly needed support. Like I said in a post last week: win-win.
Old friend Scott Young of Hilltop Alpacas, who oversees the Empire show, mentioned to us several weeks back that a lot of the farm names signing up for that event were new to him. Though the fall shows were admittedly smaller this year than they have been in quite a while, the arrival of new (read: post-recession) blood into the northeast alpaca community can only be a good thing in the long term.
While it’s obviously fun winning with one’s own animals at a show, there are few things as gratifying as watching a customer win with your genetics. Congratulations to Vikki Butynski of Wildwood Acres Alpacas who gently cajoled us earlier this year into parting with CCNF Eva Rose! Eva, whose dam Johanna and granddam, Magdalena, need no introduction for those that have followed our program over the years, upheld the family name in convincing fashion by winning the Light Female Color Championship this past weekend! We were tickled…
CCNF Elixir, who is beige, spent the past couple of weeks doing his thing and collecting three more banners in the process (he won halter and fleece in VT). Though we had watched his post-shearing regrowth with great excitement over the summer, even having come off of his amazing spring — where he won Judges’ Choice at both the NAAS and the Futurity — we just couldn’t take anything for granted. Anyone that has ever had a show animal of that caliber that has presumed to have any future wins “in the bag” just because of prior success is either inexperienced, arrogant, naive, delusional, or some combination of all four. The fates have a habit being cruel sometimes after all. Suffice it so say that it was a relief to have the judges these past couple of weeks revalidate what we thought we were seeing over the past 5+ months. Mr. Mellow is now with his co owners, Neil, Jo, and Bari Padgett, at A Paca Fun Farm in Maryland for the next 7 months or so though he will at least temporarily rejoin his CCNF brethren in time for our spring show circuit next year, assuming of course that the Mayans are wrong, though I digress as usual. Show results aside, we’re extremely excited about the prospects of breeding his elite fleece characteristics further into our program starting next year. Pity that 2/3rds of our top light females are his maternal aunts. Of course we — and obviously our partners who specialize in grey — think he can breed to color too. Time will tell of course, as it always does.
Elixir’s younger paternal brother, CCNF Defiance, made his public debut in Syracuse and came home after the two shows with a couple of blue ribbons and a White Male Color Championship to his name. Not too shabby for a 9 month old little fart. Unlike his more famous older sibling, Big D is unrelated to the vast majority our light foundation herd and as such represents a hugely important genetic puzzle piece for us going forward. While we’re not generally big fans of mid-winter births — let’s face it, 6 AM baby checks when its 10 degrees out pretty much suck — that one was clearly worth the trouble. Meanwhile, Defiance’s dam, Cadenza, quietly added to her personal trophy case this past weekend winning the White Championship, Judges’ Choice, and Spirit of the Industry award at the fleece show with a 90 point score at the age of 5. There’s a mighty fine reason we hold her and her sons (Concerto already holds a slot in the CCNF Stud Barn) in such high esteem. Not fazed in the least by her recent winnings, when Jen first saw a newly rebred Cadenza on Monday morning she had temporarily escaped the confines of the newly reconstituted dry lot on the north side of the Arena and was seemingly covered in black. All as if to say, “how do you like my 5 lb. blanket now lady?” After all, who cares about more banners when there is recently spread compost on the pastures to go and have a naughty celebratory roll in?
