Thank you!

I’m sitting here today as the parent of a newly minted high school freshman. So far, so good. I think it’s safe to say that Sammy’s parents were at least as nervous about him making the big jump up yesterday as he was. At the moment though I’m just enjoying the fact that for the first time in nine years, he gets to play soccer at the school he actually attends, instead of us having to drive him to a second location altogether every afternoon…how novel.

Between breedings, new crias being born, prepping our kids for the start of their school years, and oh, yeah, some alpaca auction we had animals in, the last week seemed to just fly by.  Just seven days ago I was driving down to the Breeders Edge sale in Gainesville, VA before then high-tailing it back on late Sunday afternoon, my trailer empty of auction animals which, after all, is the way it’s supposed to work! Thankfully the farm truck seems to know that Pennsylvania/Virginia route seemingly on its own and the fact that yours truly had his mind off in a hundred different directions didn’t seem to matter. The auction itself though was excellent all around and I really had a great time both catching up with old friends, as well as talking with a bunch of new breeders that I might not otherwise have met. While the sale of our consigned animals was obviously the ultimate goal, the networking opportunities presented by an event like the BE are really second to none. I even survived my 4+ hours of the costume contest dressed up as the world’s shortest and slightly shivery (they’ve got their AC thing down) greek warrior: though trust me, Sparta ain’t gonna be calling my number anytime soon!

We wish to offer our profound thanks to Lynn Edens of Little Creek Farm Alpacas/Accoyo America East and Peter and Susan Goodwin of Foster’s Trail & Alpaca Farm for their purchases of CCNF Ladyhawke and CCNF Andean Majesty respectively at the Breeders Edge! We know that both females are going to wonderful breeding programs and we look forward to seeing what each of them produces in the years ahead for their new owners.

Meanwhile here on the home front, the crias have continued to birth at a nice rate (read: several born each week but not more than 2 in a day thus far) and Jen has even been able to catch up with the shearing of the newest members of the CCNF herd over the past couple of days. Last year I think we stopped shearing crias somewhere around the first week of September — guilty consciences about shivering neonates and all of that — once the nights started to get a little too cool. So at least on that count the clock is ticking a bit…

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