Alpaca visit

I had a delightful tour of Alpacas of Marin on Sunday. They have a mix of suris and huacayas (as well as a few accidental mixed crias, oops), in a range of colors. She also showed me a few bags of raw fleece still waiting to be processed, as well as finished yarn from her own alpacas. I've been reading alpaca books and websites and watching videos, but getting to interact with them up close helps all the information fall into place. I plan to return to help on shearing day if I'm available. I've also already volunteered for shearing day on another large farm, which will be in April.

I suggest clicking on the pictures to see them pop up in a larger size, so you can better see their adorable faces.

Huacaya females.

Goth suri female. Look at that eyeliner!

Small suri female with another one making a derpy face in the background.

Suri mom and nursing baby.

Huacaya female with the classic fluffy top.

Suri female with unusual white nose.

Huacaya female taking a rest.

Huacaya boys. The black one was gorgeous.

Some sexy times happening among the girls.

Burying my hands into thick fleece.

Pulling the fleece open to see its true color, crimp, and length.

Drying resusable baggies

I hung this string and clothespins for drying herbs, but it's come in handy for reusable baggies, as well.

Scallions

Yuuummm.

Planting dates

I decided that this year, I will do a better job of keeping track of planting dates, along with noting which company the seeds were from, and how they ended up doing/tasting. I set up a spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets.

This morning I planted seeds for chives, peas, radishes, dill, and a few hollyhocks. It's early, but seeds are cheap, so I figured why not?

Yarn ball winder

Look what I got for Christmas!

Crochet stocking

Right before leaving for my parents' house to celebrate Christmas, I grabbed some bulky red and white yarn to crochet a stocking for my dog, Chimera.

There was a toy in it on Christmas Eve. Thanks, Santa!

2015 goal review, plan for 2016

My goals for 2015 were set at a pretty low bar. I attained all of them except for visiting 2 alpaca farms, but I intentionally put those on the back burner. I'd still love to have alpacas on my future homestead, but 1) it's a much lower priority compared to raising produce, chickens, and rabbits, which are all much easier to get into, and 2) I want to live in the Tri-Valley, which is probably too hot in the summer for alpacas to be happy, so I might need to give up on that idea.

Let's set goals for 2016 which are attainable, but will force me to stretch a bit more:

• Implement a new marketing strategy for my dog training business each quarter. (This will be a challenge!)
• Watch at least 24 hours' worth of dog training DVDs from my stack. (2 hours each month - doable, right??)
• Observe or help with chicken slaughter, to gain hands on experience.
• Practice sewing/crafting with rabbit hides. I have a small stack of prepped hides but haven't done anything with them yet.
• Learn more about fiber. Hopefully take a spinning class AND see about volunteering on someone's farm on alpaca shearing day.
• Sew up the 3 pattern and fabric sets that have been sitting in my closet for a year. I just finished up a 3 day, intensive pants class at Stonemountain and want to make multiple pairs of pants from my new personalized pattern.
• Generally speaking, set aside larger chunks of time for myself, particularly for sewing.
• Continue cooking, gardening, crocheting.