NSA Farm News

Where Does Your Wardrobe Begin?

Fashion

If you’ve ever wondered how that beautiful alpaca apparel comes to be, just take a look at the process in the photo here.  This is the beginning when we shear the animals.  Shearing takes place in the spring, preferably before the hot weather begins to keep the animals from overheating with their long fleece.  The day is busy, but we try to keep it as stress free as possible for the alpacas.  They don’t appreciate being tied down on a mat very much, but they are not hurt.  It’s best if you have a trained shearer.  Shearing is a skill that takes time to learn for the safety of the animals and the quality of the fleece.  The technique is critical to maximize the fleece for production.  The fleece is the product you’re “harvesting” from your alpaca.  It’s also important that your alpaca return to the pasture with a nice even haircut, not only so they look good, but to optimize the next year’s shearing.  The raw fleece is carefully collected, sorted and picked clean of obvious debris.  It can then be sent to a mill to be processed into rovings or yarn, or hand spun.  This year, our fleece was sent to a mill in Maine to be spun into yarn.  We expect our order to arrive at the end of August.  We have white, beige, fawn, brown, and black yarn.  At this point, we haven’t dyed any of our yarn, but will sell the natural colors.

Who's Expecting?

In the know

As of today, we’re still awaiting the arrival of Rita and Splenda’s new baby.  Rita’s official due date is August 6th, but we know that last year she went 10 days past her due date.  We’ll keep you posted.  Splenda still has some time to wait.  She’s due at the end of September.  She delivered Murphy 2 weeks early last year, so we’ll be keeping our eye on her, too!  Watch for updates to come!