Decisions, Decisions.

I have obviously got to much time on my hands at the moment because after spending the morning trying to sort out my car insurance, which is very time consuming and very fustrating.

Golden Nugget

Caliban

I then spent the afternoon looking at expected birth dates for our females and that got me thinking of which studs to use after said females had given birth.  Poor things, most of them aren't due to give birth until late summer and I am already planning the next one.  This year we used a couple of outside studs and I have one outstanding breeding already paid for.

The main decision is whether to use Caliban again, he has given us some lovely cria, especially Calico who is now at Pippin Alpacas or do we look for another stud male to bring in, then there is Golden Nugget who also has produced some lovely looking cria with great fleece.  We have given young Atlas a couple of females this year so it will be interesting to see what he can do, he comes from my very favourite female 'Marietta' she has had 4 cria for us and her
 first three boys all did well in the show ring, she had a female this year who will be shown this spring.
I am sure we will have may decisions over the next few months on this subject and what ever I decide now may well change several times before the females are ready.

I have done a lot of knitting over the last few weeks, tried out some new patterns and used some great beaded luxury yarns to trim our own Alpaca yarns but I think the most unusual request I have had was to knit a jumper for a Chihuahua, a very small one at that.  I was amazed to find so many patterns on the internet for dog coats, I drew the line if knitting it in alpaca so brought some basic acrylic yarn, actually ended up knitting a dress with frills.......must get a photo with the dog modelling it!

Atlas

The other decision to be taken is which shows and fairs are we taking our stand to this summer, last year we did a lot of shows in August which were very good but hard work, we said that if we did them again we would not try to work as well, so we need to make a decision before we get too much work booked in and then I must get knitting!