October...???!!! Adventures Await!

How the heck did October and fall arrive so soon? The past two months have been a complete whirlwind, with lots of highlights and low points... life is NEVER boring here at Seldom Scene Farm.

Here are some things I'm looking forward to or currently enjoying (don't think I'll look back on the "bad" stuff after all, it's behind us now!)

* Clean alpacas in the fields! (In late summer, our humidity is high and they roll a lot in their dust piles, subsequently looking like little muddy pigs. I like them better like this! That's Rosa, one of our Maremma guardian dogs).

* Fall trail riding, this Saturday at Cave Run Lake with Paul and Mirian, then next weekend away with my Gallop Girl friends.

* Teaching a felting class on Sunday, October 18th. Email me for details! (alpacalindy@gmail.com), or check it out on our farm blog.

* A baby shower for my niece Amanda and lots of baby knitting for pregnant friends and family members.

* Regular, unrushed quiet times doing things like walking along our leaf-covered river trail.

* And the big event... the countdown is on for Mirian and I to go on a working medical mission trip in Peru with Quechua Benefit. (34 more days, as I've already been reminded a few times today alone, can you tell somebody's excited!?)
I'll be detailing our trip more and more as the time grows nearer, but wanted to get the word out that we're collecting unopened over-the-counter pain medicines to take along. If you would like to help, please send or bring to us boxes of aspirin, ibuprofen, baby aspirin, etc. The people whom we'll be assisting live in an incredibly cold and harsh high-altitude environment and deal with a lot of pain on a regular basis. This is our small way of helping.... and you can, too!

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Alpaca Farm Days at Seldom Scene Farm

We were looking forward to going to Shaker Village for Alpaca Farm Days again, but alas the weather has been wet and mucky-ducky so we're going to stay right HERE.

Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27th- 12-3, come to our New Barn at Seldom Scene Farm!

Come see the newest cria (above), with more possible by then (we think we've got rare TWINS due!) Enjoy interacting with the alpacas, learning about them, shop for beautiful fiber products (handmade scarves, hats, shawls, yarn, fiber, teddy bears, etc.)

At 2:00 PM each day, I'll give a short demonstration of felting.

For more information or directions, call 859-428-8883. Check out our farm blog at http://www.seldomscenefarm.blogspot.com/. Hope to see you Saturday or Sunday!

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Fall.... Festivals and FIBER!

Hand-dyed and homegrown alpaca yarn

Yesterday I started a day of working in my fiber studio early, having anticipated some quiet time in which I hoped to get a lot of felting and dyeing done (and I did!). I've got a few days to catch my breath during the week now, with the kids well back into the school groove, but weekends will be nuts for a while.

Hand-dyed and hand-felted silk and alpaca shawl

This coming weekend is the Midway Fall Festival and I always like to have a lot of handmade inventory ready. I'll have alpacas there, along with yarn and fiber, felted hats, woolly soaps, cat toys, nuno felt scarves and shawls, socks, purses, sweaters, blankets, etc. Please introduce yourself if we haven't yet met! In addition, next weekend (the 25th and 26th), Seldom Scene Farm will be at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill for Alpaca Farm Days. We'll be set up with about 15 other Kentucky alpaca breeders to celebrate Alpaca Harvest Weekend and National Alpaca Farm Days at Shaker Village. This is a beautiful setting and always a lot of fun, and I'll have lots of products and alpacas there as well.
Hand-dyed and hand-felted alpaca and silk scarf

As you can see, my colorways have a decidedly fall theme. I love fall for many of the reasons that my friend Dianne does! Hopefully there'll be a bit of crispiness in the air this weekend to get everyone in the fall spirit!

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Auction Time Again!

This weekend I'm off to Mountaineer Race Track in Chester, WV for the Extreme Progeny Alpaca Auction. Getting ready for an auction is a multi-step process which involves early selection of the sale animals months ahead of time (based on pedigree, curb appeal, show record, fiber-we always choose some of our best!), submitting photos and information, getting prepurchase vet and travel exams done, paying consignment fees, and additional advertising (double-click on our ad below to enlarge, the links won't work in this version but you can find the info at the website link above). Then it's a matter of having the animals ready (one of our girls has some small "stick-tight" burrs that we've been picking off her legs for weeks- ARGGHH, and we need to complete that job, like... today!). I need to prepare their stall books for people at the auction to read about the finer details of each animal. At this time of year when the animals have only about 1-2 inches of fiber re-growth since shearing, we need to display the fleeces which in some cases involves "skirting" the fiber to remove vegetation and putting it into a nice display basket or bag. Both Runalong and Trina have WOW fleeces that will look great no matter what!
Being gone from the farm, especially with our farm manager coming along, entails some planning and extra work as well. Today we're completing the worming process for the remainder of our herd, as well as lining everything up for Paul and the kids to handle while we're gone. I also need to finish packing, oh yeah, my SELF and clothes, food, etc (we'll be taking our motor home and stock trailer, gotta make sure that's ready, too!). Making sure the kids (and Paul) have what they need while I'm gone is another important detail!
Will I get it all done? Somehow, we always do... now the preparations are over and all we need is for buyers to notice what awesome animals we have to offer! (Oh yeah, we need to remember to have FUN as we always do when around our alpaca friends, and a bit or horse racing won't hurt a bit either!)

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A Full Week

It's continued to be a challenging time on the farm, and I've had a hard time even talking about some recent losses. I hope to share some of those things soon on our farm blog.
As always, spending time with fiber, friends, family and horses has been my greatest therapy. I was able to finish this shawl after much fussing and many changes throughout the process. I am both a process and a product artist, enjoying both equally- how about you? You can see more photos of the shawl or purchase it from my Etsy store.

I had intended to add some beading detail to the shawl, but after spending about 2 hours and completing only about 1/2 of one spiral, I decided that beading was for the birds and ripped it out. Oh well, that's all part of finding out if something works or not!

Yesterday I did make time for a break with my Gallop Girl friends, and we took the horses for an expedition at a fellow alpaca breeder's farm in Northern Kentucky. I rode Strawberry, my husband's mare, and she really rose to the occasion having been ridden only once this year. We had lots of good talking and laughs as is typical, and we loved seeing Deb's gorgeous farm and exploring the trails around her property.

We stopped at a beautiful overlook and had a customary nip of wine, feeling like we could have been in remote Montana with the rest of the world hundreds of miles away. It was exactly what I needed.

It was very relaxing to sit back and enjoy the scene, taking in the lovely late-summer weather and enjoying our beautiful horses. (I loved Deb's Fresian cross mare). Her guardian dog escorted us along and enjoyed cooling off at the creek.

Deb and her husband Jim served us a great dinner afterwards, and we enjoyed their company and their beautiful setting, a day to remember. Pin It Now!