Alpaca Breeding, Fiber and Llama Treks
The past month has been filled with volunteering at the World Equestrian Games, a trip to Michigan for a felting class, home schooling, trail riding, cria births, crafting, international travel for Paul, the Kentucky Classic Show, and.... isn't that enough????!
We ended the month with a llama trek on a gorgeous fall afternoon. Pat and her little friends Austin and Alyssa loved strolling on our leaf-covered trails with a llama at each side.
The kids enjoyed helping with bottle-feeding our sweet cria, Cherry Bomb.
Any fears that surfaced early in the visit were definitely gone by the end after several llama kisses were dispensed by Phoenix, and our trekkers discovered how sweet and manageable the llamas are!
Despite June's extreme heat, it has been a lovely summer so far with lots of good things happening around the farm. One of the best things is that we've been making lots of time to go trail riding- you can read about one of our recent extreme adventures here. This past week, I was lucky to get to join my friends Marti, MB, and Martha for a lovely day of riding at Taylorsville Lake. It was a great ride except when two of our horses decided that the jet skis on the lake sounded like a swarm of horse flies, and got all loosey-goosey excited for a bit!
We had three llama treks this week! First were two women from Lexington, Barbara and Stephanie. They felt like my own old friends, very sweet ladies, and it was cool that our two barn cats decided to join us for the entire hike- ironic since Barbara is a huge cat lover who has rescued over 30 felines herself!
Next we had Steve, Lee and Ethan. They were looking for something different to do outdoors to get away from the TV and video games... fancy that, teenagers who like those things?! They discovered that they like llamas, too (or at least they seemed to enjoy them!)
Lastly we had 3 llovely llama lladies (Mary, Helen and Bernice) that came today. They also seemed to really enjoy the farm and animals. 
They met our newest cria, Mirian's lambs, and these two little alpaca guys, Mousse and Precious (you can read about when they were born here).
I love how the llamas are so patient with people of all ages, and they seem to naturally adjust their pace to the speed of whomever is leading them. Llama LLife is GOOD!
It's already been a great weekend, with two groups of people coming for llama trekking and the sale of one of our outstanding young alpaca junior herdsires. My friend Kaylen (from Sheffield Alpacas) and her family came out today to check out some young breeding prospects, and selected SSF Peruvian Mystery (Accoyo America Sinbad x AF Maisy). He is displaying fantastic potential with an extremely dense and well-organized fleece, and should contribute great fleece genetics to their herd!
We had two llama treks this weekend, and both went well! Saturday's trek was a birthday surpise, and I think everyone had a nice time.
Mirian's friend was helping, and she spotted a snake on the trail, the first she had ever seen! It was a colorful (and harmless!) milk snake and it allowed us plenty of time for a good look before I used a stick to gently move it out of the way. (I originally identified it as a king snake, but realized my mistake when I looked it up!)
Our group today had two young children amongst the 6 in their group. It was the first time our llamas have been around small kids, and they were somewhat fascinated by the "little two-leggeds" and did great with them!
Keeping with the reptile theme, we did encounter a box turtle today, which fascinated the kids!
Enjoy the photos from our hike(s). We feel very blessed to be able to share our farm and special animals with so many awesome people! We're looking forward to a great day of rest and play tomorrow, and hope all of you have a wonderful holiday, too!
Today was the debut of our llama trekking since starting it back up this year (we previously did trekking here in the late 90's)! We were fortunate to have nice weather after tons of rain this past week, and a great family to get us rolling again!
Ed from Cincinnati booked the trek as a surprise for his animal-loving wife Andrea's birthday, and they were joined by their 13-year-old daughter, Natalie. The llamas were a bit frisky at first, but they settled in nicely after a while on the trail.
Ed led Leo, who carried the pack with snacks, water, and cold lemonade and he took to it well after only having had the pack on a few times. He did hum his complaints a few times going up hill, but overall was a good sport (Talking about Leo, Ed never did complain)!
Paul and the kids all helped, which made it extra-special! The trails revealed lots of critter tracks, including turkey, deer and raccoon. We also saw a 7 inch-long, colorful skink in the trail. 
Hopefully this was an experience that Ed, Natalie and Andrea will always remember!
Wow, Spring is such a hectic and productive time on the farm! We have 6 alpaca crias due in the next month, a show/auction in Oklahoma City, Spring Break, another hat felting class, llamas to train, word to get out about our llama treks starting up, shearing, breeding, and more!
We had two new llamas arrive last week to start our pack string for Seldom Scene Llama Treks, with 3 experienced trekkers coming in April from Montana's mountains (we'd prefer to have them here sooner, but transporters aren't too thrilled about trailering in that area this time of year!). I'd love to find two more to round out our group.
It turned out that the llamas belonged to a friend of a friend, and I couldn't be more pleased with them, what a find! Phoenix is sooooo sweet and constantly gives kisses to whomever is nearby.
Leopold is a bit more shy, but he's cute as can be and is really cooperative on the lead.
