A Walk Through Moonwood

Ohio Road Trip

Posted by roo on March 30th, 2010 — Posted in Unreal, Julia, Farm Entry

Naomi, Pam’s juvenile female that took the championship at Palmetto, is going on the show circuit up north, and therefore we needed to take her up to Don and Carolyn Marquette from the AlpacaRosa (Don, BTW, is the inventor of the tooth-a-matic) so that she can travel with them.  Unreal came along as Naomi’s travel companion.

I’ve done the trip many times, but always with adult animals, never with juvies… and what an experience it was, it’s similar to travelling with children!  Barely an hour on the road they began to get antsy and we decided that perhaps they needed to pee, so we pulled over into a parking area and got them out of the van.  Normally I don’t take anybody out of the van while in transit, but that’s because I’m usually on my own and don’t want to run the risk that I can’t get them back in the van by myself.  And it’s amazing that the adults can travel from AL to OH without messing up the back of the van!  Juvies, not so.

So we pulled over, I open the back of the van to clip on the leads, and here is Naomi, grinning ear to ear, peeing a river onto the piece of carpet they were riding on.  She was done by the time she jumped out, and had no interest in doing anything else but eat grass.

Unreal, not understanding why we were getting out of the van and what he was supposed to do, joined her in munching on the grass, they loved the little knolls of deep green tufts of grass.

But as much as we loved to stay and let them enjoy it, time was ticking and we needed to get back on the road.  Of course within half an hour of being back underway, it occurred to Unreal that he needed to go potty after all, and proceeded to make a terrible mess through which both animals happily paraded back and forth and once again we had to pull over, this time at a Walmart so we could get supplies at the same time.

Pam walked the animals along the grass to clean their feet while I scrubbed the carpet as best as I could, soaking up the liquids with paper towels, while curious shoppers stopped to look at the animals.  Making to wish as few stops as possible so that we could get to OH at a decent time, I decided that Unreal should wear a diaper - Naomi was letting us know she needed to go by pacing and humming, Unreal was not.  Pam laughed so hard she was crying, Unreal was not at all impressed, but so be it.

Adults in transit will rarely eat or drink, in fact I’ve given up offering any animal in transit water because all I get is a dirty look before they turn their noses away.  These two juvies however wanted to be treated exactly as they would be at home, and they were pulling at the haybag, spilling hay everywhere on the backseat, onto our wheels and fiber, and into the goodie bags for the girls at Magical.  Before taking off again Pam squeezed the hay bag behind the seats and filled a container with grain, after which the youngsters cushed happily and relaxed.  Putting on a CD for them also relaxed them, we discovered that the Cure had a particularly soothing effect on them!

Of course we did need to stop to change Unreal’s diaper… he was the laughing stock for quite some time, but at least we had no more messes!  It was hard to get them back into the van though, they wanted to run and play instead.  Thank goodness they are still relatively small, when the grinding of the heels kicked in we could pick them up and load them that way.

We had hoped to be arriving at Magical Farms around 11:30pm OH time, instead we rolled in well after 1am, completely exhausted.  They had prepared a stable for the animals so it was easy to get them ready for the night (thank goodness Pam had thought to bring a coat for Unreal, he was shorn and it was literally freezing cold!).  We set the alarm in the guesthouse for 6:45am, and at 2:30am I still found myself staring at the lit up numbers in the dark, I was way too wired from the journey and way too excited about our meeting with Tripp in the morning.  At some point I fell asleep, but was awake again well before the alarm went off.  Amazing how much thinking goes on in your head when you are alone and can watch the sun rise through the window.

If you’ve not visited Magical Farms before, you should if you have the opportunity.  It’s a very friendly place, you’re treated like a friend, not a customer, and they’ll unselfishly share their knowledge with you.  To me, it’s an incredibly inspiring farm on many different levels.  It’s a good thing I don’t live nearby, because I’d become a familiar sight, roaming through the pastures and raiding their fleece room.

We discussed breedings, and my Julia will be travelling to Magical in the fall to be bred to MFI Peruvian Grindstone.  I’ve also agreed to teach a workshop there in the fall, I’ll release the details once the planning is over.  My desire is to teach beginners how to dye their fiber with koolaid, show them simple carding techniques with dog brushes, introduce wonderful blending fibers and sparklies, the world of Etsy, and perhaps, if time allows, show them how to felt fiber into yarn.

They invited us so very kindly to have lunch with them.  In all honesty, we shouldn’t have stayed because at this point we were already so far behind schedule that I was afraid we’d have to postpone one of our other farm visits until another trip, but it’s hard to pull myself away from Magical once I’m there.  The recluise in me was overwhelmed by the gathering of staff as we all ate lunch together, but they are such a nice bunch of people, it was like a family coming together.

The visit to stud row after lunch was a special one.  Tripp’s relationship with the males was amazing to watch - there was no chasing the animals around with hands waving, no excitement, nervousness or frustration.  From my camelidynamics view I was both impressed and surprised.  I learned that you can predict the style of the future adult fleece on a cria by looking at the style of fiber in the back of their top knot.  What you see there is a concentration of the adult fiber that’s coming in.  The adult fiber will have HALF the contentration of the top knot.  Below is Powder Keg’s top knot (left), and his blanket fiber (right) - of course he is an adult, but it shows the comparitive crimp levels.

The highlight for me was laying my hands on Black Mesquite and to feel his breath on my skin, a small intimate moment with the well known son of one of my favourite alltime herdsires, Matador.

Reluctantly we loaded our animals back into the van and said our goodbyes, pulling out of the driveway in the direction of the AlpacaRosa and Zenith.

We decided to hit Zenith first seeing our stop there would be brief.  My thinking was that once that was out of the way, Pam could spend as much time as she wanted to at AlpacaRosa without feeling rushed.

Both Brad and Gary met us at Zenith and presented Raine to me.  Oh, what a sweet natured alpaca she is!!  Her fiber astounded me.  Brad had said that she was very black and very fine, but in all honesty, this statement is so personal and depends on taste, and I wasn’t really sure how she would rate in my own book.  It WAS really black, and it WAS really fine, she’s got amazing staple length… and she’s quiet, sweet, and she’s Unreal’s cousin from the same farm his mommy Halo came from.  I couldn’t help but feel delighted with this newcomer and am very grateful to both Brad and Gary for their generousity for offering her to me at a pittance of a price to replace my loss of Halo.

We were in and out of there like the wind blows in and out, I had to leave her behind as the clock was ticking…

The AlpacaRosa is a gorgeous, manicured farm on the edge of a subdivision.  Driving through the streets you wonder how on earth an alapca farm could be situated there, but let me tell you, this farm is a little piece of heaven.  The pastures are so green and rolling, the barns smell of nothing but hay and warmth and are immaculately clean, the animals are friendly and of outstanding quality, and the whole production is run by two wonderful people who are very knowledged and confident in what they do.  I thoroughly enjoyed my visit there (saw a gorgeous dark silver grey older dam I just wanted to stuff in the van and take home), both with the animals and with the owners, Don and Carolyn.  Pam got to spend some time with her beloved Sasha that is over there incubating a cria (due in June).  Sasha will be coming home to AL in October, once the dreadful heat of the summer is over.

We ate dinner at a wonderful Amish restaurant where I tried chocolate and peanut butter pie for the first time… actually, Carolyn ordered it, the last piece, and when I had trouble deciding which pie to order for myself after being told this, she so graciously offered it to me so that she could have strawberry pie instead.  She also prepared a concoction of things for Unreal to stop his runny poop (nervousness) and expertly dosed him.  They have so many incredible products for alpacas up north that I’ve never even heard of.

With Naomi settled in, Unreal back in the van along with a suri that was coming home for Pam’s son, and a young accoyo male that needed a new home, AND an almost flat trailer tire fixed, we said our goodbyes for the so maniest time that day, and headed into the dark, late hour, to Cincinatti, where we were spending the night with Pam’s friend Demitri.

I’m really not sure what time we got there… was it 3am?  4am?  All I know is that we were exhausted and I was so glad to drop into bed and sleep.  I awoke to the smell of a potato skillet and sausages, and of fresh coffee brewing.   A moment of normalcy and peace, as we all sat and ate breakfast.

The alpacas had spent the night in the garage - while I cleaned it, Pam took them onto the lawn to graze and seeing we were well and truly in the city it did not take long before cars pulled over and people came out to touch the alpacas, to call their friends excitedly on the phone, to snap pictures.

The drive home was long, but filled with deep and intense conversation about our experiences, the animals, the people, the hay we had collected from two different farms on the trailer that I was pulling (that was getting quite wet in the downpour even though we’d wrapped it well with tarps), and most of all, the plans and projects that we’d have to make room for in our busy lives as a result of opportunities that arose during the trip.

The suri was up on the hour every hour, I think, to pee… and pee… and pee… oh geez, the entire carpet was soaked by the time we pulled everyone out of the van shortly before midnight on Sunday.  At 1am I finally arrived home in Huntsville and dropped into bed.

Another roadtrip out of the way…

And yes, I have scrubbed and shampood and hosed the piece of carpet and the tarp that was under it, much to the delight of my son Jesse, who stomped and jumped on the soapy carpet and who shrieked with delight in his efforts to help