Welcome to The CAP Report

Life with alpacas can be wonderful and interesting, and The CAP Report is a little glimpse into life behind the scenes.

The weather turned warmer and the snow that covered our pastures has melted. (Not for long as the temps are about to drop but we'll take what we can get.) The alpacas reacted to the unexpected gift of green grass like kids at Christmas. I don't have the heart to tell them that the winter has only started and that this isn't really spring. : )

At the shop, we are getting in some lovely hand knitted hats and shawls as well as our best selling hand knit thrum mittens. Our Thrum mitten kits have always been popular, but customers were asking for ready made thrum mittens, so we've had some made up. We've also made up some thrum slippers for those who want the ultimate in cozy toes.

I'm working on making some alpaca and silk Nuno felted scarves for the holiday season and the big news is the arrival of the Alpaca-opoly games. Based on Monopoly, players get to purchase and work to build their own alpaca business. The cards have all kind of cool information about the industry, and the little pewter playing pieces are adorable!

You can find this in our market store or our online shop.

At the mill Sheryl has just finished the big batch of alpaca batts for customers and is working on a really soft batch of sock yarn. I'm already thinking about spring colours for hand painted sock yarn.

Our resident Houdini this year is Archer. Every year we have at least on alpaca baby (cria) that constantly escapes by slipping under the fence. Archer waits by the fence - munching on the lawn - until someone notices he's out, and then he follows us to the gate and waits for us to open it before bouncing back in. On a day with nice weather he will do this several times until we get tired of putting him back and put the moms and babies in the back pasture - where it's harder for him to escape. This game will continue until he's too big to easily fit under the fence...and I'm counting the days. I'll post a photo in the slideshow of the little escape artist.

Until tomorrow, I'll be making alpaca dryer balls.