Our New Farm

It has been an incredibly busy spring and summer.  In July, Randy and I (and the alpacas, cats, and puppy) moved to our new home at 1489 Grafton Avenue in Errington.  If you think moving is an ordeal, you should try moving with livestock.  And a puppy.  And if we weren’t busy enough before September, we certainly are now, as we now have two teenagers (one from Mexico and one from Korea) living with us for the school year.  While all of these things are great blessings to us, they are all work, too.  Oh, and just last Wedneday, I got my first two chickens – a pair of Brahma Bantams.

A new farm means a lot of new realities for us.  The one that is pressing on my mind the most is the need to establish our property as a ‘farm’.  That means we need farm income before October 31^st.  To meet the requirements in time, Randy and I have made the difficult decision to put one of our alpacas up for sale at ‘bargain basement’ prices.  Westwool’s Jovita is now available for just $4000.00 CND.  This is less than half of what we paid for this beige double-registered female, but we need to sell something NOW.  I chose Jovita because as a beige, she doesn’t quite fit with our goals to breed the finest bright-white alpacas.  Her first cria was a beige female and her second was a medium fawn male.  This was when bred to a light fawn and white, respectively.  She has very respectable fibre stats, and she is easy to handle (though she is somewhat more inclined to kick than some of our other girls!).  The sale price includes registry transfer, a vet check and ultra-sound, as she has been bred to Skywalker for an August 2009 cria.  Hopefully we’ll be able to find her a good home soon.