|
Friday, December 30, 2011
Graycee Spirit at 6 days old
We are coming to the end of another year. 2011 has been quite a year for Pleasant Journey Alpacas. We welcomed the first cria, Aerie from our 2x Color Champion Adonnis' Altitude NS. She is all we were hoping for and more. Watching her grow and mature has been exciting and having her win her first blue ribbon at FallFest 2011 was wonderful.
A barn was constructed on our 35 acres in Hesperus, CO. Some of the animals even have had a chance to stay at the barn this fall while being transported from the summer stay at Navajo Lake Alpacas in Ignacio, Co or to shows. They all seem quite happy with it. It has got to be the breathtaking views!
8 new cria are due for the 2011/2012 birthing season and 2 have already popped their beautiful heads out. Gunssmoke was born early on Thanksgiving Day. Graycee Spirit arrived on Dec. 9th. She lives up to her name of spirit. This gorgeous little girl is our second cria from Altitude and she shows attitude! Graycee had some issues with her little feet being turned under and walking on her ankles on three of her legs for her first 6 days. Then the miracle of nature takes over and in one day she got all of the feet under her properly and now she runs like the wind and already is exhibiting the same tall statuesque stance as her proud dad, Altitude. A beautiful medium rose grey with the classic white face, Graycee holds a very promising future.
We made more new friends in 2011 and once more realized the wonderful camaraderie of the alpaca community. Thank you to our new customers that have chosen to breed their females to Altitude. Our sincere wish is that the cria are all you hoped for! Thank you to all of our friends we have made through the years. You have all helped us along the way in one fashion or another.
As we head towards our 5th year in business, we are looking forward to another exciting year. We have more cria due and cannot wait to see them. Our plans for building a house in CO are starting to come together and we are doing all in our power to be moved full time to Hesperus, CO by summer of 2012. Heck, we even bought a tractor this week (can you say tax deduction!).
Check with us often to see what we are up to and how the build and move is progressing but most important, watch for our new babies. Looking forward to see lots of you in the show ring this next year for some friendly competition and to see old friends and meet new friends.
Graycee at 2 1/2 weeks old
Graycee and Gunssmoke
yes, the pen is temporary!
Sunset over Sleeping Ute
|
|
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Gunssmoke- about 2 hours old
Early on Thanksgiving morning Pleasant Journey Alpacas welcomed our first cria of this season. We woke to our maremma Charlotte doing a lot of barking. She barks a lot, as a good guard dog should, so we did not pay a lot of attention to what she was actually trying to tell us. We learned a valuable lesson when Glenn went out about 7:15 AM and saw our girl Bijou with her very first cria by her side. She presented us with a very nice dark fawn male that we named Gunssmoke (yes, it is Gunssmoke) sired by Aussie's Guns-n-Roses. So much for alpacas reading the book that crias should be born between 10AM and 2PM. This little one popped on the scene at about 6:00 in the morning.
Bijou is a wonderful and very attentive mom who always has one eye on little Gunssmoke. And he is always keeping an eye on her too as he LOVES that milk!
1 down, 7 more to arrive between now and May of 2012. Cinnamon Stix is due with another Altitude cria for us any day now. Yes, we are excited!
Stay tuned................
about 4 hours old.....
and one day......
Yes Charlotte...keep an eye on them
|
|
Monday, October 03, 2011
Boys at the ranch
October already, summer is gone (which in Arizona is a good thing!)
The Colorado ranch continues to slowly progress, vet / fiber rooms are ready for cabinetry and work surfaces to be installed. The workshop is ready for workbenches and tools to tackle the myriad of projects on the list.
We still hope to get some time to start pens this fall between shows and the upcoming cria season.
A few of our boys spent time on the ranch while we worked on some projects.
More to come!
Cimarron and Frisco at the new barn
Checking out the mountain view
Vet Room
Fiber room
|
|
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Barn & summer travel trailer
Ok, we are behind on the blog update......
A very productive week was spent on the Colorado ranch over the first week of August. Sue got to celebrate her birthday by being on a ladder with a nail gun. Woohoo, lots of fun! Time was spent building walls within the new barn to house Glenn's workshop, a full bathroom and a fiber/vet working room. We are breaking down and going to have contractors to drywall and insulate. Time to move on the fencing and oh yes, still need to figure out how we are going to get a house built. Face it, the house will be about 1/4 the size of the barn but we all know it is alpacas first, humans second.
So, next plan is to spend a few days over Labor Day weekend working on fencing. Don't think that small temporary panel pen will hold too may alpacas for very long!
Stay tuned..................
walls for shop and fiber/vet room
Power of a woman with power tools
big barn, small temp panels
|
|
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
July 18, 2011
Things are getting more exciting! The barn is farther along on construction. Garage doors on each end will be put in in a week or so, concrete being poured inside the barn for the shop, fiber/vet room and the all important bathroom. We cannot wait to go up in August and do some sweat equity and build walls for the rooms and start the fencing. Lots and lots of fencing and we know that that will not be enough!
Stay tuned for more.............
|
|
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
We just got back from a 3 day trip to Colorado to visit our alpacas that are agisting at Navajo Lake Alpacas and to see the progress on our barn construction. All of the alpacas are doing very well and enjoying their summer of cool weather and wonderful grazing. We don't think they even miss us.
It is one thing to see pictures of your barn being built on your property but another to actually see it. Man, it is big! At least to us it is and it is such a wonderful sight. The roofing is being put on this week. We have wonderful well water. Alpaca pens are being planned out. We are still seeing the dream. We actually kind of lived the dream this weekend by finally staying on our own property in our travel trailer. It was so cool to be able to "go home" after being out visiting friends and alpacas. As you can well imagine, it was very difficult to come back to the heat of Phoenix.
We just keep remembering....."Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind". We keep dreaming our dream! Pleasant Journey Alpacas in Hesperus, CO is the dream!
|