Pleasant Journey Alpacas Twisted Luxury

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Time passes us by!

Wow, we cannot believe we have not taken time since 2016 to write a blog! Where does time fly off to?

So, sitting on a snowy Sunday afternoon looking at all of our beautiful alpacas, it is time to catch up! A lot has happened in 5 years and we feel proud of what we have built and achieved here at Pleasant Journey Alpacas. Our breeding choices have improved and thus, we see a much better quality herd than we had several years ago. Fortune has been with us to do well in shows, winning b

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Who's your Daddy or Why we changed our Tag line

After 9 years in the Alpaca business we have changed our business tag line to read: "Premier Genetics in Southwest Colorado". It has always been our goal to improve our herd and add genetics that would accomplish that goal.
This year we were proud to add Annual's Bea-2 Bomber to our Herdsire row co-owned with our wonderful partners (Willow Wind Farm, Gray Alpaca Company, Las Flores del Altiplano).
We will also see our first offspring in 2016 from PJA Golden Victory's Kiowa (fawn) and P

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Alpaca Seasons

While the average person thinks of seasons changing being spring to summer and winter to fall, the typical alpaca rancher tends to think of seasons much differently. At Pleasant Journey Alpacas we think of show season, shearing season, cria season and breeding season. A lot of us who are active in all of these aspects on the ranch do this same thing.

Show season is a fun time of the year. It is the time to showcase your ranch, breeding program and to interact with fellow breeders. Fo

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Looking back and Looking forward

Ah, 2015! A whole new year is upon us! Time to look back and reflect on the past year and to look forward to this new and exciting year in front of us.

2014 was one of the most exciting years for the births of new crias. We highly anticipated offspring from our herdsire, NeverSummer's Manchester and we were not at all disappointed! He gave us five gorgeous females (and also one more female and 2 males for our customers). In addition to these beauties, we got two wonderful males sired

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Sliding into winter!

Once again, where does the time go?? Seasons change so rapidly! One minute we are starting summer and birthing season and the next thing we know birthing season is over and winter is closing in upon us.

Pleasant Journey Alpacas had a wonderful cria season this year with 6 females and 2 males arriving at the ranch. All wonderfully healthy and beautiful. We were very excited this season as 5 of the crias were sired by our own NeverSummer's Manchester. And they are awesome! Already thin

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Summertime fun!

It is the last day of July already and as always we wonder where the summer is flying off to! It will be fall before we know it. So far only one of our 8 cria has arrived but she is a beauty. Finally the first offspring from our herdsire NeverSummer's Manchester. She is all we hoped for and is quite the little girl. Strong and big, showing awesome fleece. Starting life at a wonderful 19.4# she grew to 30# in 3 weeks. But oh, she wants a playmate so badly! Meet PJA Manchester's Marnie!

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Springing into summer!

Whew, time flies by so fast! We have just completed our show season until this coming fall. It has been a whirlwind with lots of traveling. Shows attended this year were National Western Stock Show in Denver, CO; SWRAS in Cottonwood, AZ; TxOLAN in Hamilton, TX; AOA Nationals in Harrisburg, PA; MOPACA in Kansas City, MO and GWAS in Denver, CO. There was even a quick flight to attend the Futurity as well to go to the auction and see friends. We did well this show season with great placing in all s

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Special Visitors!

On March 12, 2014 we were pleased to host a tour group of special needs children from our local Durango, CO area. There were two groups of 6 children per group (along with their 4 adult supervisors) and they were on a field trip to area ranches to learn about jobs on these ranches. We gave them the task of feeding some grain to the alpacas and they were having a ball! They loved meeting the alpacas, especially the crias. Talk about some smiles! They also loved the llamas, Belle and Lobo!
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Handspun Yarn!

I, Susan, have recently embarked on the journey of learning to hand spin! What an awesome feeling to be able to transform raw fleece into yarn. As this point, I have only spun and plied one skein but it is incredible and leaves me yearning for more time in my day to add this to my list of "things to do today". I belong to a wonderful group called "Wild and Wooly Spinners of the West" in Durango, CO. They are such a fun group of gals and are so encouraging to a new spinners. They remind me that i

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First year on the ranch! What a year!

Ok, we are late at getting this blog put up as we have surpassed our 1 year anniversary on the ranch by a couple of months but it is the thought that counts! What a year it has been! Up and downs, tears and laughter but this is the place we are hanging our hats forever!

We got through each season as it came. We moved into our house Sept 8, 2012 so we got to enjoy the beautiful colors of Colorado autumn. Then Old Man Winter decided to visit. Since we had been out of the "winter" for 1

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Summertime and the living is GREAT!

Wow, we did not realize that so much time has passed since our last blog. We are in our 4th season since moving here to the ranch. We moved up Sept 8th, 2012 so we got through a fall, winter and spring and we are now into summer. Each season has brought new experiences and yes, some trials and tribulations but we have forged ahead. Winter brought the snows and experiencing winter for the first time in 18 years. We would not let a frozen water pipe pr flooded barn keep us down!

Summer

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The Magic of Alpacas!

Alpacas are a very special and magical animal. These delightful creatures each have unique personalities that will make you fall in love with them. This is what happened for all alpaca owners across the country. While we are all in the business of raising these animals for their exquisite fiber, breeding and selling of the animals, it is the awesome alpaca themselves that makes us all very fortunate to own them and be in the business.

Alpaca fiber is a luxury fiber and is not yet pro

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We are HOME!

We are finally HOME! After years of planning, hard work and lots of determination, we have finally gotten moved back home to Colorado. Our wonderful 35 acre ranch in Hesperus, CO is now home to our herd of 25 +/- quality alpacas. While there is still a TON of work to do and at times, it is a bit overwhelming, we could not be happier. We have a wonderful barn, a great house, very nice alpaca pens and meeting great new neighbors!

As we are enjoying a very nice and mild fall here in sou

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Almost! We are ALMOST home!

We are almost ready for our BIG move to our new ranch in Hesperus, CO. Alpaca pens are fenced in, barn is ready and the human house is 99.9% finished. Aww, who cares about the human house, it is the alpacas that count! Counting our way down to Labor Day weekend which is now slated for our move home. It has been a long year and tons of blood, sweat, tears and laughter along the way. Getting settled into the house and getting our alpacas to our ranch is utmost on our priority list right now.

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Two more cria......one more to come!

We have had two new cria hit the ground since our last blog. It is always exciting to see new cria! still waiting one one more (as of June 3 mom is at day 352).

Lady Felina graced us with her presence on April 18th. While all appeared fine the first day, Felina started losing weight in the first 3 days. Her dam Mary was suffering from a mild case of mastitis. Once we got that taken care of, Felina started on a steady daily weight gain and is now a beautiful and proud little alpaca. H

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Like Pappa!

One of the things that you hope for in a herdsire is for him to throw himself or better and to have the traits of himself shine through. We are so pleased with Adonnis' Altitude as with each new cria that is from him, we see the positive traits.

Take a look at these pictures of Altitude as a cria and pictures of 3 of his offspring. Note the head and the stature. Strong, straight, big boned. We feel that his most recent offspring, Altitude's GreyHawk just might become superior to Altit

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New crias.......and more still to come

The end of 2011 and the start of 2012 has been exciting for Pleasant Journey Alpacas. We have 5 wonderful new crias born so far with 3 more still to come. Our goal as a small breeder has been to choose the correct breedings to improve our herd. This crop to new crias has proven to us that we are making this happen. Our very own herdsire Adonnis' Altitude NS has sired 3 awesome young cria for us so far and we are anxiously awaiting the last one from him to arrive in April.

We now have

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Happy New Year to all!

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 trans

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First Cria of the Season!

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) s

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October Already!

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.

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August progress on the ranch

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

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More Progress

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.............

Just back from Colorado

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

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