Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tax Season is over - now it's time to focus on the farm

A big sigh of relief and time to change focus. We were going to head to the farm today, but the weather was not cooperative and it was kind of nice to take care of some of the office side of the farm without a rush. The next several weeks are busy:


April 30 - Great Midwest Alpaca Festival - Madison, WI

May 7 - Interstate 80 Alpacafest - Princeton, IL and a whole lot of work since we are the founders!

May 14 - Midwest Select Alpaca Auction, Watertown, WI

May 16 - Shearing at Tiskilwa Farms

May 19 - AOBA Nationals - Denver, Colorado

All at the same time we have 8 babies due still before May 31. Knight Rider is currently in residence working with some of our girls - Right of Way will get busy as soon as the shows are over. Maybe tax season wasn't so busy afterall???

Midwest Select Alpaca Auction



We have entered our TFA Peruvian Cessna's Citation in the Midwest Select Alpaca Auction to be held May 14 at Longview Grange Alpacas in Watertown, WI.


TFA Peruvian Cessna's Citation is JET BLACK and ready for take off! She is a gorgeous young girl sired by our rose grey MFI Peruvian Maddock, but she pulls in her black from her dam's side. Her pedigree includes some of the biggest names out of Magical Farms' black breeding program including Black Mequite, Obsydian, Dom Timbo, and of course Maddock's sire, Silvino. Are your seatbelts fastened? Because Citation is bred to 15 time BLACK CHAMPION - Irish Meadows Peruvian KNIGHT RIDER (yeah, you remember his head from the shows last year!) We are certain Knight Rider will add density and fineness to the cria. Cessna's Citation is a perfect example of why we added him to the "Chiefs of Tiskilwa". It is very difficult to part with her, but we wanted to give someone the opportunity to have a truly outstanding BLACK dam with a cria due next spring. Coffee, Tea, or Cessna's Citation???


There are some outstanding animals consigned to this auction - we'll see you there!!

Our first trip up to the Minnesota Alpaca Expo

And Minnesota makes SIX for Right of Way



But the coolest thing was his Cactus Jack half brother was also the Reserve Champion!! We'd say that says something for the Cactus Jack line.


One of the reasons we signed up for Minnesota was the judge. Peter Kennedy is from Victoria Australia and his Canchones Ranch focuses exclusively on Black Alpacas. We first met him in Peru a few years ago on the Vicuna Chacu roundup and he has earned our respect as a judge here the in U.S.


Other highlights of the weekend were a FIRST PLACE for our TFA Peruvian Sharon in the Beige juvenile females - she is a lovely daughter of Highlander. Our two medium brown juvenile boys - Tiskilwa Eagle Feather and TFA Darnell were 4th and 5th of 11. As the youngest two in the class all of Peter's comments were on size. These guys are growing and will be back to impress next year!


We got Babies hitting the ground which will make it difficult to decide on a show string for next fall.