Want to Start a 4H Alpaca Project but don’t know where to begin?

What is 4H?
4-H is an organization for youth, ages 5-19, that promotes hands-on learning and is based on parent and volunteer participation. 4-H welcomes all youth and adult volunteers from all backgrounds in all locales.

The United States 4-H program is run through county Cooperative Extension offices, the state universities, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and a variety of volunteer councils and foundations at the county, state, and national levels. In California, the 4H program is run through the University of California at Davis. That’s right! 4H is run by UCDavis - the same university where Calpaca has established a veterinary scholarship.

How do I get started?
To get started, find a club now and go to the next general meeting. Introduce yourself, and explain that you’re interested in starting an alpaca project next year. The CA 4H website can be found at http://ca4h.org/4hinfo/proginfo/delivery.asp On that page is a menu to help locate the nearest club.

For me, someone with absolutely no prior exposure to 4H, it was helpful to go to a few meetings in the Spring to become familiar with the general meeting proceedings. I chatted with other project leaders and learned what to expect while managing an animal project. Showing up at these meetings also helped put the word out that an alpaca project was being planned for the coming year. The 4H calendar runs September to August (similar to a school year).

Each 4H club has a coordinator known as the community leader. This person acts as the contact point between the county-wide coordinator and their own club. He/she handles all the registrations, the training schedule, the monthly calendar, as well as informs the club of county-wide events. Make sure the community leader knows you are interested in becoming a project leader for the coming year. They will add you to the planning meetings which typically take place over the summer.

However, if it’s Fall or Winter when you decide to start a group, you can still start one for that year. The community leader will be your best resource. If you’ve missed the one-time required training session offered in your region, you will simply pair up with a leader from another project.

Becoming a 4H leader is relatively easy. Each leader must fill out an application and get a background check done. New this year is that each project is required to have two certified adults at all project meetings. In my project, my co-leader is a parent who has run the leadership gauntlet but isn’t managing a project of her own this year. California 4H also has restrictions on the age of children joining animal projects. Alpacas are not on the pre-approved list for children younger than 9 (children 5-8 are called Clovers).

What do we do in an Alpaca Project?
The scope of any project is at the discretion of the leader. In my case, I took lead from the kids in my project. The agenda I set at the beginning included visiting one local AOBA alpaca show; explaining basic care, feeding, and anatomy; discussing fiber (attributes of each type, differences in quality, basic processing steps, finished goods, tour of a farm store); and demonstrating obstacle performance. Each meeting began with the educational lesson (maybe 30 minutes) followed by the students catching, haltering, and walking their assigned alpaca. When we began the obstacle performance demonstrations, everyone participated with their alpaca. Of all of the lessons, this was the one that my group of kids this year decided they liked best. I’ve had a few other girls approach me about offering an alpaca fiber project and may do that next year in addition to this alpaca performance project.

In conclusion…
The end of the 4H year concludes with the students filling out a "year end project report" called a Project Report. As 4H students they also have a form called a PDR (Personal Development Report) that covers their entire work with 4H. As this is my first year with 4H and we are not yet at the end of it, I can only say that I’m going to be relying a lot on the experienced leaders to help me help my students get these reports completed! I do know this: I’m very glad I just jumped in. These kids love working with the alpacas! If only we could read the animals’ minds, I’m sure they’d say they love it too!

Monterey Pronk's Fiber Art Competition accepts Mail-in and Check-in day entries!

Monterey Pronk's Fiber Art Competition accepts all entries containing at least 50% alpaca.

The premiums are $10 for First place and $5 for Second Place. We also have special awards for Judge's Choice and People's Choice.

If you download Monterey Pronk's forms the instructions have all kinds of deadlines that are looming near. Well.... if you can hand-walk your entry to check-in, ignore those deadlines and bring your exhibit directly on in! If you have to drop it in the mail, make sure it'll get to me no later than September 21st and I'll bring it to check-in for you.

The information on the website is mostly correct - we've changed a few things to accommodate more entries at the last minute. Here are the changes!

Modified Fiber Art and Skein Entry Instructions

1) Go here. Download the appropriate forms. Separate forms are used for entries in Fiber Arts, Handspun Skeins, and Mill Spun Skeins. Don't forget to fill out a “Fee Form” as well. In a nutshell, Fees are $3 per entry.

IMPORTANT: AOBA Show Division Membership is NOT required for a Fiber Arts & Skeins competition!

2) Fill out all forms. If you have any questions, please contact Kimberly Louie at (alpacas at humminghearts.com)

3) Exhibits must be placed in a clean plastic bag, whenever possible. The preferred plastic bag is a one-gallon size ziplock. One item per bag.

4) Fill out the Fiber Arts and/or Skein Entry Tag and place in the bag with the item. If you want the entry mailed back to you, in the "Pickup Receipt" section, please write “Item is being returned by mail”

5a) Place items, forms, and fees in a tyvek envelope or a box. USPS has free shipping materials. If you use a box, make sure that this box is in good, sturdy condition because it will be the one used to mail back your item(s).

OR

5b) Bring item, entry forms, and fees to the check-in on Friday, September 28 between 10am-4pm to the Monterey County Fairgrounds. As of this post, I'm unsure where we'll be doing check-in so ask someone and they'll be sure to direct you. Alpaca show people are very helpful!

6) Pick Up or Return Shipping: Entires can be picked up Sunday, September 30th between 5-7pm. If you want something returned by mail, you MUST include a return shipping label with postage or carrier label in the envelope/box. Since you may win a ribbon and each ribbon weighs 2 ounces, please calculate that added weight for EACH item.

7) Shipping Fiber Art Items To The Fiber Art & Skeins Competition Manager: We recommend that you ship your Fiber Art Item with a carrier which uses a tracking system (i.e. UPS, Fed-ex, etc). Ship to: Kimberly Louie (address found on the forms). The Monterey Pronk ’07 show management is not responsible for packages that are lost in transit or delivered late.

Note for mail-in entries: The actual Fiber Art items, forms and fees should be postmarked to Kimberly Louie no later than September 15th and needs to arrive no later than September 21st. Please make sure that you email Kimberly at (alpacas at humminghearts.com) to let her know that the items being entered in the show have been shipped to her.

Do you enter fiber art competitions?

I like to. At the very least, I receive feedback on my workmanship. Of course, I like seeing how I stack up to the other entries. In other words, what I should be striving to accomplish. The very best is getting a blue ribbon and some prize money.

Most of the time, I'll enter the local county fairs. Several around here get enough of a turn-out that you feel like there's actually a competition. There's nothing worse than entering only to find out that you were the only entry. It just takes away all pride you want to have in that blue ribbon.

Someday I want to enter one of the many privately run fiber arts shows like Black Sheep Gathering or Dixon Lambtown or maybe even Maryland Sheep and Wool Show. I'd love to get to Black Sheep again this year but our calendar is looking mighty full even though it's still April.

Entering local county fairs and even the private fiber art shows is fairly inexpensive. I suppose some of the reasoning takes into account that most fiber artists are really "starving artists". The county fair I entered last year had a fee of $1.25 per entry. Black Sheep's entry fees this year for yarn skeins is $1 and for fiber arts it's $2. Hmmm... I just noticed they take mail in entries through June 15th. Now I have no excuse for not entering! And neither do you!

Question to the public: What fees have you paid to enter a show? It can be a local county fair or a full-blown juried art show. Use the comment section to tell me. Include the name of the event. And if they offer cash prizes, tell me that too.

Kimberly

Major Update

Life has been quite demanding these past 6+ months. Here's a quick synopsis:

North Fork House and Land
Right around my last post we started having trouble with the tenants/former owners of the North Fork house. They stopped paying rent and by mid-March, I had to start eviction proceedings. We finally got possession of the house in late May. But oh my, what a mess! Nine trips to the dump later (the trailer we used was 10' by 5' by 6' and we piled it higher than the 6' walls) and we have a house we can start remodeling. Anyone know of a way to clean 30 years of smoker's soot from a pine tongue-in-grove 21 foot high vaulted ceiling?

On the herd front...
We were expecting two crias this summer - one from our own female Melody, and one from a female we don't own but chose the stud for breeding. Melody graced us with a beautiful white female cria on June 26th. We named her Aria to start us off with our alphabetical naming tradition. Sadly, Aria only lived 28 days. The necropsy showed her intestines were just not working and any hay she ingested sat in C1 (the first stomach) fermenting to the point it released toxins which shut her system down. So $2908.00 later we are back to square one. The second female, Halley, slipped her pregnancy at some point because a blood test taken a month before her due date came back negative (she's now months beyond her due date). The stud we chose to use with Halley died about 2 weeks ago so we can't try that match again.

After all that's happened this summer, if I was in this business for breeding, I'd have thrown in the towel. As much as I love the animals, this was just a heartbreaking summer. Thankfully, I also love alpaca fiber and thoroughly enjoy spinning, weaving, and felting. Running a fiber ranch of males is looking more and more appealing. But we're not quitters, so it's off to Derwydd Alpacas to breed Melody and get ready for Round 2 next summer.

Fiber Arts Competitions
My daughter and I both entered things in competitions the last few months and Dana even competed on several Sheep to Shawl teams.

The first judged event was in April at Monterey Pronk. My woven suri scarf won a first place! Every yarn I entered also got a ribbon. Dana entered a knitted pencil holder necklace and got first place. Hers was the only entry in the kids category and she said she wishes more kids would enter so it would feel like a real win. Her lace weight suri yarn competed with the adults and she got second, only because she didn't set the twist. (DH chided me for not doing it for her.) The judge was very impressed that a 10 year old spun such fine yarn.

The second competition was the Alameda County Fair. The same woven suri scarf got third - and when I saw what got first and second, I understood why. First and second were very complicated weaves that must have been woven on 16+ heddle looms. They were very pretty and very well done. Dana's pencil holder necklace got second - we never did find first place (They display entries by themes, not by category.) Her yarn got third - again competing against adults. Pretty awesome!

The Alameda County Fair is where one of the sheep to shawl competitions Dana participated in was held. She was on a kid's team against four adult teams. They placed third!! Dana will get to keep the shawl they made - for now all of the shawls are making the rounds of the guilds.

Dixon Lambtown (July 30th) was Dana's second sheep to shawl competition this summer. The same kids from Alameda participated along with two adult teams. This time they came in second!! The organizers of this event solicit prize donations from the vendors. All of the kids were awed with the prize table and took home oodles of goodies.

AlpacaFest West 2004

Halloween Weekend at Firestone Winery is when and where SoCalpaca holds their annual alpaca show. This year's events included halter classes, agility/obstacle classes, and the most fun of all, costume classes! Check out the purple octopus on the right.


My personal fav is the Girl Scout with her S'More. " Cause everyone knows when you've had one alpaca, you'll want s'more!"

No 'paca time this week...

It's too hot. Today I was going to work with our boy, Autie, on obstacle training. If there was time, I was also going to try out the youngsters, Arnold and Anthony. In late October, we're going to AlpacaFest West, a show in Central California that has performance competition. Alas, we'll have to work another day. Summer has finally decided to show up here in the Bay Area. The last few weeks, we've been having highs mostly in the 90s with a few days over 100. With temperatures like that, it's best not to work with the alpacas. I'm kinda bummed - it's been a week since I've been out to the ranch and was looking forward to some 'paca time. Sometimes ya gotta let Mother Nature make the decisions.

Fiber Competitions

My 9 year old daughter, Dana, participated in fiber-related competition this weekend. She was a member of a kids team in a Sheep to Shawl contest. That's where a team of 5-8 people (all kids in her case) take a clean sheep's fleece, card it, spin it, and then weave it on a pre-warped loom. Because their team was so young, they were allowed to weave a narrower piece. So I guess you could say they did a "Sheep To Scarf". The competition was held at the Alameda County Fair on Sunday.

There were a total of 6 teams: 4 womens teams, 1 kids team and 1 mens team.

Here's the scarf they did lying on the edge of a white table.


The warp was a burgundy wool along with a few grey strands of yarn. The weft, which is what was spun during the competition, was a grey Romney fleece.

The Results:
the kid's team tied for 3rd!! They were estatic!!

Monterey Pronk 2004

Competing in a show is exhilirating
yet nerveracking
and also exhausting
but most of all, awesome!

This weekend was our first show. It was held at the beautiful Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey California. Our yearling male, Autumn Heat, competed in a full fleece halter show. Here we are walking in the ring as the judge (in red) looks on.



In addition to the halter competition, they also had a Fiber Arts Competition. I entered 3 handspun skeins of yarn and my daughter entered 1 handspun skein. Between us, everything we entered won a ribbon. I won 2 First places and 1 Second place and my daughter won a First place on her skein. Here's one of my First place skeins with its ribbon.

Photos

At Kristine's request, let me introduce you to Autumn Heat, our first alpaca.



Technically he's not ours yet, but that's only because money hasn't changed hands. We have notified his current owners of our desire to buy him so they're holding him for us.

Now I know I said we'd be buying females so why are we buying Autumn Heat, a yearling male not even old enough to be a stud? One word: Dana. Back in the fall, the kids and I went to an alpaca show in Santa Ynez, CA. At this particular show, they had obstacle course competition where most of the participants were kids. My dd, who has ZERO livestock experience just like everyone in our family, decided then and there that this was something she wanted to be involved with. At the time, I didn't take her serious figuring it would be yet another item to add to the list of "long forgotten desires" by the beginning of the New Year. Not so. She's still very much interested in showing alpacas. When you travel to shows you typically bring males (because females old enough to work with would be pregnant and you don't want to endanger the pregnancy), so we decided on Autumn Heat. Hopefully when he's old enough in two years, we can use him as our stud. He's got perfect conformation and a shy dispostion, not to mention buttery-soft, ultra-dense fiber. I sure hope he passes on those traits to all of his crias.