Alpacapalooza show weekend...

Moonshadow's Golden Mist ~ 1st Bred & Owned Yearling
1st & Reserve Color Champ Fawn Female Halter
1st, Best Brightness, Best Crimp Fleece

Deciding to participate in this show was really a last minute decision.  Every year this show sneaks up on us with last minute halter training and the nasty weather to contend with in getting everything ready.  This year we also know we are going to be calling in every favor with can think of with our friends to help us relocate to Bellingham.   Getting out to shows is an important part of promoting our breeding program and networking with other breeders.  So we decided to split up this year.  Deb loves to show, she says it is one of the paybacks for all her hard work year round.  I can live without the nervous tension and adrenalin rush of the show ring.  What I do love about the shows is the rush and excitement being surrounded by others who are as passionate about their alpacas as we are.  This will be the first show I've missed since 2004. 

Admittedly, I am not generally the hands on person around here.  I do work full time away from the ranch, which is generally sitting at a desk, sitting in meetings, sitting in my car, sitting at airports and in airplanes.  When I come home from work I get to sit at another desk and maintain our marketing, registrations, email or whatever other business stuff needs to be done.  Point is, some how I end up doing a lot of sitting, which has ultimately resulted in feeling very out of shape lately.  My level of hands on work outside gets even more limited during the winter, otherwise my work with the animals tends to be  occasional poop scooping, special projects, halter training, cria delivery (which mainly seems to only be the challenging ones these last few years) and whenever I hear a 2nd set of hands is required to get something done.  After a hectic week, wrapping up a hectic month of March I am thinking alpaca chores are rather therapeutic!  I generally consider myself a fair weathered outdoor chores kind of person, Friday the wind was howling like crazy, Saturday rain sprinkled and drizzled off and on, by Sunday there was an ominous bank of black clouds that did motivate me to get moving, but I managed to avoid the worst of this nasty weather.  Overall, it was great to be out in the fresh air.  I do love being around the alpacas, they are always relaxing to be around as they humm away, peacefully munching on hay.  This was a peaceful and relaxing weekend for me, most who know me outside of our alpaca world would probably think I was nuts to consider this enjoyable time off!  Hard to explain.

Moonshadow's Monique

I never made it to the show, but was quite content getting steady reports from Deb throughout the weekend.  We had only 1 alpaca show on Saturday, Moonshadow's Monique, who was awarded 2nd Place, a great placing to kick off the show!
Sunday morning started with Production classes, we had Moonshadow's Golden Mist entered in Bred and Owned Yearling Female.  Alpacapalooza is a highly competitive show with some of the top breeders in the country living in Washington and Oregon.  We have felt Golden Mist is one of the nicest alpacas we have produced, taking a ribbon with the breeders entered in this class would be great.  She ended up being awarded 1st Place, judge loving her overall conformation, brightness and staple.  Golden Mist was also entered in the Halter and Fleece show.  She took 1st and Reserve Color Champion in Halter, 1st Place in Fleece and then was awarded Best Brightness and Best Crimp from judge Kathy Klay.  Being thrilled with these results hardly describes it!

Moonshadow's Victory's Spirit &
Moonshadow's Golden Treasure

The rest of the show went fairly well.  With this level of competition we were happy to be in the ribbons.  We had 2 other Fleece entries showing in White, whites and fawns generally are the toughest competition.  Moonshadow's Victory's Falkor and Victory's Triumph each took 4th Place, one in juvenile, one in yearling classes.  With Fleece shows you get a scorecard for each fleece entered, getting this fleece assessment from a judge is always useful in evaluating breeding decisions.  Moonshadow's Golden Treasure took a 4th Place in Halter and Moonshadow's Victory's Spirit unfortunately took the gate in a class of 11 white juveniles.  Judge Wade Gease did comment as the rest of the class was leaving how tough it was to pick the top 6, he did come back to take another look at Spirit.  We still have confidence in Spirit's potential, when you see Crescent Moon Ranch standing in 6th Place you know it was a tough class!  Principe took a 5th Place in the adult fawn male class, which included multiple Champion TAG Peruvian Bellagio, who took 3rd in this class.  So it is what it is at any given show, on any given day, with any given judge, the highs and lows of showing.  We show to learn as well as compete.  This is how we continue to keep our breeding program moving forward and keep in step with the top breeders around.  It's all good, everyone had a great time!  Looking forward to our next show at the NW Alpaca Showcase in Pasco, WA.

Alpacapalooza 2012