Look what Popped up...

An all singing and dancing Italian coffee machine popped up yesterday in the corner of the Toft Alpaca Studio. This heralds the official "popping' up of the Cornflower  'Pop Up' tea room at the Toft Alpaca Farm Open Day on Easter Monday. 

After the launch on Easter Monday our customers will be able to savour the very best of coffee tea and cake Thursday- Saturday at the TOFT Alpaca Studio. 

Customers can sit around and chat alpaca from 10 am - 4pm throughout the Summer and keep an eye out for where the Cornflour Pop Up will Pop next. And believe me the coffee is goooood!!

Shorts is on...

Shorts is on and with a bit of luck they won't be coming off again until September.

Heart of England Alpaca Group Shearing and Showing Day

A terrific turnout of owners on Saturday at Toft for the Heart of England Alpaca Group Shearing and Showing day. 

 Shirley and I took members of the Heart of England Alpaca Group through an alpaca Shearing  and Showing day, focusing on preparation and organisation for shearing, skirting and sorting of Alpaca Fibre, dissecting and assimilating the practical application of the British Alpaca Society Shearing guidelines and shearing manual in relation to the realities of the UK. I know it doesn't sound like fun but it truly was. We had a lot of laughs and covered acres of  information and discussion as we shared our practical experience of the past 17 years with the attendees.

A great turnout and very reassuring to so so many new faces. Thanks for your attendance, good humour and patience and we hope you took away a lot more than you arrived with from the day and look forward to seeing you all again in future!

Honorary scrubbing up

As we finally start to bask in these glorious dry days we are having I got a phone call the other day from the BAS breed secretary asking me for a good photograph of myself for the BAS magazine. Apparently the ones they took at the National Show hadn't turned out flattering. Well that's the story of my life. On virtually  every photograph I've ever had taken I either look like 'Greengrass' or gormless. Best photos need to catch me unawares.

They wanted a photie  to commemorate me being made an Honorary Lifetime Member  of the BAS. I was officially given this honour in June 2013 for services to the society, when I finally retired from the BAS board after an amazing ten or so years. Well they finally caught up with giving it to me at the 2014 AGM, about a month ago. I have to say I was seriously touched by this award and deeply grateful to those who put it in motion.  I was also given an engraved glass bowl which shall take pride of place in the trophy cabinet.

So she who rules the roost nagged me to whip off me alpaca farmers costume and don a jacket to satisfy the brief. Shirley normally takes photos in which it is hard to spot the subject but this was pretty straightforward. Well done Whoopy Daisy ! This is about as good as it gets for me with photies. I take them real good but can't be in them. So to safeguard against any additional titivation that might occur when published I flick it out to prove that I can scrub up quite well.

A Toft Alpaca fibre herd ready to move to a new home

These lovely group of Pet alpaca males were selected at the weekend to go off to Norfolk where they will be groomed for Alpaca walks and talks as well as supply fibre for a craft enterprise. 

Each of these junior. Males carries a very consistent and uniform first fleece that is under 20 microns containing very little guard hair. The only reason they leave as pets  is that they have better brothers here who will remain in the breeding programme to be monitored as they mature. You've got to admit that they make a very attractive alpaca fibre herd.

BAS Judge Training Level 1 at Toft

What a week preparing for hosting  the British Alpaca Society Level 1 Judge training course. Linda our herds woman and our new trainee herds woman Freya seemed to be running around for days humping hurdles, clearing shedsand shuffling and selecting alpacas in preparation for the selection day last Thursday. Even Linda's daughter Gemma got roped in on her day off to lend a hand- thanks Gemma.

All in all we had to have well over 60 alpacas available in all colours age groups and quality to enable the teaching classes to be put together. 

The Judge tutors Liz Barlow and Nick Harrington Smith rocked up on Thursday to scrat through the groups to select the teaching and test classes. Jay Holland of Pure alpacas rocked up with a small group of coloured Suris to compliment the classes we put together from our own herd. Shirley seemed  to have been making lists for weeks coordinating the groups for the selection of the classes and as always she did a fantastic job enabling the selection day to run like a Swiss watch.

The delegates arrived at the crack of sparrows on the Friday and were put through their paces by the Judge Tutors all day Friday and Saturday. By a sheer stroke of luck the weather which was forecast to be horrendous passed us by and although we didn't see a lot of sun the weather held off until,after the course was over. 

A huge thanks to all the handlers who gave freely of their time, skill and patience in handling the classes to enable the delegates to get to grips with their methodology.  So a big Toft thanks to Shirley Isseyegh of Merrifield Alpacas, Peter Young and his son Chris of   Top House Alpacas, Angela Churcher of Hayes Alpacas, Jan Penny of Penn Alpacas and Liz Davies of Snapdragon Alpacas- all of whom worked tirelessly with great humour to make the event a success.

Jay and I were observing with the intention of teaching the course in future and it was a fascinating couple of days in which all the delegates seemed to gain confidence and ability as the course progressed. Well done to you all and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Linda worked herself to a standstill over the week and I would lay bets the she almost fell asleep in her dinner on Saturday evening. Thanks Linda and well done Team Toft for making this a very successful event.

Alpaca bling to die for at Alpaca Showtime

Will you look at these Championship Trophies? Whoever designed and had these made has achieved the best looking alpaca trophy I have ever seen. And believe me I've seen a few. You see them and you want one. They're a must have. They make you want to enter the show just to see if you could get one to brighten up your trophy cabinet.  You'd want to use it as a bonnet mascot for your car on  the drive home they are that impressive.They are so good that those people who won championships at the weekend should rent them out to those of us who missed them by a whisker.  

Well done to whoever designed and made them and well done to Houghton Hall, Bozedown and Alpaca Stud for coughing up the readies to make them so attractive. They now set a marker for a more impressive alternative because you certainly couldn't copy them and get away with it!

When your birthing starts mid April and you get to see this years improvement we shall all be hoping for a Champion to compete for the Alpaca Showtime bling!!