Dec 9 – 11 Hi-Plains Alpaca Show thoughts and results.
I volunteered to take care of the show rings this year. This was to coordinate the ring stewards and the gate stewards for this show. The show ran very well.
The weather was cold and foggy. The main animal area was heated this year and was quite pleasant. The show rings were colder with heating in the bleachers. The show had three rings with the performance in the far ring with the Suri’s in the middle ring and the Huacayas in the first ring. The Suri’s finished showing on Saturday at lunch and the Huacayas moved to the center ring.
Sundancer did well at this show. We took a Second with Storm Chaser, a Second with LEE, and a First and Reserve Color Champion with Mistral. Not bad for the first show of the season.
The dinner Saturday was great, the food was good and the prizes were fantastic. If you didn’t go, you should go next year for sure.
The roads were clear and travel was easy. Fuel cost for diesel was about $3.86 a gallon.
This show is a lot of fun for the exhibitors and should be added to the list of shows to attend.
Aug. 17, 2011
Mistral is finally breeding. I’m thinking of little babies running around that are super fine and very dense. More info to come later.
July 17,2011
Well guess what, Cheryl and I competed in a BBQ contest in Rio Rancho on July 1st. This was the Pork & Brew, it was a KCBS BBQ event. On Friday we turned in our sauce entry for judging. The main contest Saturday consisted of four separate entries, chicken, pork, pork ribs and brisket. The turn-ins started at 12:00 noon. The awards were at 5:00 P.M.. Our sauce took second, chicken took 5th, pork ribs took 9th, pork took 7th, and brisket took 19th. We placed 9th overall out of 30 teams.
Our brisket never got as tenderness as we liked. It got stringy but not fork tender. We are working on doing better in this class. We are also looking at our ribs for improvement.
Hopefully next time we will do better.
July 5, 2011
Greetings from the ranch,
Well my wife and I competed in a BBQ contest in Rio Rancho, NM on July 1st. It was a four category event, Chicken, pork ribs, pork, and brisket. We did well, Cheryl (my wife) helped on Saturday with prep of the turn-in boxes and also helping on presentation of the meats. we scored very well on presentation.
When all was said and done we placed fifth in chicken, ninth in pork ribs, seventh in pork, and 19th in brisket out of 30 teams. We did place 9th overall. I think the brisket was a really tough piece of meat. Next time we will try harder. Need help in alpacas or BBQ give us a call.
June 15, 2011
Well it’s June. One of our guard dogs has been diagnosed with bone cancer. We had the leg taken off and he is recovering now. He is out and laying in the shade looking at the world go by. Soon he will start chemo. Otherwise its not bad at our place.
June 2, 2011
Well it’s the end of the show season for Sundancer. So I prepped the trailer. I removed the bedding and then sprayed the ceiling, walls, and floor with bleach solution. I then poured buckets of bleach solution on the floor. Completed the cleaning with a pressure washer and power washed the ceiling, walls, and floor. I powered up the fans in the trailer and opened the windows to aid the drying. All this said and done, the trailer is summarized.
May 29
well were back from the Nationals. we did OK but we could have done better.
Cleaned and disinfected the trailer for the end of the show season.
May 16th
Now it’s the time to get ready to travel to the Nationals in Denver. I need to prep the trailer out and remove the extraneous gear that isn’t going to be used there.
Need to clean the truck and prep for guests that will be traveling with us.
See you at the Nationals in Denver.
May 4, 2011
Well we made it back from the Great Western Alpaca Show (GWAS). The show was well run. Mistral got a Reserve Color Champion. When we left the weather got bad. It started snowing from just south of Denver to Las Vegas, New Mexico. Now its time to unload the trailer and clean, then reload the trailer to get ready for the Nationals back in the same arena.
Here we go again, getting ready for the biggest alpacas show in the world. We look forward to this show every year. I will start preping the trailer and truck for the trip. Cleaning will be at the top of the list. We need to clean the trailer, and the display. Load the trailer with the support gear , hay, and water needed for the trip. I will also go over the check list to make sure that we have all the support gear required.
