Eggcellent birthday (and pictures are back - Paul)

Firstly, thank you to Judi for the great suggestion on Carol's giant baby booty - an alpaca stocking ready for santa to fill up! The only problem is that Rudolph wouldn't get any carrot as the Barnacre herd loves them and the temptation would be too great!  Any more suggestions please?!

For those of you who follow us on Twitter (@BarnacreAlpacas) you will know that I trailed a massive story earlier today and here's a repeat of the first clue:

Obvious really, it's Legend's 5th birthday! And I made him a carrot cake:

Debbie and I were really lucky to have the opportunity to secure Legend from Rob and Les at Wellground.  He has brilliant genetics from two of the biggest Australian alpaca studs: EP Cambridge Peruvian Spartacus (his sire) and Jolimont Commisario.  His fleece is beautiful and has cut 5.5 kilos for the last two years, you can check him out on his stud page of our website.

As well as winning supreme champion at the 2009 Scottish National Fleece show (record 152 entries) he has produced prize winning progeny.  His first son, Ivory Star who is at Wheelhouse Alpacas in Yorkshire has been reserve champion twice.  His first daughter, Barnacre Casiphia swept the board at the 2011 Border Union Show, Kelso taking: 1st intermediate white female, white champion, Best of British and supreme champion - how proud were we!

Waiting in the wings we have more of his progeny, Barnacre Wynfor ("Win-vor") is excited about his new home because he has some new owners who are building him a special field shelter; then we have Barnacre Niveous from one of our elite breeding females (Little Miss Irraquoy who has the amazing NWA Ltd Ruffo in her pedigree) he looks amazing and is such obvious stud material you wouldn't believe it.  And then there is Lavender-Bee Sebastian owned by John and Juliet Miller (of Border Mill fame), we met Sebastian last week in the fading light after the fleece show when John showed us his fleece.  I asked if it was worth opening the fleece in the poor light conditions, and when we did it was like turning on a torch!  Such crimp, density and brightness, that boy is destined for great things I have no doubt!

Anyway on with Legend's birthday celebrations.  After singing him 'Happy Birthday' (under strict instructions from Debbie who is still away and sings happy birthday to all our alpacas - on their birthday of course, she isn't that mad) I fed Legend some of his carrot cake, which went down very well indeed.  In fact he was that pleased with his special day that he even did a little pose for us:

He's the man!

Oh yes, issues and fallings out to report at the Pearson household (where Debbie and I are staying whilst our shed gets built at the hill).  The chickens haven't laid any eggs for the last couple of days and so we were down to our last egg which Carol was going to use for 'sponge pudding' tonight.  Unfortunately I accidentally ate it at lunchtime - oops!

I think Dave then got it 'in the ear' when he came home from work - sorry Dave!  To make you feel better, and in true Paul style when Debbie is away can you guess what happened to the egg?...
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Yum, yum in my tum - sorry Dave and Carol - it was eggcellent!  Happy 5th birthday Legend !!!!!

Paul