Royal Launceston Show 2013

Hello, sorry that my blogging is a little sporadic lately - with shows, birthdays and mini-breaks to Melbourne I haven't had too much time.  Firstly I have to say that the weather has been diabolical! Apparently following the driest summer every recorded for Tasmania, has been the wettest winter! Until today we still had the wood fire burning all day, and it has not...stopped...raining!!

Consequently the garden is completely overgrown, the farm chores have just built up and I feel like I've done nothing but huddle in front of the fire, muttering about moving to tropical Queensland, wash numerous amounts of toddler pants and undies (a few accidents) and throwing more wood on.

Anyway...we did go to the Launceston show (and it POURED down).  This is the first time that I have been to an Alpaca show since owning Alpacas - it was really exciting...until we were led down the very back of the showgrounds to a smelly shed with not many Alpacas to see.  I had forgotten that Bendigo 2013 (National Alpaca Show) was on at the same time, so many studs had taken their animals there.  Oh well, add to that - Launceston is really not a city but a large country town...and these are the photos I managed to take.

Toddler admiring Lori's Suris

'Whites are up next...'

'We're not going...we're staying just here' - covered in hay and dried mud

Lori in the background whilst we admire the appaloosa

Here the red ribbon is second place and the blue is first.

LOL, alpacas not behaving! White's being judged - I missed the age as we had just walked in. Both Alpacas were white, I'm not sure why one shows up as dark fawn in the first two photos!

Judge is comparing fleece - the ribbon was awarded on ' fleece density' as the judge explained at the end, due to both alpacas having excellent conformation

You get first prize!!

Light Fawn class was judged at the same time.

The 'white'winner!

I met a lovely lady, Lori who I had read about in the AAA magazine recently.  She has just started breeding Alpacas, and she was very friendly and hugely encouraging of our bringing alpacas to the show.  So much so, that we swapped details and she steered us in the direction of sign-making, web-site design and said that next year I should book a couple of pens near hers.  Lori also has Suri's that she purchased from Victoria - they took Supreme positions in the show.  I am looking forward to catching up with her again.

I really wanted to touch the first place fleece, but there were signs everywhere 'do not touch' and the fleeces were being watched...these photos were the best I could do.

Well, what did I learn?  That Aussie 'pacas are a grubby lot, so mine would have fit in quite well.  No-one was sporting green spit and no-one alpaca's were perfectly behaved (stood still)..in fact I think even with our 'beginning' halter training skills, we would have not looked too out of place at the show (and between you and me, from what I saw, I think a few of ours would have been quite competitive - but then, many were in Bendigo).

Then we had to go and let the little man enjoy his first show, in the rain.  He wasn't interested in the Alpacas (why would he be?), but had plenty of tantrums after each ride had finished and he would scream wildly for more.

LOL, he completed his toilet training successfully...on the way home I had to stop the car to screams of 'WEE MUMMY', and for the first time he stood and pee'd on the grass. We were both rather impressed!!

Next week we are off to the Royal Hobart Show - I have hundreds of questions to ask, and will be more forward and ask if I can take photos of fleece! I am looking forward to catching up with Lori there too, and showing her some photos of Adlin (as per her request) and some draft signs/banners that I have been working on.

I will write up another post on Melbourne and the little man turning 3 last week :)