We think this boy is the darkest 'silky' type we have seen! His fiber is slick and shiny that it looks and almost feels wet! Even judge Tim Lavan commented that his fiber looked almost like it was wet! He has LOTS of fiber on him, and with a really long staple so that it droops somewhat when he is at his peak length. But don't be fooled by this and think that he is not dense... he has a lot of fiber packed on him! He has white fibers in his blanket but not consistently enough to classify him as a grey in the shows. This was his initial 'hiccup' in the show ring, when they placed him in the brown classes so that he had to endure the disapproval of the judges. We attempted to show him in Bred and Owned but did not find the consistent competition at that time that we desired for him. But, we luckily become more observant of Major's several, easily discernible light spots in his blanket that classifies him as an appaloosa pattern. Shown in the right class and Major ROCKS! His fiber was finally evaluated purely on its exceptional qualities rather than on how it did not fit in the class. From the beginning in the show ring, he was hard to categorized but well appreciated. At his first show, while he was criticized for his white fibers in brown class, he also caught the judge's eye as "so shiny he looked wet". At the 2014 Futurity while showing in the combined multi class, he was brought to the Reserve Champion position, behind the Snowmass Color Champion and before the other exemplary alpacas from farms such as Crescent Moon and Marquam Hill. With the caliber of competition of this show we were proudly aware of Major's placing at the head of the pack clearly recognizing his herdsire material! We absolutely love Major for his easy personality, great looks and fantastic fiber. Being a small farm with very limited breedings each year, Major has had to elbow his way into the breeding program and hasn't had the exposure that he should have. He has darkened the color of the offspring over its dam in every case. When bred to fawns he has made a MF to DB crias. Bred to grey dams he produced grey crias 60% of the time and true black in the remaining 40%. Their fiber have all been fine with long staple and good crimp. His last two crias by fawn dams have been grouped into our show / jr. herdsire category. Since we have decided to keep his son, Gentry, in our herdsire row, Major is available at a very 'nice price' to help him move to another breeding program. He has genetics that could be used in any grey or spotted program. As we have sold Imitation, our last appaloosa dam, we no long have need for a male that could straddle the line of grey and spotted colorations and he really deserves more consideration.

Summer has a easy personality and excellent mothering skills. Her heritage is filled with color, black and grey, as witnessed in the grey highlights at the edges of her lovely fleece. Her conformation is boxy and straight, well-balanced and strong, giving her an easy movement and confident stature. With Summer's daughter and full sister in our foundation herd, the sons of her sister in our herdsire row and their offspring in our show string... it can be seen that we like these genetics. Now, you can benefit from this solid base of these robust bloodlines. She is a lovely daughter from our (still missed) Lola and the multiple champion Kanaka, which means her lineage boasts Felix, Rayo de Sol, Avatar among others. Though Summer did not really get a chance at the show ring like her champion MRG full sister, she has a soft, fine fiber with high frequency crimp along her long staple and with good uniformity across her blanket. Her medium fawn, lustrous fiber is lovely to touch and spin! Her first cria is an eye-catching true black girl, the daughter of the impressive Chase Tavern Juggernaut. She was born in the midst of our record breaking rainy season in Colorado that year (that led to the 500-yr floods in northern Colorado). We found this cria sitting in a puddle in the down-pouring rain under the run-off from the barn overhanging pouring over her head! Struggling against the confines of the towels while being dried off and warmed up, she quickly got her feet under her and really took off. The little cria was all energy and spunk, jumping and running everywhere! We couldn't help but think of her as a little imp. So, we named her Water Sprite! Sprite is so curious and friendly that she trots up to us each time we enter the paddock to see us. Circumstances and timing prevented us from breeding Summer. So, we were happy to finally breed Summer again, this time to our Futurity & GWAS reserve champion stud, Major General -- a Patagonia's Ernesto son that is packing on the fiber! We secretly hoped for a rose grey cria, tapping into both her and his latent grey genes, but we were excited to produce a lovely dark maroon / bay black girl that combines these two alpacas' fiber and frame. Carmine is soooo soft and silky, that she has been described as the Velveteen Rabbit. Carmine is now bred for her own cria. Summer was bred to the one and only Matrix for a special cria this year that we unfortunately lost before birth.

Quixotic son!