And The Honorable Mention Goes To……. Me!

Just before I left for my trip to England I made a last minute decision to enter some of my photographs in the Photo Competition at the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA) National Show, which was held this year in Sandy, Utah.  The National show is one of the largest alpaca shows in the US and while I was not going to be able to enter alpacas in the show I thought I could at least enter the photo competition.

 

I sent in three photos, one was of Blast nursing when he was a cria, the other was of young Megan Stewart (daughter of our friend Jennifer Stewart) in with some of the male alpacas, and the third was of Jennifer Stewart and Zeus at Halloween when Jennifer visited our farm dressed as a clown.

 

I hadn’t heard anything back on my photo entries until the other day when a large padded envelope arrived in the mail.  Inside was a ribbon and a letter from AOBA informing me that I had received an honorable mention in the Humor Category for my photo of Jennifer and Zeus.  I was very pleased, this is the first time I had ever won any sort of award for photography and as my photos usually leave a lot to be desired it is quite an achievement for me!

 

For the competition I titled the photo “I’m cute what’s your excuse” and you can see it on my blog entry for November 1, 2007.   Part way through that blog entry you will see two pictures together, the one I submitted to the competition is the one on the right hand side.

 

The ribbon will now go on display in our studio I think, along with a copy of the picture.  It will also be printed in the Autumn 2008 copy of Alpacas Magazine and will eventually be loaded on the AOBA members website www.alpacaowners.com – not bad for a last minute entry!

 

Rosemary

Clowning Around At Halloween

We had a visit yesterday from Jennifer Stewart who works for our local paper the Clovis News Journal.  Jennifer is working with us to create a set of ads for the CNJ Online, the website for the Clovis News Journal.

Apparently the Clovis News Journal staff had decided to get into the Halloween spirit and many of them had come to work in costume, and Jennifer had come to work dressed as a clown. 

Jennifer had warned me that she would be wearing a clown suit when she made her appointment with me the day before and I had suggested to her that we let the alpacas check her out and see what they felt about clowns.

It turns out that Jennifer used to work as a professional clown and so not only was wearing a clown suit but also had put on her clown makeup.  I am not sure I would have the courage to walk around dressed as a clown all day, but Jennifer had no problem with it at all and seemed quite at home in her regalia, although she did forget about her clown make up a couple of times resulting in it getting on her hands.

So having discussed the latest ads that Jennifer and the team at the CNJ had come up with it was off to the pastures to see what alpacas think about clowns.  It was another windy day here so Jennifer had to hold onto her clown wig to stop it from flying off into the sky.  You would think that the alpacas would react to a person entering their pasture wearing brightly colored funny clothes that were flapping in the breeze, a yellow wig and clown make up but they just gave a sideways glance and got back to the serious alpaca business of eating hay.  Even the guard llamas did not come over to check out Jennifer, they have met her before but she looked a lot different today than her previous visit (honestly she really does not dress like this every day!).  Maybe the llamas thought that anyone dressed like Jennifer was today could not possibly be a threat to the safety of the herd, which is pretty odd when you consider that they will chase down and stomp a little salamander crossing the pasture.

           

The crias were the ones mainly interested in Jennifer’s attire, in particular Blast who gave her a thorough inspection.  Cinnamon too was quite interested, while Stars and Shiimsa started to get close and then decided that the yellow wig was much too strange and backed off pretty quickly.  Still we managed to get some good pictures and now know that to our alpacas and llamas clowns are quite acceptable and non-threatening. 

Thank you Jennifer for being such a good sport, and for those of you reading the blog check out the CNJ Online every now and then and see if you can catch our ads as they rotate through the site.

Rosemary