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Let the good times roll

Posted: January 19, 2008 at 10:23 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Again, it’s been a pretty productive time since the last message. We had two new alpacas show up at the farm. Austin (Texas? Powers? I don’t know what the name will end up being in the end?Dayna will have to decide it some time) and Johnny Blaze (JB) were delivered to us on Saturday. They are both doing well and adjusting to the new surroundings. Dayna and Krysten have been doing an awesome job of taking care of them and keeping track of the costs for these two animals. The project is completely for them to raise and market, and sell the animals. Kim and I are fronting the money to take care of the animals until they are sold, but anything over the cost of the animal goes directly back to the girl that sells her animal at the end of the 4-H season. These two boys that are going to be very well trained by August, since we are requiring that they spend time with them every day and they are on a training schedule with them as well this year, something we didn’t require of them before, the animals will get much more hands-on time than even some of other very well trained animals we have in our herd. If you are interested in purchasing one or both of these animals after the fair is over, please let us know. The girls haven’t set a price yet, but we would like to see them go to a great home. They are both very cute as you can see. If you are in the area during the Clark County Fair in August, please stop by and see these guys perform live.

We have added yet another new feature to the on-line store. Gift wrapping service for your purchased items. It’s easy, just select the gift wrapping service on the same page as you select your shipping preferences. If you aren’t aware, the Fancy Fiber Farm store supplies luxurious items made from alpaca fiber or products related to the alpaca industry. We strive to bring the highest quality products to you at the lowest prices we can. We can bring you low prices by keeping our overhead low. We don’t hire a programming staff for our website, it’s all done in house by Dennis. We don’t have a warehouse, we just store all of our items in the house for now. We don’t have the quantity of items that some stores have, but we are just starting out, and hope to expand the offering as things get rolling. So, get over there and buy yourself a treat or send something to someone special in your life. Tell your friends, co-workers and neighbors about the luxury of alpaca and send them to Fancy Fiber Farm (http://fancyfiber.com/catalog) to purchase these fine items.

On another note, I was thinking today about how much different life on the farm is from life in the city. I feel so much more satisfaction by the work done on the farm than I do from the work in the office. Not that I don’t really enjoy the work in the office sometimes, it just seems so less meaningful to me. I want to be able to work on the farm full time, but just can’t seem to make the money to cover the bills from the farm yet. I think that if I could work the farm full time for a few months I could probably make the money, but I can’t take the risk and not having the income. It’s really been getting to me and I don’t know how to fix it without winning the lottery. I know you very few people that read this will not know how to help me, but buy a few of my animals and I’ll be home free. Or just become an affiliate on the farm store. You will get paid for purchases you refer to our website and I get one step closer to be able to work from home, where I can help you increase your marketing and we both make more money. Think about it, won’t you?

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What a wonderful week!

Posted: January 7, 2008 at 8:12 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Well, what an eventful week I have had. Ok, most of it wasn’t farm related, but it kept me busy and happy for the week. I have been working on the web site pretty much non-stop every free minute I have for the past few weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I love working on the web site and hope those of you that visit, and there are a surprising number of you and I appreciate you all, enjoy what I have done with it over the past few weeks. More changes are in the works, and not just with the store, come back in a few days and check out the services page. We will be posting a shearing calendar and enhanced information about our shearing service. Hopefully we will get more information about the other services up there as well. Anyway, I was working away on the web site on New Years Day. Holiday, you say? Not me, I just see it as a day I get to work on what I enjoy, not work on what I must to get paid. I checked my email, one of the many times that day, and it’s from a relative that I haven’t talk to in 20 years. At first I am doubtful it could be from her. I was worried it would be SPAM, so I move it to the junk mail folder to apply maximum protections before opening it. Reading it makes it perfectly clear, this is from her. I quickly shoot off a response, but it’s nothing like what I want and should send, but I am in the middle of working on my web site. On the second, I write a more complete, over the top, long response that really shows how excited I am to have heard from her, and hoping that she would put me in touch with her sister. I also explain how I couldn’t sleep that night because I was so happy to hear from her. The morning of the third I check my email and find a letter from her sister. OK, I’m on cloud nine now, because it has been even longer since I have talked with her. The bus ride to work is spent going over what I am going to say to her. I am sure the people on the bus thought I was crazy sitting there smiling the whole ride to work. Every small break I had at work I would write a little bit to her. It took a good portion of the day, but I finally decided it was too long and I had better just send it. That night I get a nice letter about how my long letter put them both in tears being able to put into words just how happy they are we are in contact again. That felt good. We have been talking back and forth since, email and MSN Messenger. Too cool to see how we have all changed and grown and are also the same as when we were younger.The weekend comes and Saturday is spent preparing for Krysten’s concert. The La Center Middle School band was requested to play as the intermission entertainment for the Cowlitz County Honor Band. For those uneducated like me, the Honor Band is made up of the top musicians from all of the schools in Cowlitz County, they get together with a professor from the Lower Columbia College and work on several pieces of music. For a Middle School band to be invited to play as the intermission entertainment is really an honor and not to be taken lightly. The band director for the school wasn’t going to accept the invitation at first, but the students insisted that they be allowed to play. We went and had dinner with Krysten, who also got to spend the day playing at the “Fun Center” where she played Laser Tag and other things. Kim and I decided later that this was an awesome idea the director had, allowing the kids to be kids running around and having fun before having to be professional in front of the public. We watched the honor band play and they were very good playing some very complex pieces of music. The La Center Middle School Band got up and played and they were awesome! The amount of practice, hard work and dedication to the music program in La Center really shined through.

The applause for the kids was overwhelming. They received a standing ovation! The honor band came back on and played again, and again, they were very good at some very difficult pieces of music. Don’t get me wrong, the two bands can not be compared to each other. The middle school kids were playing much easier music and practice together almost every day for months before this. The honor band played much more difficult pieces of music and was only together for like a week (I think they said exactly how long, but I can’t remember). Overall a very enjoyable night.

Then Sunday, I got up and started working on the web site again. I wanted to get the Paca Pennies program online after working on the test site for over a week tweaking and working out the bugs. Finally, I was a point where everything was working, but I couldn’t test with PayPal, so it was time to put it online. For the most part it worked first try, but there was a lot of modifications to be done for the PayPal side of things to work with the Paca Pennies code. It is all fully functional now and I have sent out Paca Pennies to several of my relatives, including the two that I hadn’t talked to in over 20 years. It was a very productive week, but not very good for making the time to blog?

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Happy New Year

Posted: January 1, 2008 at 1:01 am | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Funny the things that can make you think, I really need to write a blog entry about that. I was reading a newsletter, one I get almost every day and read maybe once a week, today and it got me to thinking what a good day to reflect. The article was talking about how we as Americans have it pretty good overall.

I was thinking about how it has been a very rough year for me financially, granted it’s partially my own doing and partially the general slump the economy is in. Then I think about all of the things I am working on to improve my financial situation. Finally, I must remember where I have come from

I don’t want to get into my financial worries here, we all have them and we work through them as best we can. I really want to focus on that last little bit?where was I 20 years ago? (Imagine those little squiggly lines fading into memory here? )

Graduated from high school in June. Worked distributing beer and wine for $600 a month salary for 3 months until we decided that it was not a good fit. I didn’t enjoy the work so I wasn’t great at it and my conscience bothered me every time I heard about a drunk driving accident. So, I went to work for the security company at the local lumber mill doing fire watch for minimum wage. I was on top of the world! I was making money, my own money. I moved out from my parents house. Plans to go to college were in the back of my mind, but nothing firm around them, I just knew I didn’t want to go right out of high school. Then, the injury happened. It was in November. I couldn’t work. I was getting workman’s compensation, but I couldn’t afford to stay where I was, so it was back home to live with my parents again until I could save enough money to go to college.

20 years ago I was at the lowest point I could have been. Had a taste of the real world, then back to home I had to go.

Flash back to today. I went to college. I followed my career on the path of earning money working on these computer things. I have done quite well at it overall. I have been able to buy my land and alpacas, some fun toys like cars, RV, boat and tractor, take some nice trips across country, and most importantly help raise two very special children. I have a really good life, despite how stressed out I get some days.

I don’t know who will read this, if anybody, but I hope that you can sit back and take stock in your life and realize there are good things along with the bad. Take the time to look back over your life and feel blessed for the people and things in your life. If you have alpacas, want to have alpacas, or just think they are cute (how could you not think they are cute?) I think you are better for being touched by them. The are truly special animals and each of them have their own personality, just like people and most animals if you get to know them.

Well, I hope this finds you all well, and you take time out to sit back and think about how good you really have it.

Happy New Year! May it be prosperous, however you measure it.

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Happy Holidays

Posted: December 24, 2007 at 6:14 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Well, it’s here! Christmas eve and I haven’t been performing my duties keeping up with my blog. I have been keeping up with my duties on the website. I must say we have had a very successful opening of our online store. Much better than I could have expected all things considered. To all of our customers, thank you very much for your patronage. We appreciate every one of you. We have learned much in our first month of operation. We have had a couple of issues, some were my fault, some were technical - which I guess means they were my fault as well, and some were avoidable errors on the part of our shipping providers. Funny how the errors on the part of others are the ones that really frustrate me the most! I feel kind of silly when I make mistakes, but at least I can correct my mistakes. I can’t fix the errors others make.

I hate to make this all about the business side of things, but I am so proud! I have just opened up an affiliate program for all you people with alpaca, clothing, toys or other product websites out there, and would like to make a little money by directing traffic to our web site, we would love to have you join our marketing effort. I feel it is a win-win situation for everybody. It doesn’t cost anything, and  you just have to point at our products and we take care of the rest.

The alpacas in the fields are all doing well through the rain and slush falling from the sky. The fields are muddier than I would like to see them, but not much I can do about that right now. When I sell a couple of those girls out there, I’ll put some of that money towards upgrading the winter fields. The summer fields are looking awesome with nice green grass and weed free. I would like to see more alpacas on the property though. Perhaps you know of someone looking to agist? Send them my way! We’ll take good care of them.

I can hardly wait until cria season comes and I have more and more reason to blog and post pictures! Maybe we’ll actually make it to a show next year. We keep saying we want to, but time and money keep preventing us from following through on that plan. Well, I hear Santa is on his way, and I haven’t had my dinner yet, but the alpacas are all put away safe and sound for the night. I’m sure they will get something really nice from Santa. I think Isis knows he’s coming. She was all jumpy and happy today. The rest of them were just their normal selves, pretty and fluffy.

Well, that’s about all for now. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Thank you for stopping by.

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Sunfire and Sand Storm

Posted: December 13, 2007 at 9:57 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

This post is a little bit behind the times, but I have been busy with the online store and not really thinking about the blog. The store is doing wonderful, by the way. You really should check it out, we have lots of nice items still left and two large orders on the way, so more products will be arriving on the website very soon.

This is a post about Sunfire and Sand Storm though. We received a call from Tennessee on Monday that they both made it there safe and sound. We all miss them here a lot. It’s strange to go to the field and not be greeted at the fence by Sunfire. He was always willing to see what was going on and great with people, kids and dogs. He will be a great PR animal for William. Sand Storm is not the first to greet people at the fence, but he’s never far from sight. He didn’t push his way through the animals, but didn’t run from us when we approached him either. We worried for them the whole time they were on the trip and were very glad for the phone call that they made it there safely. We were also excited to hear that they were going to visit Santa Claus along the way. Oh, that’s Santa Claus, Indiana. If you are ever in the area, there is a very awesome amusement park with a water park there for a very reasonable price. I highly recommend it, but probably not the best place to take your alpaca.

Thanks for stopping by. You should also check out our breeding animals. We have updated pricing on many of them. Please feel free to contact us about any of the animals and schedule a farm visit.

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Products

Posted: December 1, 2007 at 4:57 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

It has been a pretty busy week, but a pretty awesome one. We opened the store last weekend. I should have put a blog post up about it, but I was too tired and forgot about it. I guess we opened just a mite bit too soon though, as I had some issues with PayPal and Google checkout that I thought I had fully tested. Turns out I had tested PayPal on my Alpaca-Search.com web site, but not here. Silly me. So, it appears we lost a couple of sales, but hey that’s life in the fast lane.

So, we have spent the week preparing more items for the web site for sale. They are out there now, and still more are to come. If you are looking for alpac scarves, alpaca ponchos, alpaca blankets, alpaca gloves, alpaca finger puppets, alpaca yarn, alpaca books or alpaca roses, please stop by our store by clicking on the Products link above or click here to visit. We really think you can find something you like.  We are also confident that our pricing is better than what you can find in most other places on your own.

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Alpaca Search

Posted: November 24, 2007 at 11:50 am | by Dennis
Filed under: General

I have been working on the Alpaca Search engine project almost exclusively for the past several days. I believe it is finally ready for production use, even though it has been online and in use for a few days. I have just been adding features to make the site more useful, like a database lookup engine that is totally cool…at least I think so. So, please, try out the new alpaca search engine. There is a link to it in my blogroll over to the left, or you can just click here: Alpaca-Search.com.

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Alpaca Search

Posted: November 10, 2007 at 7:32 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Well, after playing around with the idea for awhile, I decided to go ahead an implement it. There is now a site for the Alpaca Only Search engine. Take a look at it at: http://alpaca-search.com. It’s totally cool! I’ll be making it better as time goes on, or at least that is the plan. It will also have a blog of it’s own. So, enjoy. Happy Alpaca Search (ing).

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Google Search - Alpacas Only

Posted: November 3, 2007 at 10:14 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

I just added a new feature! Google search for Alpaca only information. It should be a totally cool feature if I can get enough people using it. I am going to start letting people know about it in the morning and see where it goes from there.

If you want to see it now, you can see it on my web site at http://fancyfiber.com or to the Google location at: http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=008706952228772670161%3Aelopqw-0_t8

 Thanks for reading!

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New additions to the herd

Posted: September 30, 2007 at 8:14 pm | by Dennis
Filed under: General

Yesterday while surfing the web, Kim came across a deal too good to pass up, so today we went to look at these two girls. They are nice looking females, both dark fawn. We knew going into it that we would be purchasing a couple of girls that are having some reproductive issues, but decided to take the risk for the price. It was a nice drive up to look at them, Kim and I just talking and listening to a little bit of music. We got our hands on the girls and made the decision on the spot to bring them home. The drive home was very peaceful. Trina laid down immediately and didn’t get up the whole drive home and even slept for a little while when Guen would leave her alone. Guen rode very well too, though. She would kush for a while then get up and look out the window and come to the front of the van to visit with Kim and me. She really seemed very interested in where we were going and couldn’t wait to get there. You can see the intelligence in her eyes.

We arrived home after awhile and called the girls out to meet the new farm members. The girls were very impressed by how easily the new alpacas walked on their leads and into the barn. Trina seemed very comfortable in a very short time. She was even eating from our hands before we left the barn for the first time. They met the other girls in the barn through a fence and nobody seemed to be distressed at the whole situation. Everybody seemed to just take it all in stride. Guen still wouldn’t eat from our hands after we went out later in the evening, but it was a big day, we’ll give her a break for it. There is always tomorrow.

Kim and I then spent the rest of the evening working on the web sites and the alpaca tracking software getting the new additions out there to be seen. A little marketing never hurts, right?

All in all a productive day, and hopefully we will be able to turn these reproductive issues around with a lot of love and kindness and special dedication. If not, we still have some very lovely girls to show for our effort.

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