Alpaca Journal

By Mike Safley

     I recently returned from the annual Quechua Benefit trip to Peru where we support a food program at the local church in the Colca Valley town of Yanque.  I met with the sister who operates the daily feeding operation.  I was inspired to write a short story about her, Sister Antonia and The Mystic Power of Peru’s Cuy, which I believe portrays the true spirit of Christmas.  The Bible teaches us to feed the poor and heal the sick.  Sister Antonia surely walks in the footsteps of Jesus.  Merry Christmas, I hope you enjoy the story which begins below.

     Sister Antonia Kayser is a plucky 81 year-old Catholic nun from the borough of Brooklyn, New York.  A member of the Maryknoll Order, Sister Antonia has been feeding 800 dirt-poor people a day since 1983 from the courtyard of the church in Yanque, a small town in the Colca Valley of Peru. Antonia does this five days a week, year in year out. On Saturday she feeds 400 more—young children who rarely get enough to eat.  If you were to do the math you would find that over the years, Antonia has provided hungry men, women, and children with nearly 6 million individual meals. She is legendary in the Colca Valley. I asked an Indian woman from the far end of the Valley, many hours away from Yanque, if she knew Sister Antonia.  She replied, “I know of her—she is the nun who feeds people.”  Read entire story.

Related Links:

• The Quechua People: An Abandoned Race
• Quechua Benefit: The Mission in the Andes
• Quechua Benefit: An Expanding Mission in the Andes

     For all of you who have not finished your holiday shopping I have the perfect solution.  Northwest Alpacas is offering some great discounts on the following books:  Alpacas-Synthesis of a Miracle, The Ideal Alpaca: From Myth to Reality, The Alpaca Shepherd.  We are also offering free shipping within the USA, and in the holiday spirit of last minute shoppers we will send your order via UPS to make sure Santa gets it in time.

Related Links:

• Alpaca Art Gallery

By Mike Safley

     To begin I want you to know that the idea of taxes is not new nor the exclusive sin of the United States Government.  In Roman times, Caesar Augustus decreed, "that all the world should be taxed."  Politicians have taken taxation to heart for centuries.  We have, on occasion, been given good advice about our responsibility to pay tax. The Honorable Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand instructed the IRS, in a high court decision, that it was not a citizen's duty to conduct himself so as to pay the maximum tax possible, but that a common man might arrange his affairs so as to pay the least amount of tax possible.  God bless the judge, and God bless our alpacas and their tax advantages. Read more

Related Links:

• Alpaca Sales
• Studmaster™ Males

By Mike Safley

Alpacas come in many colors; on occasion, too many colors.  Dark-colored fleeces with the occasional light-colored fiber spread throughout the blanket have one color too many.  White fleeces, with the odd fawn or black fiber hidden among the white ones, are equally at fault.  The subject of color definitions, roan, grey, and multies is a hot potato tossed between the show rules committee, judges, the AOBA Board, show management, and exhibitors.  If alpaca breeders do not discriminate against solid colored alpacas with the occasional off-color fiber in their fleece, the problem could haunt them for sometime. In my opinion males that lack uniformly colored fleeces should not be herd sires.  Read more

Related Links:

• Breeding for Color

By Mike Safley

I have posted a link to the 2006 Alpaca Show Handbook changes for any of you obsessed exhibitors who would like to get a head start on the rule changes for next year’s show season.  Click here

Related Links:

• Alpaca Fiber: Color Contamination