Too cute

There times when things happen that are almost too cute to be true.

As most of you know we have alpacas and the one born here 18 months ago has turned out to be miniature alpaca. At this stage she should really be full grown but she still looks like a cria (which is what immature alpacas are called). And with that small size comes an inordinate amount of cuteness.

This is a picture of Dinah taken some 10 minutes after she was born. I had to assist a little bit because she had ended up being born tangled in the fence you can see in the background. The interesting thing is that as a result of that early contact, as well as the other handling I've had to do of her over the last 18 months, she has grown up to be very people friendly.


These days if I lean over the fence or go into the paddock Dinah comes over to me and presents her head to me to scratch. The other day I went into the paddock and sat down and waited to see what would happen. Sure enough Dinah came up to me and then started rubbing herself against me.


When Jenny joined me Dinah lay down against the fence and we were able to cuddle up with her while she just lapped all the attention up.


I'm in two minds now about selling the alpacas. With such a darling wee girl that is making herself such a part of our family it almost feels like you're selling a child!

Shame really because I'm pretty sure that there is a huge market for miniature alpacas.

THE new (to me) Bass

It arrived today and I've already spent a good hour or so playing with it. I think it probably took something less than a minute from walking into the house with the bass to having it plugged in and playing it.

"It" is a Hohner Professional Headless Bass also called "The Jack", built circa 1988. Typical of the era it is equipped with two humbucker pickups, active as well as passive electronics, and with the full size solid body has excellent sustain when you want it. It is called headless because the bass doesn't have a head at the end of the neck with tuners in it. Instead the tuners are fitted to the bottom of the bass in the Steinberger licensed bridge.

Tonally it is every bit as good as the Fender Precision Bass I had on loan. In fact the Hohner is more flexible because you can modify the tone quite a lot by adjusting the tone controls and switching the electronics on or off. Of course different playing techniques will also make a huge difference in tone. One of the modifications suggested by "those-who-know-these-things" is to replace the original humbucker pickups (which are made in Korea copies of EMG humbuckers) with real dinkum EMG pickups. That is something I'll keep in mind for the future.

The neck is somewhat slimmer than the Fender and the string spacing is also a bit tighter under the right hand. Once I get proficient enough for it to matter this slim neck will allow me to play fast riffs with more ease than on a wider neck.

The Steinberger bridge is fantastic. It incorporates the tuners in the tail stock. You do need to buy double ball strings, which do cost a whole lot more than ordinary bass strings, but once you've got the guitar in tune the Steinberger system is so stable you will barely ever have to re-tune.


The look and feel of the guitar are everything I had hoped for. In the beginning it does feel a bit odd not having a head and I felt as if my left hand might accidentally slip off the end of the neck. There are some small battle scars on the body but, realistically, what do you expect from a guitar that is some 21 years old.

On the wish list now are a better guitar amp (I need one with at least 100 Watts RMS output and I covet a Marshall or Mesa Boogie, preferably a separate head and cabinet) and a Marshall Gov'nor GV-2 effects pedal.

First of all though, I need to practice, practice, practice so I can become good enough to become one of the club's official bass players. Now I'm really looking forward to the Wellington Folk Festival in October this year for two reasons. One, I'll have had enough time to become reasonably proficient, and two, it will be the first most of our Wellington friends will know about me playing bass and I'm looking forward to surprising them with this.

Upmarket at the market

We have upgraded our presence at the Sunday market as from last Sunday. We've added proper branding to our market stall, making it easier for the public to identify what we have on offer.

Because the farm is still not producing saleable product year round we are always looking for complimentary products to add to our line up. We have just added a new product to our line up that is going very well for us. They are called SoapNuts and are a natural alternative to using chemical based soap powders.

SoapNuts grow on the Sapindus tree that is native to Northern India and Nepal. The fruit of this tree contains natural saponin which is nature's form of soap. In fact the word 'soap' is derived from saponin. In the days when people made soap from fats, oils and wood ash most everybody knew that the chemical reaction that took place when you mixed the oils with the alkali (wood ash) was called saponification. It's easy to see where the name for that reaction came from. Those soaps of old were gentle mild soaps that rarely caused skin problems.

Modern soaps, such as those you buy in your supermarket, are made mostly from artificial compounds and, unsurprisingly, many people have skin reactions when they use these soaps. The same is true of laundry powders. How many of you have noticed skin rashes, itchiness, or allergic reactions after putting on your freshly washed clothes? The reason for that is simply that your clothes come out of your washing machine laden with chemical residues from the soap powders, the whiteners, and the fabric softeners the marketing gurus tell us we should use.

SoapNuts contain only natural saponin and leave your clothes clean, fresh, and naturally soft. Aside from the obvious benefits of not dumping large quantities of residual chemicals into the waste water stream, nor leaving chemical residues in your clothes, SoapNuts are also extremely economical to use. $15 of SoapNuts lasts us almost a whole year.

Anyway, I'm not trying to sell you any because you all live on the other side of the world from me. But if you can find them at home, buy some and try them out. I know you'll be impressed.

We have put in a small lot of 50 trees here but it will be ten or so years before we'll be harvesting from them. It's likely that we'll be the only supplier of certified organic SoapNuts in New Zealand and, possibly, the world. Maybe I should have put in 5000 trees instead?



I am still looking to add more products and I have started making soap bars, using only natural ingredients. The first lot of 45 bars of Rice Bran and Palm Oil Lavender Seed soap should be ready for resale in about two weeks. Now the hunt is on for even greater diversity and one possible product is reselling Redmond Rock Salt imported from the USA. This salt is one of the purest and most nutritious salts available. We've been using it ourselves for some time now. If we can get a distributorship for this region we'll add this string to our bow as well.

Who would have thought that I would become such an entrepreneur? And in that department there is more to tell but it will keep for a later blog entry.