Rooting through dirty alpaca

After going to Rhinebeck, I found myself the proud owner of almost four pounds of baby alpaca. It didn't come from one alpaca, but rather two. One is a beautiful medium brown, very clean and it has a crimp to die for. Unfortunately, the second one is not so clean. There's VM and matted areas of mud (at least I hope it's mud) all through out the blanket. But it's this beautiful creamy white and then when they said they'd take 10% off because it was so dirty, I just couldn't resist! So I bought it. I'm just paying for it right now! It is really nice once I get it clean, it's creamy white, shiny and a wonderful crimp, but it's taking some major work to get it that way. Here's a couple of pics to show:
To the left is a picture of the fleece pre-me picking the extra VM and "stuff" off of it. I didn't know whether to try to pick stuff off of it before I washed it or after, so I went ahead and washed it in some Orvus paste and hot water. Thank God it didn't felt! It's hard to tell how dirty it still is with this small picture, but trust me, it still needs plenty of work! To the right
here, you'll see to efforts of my hard work!! It's a fluffy pile of alpaca-y goodness! This is after how many days? I washed it on October 23rd, now it's the 30th, so this has been a week of labor here. I'm not too sure how many ounces it is, I haven't weighed it. I'm hoping to continue my alpaca pick and hopefully soon, I'll be able to spin it up! Oh, and here's a picture of me in the middle of the alpaca pick!
Isn't my family room a complete mess??!! I wanted to do this outside, but for some unknown reason, Middletown is right smack in the middle of a wind tunnel. A wind tunnel that, I might add, only shows up when the temperature starts to dip, so it makes it just that much colder in the winter, but you get no relief during the summer. Makes sense doesn't it? Now, don't you want to move to Delaware? Behind me is one of my wheels, my Timbertop Jubilee. I love that wheel! I'm in the process of getting a custom wheel from Tom Golding that's supposed to be completed on December 1st. One of my high points of Rhinebeck was meeting him and his wife, Diane. I can't wait to visit their farm in Vermont when I go to pick up my wheel in December! Pictures will definitely be posted when that happens, but until then, the alpaca-pick continues!! I better not get hoof and mouth disease...or cutaneous anthrax...