{"id":398,"date":"2014-12-31T23:02:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-01T06:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/?p=398"},"modified":"2015-06-12T22:31:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T05:31:01","slug":"christmas-encounter-with-alpacas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/2014\/12\/31\/christmas-encounter-with-alpacas\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas encounter with alpacas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\">\u201cCome touch these!\u201d I called over to my friends at the Christmas market booth. I thought I found the softest fur I ever touched.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\">\u201cThey\u2019re from alpacas.\u201d The shopkeeper walked over and I shyly drew back my hand, but he smiled and continued. &#8220;The special thing about alpaca, is that each strand of fur is a hollow tube. It&#8217;s not a twisted fiber like sheep&#8217;s wool, so there are no rough edges.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_399\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-399\" style=\"width: 379px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2014\/12\/alpaca.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-399 \" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2014\/12\/alpaca.jpg\" alt=\"alpaca\" width=\"379\" height=\"284\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2014\/12\/alpaca.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/files\/2014\/12\/alpaca-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 379px) 100vw, 379px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-399\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alpacas and scarves made from alpaca fiber. Photo by Maki Sumitani.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/extension.psu.edu\/animals\/camelids\">Alpacas are animals in the same family as llamas and camels<\/a>. They have very long and full fur, so their annual haircut gives us alpaca fleece that can be used to make scarves, hats, socks, and incredibly soft stuffed animals like the ones I encountered at the market.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\">The shopkeeper explained that the smooth strands of the alpaca makes alpaca fleece very soft, a great alternative for people like me who get itchiness from sheep wool. The hollow strands mean alpaca fleece is much warmer and lighter too\u00a0(air helping to insulate is a concept I mentioned in <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/2014\/09\/03\/build-a-window-workshop\/\">my earlier post on double-paned windows<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\">Who thought I would learn something new about alpacas while enjoying the holiday spirit at the Christmas market&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; line-height: 18.0pt;\"><em><span lang=\"EN-US\" style=\"font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #111111;\">Thanks to Winterbourne Alpaca staff, Vancouver Christmas Market 2014.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cCome touch these!\u201d I called over to my friends at the Christmas market booth. I thought I found the softest fur I ever touched. \u201cThey\u2019re from alpacas.\u201d The shopkeeper walked over and I shyly drew back my hand, but he smiled and continued. &#8220;The special thing about alpaca, is that each strand of fur is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265,8940],"tags":[1049652,1145,673606,1049653,1049656,362558],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home","category-wildlife","tag-alpaca","tag-christmas","tag-fiber","tag-fleece","tag-insulation","tag-wool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sumi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}