Last minute fiber photos!

The other day, it occurred to me that we are doing The Big Shearing next week, and that I better get some last-minute fiber pictures in STAT.
 
I've been really, really pleased at how great our staple lengths were this year (I like to think it's our feeding regimen, but I suspect it might've been the nice, mild winter -- either way, it's great). In order to highlight that, we experimented with a new fiber-photo technique -- the "three-handed" fiber shot! ... Pretty pleased with how these came out ...
 
The first one is KQA's Apollo (sired by Aussie .38 Special, a very big deal in grey-alpaca land). Apollo's staple length is possibly his best feature (that, and the uniformity of crimp and length throughout his blanket), so it stands to reason that this is the best Apollo-fiber-shot we've taken so far.

These next two males are really almost impossible to take a bad fiber shot of. This is Luna Sky's Peruvian Medicine Man, and his fleece is puuuuuurty. This is also his third fleece. It's kind of amazing. The other thing that's amazing about it is how much longer it is than his 2nd ... Almost double!

Here is a bit of a close-up ...

... Last, but not least, is this guy: Black Hills Capone. Remember a year or so ago I wrote about a relative lack of elite grey fleece on the farm? ... Well, if you were wondering what one looks like, it looks like this. Between this guy and our other, arguably even more elite grey, .38 Special son Harmony, the elite grey fleece void has been very assuredly, and very dramatically filled.

Elite silver grey alpaca fleece

... I don't think that any of the above boys have ever made the 'blog before, so, for the curious, here's the rest of them.

KQA's Apollo

Luna Sky's Peruvian Medicine Man

Black Hills Capone