Alpaca Crazy

My mom met Sharon through a knitting machine class and was immediately taken with her lovely demeanor and her stories of her alpacas. She requested a homeschool field trip to her farm and Sharon agreed. This week, eight of our children were introduced to these friendly, but shy animals, and learned a little more of God's great creativity in the design of His creatures.

All it took was a visit to Peru and Sharon and her husband knew they wanted to raise alpacas. These sweet-natured, gentle beasts won their hearts and when they returned home to Canada, they began to fill their farm with their new "babies". Both being artists, they quickly discovered a passion that would include their animals--shearing, spinning and knitting with the alpacas' soft, comforting fibres. They purchased all the equipment they needed to run a mill and soon a business and a quaint little store were born.

As an experimentalist, Sharon spins the fibres with all sorts of interesting options: corn, bananas, hemp, and whatever will spin beautiful yarn. Her state-of-the-art equipment was fascinating!

Thankfully, Sharon was gracious and patient while our younger children touched everything in sight!

Lovely alpaca yarns spun by Sharon.

Items for purchase in her store. Of the things she has created, there's a story behind each one and she often knows which of her pets the fibres came from.

After the spinning lesson, Sharon allowed us to get into the pen with the baby alpacas. We needed to get down down low to be less intimidating and to entice the animals to eat from our hands.

We scared them away at first.

The babies weren't too sure they wanted to approach again...

 but as soon as they figured out we had snacks for them, they ventured back.

 In a few minutes, they were feeling at ease and even making friends :)

I wanted to take one or two of them home with us.

"My big cousin will keep me safe."

Oliver became buddies with the herd dog.

One beautiful, fluffy, bath mat :)

Give us animal field trips and we're a happy bunch!

(Thanks Sharon from Alpacas at Eighth & Mud)