I'm starting to feel like an old knowledgeable Alpaca breeder now. We only started 5 years ago. But I feel that way because of the new alpaca people who have recently come into our lives. They have shown me how much I have learned in those 5 years, and how much I can share with them. And how much I love to share my experiences, knowledge and love of alpacas with all of them. I was hardly bored in my alpaca life - but I am awakened to new and different alpaca avenues because of them. I love to learn and I hope you who follow this blog love it too. here is part 1 of Rosehaven's beginnings.
We have had a farm up in the catskills since 1995. And
except for our two horses Abby and Reba (Reba has passed on I'm sorry to say), never had any thoughts about any other animals or livestock. We both work in New York City and have never had vacations at the same time, so the country farm became our vacation away from the city. We got to like it so much up there that we started looking into ways to make a living up there. To be able to stay there full time. But the only things we came across were investment property or restaurants. Then one day Rob was coming home from the little town of Jeffersonville, and a local alpaca breeder's herd had escaped onto the road. Now we had seen a few signs for alpaca farms, and always thought we would check them out. But "alpacas" we thought they must be just a quaint Catskill thing. But here was Rob, staring at real alpacas. They actually surrounded his car, and if you have ever been face to face with an alpaca they are extremely curious creatures, and they look at you with these marvelous wondrous big eyes, and necks that go on for days. And for a second you are taken back wondering what is going on behind those gorgeous eyes.
Now these alpacas had just been shorn - so they all looked like aliens. (but he didn't' know that till we did more research) He had no idea what they were and by the time he helped herd them into the farm and met the owners he was beginning to laugh about the whole experience. He came back to the farm and told me about these really funny looking creatures. He thought one was going to come up to the car window and say "ET phone home". He made me look them up on the internet. Well you know where that got us! We were laughing and looking at the pictures and praising how incredibly cute they were. We forgot about them for that day, however, they weren't done with us. Slowly we started seeing images of them in many places. On the TV we saw the "I Love Alpacas" commercial, Then we saw something on an airplane about them. Then it was another article in a newspaper. and we were getting hooked. We joined AOBA to get some more information. And they sent the info - and we started
reading alpacamagazine. I still love that magazine. I was absolutely amazed at how far ahead the marketing was then many other items I had ever seen. As a kid I wanted to raise horses. I was so addicted to horses , that I still have my china horse collection and all those Walter Farley books. In fact I might read them again. But, you know, life gets in the way of many things you want to do. And the trick is to get yourself back on the track of what you want to do with your life. We dabbled in showing dogs (oh so briefly I shouldn't even mention it!). Except it did give me the experience of birthing puppies. Which is quite a different experience of birthing crias. and I also saw how awfully political showing dogs can be. Really not my favorite thing to do. In showing dogs to "finish" them. you need to leave your dog with a handler for most of the year. I love my dogs I don't' want to give them up for all that time. I was only doing it as a lark. So now we have 2 beautiful female show boxers as lap dogs!!! oh - too bad. we love them any which way!!!
Next time I'll fill you in on how we went from Internet search to actually buying our first alpacas. Because within a couple of years they ended up in the front field facing our porch!!
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