We're buying an alpaca farm, and eating only organic produce and natural beef.
In other words, we had a great day at the farm tour yesterday!
Every autumn, our area hosts a farm tour, where the public is invited to visit six or seven different farms that open their doors to us city folk to show how they live out their days.
As it turns out, the fresh, local produce and beef are a really good price, and we're considering it for next year, but the alpacas . . .
. . . .they rock.
Imagine a huge, adorable teddy bear, that has a long neck, long legs, a face like a llama and moves. That's an alpaca. The teddy bear part? They are ridiculously soft! I just wanted to cuddle up with one of those things and take a nap! The place we went to was a breeder, so there were a bunch of baby alpacas wandering around, too.
Oh. My. Cute. Goodness.
The farm was very hands on, and let everyone pet the little guys. It was so much fun to watch our kids hand feed a few of the moms, and William got the biggest kick out of them. He would lean into one, and when it would look at him, he'd pull away and turn around in our arms. He wasn't crazy about petting them, so Jon brushed his bare foot against one of the alpacas, and he started giggling away. So, so cute!!
We learned about bee keeping at our first spot (did you know many farmers keep their own bees in order to make sure their crops are polinated?), the wonders of alpaca breeding at the next (did you know that alpacas are pregnant 11 months out of the year, and a few weeks after giving birth, they get pregnant again? I know a few women like this . .. ) all about organic farming from an "not certified, but organic enough" farm (they do nothing for pest control here, they figure every pest has a predator, and sometimes they just have to take a hit in the name of mother nature), and saw "free range pork" in action at the last cattle farm. Seriously, the pigs were wandering out of thier pen all over the place. The mommas were HUGE and fierce with each other, and the babies were so darn cute I wanted to take one home with me (but I have a problem becoming emotionally attached to something that will eventually end up on my plate).
All in all, it was a fantastic way to spend a Sunday afternoon. These are the types of things we love to do with the kids on the weekends, and they seem to love it, too. Soon, we will head out to pick some pumpkins from the side of the mountain, like last year. And maybe the next time you see us, we'll have an alpaca or two in the backyard. Though, I don't think the HOA would approve.
3 comments:
Sounds like an awesome day. I would love to be able to get all organic, and free-range meat. I know, I'm totally going "crunchy granola" - don't even ask me about sodium laurel sulfates, unless you want to know how to avoid them. :)
"It was so much fun to watch our kids hand feed a few of the moms..."
Funniest out of context line EVER!
Dang it, i knew the farm tour was around this time of year! I have been wanting to go forever, but things come up on the weekend of the tour or we forget, etc., etc. That's so cool that you guys got to go! I'm all about horses and would love to have the girls get involved in lessons some day. Are there any farms in our area that are open to the public that you know of? There's that one farm off of Dev witht he little pond that we pass every day and I've always wanted to just stop in there. I've seen maybe 3 horses on their property. Anyway, I'd love to know if you know of anything in our area that's open to the public on a regular basis. You can email me with that info, so we don't have some weirdo that reads this be able to pinpoint our top secret location! ;)
And as far as apples go, Michael is going on a field trip on Thursday to an apple picking place somewhere West of here. That should be cool!
dude, I think I'm part Alpaca.
(I'm refering to the pregnancy part, not my Llama-like or furry nature.)
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