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Saturday, September 14, 2013
September 28-29, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Sierra Rose Alpacas
Last year, our Alpaca Farm Days Festival was a huge success! We hosted nearly 200 guests, who joined us to learn about sustainable small farming with Alpacas.
• This year’s celebration will focus on the care and raising of Alpacas, as well as their luxury fiber. Are you thinking of adding an Alpaca to your family? We’ll be covering everything from fencing to shearing, and what to do with the fleece once it is off the alpaca.
• For those fiber addicts (you know who you are), we’ll have a soap felting demonstration, learn how to card fleece or spin gorgeous yarn. Beautiful raw Alpaca fleece will be available for spinners – come early to get the best selection!
• You can enjoy learning how Alpaca fleece is processed into that luscious yarn you love. From shearing to cleaning, carding and spinning, we’ll cover how it’s done – and how you can do it too with a little practice.
• Learn all about carding and spinning with Hailey Parker! Hailey is a Natural Fiber Producer’s Certified Sorter Apprentice™, and Hand Spinner. If you haven’t before seen Hailey’s yarn, you are in for a treat! She will share her expertise and tips on spinning.
You are invited to learn how to do a wet-felting soap class. Bring a favorite soap, and for $2 to cover materials, you can learn how to make felted soap – a great gift for the holidays.
• Demonstrations are planned to showcase the care, handling, haltering and herding of Alpacas. If you have never handled an Alpaca, come learn just how easy it can be.
• Are you an avid gardener? Learn all about the magic of gardening with ‘organic gold’, (better known as Paca-Poo). You will have the most abundant garden ever! Whether you grow ornamental plants, vegetable gardens or fruit trees, you’ll want to watch this fascinating demonstration.
• We’ll have special pricing on select Alpacas. If you have been thinking about adding Alpacas to your family, this is a good time to do so. By this time next year, you can be producing your own yarn while you watch your garden grow.
• You won’t go hungry! Food and drinks will be available for purchase.
Alpacas provide a unique ‘circle of sustainability’ for anyone who wants to have a small farm. They eat vegetation without damaging the soil or ecosystem, help create fire breaks, their ‘Paca-Poo’ is considered to be as valuable as gold for vegetable and ornamental gardens, and they provide the highest quality fleece for fiber arts. If you have always wanted to live a more simple and sustainable lifestyle, the Alpaca is a wonderful animal that will provide much of what you need. Here are some of the most important attributes of Alpacas:
• They live happily on very small acreage. Two Alpacas can happily live on as little as 1/3 acre.
• They don’t hurt the soil. Because their feet are padded, Alpacas don’t cut through the top layer of soil and contribute to erosion. They don’t graze down to the dirt, either, making it easier to grow pasture.
• An Alpaca will eat vegetation that would otherwise be a fire hazard. You will not need to do much weed eating if you own an Alpaca.
• They are economical to own. They don’t need much hay to stay in good weight, and are generally healthy and easy to manage.
• Alpacas like people and because of their reasonable size (50% smaller than Llamas), can be even handled by children.
• They keep their pastures quite clean by creating a ‘community bathroom’. Alpacas make their own manure piles, which makes cleaning a breeze.
• The Alpaca manure can be used even without composting, though composting will make it easier to spread on your garden. It is considered the finest fertilizer available for plants, and will help your vegetables grow fast and produce more.
• Alpaca fleece is as warm as wool, but without the ‘itch’. Alpaca fleece is hypoallergenic, fire retardant, lightweight and insulating, even when wet. It wicks away sweat and is water repellent and stain resistant. It’s soft as cashmere; but Alpacas are not hard on the landscape like Cashmere Goats.
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