The Farmers

THE HUSBAND

I attended college to become an account and soon found out that bean counting was not for me! I went to Cornell to Restaurant Management school, then the University of Houston and studied Hotel Management, and then on to Retail Management courses all over the place. I owned various businesses, from restaurants, to hotels, to card and gift shops, to automotive restoration, and oversaw all aspects of the businesses including marketing, finance, inventory control, and employee and customer relations. For 30 years I dealt with lots of employees and had lots of stress. Little did I know it was all to get ready to enter the alpaca business!

What a change. Now when I go to work I get a cup of coffee and head to the barn or to the office in my pajamas. The stress is gone, the alpacas see to that. What a wonderful way of life! You cannot help but fall in love with them. I wish I would have made this decision ten years ago. I now travel around the country transporting these wonderful creatures and get to meet some of the finest people on earth, alpaca people. An alpaca farm is a great place to raise your family and grow your assets. Take the time and go visit an alpaca farm - you will soon see what I am talking about.

THE WIFE

I love my job. Never did I dream I’d be raising alpacas when “I grew up”! Seems like it might have been something God had planned. When I was little, we raised Irish Setters. We always had huge litters and had to help bottle feed those puppies. I loved it and practically lived in that dog pen! Maybe that’s when my love of animals first began. People that come to visit and listen to me talk about alpacas say they can tell I love them and have a passion for what I’m doing. What a gift!

I am wife to Matt, mother to Adam, Aaron, and Abby, step-mother to Libby, step-mother-in-law to Charles, and step-grandmother to Keandre’, Zavier, and Leila. I graduated from Ashland College with a degree in Clothing Fashion Merchandising. I moved to Durango, Colorado to “find myself” and spent the next four years in “God’s country” where the sun shines most every day! My favorite job (for awhile) was working for Durango Cookery where I managed the office, and was involved with the marketing of the products we sold—I also skied a lot!

Though I said I’d never live in Ohio again, I met Matt (on a blind date) and we were married! We owned Hallmark stores and I did the bookkeeping for the stores in our home for the next ten years while we raised our children. We sold our house, built two more, moved, rented, and moved again. The birth of our third child and the growth of the stores put me “over the edge” as far as trying to do the work at home and my “career” at Petty’s Hallmark came to a close

There were a few “off” years and in the Fall of 2002, we plunged into the alpaca business! What a journey it has been. I often tell people that half the fun has been all I’ve learned - about things I never knew I’d need to know! I hope to explore the fiber end of this business much more - I have learned to spin, and felt, and dye, and knit. It is very rewarding to actually deliver the baby and raise the animal that produces the fleece for the items in our farm store! I love sitting in the pasture on a warm day just watching the alpacas and I love sitting in the straw when the barn is bedded for winter just observing. There is a peace about being with these beautiful creatures that God has blessed us with - it just doesn’t get much better than this!

THE OLDEST SON

Adam graduated from Ontario High School in 2007 and now works at Elite Corporation, an excavating company, where he gets to “play in the dirt” with the “big toys”!

The alpaca business has been a blessing for our oldest. Adam was in the seventh grade when we bought our first alpacas. We were in-between houses and renting while our house was being built. Adam loves animals. At the time we had four dogs, a cat, a guinea pig, ducks, a rabbit he was raising for 4-H, and a gosling that he had raised from an egg. Adam hated school but loved animals!

Adam is good with his hands and loves to build things. The alpaca business was just what the doctor ordered for him. He loves being in the out-of-doors working. He has built all the pens in our barn, done the wiring, taught himself how to weld, to build fences, to tear things apart and put them back together again. He has designed and fabricated a hay elevator, chute, feeder, show wagon and is capable of building most anything he sets his mind to.

THE MIDDLE SON

Aaron is in the tenth grade at Ontario High School. He plays football and runs on the track team - hurdles, ouch! I remind Aaron, in charge of waste management on the farm, that we have him to thank for our lifestyle change as he was the one that first saw that “I Love Alpacas” ad on TV! He looks forward to the day we can purchase a Pasture Vac! He’s not quite the outdoorsman that our oldest is - isn’t it interesting how different children in the same family are from one another! Most days he wishes we would never have gotten into the alpaca business, now he has more chores to do, but have a farm event and he’s the first wanting his friends here to help! Aaron helps with shots and is responsible for the evening feeding. He likes the computer and especially the computer graphics class he’s taking at school. Aaron is a good student, wanted to be a UPS man when he was little, and plans to go to college. He has a great sense of humor. He stays to himself, think he’s afraid if he comes around to much, he’ll get put to work! There’s always lots to do when you live on a farm.

THE PRINCESS

Abby was five when she showed her first alpaca! What a boost of confidence it was for her to be able to handle an alpaca in the show ring in front of all those people. It’s amazing how much that kids just assimilate about the world around them. She’s ten now and can tell you the name of any alpaca on our farm - probably the dam and sire too. She’s even been known to share her opinion on breeding decisions! It is her job to work with the babies - alpacas really are much less intimidated by little people! She helps load syringes in preparation for herd health and records the weights when we are weighing the alpacas. When I’m skirting fleeces, she likes to see if she can guess whose fleece it is and she really is quite good! It’s a little scary how much like me she is - she wants to be an artist when she grows up and last summer designed her own business card! Abby is in the fifth grade - and still likes me - if you have teenagers you know what I mean!

Alpaca Meadows; 185 Bethel Lane; Mansfield, OH 44906; (419) 529-8152
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