It was seven years ago that I saw a huggable white baby alpaca in the Living Section of the local newspaper. There was an alpaca show at the expo center that weekend… I wanted to go, my husband joined me. He really didn’t understand why, but he went. Once we got there, we asked questions and learned that some people made a living breeding and selling these cute animals.

On our drive home we talked about my interest in these critters and my husband just listened. He told me to read more about them if I was that interested. Well my reading turned into more discussions and my husband, Bill (was and still is a CPA by trade) started calculating….the initial investment to the sale of the animals. Over the next year with our researching off the internet, reading  books, going to classes, visiting many different farms and ranches, we decided to purchase a group of five girls. Since our family lived in a neighborhood, these animals needed to be agisted. Over the next three years, we agisted at two different locations.  My job became working with the animals, taking part in Monday morning veterinary checks, and whatever else needed to be done.

We finally found an 18 acre property with a mobile home on it and rows and rows of cain berries in Molalla,Oregon. We have taken out all but five long rows of berries, built a large barn, turned the cain rows into green pastures, and now have a total of 50+ alpacas. We have we come a long way… we’ve learned and done  so much! Our family life has changed from city to country, Bill has resigned from the corporate world and is now an AOBA Judge for Alpaca Fleece and Performance….. I’m still just as excited about scooping poop and taking care of our herd, and the four kids have reconfirmed their thoughts… we really are nuts! After all of this… if you asked us now… would we do this again and we’d answer, “In a heartbeat!”